Sep 182023
 
 September 18, 2023  Posted by at 9:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  38 Responses »


Hugo Simberg The Wounded Angel 1903

 

Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)
Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)
Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)
The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)
Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)
Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)
US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)
‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)
Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)
Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)
US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)
Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)
‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

What emergency?

 

 

 

 


The U.S. appeals court said that the FDA’s statements, including one telling people to ‘stop’ using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, went beyond the authority conferred on the agency by Congress.”

 

 

Kadyrov

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gagging a entire Presidential Election. The US is close to the edge.

“..Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.”

Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)

Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” After Friday night, we can add nine more: “a narrowly tailored order that imposes modest, permissible restrictions.” Those words were used by Special Counsel Jack Smith to propose a gag order that would sharply curtail the ability of former President Donald Trump to criticize Smith and his prosecution. The Smith motion is anything but “narrowly tailored.” Indeed, short of a mobile “Get Smart” Cone of Silence, it is chilling to think of what Smith considered the broader option. Smith told District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., that Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.

Smith compared Trump’s comments on the trial to the “disinformation” spread by Trump after the 2020 election — the subject of the indictment. The motion states that Trump’s “recent extrajudicial statements are intended to undermine public confidence in an institution — the judicial system — and to undermine confidence in and intimidate individuals — the Court, the jury pool, witnesses, and prosecutors.” I have long criticized Trump’s inflammatory comments over these cases, but Smith’s solution veers dangerously into core political speech in the middle of a presidential election. Ironically, Smith’s move will likely be seen as reinforcing Trump’s claim of intentional election interference by the Biden Administration.

I do not view it that way, but I do believe Smith is showing his signature lack of restraint in high-profile cases, a tendency that led to the unanimous overturning of his conviction of former Virginia Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell. Smith seeks to bar comments “regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses” and “statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating.” Gag orders have become commonplace in federal trials, particularly high-profile cases. I have criticized the increasing use of gag orders for years due to concerns over free speech. Typical orders often seek to shutdown public comments in the interests of protecting jury pools.

Even “narrower” orders are written with vague terminology like “disparaging” and “intimidating” that expose defendants to punitive action if they cross uncertain lines in public defending themselves. No one seriously questions the ability of courts to limit the release of sealed material or to bar threatening comments directed at jurors, witnesses, or court staff. However, there are laws on the books allowing for the prosecution of such cases. More importantly, this is no typical case. Smith has pushed for a trial before the election and the court inexplicably shoehorned the trial into a crowded calendar just before the Super Tuesday election. Judge Chutkan previously stated that “I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign.” This motion, however, would impose substantial limits on a national political debate and begs the question of whether the court is failing to balance the rivaling constitutional interests in this unprecedented situation. It could not only test Chutkan’s position but prompt an early appeal.

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“..some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”..

“Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”

Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)

Donald Trump, indicted four times in the past few months, has turned his legal troubles to his advantage, as his poll ratings testify. The 45th POTUS has swept ahead in the GOP presidential primary race, with his fundraising campaign also making an impressive haul since the Trump “mug shot” taken at Georgia’s Fulton County Jail in August. The Republican nomination frontrunner for the 2024 US presidential elections, Donald Trump, might not be averse to choosing a woman as his running mate. That, at least, is what the former POTUS told the host of ‘Meet the Press’ in an interview. “I like the concept, but we’re going to pick the best person… But I do like the concept, yes,” the 45th US President told the moderator, while indicating that he was not yet focused too much on picking a potential Vice-President.

Trump also took a moment to single out Kristi Noem as “one of the people I’d consider”, adding that the South Dakota Governor had given him a “full-throated endorsement, a beautiful endorsement”. Earlier in the month, the 51-year-old when asked if she would consider an offer from Trump to be his running mate, responded: “I would in a heartbeat,” adding: “Trump needs a strong partner if he’s going to take back the White House and he’s going to need somebody who knows what it’s like to run a business, to be an employee, earn a paycheck. But also having [someone who has been] a wife, mom, and grandma isn’t bad either.” As for the other women that have been mooted as potential Trump running mates, the list includes Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

Elsewhere in the interview, airing on Sunday, the 77-year-old Trump, weighed in on the US presidency age limit debate. In his opinion, it’s not age that is the problem, quipping that, “some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”. “I’m all for the tests,” said Trump, recalling how he “aced” his own cognitive test in 2020 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. As for 80-year old Joe Biden, Trump suggested that the problem with him was not age. “I don’t think Biden is too old, but I think he is incompetent. And that’s a bigger problem.”

The Democratic incumbent himself has repeatedly dismissed concerns that he will be 82 should he have another stint in the Oval Office, and has made much of the “hell of a lot of wisdom” he has acquired throughout his political career but American voters are not entirely convinced. In fact, just recently a new poll by Quinnipiac University showed that approximately six in 10 US voters – 61 percent – are in favor of a maximum age being introduced for presidential candidates. Furthermore, 68 percent of voters think Biden, famously known for blunders and mispronouncements during public appearances, is too old to serve for a second term, according to the Quinnipiac poll. In one of a long line of gaffes, Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”. The clip went viral on social media, as Biden’s slip-ups tend to, with netizens puzzled since Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022.

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“They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)

Ukraine could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths and lost less land if it had reached a peace deal with Russia before the conflict began last February, former US President Donald Trump told NBC News in an interview aired on Sunday. The loss of Ukrainian territory to Russia is “something that could have been negotiated,” Trump told NBC host Kristen Welker, adding that “a lot of people expected”Kiev to abandon its claims to “Crimea and other parts of the country” in exchange for peace. “So they could have made a deal where there’s less territory [lost] than Russia has already taken,”Trump continued. “They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

By “other parts of the country,”Trump was likely referring to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, whose sovereignty Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized three days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began. Following referendums last September, both regions have now joined the Russian Federation, along with the formerly Ukrainian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhye. Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in 2014. Trump then repeated his claim that if elected next year, he would have a peace deal worked out within 24 hours. “I’d get [Russian President Vladimir Putin] into a room, I’d get [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky into a room, then I’d bring them together and I’d have a deal worked out,” he told Welker. “It would have been easier if the war didn’t start, and you’d have hundreds of thousands of people living, most importantly,” he noted. “But I can get it done and I can get it done quickly.”

Trump then claimed that he kept Ukraine and Russia “from doing anything” during his presidency, arguing that the low oil prices that characterized his term in the White House would have made it too costly for Russia, a leading oil exporter, to finance a military operation. Trump’s position on Ukraine is diametrically opposed to that of President Joe Biden, who has vowed to bankroll Kiev’s military “for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia on the battlefield. With the exception of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, all of Trump’s opponents in the Republican primary field support some sort of continued military aid to Ukraine. Among them is Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence. Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Pence accused Trump of “embracing the politics of appeasement,” and “letting Vladimir Putin have what he wants.”

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“Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.”

The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Biden Regime is a Fascist Censor controlling information in the interest of its criminal agendas. A Federal Appeals Court spelled out the censorship and banned it: “Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social-media companies’ decision-making processes.”

The Biden Regime hopes to convince the Supreme Court that “national security” requires abandoning the US Constitution and to coerce the court into reinstating the Biden regime’s cancellation of the US Constitution. It is impossible for a country to survive when the values on which the country is founded are abandoned by its leaders. America is so far gone that not even the media believes in free speech and has happily accepted the role as Ministry of Propaganda. Certainly corporations do not respect the First Amendment. Employees must take “harassment training” to remain employed. Failure to use “Woke pronouns” constitutes harassment and grounds for firing. In other words, employees do not have freedom of speech.

A coerced Woke policy has control of their tongues and forces the use of words they do not voluntarily use and to which they object. Employees are forced to lend their validation to the preferences of a tiny perverse collection of confused people. Why do the non-normal minority have this power over the normal majority? Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.

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Coup in progress in Congo.

Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)

Africa has witnessed a wave of military takeovers in the past few years, with new governments, like in the more recent cases of Gabon and Niger, positioning themselves as forces eager to shed vestiges of European neo colonialism. The African continent currently presents a complex and contradictory scene, but one thing is undeniable: if Africa were to attain more unity, it would be able to achieve an economic breakthrough in 20 years just like China or India did, renowned economist and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Sputnik. “Africa was divided by the European imperial powers into 55 countries, many of which are quite small… But the continent as a whole is 1.4 billion people, and that is comparable to the single country of China and the single country of India.

So if Africa were to get its act together, to have more unity, and to have a unified continental scale economy, Africa will be able to follow along roughly 20 year cycles: China started first (around 1980), India started its rapid growth (around 2000),” the Columbia University Professor stated. He added: “Africa as a unified economic space could achieve consistent 7 to even 10% economic development over the coming decades from 2020 onward. This is quite interesting. So this is the positive side of the story for Africa.” The recent admission of Africa as a union – the African Union (AU) – as the 21st member of the G20 was a very significant event, the economist noted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the inclusion of the 55-member African Union, one of the largest regional blocs in the world, established in 2002 as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), as a permanent member during the first session of the G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi. According to Jeffrey Sachs, the move is important for the G20 as it “brings in other 1.4 billion people to the table with one seat, the AU seat.” But it may also have the “powerful effect of reinforcing the unification of the continental-scale economy in Africa.” This, in turn, would boost Africa’s economic advance during the coming several decades, Sachs underscored.

As for the spate of recent military takeovers, diverse economic factors are driving this political wave, said the economist. “Africa remains the poorest part of the world… And the Sahel of Africa, which is the region of the semi to hyper arid region neighboring the Sahara Desert, places like Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan…this is the poorest single stretch on the planet because it’s mostly landlocked, it’s largely bereft of infrastructure… often sparsely populated and landlocked at the same time. It’s poor,” Jeffrey Sachs pointed out. The recent military takeovers have been taking place in these very poor countries, in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, with poverty “part of the underlying substrate of all of this,” said the economist.

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“Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?”

“California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us.”s

Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)

California public schools supported by taxes on property owners teach California kids that it is possible to be born into the wrong body, and the schools implant the idea that many girls are really boys and many boys really girls that ended up in the wrong physical configuration. Consequently, an entire industry has grown up to change the sex of children. Boys are chemically castrated and given female hormones. Girls have their breast cut out and are given male hormones. Quack “transgender science” against nature proceeds apace. The public schools have created a fad among children that the thing to do is to change one’s sex. This brings the child attention the child might not get from a two-parent earner family created by taxes and feminism. By the time busy parents working to stay ahead of mortgage and car payments catch on to what is going on, it is too late.

To prevent any intervention by parents the California State Assembly has passed a bill that gives the state the right to seize kids from parents who don’t support the “transition” of their kids into the opposite sex. The bill says that if a parent objects to the sex change of a child, the child is endangered and can be seized into the state’s protection. There you have it–“freedom in America.” All authority of parents has been taken away in California by people who have ceased to be moral Americans. Whites are fleeing California, even the dumbshit liberal ones. Consequently, California which was a Reagan state only a short time ago is today only 33% white. Today Republicans hold only 18 seats in the 80 member assembly.

God speed the legal and illegal Hispanic and Asian immigration into California. Hopefully, the immigrants will use their immense majority to take the government away from the crazed governor Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and Adam Schiff, the worst kind of anti-Americans who are destroying our country. Listen to Democrat state representative Lori Wilson who declares that it is the duty of parents to affirm their brainwashed children by endorsing their sex change. Lori Wilson says since parents fail their duty “to affirm our children”–by which she means by “our” your children which become the state’s children–the state has to intervene, take your kids, and perform the role of affirmation that parents fail to do.

Clearly, California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us. Let’s pray that Mexico reclaims California and Arizona and cuts out the metastasizing cancer. After all, California and the southwest represent lands stolen from Mexico. If we have to make amends to blacks because they were enslaved by blacks, we should pay reparations for stealing the southwest from Mexico. In California a child can be secretly transitioned without the knowledge or consent of parents. The California public schools actually teach the children that they cannot trust their parents. Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?

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Why Imran Khan had to go.

“Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.”

“Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare..”

US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)

Secret Pakistani arms sales to the U.S. helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the IMF earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced U.S. pressure to take sides on. The revelation is a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price. Harsh structural policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for its recent bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in the country. Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.

The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country. In April 2022, the Pakistani military, with the encouragement of the U.S., helped organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the ouster, State Department diplomats privately expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” stance on the Ukraine war under Khan. They warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised “all would be forgiven” if he were removed. Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.

The emergency loan allowed the new Pakistani government to put off a looming economic catastrophe and indefinitely postpone elections — time it used to launch a nationwide crackdown on civil society and jail Khan. “Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Arif Rafiq, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute and specialist on Pakistan, told The Intercept. Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare. As Ukraine grappled with chronic shortages of munitions and hardware, the presence of Pakistani-produced shells and other ordinances by the Ukrainian military has surfaced in open-source news reports about the conflict, though neither the U.S. nor the Pakistanis have acknowledged the arrangement.

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“Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia..”

‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)

The West must prepare for “a long war” in Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared on Sunday. Despite claiming to want a “quick peace” in Ukraine, Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia. “Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,”Stoltenberg said in an interview with Germany’s Funke media group. “Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.” According to media reports over the last two months, Western officials and military planners have conceded that Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces is unlikely to succeed, leaving the front lines mostly unchanged as winter sets in. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine has lost upwards of 71,000 men since the counteroffensive began in June.

Despite this stark attrition rate – with some units losing 90% of their manpower, according to Ukrainian sources, Stoltenberg insisted that NATO will continue to push for a military, not a diplomatic, solution. “We are all wishing for a quick peace,” Stoltenberg said. “But at the same time we must recognise: if President Zelensky and the Ukrainians stop fighting, their country will no longer exist. If President Putin and Russia lay down their weapons, we will have peace.” After walking away from a Turkish-brokered peace deal last April, Zelensky issued a decree forbidding all negotiations with Russia. Furthermore, he has repeatedly vowed to retake the former Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea, the latter of which voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation in 2014.

Zelensky’s stance is backed by Washington, where officials have repeatedly insisted that only the Ukrainian president can decide when to seek peace. At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has condemned Putin for supposedly rejecting “meaningful diplomacy.” Russia maintains that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but that any peace deal would have to take into account the “new territorial reality” – that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea will never be ceded back to Ukraine. Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said negotiations would be held “not with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters.”

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Milley parrots Stoltenberg. Or is it the other way around?

Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)

In an exclusive interview with an American broadcaster, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive “will take a considerable length of time,” refusing to speculate on how long it might take for Kiev to achieve its goals. “This offensive, although significant, has operational and tactical objectives that are limited in the sense that they do not, even if they are fully achieved, they do not completely kick out all the Russians, which is the broader strategic objective that [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky have” Milley said in an interview with a American broadcaster.

The military official refused to speculate on how long it might take Ukraine to achieve its goals, noting that it “will take a considerable length of time.” In addition, Milley described Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive as “long, hard, bloody.” Russia began its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine launched its latest counteroffensive in early June. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, with Ukraine suffering 71,000 casualties. Several Western officials also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful.

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“Zelensky’s formula” is insane..

Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)

Kiev has failed to “pull” neutral countries and international organizations to implement its peace formula, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told Sputnik. “As for the meetings on Zelensky’s peace formula, as far as we know, Kiev is still unsuccessfully trying to pull neutral countries and international organizations to implement the points of its plan,” Nebenzia said in an interview. He called for an objective approach to anything the Ukrainians say about international support for Zelensky’s formula, including a recent G20 statement. “We see no signs of UN involvement in these discussions, especially since [UN Secretary-General] Antonio Guterres has repeatedly spoken in this context about his commitment to the principle of impartiality and centrality,” Nebenzia said.

Nebenzya urged that “everything the Ukrainians say about international support for the so-called ‘Zelensky Plan’ should be checked against the facts,” including “the recent section of the G20 statement on the Ukrainian crisis.” “Everything else is ‘from the evil one’,” he concluded. Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration of the G20 summit. It states in connection with the events in Ukraine that all countries should refrain from the threat or use of force to acquire territory. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the G7 countries were putting pressure on India to reflect their unilateral approaches to the situation around Ukraine in the final documents of the G20.

The ministry noted that against this background the Indian side tried to stick to a neutral course based on the strictly economic mandate of the G20. In late June, talks on Ukraine were held in Copenhagen with the participation of the G7 countries, some BRICS countries and Ukraine itself. The participants discussed the ways of implementing the peace formula of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After that, Saudi Arabia held its own meeting on the issue in Jeddah. Moscow considers the formula to be completely detached from reality.

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“..Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way..”

US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)

The never-ending expansion of NATO has enabled the US to turn many nations into its puppets, helping Washington to cling to its hegemony, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, has said. In an op-ed for the Razvedchik magazine issued by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and published on Friday, Patrushev claimed that the West often resorts to military force, coercion, ‘privatization’ of elites, and color revolutions to achieve global domination. The constant expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance basically provides the US with the opportunity to absorb states and deprive them of their independence in terms of defending their national interests.

The official also blasted the US-led military bloc for what he called “duplicity,” arguing that while NATO has always claimed to stand for peace, it has waged war or threatened military action against countries that oppose Washington’s policies. “NATO’s military power is used to maintain Western hegemony, economic enslavement, and political pressure on states that pose no military threat to the alliance,” Patrushev stated, adding that members of the bloc have taken part in more than 200 conflicts across the world over the past seven decades. Meanwhile, Patrushev continued, Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way.

The West “perceives Russia as a constant threat” because it remembers that it was the Soviet Union that played a crucial role in dismantling the colonial system, according to Patrushev. As a result, he said, the West is using the full range of tools at its disposal against Russia, including sanctions and its massive system of media resources that help it concoct “information frenzy campaigns” across the globe. Moscow has repeatedly protested NATO expansion, seeing it as a major national security threat and arguing that the increased military build-up on its borders leads to heightened tensions in Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has named the risk of Kiev joining the military bloc as one of the key reasons behind the Ukraine conflict.

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“..across the street of the UN headquarters..” Like the photo.

Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk to pick Türkiye as a location for his electric vehicle company’s next factory, according to the Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu. During the meeting on Sunday, Erdogan described Ankara’s “technological breakthroughs as well as the ‘Digital Türkiye’ vision and the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy,” the country’s communications directorate said in a statement cited by Anadolu. Besides urging Musk to establish Tesla’s seventh factory in Türkiye, Erdogan also described other “opportunities for collaboration with SpaceX may arise through the steps taken and to be taken as part of Türkiye’s space program.”

The US entrepreneur has yet to comment on the results of the talks. He was seen entering the Turkish House skyscraper across the street of the UN headquarters on Sunday, carrying his young son on Sunday. Tesla currently has six so-called gigafactories in the US, Germany and China and is building a seventh in Mexico. The automaker could pick a location for its next major production facility by the end of 2023, Musk indicated earlier this year Last month the company “expressed interest” in building a factory in India to produce a low-cost EV model, after Musk pledged significant investment in India following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US in June.

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Oh sweet Jesus…

‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

The F-35 Lightning II is a family of fifth-generation, low-observable, multi-role fighter-bomber aircraft developed by US company Lockheed Martin. Social media users are wondering how the F-35 Lightning II jet could be missing after US military officials lost track of it somewhere over South Carolina after the pilot ejected. Earlier, the US authorities said that they were searching for an F-35B stealth fighter jet after a crash in South Carolina that forced the pilot to eject. “We are working with Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort to locate the F-35 aircraft involved in a mishap this afternoon. The pilot ejected safely. If you have any information that may help our recovery teams locate theF-35, please call the Base Defense Operations Center,” Joint Base Charleston said on X (formerly Twitter).

The US Marine Corps told local media that the accident involved an F-35B aircraft from the 501st Fighter Training Squadron, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. The pilot was taken to hospital in stable condition. The search is focused on the Moultrie and Marion Lakes area in the central part of the state. Recently, two aircraft collided during a race over the state of Nevada. As a result of the crash, two pilots were killed. Both planes were completely destroyed.

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Hugo Simberg The Wounded Angel 1903

 

Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)
Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)
Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)
The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)
Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)
Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)
US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)
‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)
Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)
Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)
US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)
Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)
‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

What emergency?

 

 

 

 


The U.S. appeals court said that the FDA’s statements, including one telling people to ‘stop’ using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, went beyond the authority conferred on the agency by Congress.”

 

 

Kadyrov

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gagging a entire Presidential Election. The US is close to the edge.

“..Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.”

Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)

Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” After Friday night, we can add nine more: “a narrowly tailored order that imposes modest, permissible restrictions.” Those words were used by Special Counsel Jack Smith to propose a gag order that would sharply curtail the ability of former President Donald Trump to criticize Smith and his prosecution. The Smith motion is anything but “narrowly tailored.” Indeed, short of a mobile “Get Smart” Cone of Silence, it is chilling to think of what Smith considered the broader option. Smith told District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., that Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.

Smith compared Trump’s comments on the trial to the “disinformation” spread by Trump after the 2020 election — the subject of the indictment. The motion states that Trump’s “recent extrajudicial statements are intended to undermine public confidence in an institution — the judicial system — and to undermine confidence in and intimidate individuals — the Court, the jury pool, witnesses, and prosecutors.” I have long criticized Trump’s inflammatory comments over these cases, but Smith’s solution veers dangerously into core political speech in the middle of a presidential election. Ironically, Smith’s move will likely be seen as reinforcing Trump’s claim of intentional election interference by the Biden Administration.

I do not view it that way, but I do believe Smith is showing his signature lack of restraint in high-profile cases, a tendency that led to the unanimous overturning of his conviction of former Virginia Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell. Smith seeks to bar comments “regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses” and “statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating.” Gag orders have become commonplace in federal trials, particularly high-profile cases. I have criticized the increasing use of gag orders for years due to concerns over free speech. Typical orders often seek to shutdown public comments in the interests of protecting jury pools.

Even “narrower” orders are written with vague terminology like “disparaging” and “intimidating” that expose defendants to punitive action if they cross uncertain lines in public defending themselves. No one seriously questions the ability of courts to limit the release of sealed material or to bar threatening comments directed at jurors, witnesses, or court staff. However, there are laws on the books allowing for the prosecution of such cases. More importantly, this is no typical case. Smith has pushed for a trial before the election and the court inexplicably shoehorned the trial into a crowded calendar just before the Super Tuesday election. Judge Chutkan previously stated that “I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign.” This motion, however, would impose substantial limits on a national political debate and begs the question of whether the court is failing to balance the rivaling constitutional interests in this unprecedented situation. It could not only test Chutkan’s position but prompt an early appeal.

More importantly, this is no typical case. Smith has pushed for a trial before the election and the court inexplicably shoehorned the trial into a crowded calendar just before the Super Tuesday election. Judge Chutkan previously stated that “I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign.” This motion, however, would impose substantial limits on a national political debate and begs the question of whether the court is failing to balance the rivaling constitutional interests in this unprecedented situation. It could not only test Chutkan’s position but prompt an early appeal.

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“..some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”..

“Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”

Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)

Donald Trump, indicted four times in the past few months, has turned his legal troubles to his advantage, as his poll ratings testify. The 45th POTUS has swept ahead in the GOP presidential primary race, with his fundraising campaign also making an impressive haul since the Trump “mug shot” taken at Georgia’s Fulton County Jail in August. The Republican nomination frontrunner for the 2024 US presidential elections, Donald Trump, might not be averse to choosing a woman as his running mate. That, at least, is what the former POTUS told the host of ‘Meet the Press’ in an interview. “I like the concept, but we’re going to pick the best person… But I do like the concept, yes,” the 45th US President told the moderator, while indicating that he was not yet focused too much on picking a potential Vice-President.

Trump also took a moment to single out Kristi Noem as “one of the people I’d consider”, adding that the South Dakota Governor had given him a “full-throated endorsement, a beautiful endorsement”. Earlier in the month, the 51-year-old when asked if she would consider an offer from Trump to be his running mate, responded: “I would in a heartbeat,” adding: “Trump needs a strong partner if he’s going to take back the White House and he’s going to need somebody who knows what it’s like to run a business, to be an employee, earn a paycheck. But also having [someone who has been] a wife, mom, and grandma isn’t bad either.” As for the other women that have been mooted as potential Trump running mates, the list includes Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

Elsewhere in the interview, airing on Sunday, the 77-year-old Trump, weighed in on the US presidency age limit debate. In his opinion, it’s not age that is the problem, quipping that, “some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”. “I’m all for the tests,” said Trump, recalling how he “aced” his own cognitive test in 2020 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. As for 80-year old Joe Biden, Trump suggested that the problem with him was not age. “I don’t think Biden is too old, but I think he is incompetent. And that’s a bigger problem.”

The Democratic incumbent himself has repeatedly dismissed concerns that he will be 82 should he have another stint in the Oval Office, and has made much of the “hell of a lot of wisdom” he has acquired throughout his political career but American voters are not entirely convinced. In fact, just recently a new poll by Quinnipiac University showed that approximately six in 10 US voters – 61 percent – are in favor of a maximum age being introduced for presidential candidates. Furthermore, 68 percent of voters think Biden, famously known for blunders and mispronouncements during public appearances, is too old to serve for a second term, according to the Quinnipiac poll. In one of a long line of gaffes, Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”. The clip went viral on social media, as Biden’s slip-ups tend to, with netizens puzzled since Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022.

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“They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)

Ukraine could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths and lost less land if it had reached a peace deal with Russia before the conflict began last February, former US President Donald Trump told NBC News in an interview aired on Sunday. The loss of Ukrainian territory to Russia is “something that could have been negotiated,” Trump told NBC host Kristen Welker, adding that “a lot of people expected”Kiev to abandon its claims to “Crimea and other parts of the country” in exchange for peace. “So they could have made a deal where there’s less territory [lost] than Russia has already taken,”Trump continued. “They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

By “other parts of the country,”Trump was likely referring to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, whose sovereignty Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized three days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began. Following referendums last September, both regions have now joined the Russian Federation, along with the formerly Ukrainian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhye. Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in 2014. Trump then repeated his claim that if elected next year, he would have a peace deal worked out within 24 hours. “I’d get [Russian President Vladimir Putin] into a room, I’d get [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky into a room, then I’d bring them together and I’d have a deal worked out,” he told Welker. “It would have been easier if the war didn’t start, and you’d have hundreds of thousands of people living, most importantly,” he noted. “But I can get it done and I can get it done quickly.”

Trump then claimed that he kept Ukraine and Russia “from doing anything” during his presidency, arguing that the low oil prices that characterized his term in the White House would have made it too costly for Russia, a leading oil exporter, to finance a military operation. Trump’s position on Ukraine is diametrically opposed to that of President Joe Biden, who has vowed to bankroll Kiev’s military “for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia on the battlefield. With the exception of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, all of Trump’s opponents in the Republican primary field support some sort of continued military aid to Ukraine. Among them is Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence. Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Pence accused Trump of “embracing the politics of appeasement,” and “letting Vladimir Putin have what he wants.”

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“Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.”

The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Biden Regime is a Fascist Censor controlling information in the interest of its criminal agendas. A Federal Appeals Court spelled out the censorship and banned it: “Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social-media companies’ decision-making processes.”

The Biden Regime hopes to convince the Supreme Court that “national security” requires abandoning the US Constitution and to coerce the court into reinstating the Biden regime’s cancellation of the US Constitution. It is impossible for a country to survive when the values on which the country is founded are abandoned by its leaders. America is so far gone that not even the media believes in free speech and has happily accepted the role as Ministry of Propaganda. Certainly corporations do not respect the First Amendment. Employees must take “harassment training” to remain employed. Failure to use “Woke pronouns” constitutes harassment and grounds for firing. In other words, employees do not have freedom of speech.

A coerced Woke policy has control of their tongues and forces the use of words they do not voluntarily use and to which they object. Employees are forced to lend their validation to the preferences of a tiny perverse collection of confused people. Why do the non-normal minority have this power over the normal majority? Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.

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Coup in progress in Congo.

Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)

Africa has witnessed a wave of military takeovers in the past few years, with new governments, like in the more recent cases of Gabon and Niger, positioning themselves as forces eager to shed vestiges of European neo colonialism. The African continent currently presents a complex and contradictory scene, but one thing is undeniable: if Africa were to attain more unity, it would be able to achieve an economic breakthrough in 20 years just like China or India did, renowned economist and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Sputnik. “Africa was divided by the European imperial powers into 55 countries, many of which are quite small… But the continent as a whole is 1.4 billion people, and that is comparable to the single country of China and the single country of India.

So if Africa were to get its act together, to have more unity, and to have a unified continental scale economy, Africa will be able to follow along roughly 20 year cycles: China started first (around 1980), India started its rapid growth (around 2000),” the Columbia University Professor stated. He added: “Africa as a unified economic space could achieve consistent 7 to even 10% economic development over the coming decades from 2020 onward. This is quite interesting. So this is the positive side of the story for Africa.” The recent admission of Africa as a union – the African Union (AU) – as the 21st member of the G20 was a very significant event, the economist noted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the inclusion of the 55-member African Union, one of the largest regional blocs in the world, established in 2002 as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), as a permanent member during the first session of the G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi. According to Jeffrey Sachs, the move is important for the G20 as it “brings in other 1.4 billion people to the table with one seat, the AU seat.” But it may also have the “powerful effect of reinforcing the unification of the continental-scale economy in Africa.” This, in turn, would boost Africa’s economic advance during the coming several decades, Sachs underscored.

As for the spate of recent military takeovers, diverse economic factors are driving this political wave, said the economist. “Africa remains the poorest part of the world… And the Sahel of Africa, which is the region of the semi to hyper arid region neighboring the Sahara Desert, places like Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan…this is the poorest single stretch on the planet because it’s mostly landlocked, it’s largely bereft of infrastructure… often sparsely populated and landlocked at the same time. It’s poor,” Jeffrey Sachs pointed out. The recent military takeovers have been taking place in these very poor countries, in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, with poverty “part of the underlying substrate of all of this,” said the economist.

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“Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?”

“California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us.”s

Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)

California public schools supported by taxes on property owners teach California kids that it is possible to be born into the wrong body, and the schools implant the idea that many girls are really boys and many boys really girls that ended up in the wrong physical configuration. Consequently, an entire industry has grown up to change the sex of children. Boys are chemically castrated and given female hormones. Girls have their breast cut out and are given male hormones. Quack “transgender science” against nature proceeds apace. The public schools have created a fad among children that the thing to do is to change one’s sex. This brings the child attention the child might not get from a two-parent earner family created by taxes and feminism. By the time busy parents working to stay ahead of mortgage and car payments catch on to what is going on, it is too late.

To prevent any intervention by parents the California State Assembly has passed a bill that gives the state the right to seize kids from parents who don’t support the “transition” of their kids into the opposite sex. The bill says that if a parent objects to the sex change of a child, the child is endangered and can be seized into the state’s protection. There you have it–“freedom in America.” All authority of parents has been taken away in California by people who have ceased to be moral Americans. Whites are fleeing California, even the dumbshit liberal ones. Consequently, California which was a Reagan state only a short time ago is today only 33% white. Today Republicans hold only 18 seats in the 80 member assembly.

God speed the legal and illegal Hispanic and Asian immigration into California. Hopefully, the immigrants will use their immense majority to take the government away from the crazed governor Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and Adam Schiff, the worst kind of anti-Americans who are destroying our country. Listen to Democrat state representative Lori Wilson who declares that it is the duty of parents to affirm their brainwashed children by endorsing their sex change. Lori Wilson says since parents fail their duty “to affirm our children”–by which she means by “our” your children which become the state’s children–the state has to intervene, take your kids, and perform the role of affirmation that parents fail to do.

Clearly, California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us. Let’s pray that Mexico reclaims California and Arizona and cuts out the metastasizing cancer. After all, California and the southwest represent lands stolen from Mexico. If we have to make amends to blacks because they were enslaved by blacks, we should pay reparations for stealing the southwest from Mexico. In California a child can be secretly transitioned without the knowledge or consent of parents. The California public schools actually teach the children that they cannot trust their parents. Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?

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Why Imran Khan had to go.

“Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.”

“Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare..”

US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)

Secret Pakistani arms sales to the U.S. helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the IMF earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced U.S. pressure to take sides on. The revelation is a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price. Harsh structural policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for its recent bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in the country. Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.

The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country. In April 2022, the Pakistani military, with the encouragement of the U.S., helped organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the ouster, State Department diplomats privately expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” stance on the Ukraine war under Khan. They warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised “all would be forgiven” if he were removed. Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.

The emergency loan allowed the new Pakistani government to put off a looming economic catastrophe and indefinitely postpone elections — time it used to launch a nationwide crackdown on civil society and jail Khan. “Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Arif Rafiq, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute and specialist on Pakistan, told The Intercept. Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare. As Ukraine grappled with chronic shortages of munitions and hardware, the presence of Pakistani-produced shells and other ordinances by the Ukrainian military has surfaced in open-source news reports about the conflict, though neither the U.S. nor the Pakistanis have acknowledged the arrangement.

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“Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia..”

‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)

The West must prepare for “a long war” in Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared on Sunday. Despite claiming to want a “quick peace” in Ukraine, Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia. “Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,”Stoltenberg said in an interview with Germany’s Funke media group. “Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.” According to media reports over the last two months, Western officials and military planners have conceded that Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces is unlikely to succeed, leaving the front lines mostly unchanged as winter sets in. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine has lost upwards of 71,000 men since the counteroffensive began in June.

Despite this stark attrition rate – with some units losing 90% of their manpower, according to Ukrainian sources, Stoltenberg insisted that NATO will continue to push for a military, not a diplomatic, solution. “We are all wishing for a quick peace,” Stoltenberg said. “But at the same time we must recognise: if President Zelensky and the Ukrainians stop fighting, their country will no longer exist. If President Putin and Russia lay down their weapons, we will have peace.” After walking away from a Turkish-brokered peace deal last April, Zelensky issued a decree forbidding all negotiations with Russia. Furthermore, he has repeatedly vowed to retake the former Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea, the latter of which voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation in 2014.

Zelensky’s stance is backed by Washington, where officials have repeatedly insisted that only the Ukrainian president can decide when to seek peace. At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has condemned Putin for supposedly rejecting “meaningful diplomacy.” Russia maintains that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but that any peace deal would have to take into account the “new territorial reality” – that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea will never be ceded back to Ukraine. Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said negotiations would be held “not with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters.”

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Milley parrots Stoltenberg. Or is it the other way around?

Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)

In an exclusive interview with an American broadcaster, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive “will take a considerable length of time,” refusing to speculate on how long it might take for Kiev to achieve its goals. “This offensive, although significant, has operational and tactical objectives that are limited in the sense that they do not, even if they are fully achieved, they do not completely kick out all the Russians, which is the broader strategic objective that [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky have” Milley said in an interview with a American broadcaster.

The military official refused to speculate on how long it might take Ukraine to achieve its goals, noting that it “will take a considerable length of time.” In addition, Milley described Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive as “long, hard, bloody.” Russia began its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine launched its latest counteroffensive in early June. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, with Ukraine suffering 71,000 casualties. Several Western officials also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful.

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“Zelensky’s formula” is insane..

Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)

Kiev has failed to “pull” neutral countries and international organizations to implement its peace formula, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told Sputnik. “As for the meetings on Zelensky’s peace formula, as far as we know, Kiev is still unsuccessfully trying to pull neutral countries and international organizations to implement the points of its plan,” Nebenzia said in an interview. He called for an objective approach to anything the Ukrainians say about international support for Zelensky’s formula, including a recent G20 statement. “We see no signs of UN involvement in these discussions, especially since [UN Secretary-General] Antonio Guterres has repeatedly spoken in this context about his commitment to the principle of impartiality and centrality,” Nebenzia said.

Nebenzya urged that “everything the Ukrainians say about international support for the so-called ‘Zelensky Plan’ should be checked against the facts,” including “the recent section of the G20 statement on the Ukrainian crisis.” “Everything else is ‘from the evil one’,” he concluded. Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration of the G20 summit. It states in connection with the events in Ukraine that all countries should refrain from the threat or use of force to acquire territory. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the G7 countries were putting pressure on India to reflect their unilateral approaches to the situation around Ukraine in the final documents of the G20.

The ministry noted that against this background the Indian side tried to stick to a neutral course based on the strictly economic mandate of the G20. In late June, talks on Ukraine were held in Copenhagen with the participation of the G7 countries, some BRICS countries and Ukraine itself. The participants discussed the ways of implementing the peace formula of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After that, Saudi Arabia held its own meeting on the issue in Jeddah. Moscow considers the formula to be completely detached from reality.

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“..Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way..”

US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)

The never-ending expansion of NATO has enabled the US to turn many nations into its puppets, helping Washington to cling to its hegemony, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, has said. In an op-ed for the Razvedchik magazine issued by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and published on Friday, Patrushev claimed that the West often resorts to military force, coercion, ‘privatization’ of elites, and color revolutions to achieve global domination. The constant expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance basically provides the US with the opportunity to absorb states and deprive them of their independence in terms of defending their national interests.

The official also blasted the US-led military bloc for what he called “duplicity,” arguing that while NATO has always claimed to stand for peace, it has waged war or threatened military action against countries that oppose Washington’s policies. “NATO’s military power is used to maintain Western hegemony, economic enslavement, and political pressure on states that pose no military threat to the alliance,” Patrushev stated, adding that members of the bloc have taken part in more than 200 conflicts across the world over the past seven decades. Meanwhile, Patrushev continued, Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way.

The West “perceives Russia as a constant threat” because it remembers that it was the Soviet Union that played a crucial role in dismantling the colonial system, according to Patrushev. As a result, he said, the West is using the full range of tools at its disposal against Russia, including sanctions and its massive system of media resources that help it concoct “information frenzy campaigns” across the globe. Moscow has repeatedly protested NATO expansion, seeing it as a major national security threat and arguing that the increased military build-up on its borders leads to heightened tensions in Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has named the risk of Kiev joining the military bloc as one of the key reasons behind the Ukraine conflict.

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“..across the street of the UN headquarters..” Like the photo.

Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk to pick Türkiye as a location for his electric vehicle company’s next factory, according to the Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu. During the meeting on Sunday, Erdogan described Ankara’s “technological breakthroughs as well as the ‘Digital Türkiye’ vision and the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy,” the country’s communications directorate said in a statement cited by Anadolu. Besides urging Musk to establish Tesla’s seventh factory in Türkiye, Erdogan also described other “opportunities for collaboration with SpaceX may arise through the steps taken and to be taken as part of Türkiye’s space program.”

The US entrepreneur has yet to comment on the results of the talks. He was seen entering the Turkish House skyscraper across the street of the UN headquarters on Sunday, carrying his young son on Sunday. Tesla currently has six so-called gigafactories in the US, Germany and China and is building a seventh in Mexico. The automaker could pick a location for its next major production facility by the end of 2023, Musk indicated earlier this year Last month the company “expressed interest” in building a factory in India to produce a low-cost EV model, after Musk pledged significant investment in India following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US in June.

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Oh sweet Jesus…

‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

The F-35 Lightning II is a family of fifth-generation, low-observable, multi-role fighter-bomber aircraft developed by US company Lockheed Martin. Social media users are wondering how the F-35 Lightning II jet could be missing after US military officials lost track of it somewhere over South Carolina after the pilot ejected. Earlier, the US authorities said that they were searching for an F-35B stealth fighter jet after a crash in South Carolina that forced the pilot to eject. “We are working with Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort to locate the F-35 aircraft involved in a mishap this afternoon. The pilot ejected safely. If you have any information that may help our recovery teams locate theF-35, please call the Base Defense Operations Center,” Joint Base Charleston said on X (formerly Twitter).

The US Marine Corps told local media that the accident involved an F-35B aircraft from the 501st Fighter Training Squadron, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. The pilot was taken to hospital in stable condition. The search is focused on the Moultrie and Marion Lakes area in the central part of the state. Recently, two aircraft collided during a race over the state of Nevada. As a result of the crash, two pilots were killed. Both planes were completely destroyed.

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Jul 142023
 
 July 14, 2023  Posted by at 8:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  57 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Femme nue couchée (Marie-Thérèse Walter) 1932

 

NATO Ultimatum To Ukraine – Win By Winter Or Die (Helmer)
Putin ‘Already Lost’ War In Ukraine, Biden Says (Hill)
NATO Suffering Delusions Of Grandeur – Lavrov
Russia Will Treat F-16s In Ukraine As Nuclear Threat – Lavrov (RT)
Putin: Ukraine in NATO Will Create Security Threat for Russia (Sp.)
NATO Summit Serves Up Cringe Nothing-Burger (Scott Ritter)
NATO Can’t Exist Without An Enemy – Moscow (RT)
Wagner PMC Formally Doesn’t Exist – Putin (TASS)
Biden Offered Erdogan IMF Support To Ratify Sweden NATO Bid – Hersh (RT)
US to Supply ‘Significant Military Equipment’ Soon – Greek PM (Sp.)
Rampant Corruption Is One Reason Behind Ukraine’s Failed NATO Bid (RMX)
How The End Of The US Dollar’s Global Dominance Will Play Out (Salikhov)
New Twitter Files Contradict FBI Director’s Testimony (Turley)
Drugs Discovered Three Times At White House Since 2022 (JTN)
Hollywood Grinds To A Halt As Actors And Writers Go On Strike Together (ZH)

 

 

 

 

RFK TNI

 

 

Biden quietly sends 3,000 active US troops to Europe. Ukraine?!

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

Caviezel

 

 

 

 

Agenda 21

 

 

EP WHO

 

 

 

 

“Whatever is achieved by the end of this year will be the baseline for negotiation..”

NATO Ultimatum To Ukraine – Win By Winter Or Die (Helmer)

For all its public talk, NATO has agreed on a secret six-month plan for Ukraine. It’s a case of do or die by December. Either the Ukrainian forces, firing everything the NATO allies can give them — from US cluster munitions to Franco-English Storm Shadow missiles and German Leopard tanks — will gain territory and advantage over the Russians; or else the Kiev regime will be destroyed and must fall back on Lvov while NATO beats its own retreat westward from the Polish and Romanian borders — its military capabilities defeated but its Article Five intact. This is hardly a secret. “Whatever is achieved by the end of this year will be the baseline for negotiation”, the Czech President Petr Pavel, former Czech and NATO army general, announced on the first day of the summit meetings in Vilnius. There is no more than a six-month window of opportunity, Pavel added, which will “more or less close by the end of this year”. After that, “we will see another decline of willingness to massively support Ukraine with more weapons.”

The difference between the Czech’s “more or less” was explained to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky by Henry Kissinger on the telephone. But the telephone was rigged, and Kissinger was talking instead to the Stavka in Moscow, in the guise of the pranksters Vovan and Lexus. After justifying himself at length for initially opposing NATO membership of the Ukraine, and then mispronouncing the word “anomalous”, Kissinger acknowledged there is a problem for the Biden Administration to combat European government opposition to NATO membership for the Ukraine. The Ukrainians must fight against that, too, he implied. So long as the US is backing Zelensky, it is necessary for the Ukrainian offensive to demonstrate small territorial advantages; abandon more ambitious ones (like Crimea); and only then agree to ceasefire talks. Although Kissinger told Zelensky he had been speaking with US “military people”, he gave no hint that they had warned him the Ukrainians are facing defeat on the battlefield, and the loss of both territory and European support.

The Russian General Staff calculation is different. At the current rate of battlefield casualties – announced by the Defense Ministry counting conservatively — by December 31 the Ukrainian army will lose between 75,000 and 100,000 dead, and up to 300,000 wounded and out of combat. In parallel, the destruction of NATO weapons will accelerate faster than the NATO states can resupply and deliver them, or replacement parts to keep the surviving stock going at the front. By the time Russia’s General Winter takes control of the battlefield, there will be too few Ukrainian fighting men left, and insufficient weapons and ammunition, to resist the start of the Russian offensive. A demilitarized zone of mines and cluster bomblets will have taken shape over several hundred kilometres west of the surrendering Odessa, Nikolaev, and Kharkov; they will abandon Kiev when Kiev abandons them.

The Russian target then will be to drive what remains of the Ukrainian regime, its flags, tattoos, money, and stay-behind terrorism plans, into an enclave around Lvov. The NATO window, as General Pavel called it, will have been opened, but then will be closed to keep NATO itself from catching cold. One of the unreported outcomes of the Wagner mutiny, and of the June 29 meeting in Moscow between President Vladimir Putin and Yevgeny Prigozhin, is Putin’s commitment to fight for nothing short of the Ukraine’s rout to Lvov, and the NATO retreat westward in the footsteps of the Grande Armée and the Wehrmacht. This too is incomprehensible at NATO headquarters.

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How are they going to walk this back in a few months’ time? Blame Zelensky?

Putin ‘Already Lost’ War In Ukraine, Biden Says (Hill)

President Biden said Thursday there is “no possibility” of Russian President Vladimir Putin winning the war in Ukraine while adding he’s “already lost” the conflict as Biden capped a trip to Lithuania and Finland as a show of strength against Russian aggression. Biden, in a joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, was asked whether his assurance that Ukraine will be able to join the NATO alliance once its war with Russia ends might encourage Putin to drag out the conflict. Biden noted no country can join NATO while in the middle of a war, because it would drag the entire alliance into conflict — a stance Biden and his administration have been stressing this week as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the alliance’s resistance to fast-tracking its membership.

“The issue of whether or not this is going to keep Putin from continuing to fight, the answer is Putin’s already lost the war,” Biden continued. “Putin has a real problem. How does he move from here? What does he do?” “And so, the idea that there’s going to be what vehicle is used, he could end the war tomorrow. He could just say, ‘I’m out,’” Biden added. “But what agreement is ultimately reached depends on Putin and what he decides to do. But there is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine. He’s already lost that war.” Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and the fighting has dragged on in the 17 months since with no end in sight. The U.S. and its allies have provided billions of dollars in support for Ukraine to defend itself.

Biden has previously argued Putin will not be able to win the war in Ukraine because the Ukrainians have put up a staunch defense in response to the Russian invasion, and his aggression has galvanized the NATO alliance. The president this week attended a NATO Summit in Lithuania, where continued support for Ukraine was at the top of the agenda. The U.S. and its Group of Seven allies announced plans Wednesday for security negotations with Ukraine to ensure it had the military support it needed in the short-term and in the future to defer further Russian aggression.

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“..apparently, we are not even allowed now to have a relationship [with China], or so they wish.”

NATO Suffering Delusions Of Grandeur – Lavrov

The US and its allies are targeting Russia and China because of their strong relationship, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has claimed, citing the final communique from this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania. The NATO document stated that “the deepening strategic partnership between [China] and Russia and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.” Commenting on Thursday during a trip to Indonesia, Lavrov said that “apparently, we are not even allowed now to have a relationship [with China], or so they wish.” The diplomat noted that the US had previously limited itself to referring to Russia and China as its “rivals.”

The NATO statement further justifies Russia’s efforts to oppose “modern forms of colonialism” and to advocate international relations based on respect, Lavrov insisted. “People in NATO are obviously not prepared for [the same approach]. Delusion of grandeur is expressed in all actions of the NATO leadership, as well as member states, frankly speaking. Everybody sees that,” the Russian minister claimed. Lavrov accused the West of attempting to preserve its hegemony and dress it up as a “rules-based order,” but predicted that multipolarity would ultimately prevail. He also alleged that NATO’s appetite for spreading its influence globally was causing destabilization outside of the North Atlantic region.

“They already have plans to build up NATO military infrastructure in the [Asia-Pacific] region, including in the nations that were invited to the summit in Vilnius… I mean Australia, New Zealand, Japan, [South] Korea,” said the minister. Canberra violated its own commitment to keep the Pacific free from nuclear weapons when it agreed to host “elements of infrastructure” related to nuclear arms under the AUKUS arrangement, Lavrov argued. Tokyo and Seoul “have been signaling that they would not oppose stationing American nuclear weapons or obtaining some of their own,” he added. The Russian foreign minister was speaking in Indonesia after a summit with ASEAN, a regional integration bloc. He claimed the US was pushing for the Southeast Asian organization to be replaced by structures under Washington’s control, so that it could undermine China.

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“The very fact of the appearance of such systems within the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be considered by us as a threat from the West in the nuclear domain..”

Russia Will Treat F-16s In Ukraine As Nuclear Threat – Lavrov (RT)

Moscow can’t ignore the nuclear capability of US-designed F-16 fighter jets that may be supplied to Ukraine by its Western backers, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. By continuing to provide more sophisticated arms to Kiev, “the US and its NATO satellites create the risk of a direct armed confrontation with Russia, and this may lead to catastrophic consequences,” Lavrov warned in his interview with Lenta.ru on Wednesday. The plans to supply F-16s to Kiev is yet another example of an escalatory move by the West and in itself is “an extremely dangerous development,” he stated. “We have informed the nuclear powers – the US, UK and France – that Russia can’t ignore the ability of these aircraft to carry nuclear weapons,” the foreign minister continued.

“No assurances [by the West] will help here,” he warned. In the midst of fighting, the Russian military isn’t going to investigate whether any specific jet is equipped to deliver nuclear weapons or not, he added. “The very fact of the appearance of such systems within the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be considered by us as a threat from the West in the nuclear domain,” Lavrov said. In an interview on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius on Wednesday, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said “there will be the transfer of F-16s [to Ukraine], likely from European countries that have excess F-16 supplies.” A day earlier, Denmark announced that a “coalition” – which includes the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the UK and Sweden – would begin training Ukrainian airmen to fly the US-designed aircraft in August.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba suggested earlier this week that the first F-16s piloted by Ukrainians could take to the skies“by the end of the first quarter of next year.” Kiev has been pressing its foreign backers for fourth-generation F-16 warplanes for months, arguing that they are crucial in providing air cover for Ukraine’s troops and defending Ukrainian airspace amid a massive Russian missile campaign targeting military facilities and energy infrastructure. The US and its allies initially ruled out deliveries of the jets, saying the F-16 wasn’t the type of hardware that Ukraine needed, but changed their stance on the issue over time. In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said there was no doubt that the F-16s “will burn”once they’re delivered to Ukraine, just like what has happened to tanks and other Western-supplied weapons.

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“I am sure that this will not increase the security of Ukraine itself..”

Putin: Ukraine in NATO Will Create Security Threat for Russia (Sp.)

In early June, Zelensky said that Kiev hoped to receive a clear invitation to join the bloc at the Vilnius summit. He also said Kiev was disappointed that it had not yet received a clear positive response about joining both the European Union and NATO. Ukraine’s possible membership in NATO will create a security threat for Russia and will not increase security of Ukraine itself, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. “As for Ukraine’s membership in NATO, we have repeatedly spoken about this, this creates threats to Russia’s security. Obviously. And as a matter of fact, the reason for the special military operation, one of the reasons, is the threat of Ukraine’s entry into NATO. I am sure that this will not increase the security of Ukraine itself,” Putin said.


Speaking about Western missiles and tanks supplied to Ukraine, Vladimir Putin noted that they ause damage but do not pose a critical threat in the combat zone. “As for the supply of weapons, various weapons, we see how many hopes were placed on the supply of missiles with a sufficiently long range. Well, yes, they cause damage, but nothing critical happens in the combat zone with the use of missiles. The same goes for foreign-made tanks, infantry fighting vehicles,” Putin said on air of the Rossiya 24 broadcaster. The president added that 311 pieces of military equipment used by Ukraine has been destroyed since June 4, and at least one third of those were Western-made. “I can tell you that Ukrainian servicemen often refuse to even get into these tanks, because they are a priority target for our guys,” Putin said, adding that foreign tanks “burn better” than the Soviet-made ones.

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“Zelensky confronted his erstwhile allies with the harsh reality that not only would the conflict with Russia not be ending any time soon, but also the growing realization that, when it did end, it would be as a decisive Russian military victory.”

NATO Summit Serves Up Cringe Nothing-Burger (Scott Ritter)

The Vilnius Summit was intended to showcase the alliance’s unity and resolve in the face of the challenges presented by Russia and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. There had been a great deal of discussion prior to the summit about the prospects of Ukrainian membership in NATO. It was understood by all parties that, while the conflict between Ukraine and Russia remained in an active phase, Ukrainian membership was impossible, if for no other reason that, under Article 5 of the NATO charter, NATO would immediately find itself in a war with Russia which had a good chance of going nuclear. The working premise going into the Vilnius Summit was that NATO would empower Ukraine to carry out a massive counteroffensive designed to break through the Russian defenses and drive to the Sea of Azov, thereby severing the land bridge between Crimea and Russia, forcing Russia to negotiate an end to the conflict.

At that juncture, having “frozen” the conflict on terms that would be unfavorable to Russia, NATO would extend an invitation to Ukraine for membership, thereby shrouding Ukraine’s gains with Article 5 protections while effectively checking any future Russian offensive operations. In the weeks leading up to the summit, Ukraine was desperately trying to do its part, throwing its newly constituted NATO-trained and equipped assault brigades at prepared Russian defenses in actions which made the infamous “Charge of the Light Brigade” seem like the epitome of military planning and execution by comparison. With much of its NATO-provided weaponry, including the much-touted Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, destroyed or damaged without ever reaching the main Russian defensive positions, and some 20,000 Ukrainian casualties, the Ukrainian counteroffensive fizzled out.

Instead of presenting his NATO partners with a decisive Ukrainian victory, Zelensky confronted his erstwhile allies with the harsh reality that not only would the conflict with Russia not be ending any time soon, but also the growing realization that, when it did end, it would be as a decisive Russian military victory. Confronted with this reality, NATO sought to soften expectations about Ukrainian membership. Rather than provide Ukraine with a concrete road map to membership, NATO declared that it would extend an invitation to Ukraine when “conditions are met”, one of which is that the conflict with Russia must be over. NATO offered up as a consolation prize the establishment of a NATO-Ukraine Council “to advance political dialogue, engagement, cooperation, and Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO,” and promised to “continue our support for as long as it takes.”

Scott Ritter

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“..catastrophic consequences for European security, Ukraine, and the alliance itself.”

NATO Can’t Exist Without An Enemy – Moscow (RT)

NATO needs enemies so it could justify its existence, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko said on Thursday, reflecting on the Western bloc’s recent meeting in neighboring Lithuania. “Expansion is one of the instruments used by NATO countries to maintain confrontation,” Grushko told Russia’s Channel One. “Therefore, unfortunately, history has forced us to conclude that NATO cannot exist without an adversary. Otherwise, it would lose all meaning.” Grushko stressed that the admission of Ukraine into the US-led bloc would have “catastrophic consequences for European security, Ukraine, and the alliance itself.” At the same time, Western countries use the prospect of NATO membership as a way to control Ukraine’s domestic politics, the diplomat argued.


Although NATO has refused to grant an immediate membership or a concrete accession timetable to Kiev, the bloc’s members affirmed at the summit in Vilnius on Tuesday that the country would be invited to join in the future. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukraine was “closer to NATO than ever before.” Russia considers NATO’s expansion eastward a threat to its own national security, and has warned that the delivery of heavy weapons and other military aid to Ukraine makes the alliance a de facto participant in the conflict. Western countries insist that NATO is a strictly defensive alliance and claims that it poses no threat to Russia.

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“..there is no such legal entity.””The [Wagner] Group exists, but it is judicially non-existent..”

Wagner PMC Formally Doesn’t Exist – Putin (TASS)

Legalizing private military companies is a complicated issue that should be handled by the government and the parliament, because formally companies such as Wagner PMC are non-existent in Russia at this point, Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying. Kommersant’s special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov quoted the Russian president as saying in response to a question about the organization’s future that, from the point of view of the Russian legislation, “Wagner PMC does not exist.” The president explained that Russia has no law on private military companies and, therefore, “there is no such legal entity.””The [Wagner] Group exists, but it is judicially non-existent,” the report quotes Putin as saying.


“The formal legalization is a separate issue that should be addressed by the State Duma [the lower chamber of the Russian parliament] and the government. It’s a complicated issue.” The president believes that the Wagner Group controversy “is very simple and clear for [members of] the Russian society.” “Wagner’s ordinary members were fighting with dignity… so it is very regrettable that they became embroiled into these events,” Putin added. On Thursday, the Russian president took part in the plenary session of the Future Technologies Forum. After the event was over, he had a conversation with Russian journalists. Excerpts of the talk, where the issue of Ukraine, NATO and the grain deal were raised, were published by the Kremlin website and aired by the Rosssiya-24 television channel.

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Erdogan is in big financial trouble.

Biden Offered Erdogan IMF Support To Ratify Sweden NATO Bid – Hersh (RT)

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh claimed on Thursday that US President Joe Biden offered his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan more than $11 billion in IMF assistance to ratify Sweden’s bid to join the NATO bloc. In an article posted to his Substack account, Hersh wrote that he had been informed by an anonymous source that “Biden promised that a much-needed $11-13 billion line of credit” would be established for Türkiye by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This was to be in return, Hersh suggested, for Erdogan removing Ankara’s objection to Stockholm joining the US-led military bloc ahead of the NATO summit that took place this week in Lithuania.

Erdogan, who was re-elected as Turkish leader in late May, is currently facing the mammoth task of replacing or repairing hundreds of thousands of buildings damaged or destroyed in February’s earthquakes in which at least 50,000 lost their lives. Türkiye had previously opposed Sweden’s accession to the bloc, largely due to Ankara’s stance that Stockholm has harbored militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which was involved in an armed conflict with the Turkish state in the 1980s. The PKK has been designated a terrorist organization by Türkiye, Sweden, Europe and the United States. “What could be better for Erdogan,” Hersh wrote of the American and Turkish presidents’ alleged arrangement, quoting an official familiar with it, than him “finally having seen the light and realizing he is better off with NATO and Western Europe?”

The report also referenced a June financial analysis of Ankara’s coffers by the independent think tank Council on Foreign Relations, which cast a dire economic outlook for Erdogan to navigate in the early stages of his latest term as leader. It said that Türkiye stands on the precipice of an “imminent financial crisis” and if facing a choice “between selling its gold, an avoidable default, or swallowing the bitter pill of a complete policy reversal and possibly an IMF program.” Hersh, 86, generated headlines earlier this year when he claimed he had been informed –also by an anonymous source– that the United States was responsible for last year’s explosions that neutered the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that supply energy from Russia to Europe. Washington dismissed the claims as “complete fiction.”

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To balance out the support for Turkey…

US to Supply ‘Significant Military Equipment’ Soon – Greek PM (Sp.)

The United States will soon provide Greece with “significant military equipment” for free, announced Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “I mean not only the approval of [the delivery of] F-35 [fighter jets], which is very important, but also the possibility of getting surplus [military] equipment, significant surplus equipment that will be given to us for free. That is what the US is doing and has every reason to do it to a greater extent for a good ally like Greece,” Mitsotakis said in an interview with Greek broadcaster while expressing hope that F-35s would be delivered in 2028. The prime minister noted that Athens was engaged in talks with Washington, having signed “a very strong defense agreement for five years,” adding that he believed Greece hopes for support “regardless of what happens in the negotiations with Turkiye.”

Mitsotakis also said that the construction of French-made Belharra-class frigates for Greece was ahead of schedule, adding that the first frigate would be delivered in September. He noted that Athens are aimed at having “a very strong deterrence capacity,” adding that he believed Greece “has been able to achieve that at a rapid pace.” In 2019 and 2021, Washington and Athens amended the Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement, which allowed the US to establish new military bases on the territory of Greece and expanded the term of the agreement from one to five years. Until 2019, the US had only one military base in Greece but now has nine. The US was granted access to the port of Alexandroupolis in the north of the country, which is used for the delivery of military equipment to Eastern Europe and Ukraine. Mitsotakis then said that the amended agreement made Greece Washington’s main partner in the region.

Greece is implementing 19 arms procurement programs worth 11.5 billion euros ($12.9 billion). Among them are the purchase of 24 French-made Rafale fighter aircraft, Belharra-class frigates and the modernization of 83 F-16 Block 52+ and 52+ Advanced fighters to the Viper variant — the most advanced variant of F-16. The Greek air force already received two F-16 Viper fighters in September 2022. Moreover, Athens is planning to purchase over 20 F-35 fifth-generation fighters.

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Ukraine has never been more corrupt. The enormous influx of money and weapons systems guarantees it.

Rampant Corruption Is One Reason Behind Ukraine’s Failed NATO Bid (RMX)

Ukraine must implement reforms to fight corruption and strengthen its institutions if it wants to be eligible to join NATO, said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, during the second day of the NATO summit in Vilnius. Von der Leyen encouraged Ukraine to implement further reforms and pledged the support of the European Union. According to Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet, von der Leyen’s statement “said in plain language that there was still so much corruption and opacity in Ukraine’s institutions that it could not yet get the green light to join NATO or the European Union.” However, the paper also noted that von der Leyen noted the country’s efforts were appreciated and it had made a lot of progress.

The European Commission already identified systemic corruption in Ukraine in 2021. Although the EU had launched a number of initiatives to reduce the potential for corruption and proposed a wide range of measures, the EU commission’s report at the time found that no progress had been made on this issue in 2021. At that time, there was a significant decline in the judiciary, and anti-corruption institutions were also under threat, according to the report. The authors also noted that oligarchs and vested interests are the biggest problem, as they are an obstacle to the rule of law and economic development in Ukraine.

Brussels is keen to bring Ukraine into the European Union. However, even EU officials do not dare mention in their reports anything concrete or substantial to suggest that Ukraine is ready for integration, and Von der Leyen’s remarks indicate that the situation has still not improved. As Remix News reported last week, the Federation of Employers of Ukraine, representing Ukrainian entrepreneurs, issued an appeal to President Volodymyr Zelensky, demanding action to curb the abuse of power by government officials. The abuse of power by military officials and judges has crossed all lines, according to Ukrainian entrepreneurs, who are calling for the establishment of a public registry to identify corrupt officials. They further argue that corruption on an unprecedented scale is eroding Ukraine’s defensive capabilities.

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Anybody’s guess.

How The End Of The US Dollar’s Global Dominance Will Play Out (Salikhov)

A more important factor than the nominal share of the US dollar in international reserves is the changing approach to the management and accumulation of foreign assets. The same IMF data shows that the total value of central bank reserves has remained virtually unchanged at $11.5-12 trillion over the past decade, even as the global economy has grown. China’s foreign exchange reserves peaked at $4 trillion in 2014 and have been declining ever since. Their current value is $3.2 trillion, down 20% from 2014. Many other developing countries are not increasing their international reserves, if not reducing them. This does not mean, however, that external assets are not being created.

They can be formed in “non-standard” forms, such as assets of sovereign wealth funds, state banks, development institutions and other structures not directly related to central banks. Foreign direct investment by government structures can also be classified as a type of reserve asset. Such a strategy is not aimed at maximising the availability and liquidity of assets, but at securing one’s own economic interests in foreign markets. To some extent, it provides greater protection against the political risks of asset freezes, as their legal status is less transparent. A similar strategy is being pursued by China, which is seeking to gradually “internationalize” its currency. Formally, the yuan’s share of central banks’ international reserves is small, amounting to no more than 3%. Moreover, between a third and a half of this demand is provided by the Bank of Russia.

China’s strategy is to secure the international status of the RMB through trade rather than investment. In recent years, China has actively sought to motivate and encourage its partners to trade in RMB rather than other currencies. This is being done in a number of ways, including infrastructure development, its own analogue of the SWIFT system, development of clearing, international lending in the currency and so on. Many people have heard of the term “petroyuan” – an analogue of the petrodollar. In essence, it is the signing of long-term contracts for the supply of oil in yuan in return for a flow of goods and equipment. So, trade is already being conducted in yuan rather than US dollars. This creates demand outside the Chinese economy. At the same time, the Chinese authorities maintain restrictions on capital transactions.

***
The de-dollarization of the global financial system will continue. This will be facilitated in particular by progress in financial technology. The development of automated trading platforms will reduce the cost of exchanging one currency for another. Central banks will seek to directly clear each other’s currencies without directly using the currencies of Western countries. In the future, central banks’ digital currencies may also be used for international transactions, reducing costs for economic agents. However, this process will be slow and we should not expect a fundamental change in the global financial system in the foreseeable future.

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“..when there’s a glitch, and the accounts remain up, the FBI immediately writes back and says, what’s the deal? We just wrote to you, why is it still up?”

New Twitter Files Contradict FBI Director’s Testimony (Turley)

Yesterday’s hearing with FBI Director Christopher Wray was another maddening experience of faux contrition and open evasion. Wray apologized for violations that have already been established by courts or Congress (often over the best efforts of the FBI). However, on ample public evidence of new violations, Wray continued to use his favorite testimonial trilogy to dismiss any questions: expressing (1) lack of knowledge, (2) ongoing investigations, and (3) promises of later answers or briefings. He did, however, hold forth in detail after Rep. Eric Swalwell asked him about FBI Family Day. Despite the near total lack of substance, Wray did make one surprising denial. He insisted that the FBI does not engage in censorship efforts, focuses only on “foreign disinformation,” and does not pressure companies to censor others.

Those denials are not only directly contradicted by the recent 155-page opinion of a federal court and the Twitter Files, but a new release from the Twitter Files and journalist Matt Taibbi. Wray said that “…The FBI is not in the business of moderating content, or causing any social media company to suppress or censor.” He then added that these companies are not under any pressure in making their own decisions whether to censor people or groups flagged by the FBI. The statement is obviously false. The FBI maintained a large operation of agents actively seeking the censorship of thousands, as discussed in my prior testimony. Taibbi, however, has released another example of how aggressive the FBI was with social media companies. In the latest Twitter Files release, there is one email exchange where Twitter “immediately” suspended accounts flagged by the FBI without investigation.

Taibbi explained: “In one shot, you can see the FBI asks to remove three accounts, that gets forwarded to Twitter, Twitter immediately suspends them, the accounts. But more importantly, when there’s a glitch, and the accounts remain up, the FBI immediately writes back and says, what’s the deal? We just wrote to you, why is it still up? So, that shows the nature of the relationship basically that it’s not really a collaboration. It’s much more like somebody reporting to an authority. … [W]hat happens in these instances in the ones that I was showing, they’re just forwarding names of accounts that they say are associated with foreign threat actors. It’s very vague. And Twitter is taking them down before they even investigate. In this case, they later determined that they couldn’t find anything connecting them to any bad actors. In fact, one of them was from Canada. And so, that’s the problem. If it’s not connected with a crime, they’re just asking to take accounts down because they don’t like the profile of them.”

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”..everything they do is to move along to the next story. They know there will be another Biden crime crisis.”

Drugs Discovered Three Times At White House Since 2022 (JTN)

Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert said after the Secret Service briefing Thursday on cocaine found July 2 at the White House that drugs have been found two other times since last year in the building. The Colorado lawmaker also confirmed that Secret Service officials said at the briefing the agency likely won’t find a suspect in connection to the cocaine discovery and that the probe will conclude Friday. “There’s a list of more than 500 individuals that they looked into their backgrounds for prior drug records or use, and nothing was determined from from their analysis,” she said. “And the Secret Service is very eager to close this within the next couple of days.”

The cocaine was reportedly found in a cubby near the White House’s West Executive entrance and weighed less than a gram. Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who like Boebert is a member of the House Oversight Committee and attended the briefing, also confirmed with Just the News the investigation will be closed Friday without a suspect. “The cocaine caper is going to be concluded without any outcome. No suspects, no resolution,” the South Carolina lawmaker said after the briefing, “which is frustrating, because every time there’s something unsavory happening on the president, the White House’s administration, we never get an answer. And it’s just ironic and interesting and frustrating.”

Boebert said the drug found twice before in roughly the past year was marijuana and that she thinks the Secret Service closed the investigation without a suspect “because everything in this administration is about covering up for the Biden crime family.” “This is the third time that drugs have been found on the White House property since 2022, and we did not even hear about the marijuana,” she also said. “I certainly did not hear about the marijuana that was found in 2022, two times, and now there’s cocaine on the property. So everything they do is to move along to the next story. They know there will be another Biden crime crisis.”

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TV vs internet.

Hollywood Grinds To A Halt As Actors And Writers Go On Strike Together (ZH)

Actors and writers in Hollywood have staged the first joint walkout in six decades, saving the country – if not the world, from the production of crappy, woke entertainment, at least for now. The Screen Actors Guild, which represents approximately 160,000 performers, announced the strike on Thursday after failing to reach a new labor agreement with Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, which represents studios including Walt Disney Co. and Netflix Inc, Bloomberg reports. The Writers Guild of America, meanwhile has been on strike since May 2, shutting down late-night TV programs like The Tonight Show, halting many projects in progress and imperiling the traditional release of new broadcast TV shows starting in September.

In a statement after the strike announcement, the studio alliance said the union “has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry.” -Boomberg According to the studios, double-digit percentage increases in salaries and higher pension and health benefits, plus a boost in residuals (the money actors and other receive when shows are rerun), weren’t enough. Also offered were protections against the use of actors’ digital likenesses. A key dispute which remains unresolved is compensation from streaming services as online video entertainment cannibalizes broadcast and cable TV.

“I cannot believe how far apart we are in so many things,” said SAG president Fran Drescher. “The entire business model has been changed by streaming. This is a moment of history. That is a moment of truth.” The move has halted work on shows such as Abbott Elementary and Netflix’s Stranger Things. if the strikes last more than a few days, the impact will be far greater than just the writer’s strike alone. Meanwhile, actors will have to stop promoting upcoming projects and refuse to attend events such as Comi-Con International which is scheduled for next week.

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Obesity

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bison

 

 

Moth
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May 072023
 


Gustav Klimt Litzlberg am Attersee 1914-15

 

Russian Forces Take Control Over 95% Of Bakhmut – Prigozhin (TASS)
Wagner To Hand Bakhmut Over To Chechens – Prigozhin (RT)
Chechen Commandos Wait For Orders To Push Towards Bakhmut – Kadyrov (TASS)
Western Politicians Advise Kiev Not To Attack Crimea – Ukraine Official (RT)
Grain Deal Talks In Deadlock – UN (RT)
Moscow Blasts Kiev Over Use Of Grain Corridor To Attack Russia (Az.)
Tucker Carlson Forced Off Air By Fox Contract – NYT (RT)
The UK vs the ECtHR (VB)
US National Security Advisor To Meet With MbS (Cradle)
IMF Issues Grim Warning About Global Economy (RT)
Pakistan Switching To Yuan To Buy Russian Oil – Media (RT)
De-Dollarization Is Spreading And It’s Not Hard To See (Radhika Desai)
Over 2,000 of 4,800 US Banks Are Insolvent – Telegraph (RT)
MSNBC Spins Possible Hunter Biden Charges In Rare Joe Biden Interview (Turley)
In London, Brazil’s Lula Calls For Efforts To Free Assange (ABC)

 

 

 

 

 

 

RFK Jr. talks to Douglas Macgregor

 

 

 

 

Joe 29(?!)
https://twitter.com/i/status/1654766235027136512

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The remaining 5% do not play any role for the so-called development of progress and the march of the ‘Red Army’ further to the West..”

Russian Forces Take Control Over 95% Of Bakhmut – Prigozhin (TASS)

Russian forces control about 95% of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) and the remaining 5% have no influence on the progress of the special military operation, Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin says. “Almost 95% of the city territory has been captured in Artyomovsk to date. The remaining 5% do not play any role for the so-called development of progress and the march of the ‘Red Army’ further to the West. Two square kilometers do not influence the progress of the military operation at all,” he said, cited by the Prigozhin’s press office in its Telegram channel. Nobody communicated with him about the shortage of ammunition, Prigozhin said. “The personnel of Wagner PMC will be preserved for the next operations in interests of Russia,” he noted. The Wagner PMC founder also said he had no ambitions of leaving his mark as the person “that took Artyomovsk.” “I have ambitions to be of service to our nation and state,” he added.

Chrystia Freeland tells Hillary Clinton

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“Prigozhin said that the operation of the Wagner group had fulfilled its task in Bakhmut. According to him, the goal of the Bakhmut meat grinder was not to take the city, but to grind the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He said that 95% of the territory of Bakhmut is now under the control of Russian forces, and the remaining 5%, according to him, “do not play any role”. He said that he doesn’t care about being in the history books as the one who took Bakhmut, he cares about serving his own people” — RIA

Wagner To Hand Bakhmut Over To Chechens – Prigozhin (RT)

The Wagner Group private military company will withdraw from the key Donbass city of Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut) on May 10, the group’s chief, Evgeny Prigozhin, has announced. The PMC’s positions will be taken over by the Chechen Special Forces Unit ‘Akhmat’, he said. Prigozhin claimed to have been in contact with Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, to perform the maneuver. The Wagner leader expressed confidence that the Chechen units will capture Artyomovsk completely, of which just a few blocks in the city’s western part remain under the control of Ukrainian forces.

“I am already in contact with [Kadyrov’s] representatives in order to start transferring positions immediately, so that on May 10, at 00:00, exactly at the moment when, according to our calculations, we will completely exhaust our combat potential, our comrades will take our places and continue the assault on the city of Bakhmut,” Prigozhin said in a statement on Saturday. Later in the day, Kadyrov released a short video address stating that he has already raised the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, notifying him of his willingness to replace the Wagner fighters in the city. The Akhmat fighters are already on standby and ready to be redeployed to Artyomovsk, he added.

“The soldiers are on high alert, we are only waiting for orders. Several units have already set off towards the special military operation zone,” Kadyrov stated. Prigozhin announced the looming withdrawal of his forces from the city earlier this week, citing heavy losses and a shortage of artillery munitions. The group will be redeployed from the frontlines to rear camps to “lick their wounds,”he said. Artyomovsk has seen intense fighting in recent months, with the raging battle commonly referred to as the “Bakhmut meat grinder.”The city is a key road and rail junction in Donbass, with both sides reportedly suffering significant casualties during the struggle for control over it. Kiev has continuously poured reserves into the city, which remains partially surrounded by Wagner and other Russian troops.

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“We have already begun to develop our own strategy for this area together with the Russian Defense Ministry..”

Chechen Commandos Wait For Orders To Push Towards Bakhmut – Kadyrov (TASS)

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said that the Akhmat commando force is ready to move into Artemovsk (Ukrainian name Bakhmut). “Akhmat [commando] units are ready to move to Artemovsk (Bakhmut). I have already signed the corresponding message to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief saying the Akhmat units are ready to take control of the city and to clear it from NATO and Ukrainian satanists. The fighters are in combat readiness. We are only waiting for the orders. Several units are already on the way to the zone of the special military operation,” Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel on Saturday.


The Chechen leader is certain that Artyomovsk will soon be liberated. “In the near future we will liberate the city, despite all sorts of fake news about some terrible counterattack by the Ukrainian army. We have already begun to develop our own strategy for this area together with the Russian Defense Ministry and with due regard for the tactics being used by the enemy and the resources available to us. Believe me, the tactic will yield positive results,” Kadyrov added.

Scott Ritter

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Who’s more likely to use nukes?

Western Politicians Advise Kiev Not To Attack Crimea – Ukraine Official (RT)

Some Western politicians have warned Ukraine against attempting to retake Crimea by force, President Vladimir Zelensky’s representative claims. Tamila Tasheva, who is tasked with Crimea-related issues, says their reservations stem from fears that if faced with losing the region, Russia might respond with tactical nuclear weapons. Speaking to Poland’s PAP news agency on Friday, Tasheva said Kiev’s preparations for a major counteroffensive have sparked discussions among Western elites regarding the potential repercussions. “Some Western politicians – not states – are warning Ukraine. They claim that the recapture of Crimea could lead to a nuclear war,” she said. According to Tasheva, these politicians argue that while an operation like this is feasible, the fallout could be severe.

Other voices have called into question whether Crimea has ever really been a part of Ukraine, she said. “In their opinion, we should completely give up trying to regain it.” Zelensky’s representative dismissed concerns over a potential nuclear response by Russia as unlikely. She went on to insist that there has long been a bond between Crimea and Ukraine, adding that pro-Kiev saboteurs are active on the peninsula. Multiple drone attacks have taken place in Crimea in recent weeks, targeting Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and an oil storage facility. The Russian authorities say they believe Ukraine was behind the strike on the storage facility, which led to a massive blaze last Saturday. The Ukrainian military, while stopping short of claiming responsibility, hinted that the attack was part of preparations ahead of Kiev’s much-hyped counteroffensive.

Speaking to Scandinavian media outlets last Friday, President Zelensky expressed hope that Ukraine’s forces will be able to “de-occupy” Crimea, as well as Russia’s newly-incorporated territories – the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions. The predominantly-Russian speaking Crimea joined Russia in 2014 following a referendum that was held after the Maidan coup in Kiev that same year.

French journo

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“The deal also requires Western countries to unblock Russian grain and fertilizer exports..”

Grain Deal Talks In Deadlock – UN (RT)

Another round of talks aimed at prolonging the Black Sea grain deal has ended in deadlock, Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for UN secretary-general, told the media. Technical personnel from Russia, Türkiye, Ukraine, and the UN met in Istanbul on Friday, ahead of a senior-level meeting scheduled for next week. According to the UN spokesperson, the parties failed to agree on the authorization of new vessels to join the Black Sea shipments. Nevertheless, daily inspection work on the previously authorized vessels will continue. “We urge all parties to continue their discussions, overcome operational challenges and work towards the full implementation and continuation of the initiative,”Farhan Haq said. Last year, the UN and Türkiye brokered an agreement which allows the safe export of Ukrainian grain though the Black Sea. The deal also requires Western countries to unblock Russian grain and fertilizer exports.


In March, Russia agreed to extend the deal by 60 days, to May 18. The Kremlin has said that not all parties are fulfilling their part of the agreement. Moscow has also complained that wealthy countries, rather than those at serious risk of food shortages, receive the majority of agricultural goods from Ukraine. Among its conditions, Moscow has demanded that the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) be reconnected to the international SWIFT payment system. Earlier this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the possibility of allowing the bank to return to SWIFT is part of the discussions on extending the grain deal. According to Cavusoglu, while the parties are actively collaborating, there are no guarantees that the deal will be extended.

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“..unfortunately, it was used by the Ukrainian side, in particular, to organize terrorist attacks against Sevastopol, which is absolutely unacceptable.”

Moscow Blasts Kiev Over Use Of Grain Corridor To Attack Russia (Az.)

Ukraine’s attempts to exploit the Black Sea grain corridor to stage terrorist attacks on Crimea, Russia cannot be tolerated, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said in an exclusive interview with RT released on Saturday. Speaking after talks with the United Nations Trade and Development chief on the renewal of the landmark UN- and Türkiye-brokered grain deal with Ukraine, which is set to expire on May 18, Vershinin signaled that Russia is not satisfied with the way the agreement is being implemented. He said that while the talks turned out to be useful, as they allowed the headway being made to be measured, Russia “is not happy with the progress.” Vershinin explained that the part of the agreement unblocking Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea has yielded “real results,” but not without caveats.

“We are drawing attention to the fact that the grain… is probably being exported to the most developed countries… However, the very idea that was put forward by the UN secretary general [Antonio Guterres] to ensure food security in the world, as it turns out, is not actually happening.” Vershinin said the parties to the deal are working on the international humanitarian corridor to export grain, “but everyone knows that, unfortunately, it was used by the Ukrainian side, in particular, to organize terrorist attacks against Sevastopol, which is absolutely unacceptable.” The deputy foreign minister went on to tout Russia’s potential in ensuring global food security. “It is well-known, if we remove barriers for our agricultural exports, and for the exports of our fertilizers, many countries of the world will benefit.”

Concluded last July, the landmark grain deal with Ukraine has since hit some stumbling blocks. Russian officials have repeatedly complained that while the deal indeed unblocked Ukrainian grain exports, it failed to unblock deliveries of Russian food and fertilizers to global markets, mostly due to the Western sanctions. The deal has also been marred by several Ukrainian attacks using the grain corridor, resulting in Russia briefly suspending its participation in the agreement in October 2022. In April, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that Ukraine had broken its promise not to use the grain corridor for military purposes after several unmanned boats attacked the Black Sea Fleet bases in Sevastopol, as well as civilian infrastructure on two occasions, potentially threatening the deal’s renewal.

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“..he has no choice but to stay off the airwaves until after the 2024 election unless he is able to negotiate an exit.”

Tucker Carlson Forced Off Air By Fox Contract – NYT (RT)

Recently-fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson may be sidelined from television news entirely until after the 2024 election unless he can extricate himself from his previous employment contract, according to multiple sources who spoke to the New York Times on Friday. The anchorman is restrained by a common clause known as ‘pay or play’ that restricts him from working for a competitor until the contract expires, an inside source told the outlet. Carlson’s contract is valid through January 2025, meaning he has no choice but to stay off the airwaves until after the 2024 election unless he is able to negotiate an exit. Carlson has reportedly retained entertainment lawyer Bryan Freedman to work out a settlement with his former employer.

Numerous outlets, both traditional and internet-based, are said to be courting the conservative pundit, including Rumble, the Daily Wire, Newsmax, and One America News. Carlson was let go last month hours before he was scheduled to go on the air, supposedly at the request of Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox Corporation, and Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News Media, according to a source who spoke to the Times. Media outlets including the Times have suggested his ouster was due to a text message discovered while the network was preparing for Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit to go to trial in which Carlson acknowledged the humanity of an Antifa protester. He had enjoyed watching the “creep”get beaten up, he admitted, even though “it’s not how white men fight.”

Other leaked texts from Carlson show him calling Trump lawyer Sidney Powell “cruel and reckless” for pushing the theory that Dominion was flipping votes for then-candidate Joe Biden. The network ultimately did not allow the Dominion suit to go to trial, settling with the voting machine manufacturer for $787 million. Carlson has remained largely silent about the circumstances of his departure, save for a two-minute clip he posted to Twitter decrying how “unbelievably stupid” most TV news content was and lamenting the absence of “undeniably big topics” on the airwaves. The clip has garnered over 24 million views in just two weeks, while Fox’s own ratings have plummeted, with the network losing half its audience in the coveted 25 to 54 demographic.

Read more …

The Bill of Rights Bill

“Anatomy of A Politically Engineered Collision Course”

The UK vs the ECtHR (VB)

In recent months, the UK government has tabled two Bills before Parliament which would have the consequence – and almost certainly have the intention – of setting the UK on a collision course with the Council of Europe, and especially the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Both the Bill of Rights Bill and the Illegal Migration Bill, introduced on 22 June 2022 and 7 March 2023 respectively, contain provisions that openly flout the UK’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). While the former is currently in parliamentary limbo, the Illegal Migration Bill will probably become law, following extensive amendment by the House of Lords, which will debate it on 10 May.

This post details how the Bills serve to undermine the UK’s obligations under the ECHR and explains their significance within the larger debate surrounding the UK’s possible withdrawal from the Convention. It places this debate in the context of the rarely-convened Council of Europe summit of heads of state and government in Reykjavik in May 2023, whose ambitious agenda is to protect the ‘common heritage’ of respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the face of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and other existential threats. The Bill of Rights Bill would repeal and replace the Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998, which gives effect in UK law to most of the rights and freedoms in the Convention. It is the product of a near decade long fixation by the – now former – Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, with abolishing the HRA and loosening the UK’s ties with Strasbourg, dating back to his 2011 polemic on the prisoner voting issue.

Several of the Bill’s provisions would create significant divergence between the UK and Strasbourg. The Bill would remove the current requirement under section 2 of the HRA for the UK courts to take relevant case law of the ECtHR into account and would encourage a more originalist reading of the Convention. The interpretive duty found in section 3 of the HRA would also be removed. This requires courts to interpret Acts of Parliament so that the rights, duties and powers they establish are exercised in ways that are compatible with Convention rights. Further, it would prevent UK judges from interpreting Convention rights in ways that create positive obligations on public authorities – and even discourage them from applying positive obligations that have already been identified in previous cases, creating inevitable contradiction with Strasbourg case law.

The Bill also instructs UK courts not to have regard to any interim measure (or urgent injunction) issued by the ECtHR, which would directly contravene the UK’s obligations under the Convention. The parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) urged the Government not to proceed with the Bill, since: ‘it weakens rights protections, it undermines the universality of rights, it shows disregard for our international legal obligations; it creates legal uncertainty and hinders effective enforcement; it will lead to an increased caseload in Strasbourg; and will damage our international reputation as guardians of human rights’.

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MbS cannot go back.

US National Security Advisor To Meet With MbS (Cradle)

White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan will visit Saudi Arabia this weekend for talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), as the White House seeks to improve ties with Riyadh, Reuters reported on 5 May. Speaking at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), Sullivan said he would be traveling to Saudi Arabia on Saturday for talks with Saudi leaders. Sources speaking with Reuters said Sullivan would meet with Crown Prince MbS. Sullivan said the Biden administration seeks a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear program and criticized the Trump administration’s 2018 decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by President Obama in 2015. The deal placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

“Yes, we will take the necessary action to ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon,” Sullivan said in his WINEP speech. Iranian leaders say they have no intention to develop nuclear weapons and that the country’s nuclear program is for peaceful civilian purposes. Oil production cuts by Saudi-led OPEC+ last October and differences between the US and Saudi Arabia over the 2018 assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi –carried out by agents close to MbS — hurt relations between the two historical allies. White House officials have also viewed Saudi Arabia’s recent decision to resume ties with Iran and Syria negatively. Representatives from India and the UAE will also join Sullivan’s trip to discuss “new areas of cooperation between New Delhi and the Gulf as well as the United States and the rest of the region.”

Sullivan said the US was working hard to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. “Ultimately getting to full normalization is a declared national security interest of the United States. We have been clear about that,” he said. “Now as a sign of my seriousness about how much we’re focused on this, and how seriously we are taking this, I am not going to say anything further lest I upset the efforts we are undertaking on this issue,” he added.

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Maybe it should be “Global Economy Issues Grim Warning About IMF”.

IMF Issues Grim Warning About Global Economy (RT)

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that the world is on the edge of geo-economic fragmentation, which she believes could add more “cold water” to already anemic global growth. Speaking by video-link at the Brussels Economic Forum on Wednesday, Kristalina Georgieva called for cooperation at a time when growth across the globe is extremely weak by historical standards. “After decades of increasing global integration, there is a growing risk that the world may split into rival economic blocs,” the IMF chief said. “And that’s a scenario that would be bad for everyone, including for people in Europe.” She warned that growth prospects were increasingly bleak at a time when the global outlook is weak both in the near and medium term.

The IMF projects growth to remain around 3% over the next five years, the lowest medium-term forecast in more than three decades. “And yet, central bankers cannot take their eyes off the ball until stubborn inflation is firmly under control,” Georgieva pointed out. “The required monetary tightening is weighing on growth and exposing some financial vulnerabilities.” Reviving multilateral cooperation is vital for long-term growth everywhere, according to the official, who warned that trade fragmentation could cost up to 7% to the global economy in the long term. That’s “roughly equivalent to the combined annual output of Germany and Japan,” she said, adding that some nations could see GDP losses of up to 12% if technological decoupling is added.

“We cannot ignore these costs,” Georgieva stressed. The IMF boss had previously said that the shocks of the past few years, including the Covid pandemic, Russia-Ukraine conflict, and spike in interest rates after years of loose monetary policy, have been a drag on the global economy.

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“The deal is expected to provide relief to cash-strapped Pakistan, which is facing a balance of payments crisis and critically low foreign exchange reserves.”

Pakistan Switching To Yuan To Buy Russian Oil – Media (RT)

Pakistan is likely to pay for shipments of crude oil from Russia in Chinese yuan, local media reported on Saturday, citing government sources. The first cargo of 750,000 barrels is expected to dock as soon as in June. An unnamed official from the Ministry of Energy told The News International that the transaction would be facilitated by the Bank of China. The sources haven’t provided details about the mode of payment or the exact discount that Pakistan will receive, saying that making the information public is not in the interest of either buyer or seller. “Russia will provide URAL crude in the test cargo and most probably Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) will be tasked to refine the Russian crude,” the official said.


Other sources told the media that Pakistan has agreed a per-barrel price of around $50-52, compared to the G7 price cap on Russian oil of $60 per barrel. In December, the EU, G7, and their allies introduced a collective ban on Russian seaborne oil exports, along with a price cap of $60 per barrel. Another embargo banning almost all imports of Russian oil products, as well as introducing price caps on diesel and other petroleum products, kicked in on February 5. In January, Moscow and Islamabad reached “conceptual” agreements on supplies of Russian oil and petroleum products to Pakistan. The deal is expected to provide relief to cash-strapped Pakistan, which is facing a balance of payments crisis and critically low foreign exchange reserves.

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“..the larger the US deficits, the greater the downward pressure on the dollar..”

De-Dollarization Is Spreading And It’s Not Hard To See (Radhika Desai)

New sources of non-dollar finance are emerging. There are new bilateral agreements to trade and lend in currencies other than the US dollar. Even more importantly, major oil trade buyers and sellers – Moscow and Riyadh as much as Beijing and New Delhi – are agreeing to trade it in non-dollar currencies. These deals are destroying one of the main pillars of dollar dominance since OPEC quadrupled and then doubled oil prices in the 1970s, giving countries around the world a major reason to demand and hold dollars. However, many analysts continue to write as if the dollar’s dominance remains intact. Of course, these arguments are based on all sorts of false assumptions. For instance, they claim the dollar will continue dominating until another country’currency replaces it or that this will only happen if other countries pursue forms of internationalization that mimic that of the US dollar today.

In a sense, the discussion is a little like that depicted in The Big Short, a film about a small band of bankers who bet against the housing market and the securities resting on it in the 2000s. Having made their bets, they waited for the market to collapse. It did. However, for a time, while mortgage defaults increased, the securities they are based on continued to rise in value. Prices were buoyed by investors primed by Alan Greenspan’s famous claim that there could not possibly be a housing market bubble. Nor were the securities downgraded. The rating agencies had not only given high scores to investment rubbish, they had come to believe their own lies. Only when the losses piled up and actually began to filter through the system in the form of payment shortfalls was the truth acknowledged.

De-dollarization also has its equivalent of the losses and payment shortfalls. Consider the recent Financial Times story, ‘China’s ‘men in black’ step up scrutiny of foreign corporate sleuths’. It describes the Chinese Ministry of State Security using “methods familiar to spies and private detectives” to crack down on “foreign corporate sleuths” performing “due diligence” on investments. They cite the process of checking whether a supply chain involved “forced labor from Xinjiang” as an example, stating that such due diligence is critical for attracting US investment. The piece adds that earlier, “the due diligence groups felt they had ample space to operate and that authorities understood their importance,” but now Beijing has stepped up scrutiny of these scrutineers on grounds of national security. They lament that “spy companies were the gatekeepers for money,” but now, “[t]hat sense of a mutually beneficial relationship is gone.”

Now, the Chinese government has no shortage of reasons for stepping up its scrutiny of the information being gathered by foreign, particularly US entities. After all, it is the target of a US hybrid war whose fronts multiply daily. However, this is not the only significance of the story. It goes deeper than that and testifies to de-dollarization. Since 1971 the US currency’s global role has rested on the claim that the dollar-denominated financial system was the world’s most sophisticated, with the broadest and deepest pools of capital from which the rest of the world’s investors could drink their fill. Certainly, the expansion of financial activity, also known as financialization, has been critical. By increasing financial demand for the dollar, it counteracted the Triffin Dilemma caused by the US deficits that provided the world with liquidity, meaning that the larger the US deficits, the greater the downward pressure on the dollar.

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Pick them off one by one..

Over 2,000 of 4,800 US Banks Are Insolvent – Telegraph (RT)

Almost half of the 4,800 banks in the US are nearly insolvent, as they have burned through their capital buffers, The Telegraph reported earlier this week, citing a group of banking experts. According to Professor Amit Seru, a banking expert at Stanford University, around half of US lenders are underwater. “Let’s not pretend that this is just about Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic,” he said. “A lot of the US banking system is potentially insolvent.” Last week, First Republic was seized by US financial regulators and acquired by JPMorgan, the country’s biggest bank. The San Francisco-based lender had previously received a $30-billion rescue shot from a group of Wall Street banks in the form of deposits. The sale of First Republic Bank followed massive deposit runs in March, which caused two regional lenders, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, to fail within days.


On Thursday, shares of Los Angeles-based PacWest and Arizona’s Western Alliance were suspended after their prices fell dramatically. Earlier in the week, shares of several regional US lenders plunged by at least 15%, triggering investor concerns about the financial health of other mid-sized banks. Around 2,315 banks across the US are currently sitting on assets worth less than their liabilities, according to a Hoover Institution report by Professor Seru and a group of banking experts, as cited by the media. The market value of the loan portfolios of these lenders is reportedly $2 trillion lower than the stated book value. Professor Seru raised questions over the steps taken by US financial watchdogs to tackle the problems faced by crisis-hit mid-sized lenders. The regulators can contain the immediate liquidity crisis by guaranteeing all deposits temporarily, according to Seru, who said, however, that this would not address the greater solvency crisis.

Bank crisis
https://twitter.com/i/status/1654823464853708802

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Set up to let Joe distance himself from the mess.

MSNBC Spins Possible Hunter Biden Charges In Rare Joe Biden Interview (Turley)

Last night, President Joe Biden did what is a relatively rare thing. He sat down with an actual reporter ostensibly to answer questions. While earlier promising a “major press conference” for the media as a whole to ask him questions, Biden instead did a low-risk interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. In the interview, Ruhle briefly touched on the possible criminal charges awaiting Hunter Biden. Despite reports of a whistleblower alleging a bribery scandal involving the President, Ruhle assured the President (and the viewers) that the still unknown charges will involve “no ties to you.” Moreover, the interview is most interesting for what it did not address. It was a vivid example of what I previously called “the art of scandal implosion.” During the interview, Ruhle asked “Sir, there is something personal that’s affecting you. Your son — while there [are] no ties to you — could be charged by your Department of Justice. How will that impact your presidency?”

Biden answered, “First of all, my son’s done nothing wrong. I trust him. I have faith in him. And it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him.” Note the framing: it is a “personal” not a “criminal” matter for the President that involves only his son. We still do not know what the charges might be, though there have been steady leaks indicating that the Delaware U.S. Attorney is focusing on tax and gun charges. Yet, there are mounting allegations over the President’s involvement in his son’s influence peddling and recent allegations of potential criminal conduct by the President. It would seem worthy of some inquiry or curiosity. This framing is only possible because the Justice Department and the media have worked tirelessly to avoid ties between Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings and the President. While influence peddling may not be a crime in itself, it often involves crimes to cover up the schemes from tax violations to false statements to unlawful financial transfers.

Last year, I wrote about a shift in the media after it was forced to belatedly acknowledge the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop: “Due to the continued work of a small number of media outlets like the New York Post, it is no longer possible to bury the story or continue the false claim that it is “Russian disinformation.” The hope now appears to be a “controlled demolition” where Hunter is indicted on limited grounds without causing collateral damage to the political and media establishment. Scandal implosion is as much an art as it is a science and could be the most brilliant achievement in this ongoing scandal.”This effort has been greatly advanced with the help of Attorney General Merrick Garland who has inexplicably refused to appoint a special counsel despite mounting evidence of influence peddling by the Biden family with Joe Biden as the object of those efforts.

Garland has effectively blocked the risk of a report on the extensive influence peddling, including the repeated references to President Biden as the “Big Guy” in emails who stood to gain from a 10 percent cut on a deal with a Chinese energy firm as well as other benefits. Emails also refer to Hunter Biden paying portions of his father’s expenses and taxes. Witnesses have come forward that directly link the President to these deals. Yet, none of that remotely interests reporters and MSNBC is not alone. The media continues to struggle to avoid even referencing the allegations against the Bidens. NPR had to correct a story that attempted to dismiss the entire laptop story as disinformation even after media acknowledged the authenticity of the laptop. This is why the narrow focus of the Justice Department is critical to imploding this scandal.

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“He said he had forgotten to discuss the matter with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak..”

In London, Brazil’s Lula Calls For Efforts To Free Assange (ABC)

After attending the coronation of King Charles III in London, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva denounced the lack of concerted efforts to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has spent four years in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison. “It is an embarrassment that a journalist who denounced trickery by one state against another is arrested, condemned to die in jail and we do nothing to free him. It’s a crazy thing,” Lula told reporters. “We talk about freedom of expression; the guy is in prison because he denounced wrongdoing. And the press doesn’t do anything in defense of this journalist. I can’t understand it.” Lula offered the remarks in response to a question about Assange, who is a native Australian. He said he had forgotten to discuss the matter with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, but that he would write to him upon returning to Brazil.


Assange has been fighting extradition to the United States, and Lula’s comments come at a moment that he has shown little reluctance to voice his differences of opinion with Washington regarding geopolitical matters, particularly in his opposition to providing arms to Ukraine for its war against Russia, and accusing the US and Europe of encouraging the fighting. His stance and repeated statements have drawn sharp rebukes from the White House and Europe. For its part, Australia has been stepping up diplomatic pressure on the US government to call off its prosecution of Assange. On Friday, Australia’s Prime Minister Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview that “ enough is enough. There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration.” Last November, Albanese told Parliament that his “position is clear and has been made clear to the U.S. administration: That it is time that this matter be brought to a close.”

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Badger

 

 

 

 

Manes
https://twitter.com/i/status/1654766110724734977

 

 

Baby shark
https://twitter.com/i/status/1654899065023283210

 

 

 

 

King
https://twitter.com/i/status/1654821347812585473

 

 

 

 

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Feb 032023
 
 February 3, 2023  Posted by at 3:26 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  6 Responses »


Johannes Vermeer The glass of wine c 1658-1660

 

 

Andrew Korybko approached me a few days ago asking if we could share some of his work. I don’t view the Automatic Earth as a publishing platform, and given all the censorship of the past 2-3 years (it’s expensive!), I will be very cautious about letting anyone in. But I like Andrew’s writing, so I said: let’s give it a go.

Then I had to transfer his Word file to the simple text editor I have been using for many years, but that only took half an hour … I don’t like Word. Or Bill Gates. Here’s Andrew:

 

 

Andrew Korybko: The “official narrative” surrounding the Ukrainian Conflict has flipped in recent weeks from prematurely celebrating Kiev’s supposedly “inevitable” victory to nowadays seriously warning about its likely loss. It was therefore expected in hindsight that other dimensions of the information warfare campaign waged by the US-led West’s Golden Billion against Russia would also change. As proof of precisely that, the New York Times (NYT) just admitted that the West’s anti-Russian sanctions are a failure.

In Ana Swanson’s article about how “Russia Sidesteps Western Punishments, With Help From Friends”, she cites Western experts who concluded that “Russia’s imports may have already recovered to prewar levels, or will soon do so, depending on their models.” Even more compelling, she references the IMF’s latest assessment from Monday, which “now expected the Russian economy to grow 0.3 percent this year, a sharp improvement from its previous estimate of a 2.3 percent contraction.”

Neither the NYT, the Western experts that Swanson cites, nor the IMF can credibly be accused of being “Russian-friendly”, let alone so-called “Russian propagandists” or even “Russian agents”, which thus confirms the observation that this dimension of the Golden Billion’s infowar has also decisively shifted. The fact of the matter is that the West’s anti-Russian sanctions failed to catalyze the collapse of that targeted multipolar Great Power’s economy, which continues to remain impressively resilient.

The timing at which this narrative changed is also important because it extends credence to the more widely known new narrative that’s nowadays seriously warning about Kiev’s likely loss in NATO’s proxy war on Russia. After all, if the sanctions achieved the goal that they were supposed to and which the US-led West’s Mainstream Media (MSM) hitherto lied that they supposedly had, then it naturally follows that Kiev would “inevitably” win exactly as they claimed would happen up until mid-January.

With this in mind, the most effective way to “reprogram” the average Westerner after brainwashing them over the past 11 months into expecting Kiev’s supposedly “inevitable” victory is to also decisively change the supplementary narratives that artificially manufactured that aforesaid false conclusion. To that end, the order was given to begin raising the public’s awareness about the failure of the Golden Billion’s anti-Russian sanctions, ergo the NYT’s latest piece and the specific timing thereof.

What’s left unsaid in that article is the “politically incorrect” but nevertheless heavily implied observation that the jointly BRICS– & SCO-led Global South of which Russia is a part has defied the Golden Billion’s demands to “isolate” that multipolar Great Power. No MSM outlet will ever admit it, at least not yet, but their de facto New Cold War bloc has limited sway outside the US’ recently restored “sphere of influence” in Europe, whose countries are the only ones suffering from these sanctions.

The NYT’s latest piece might inadvertently make many members of their public conscious of that, however, and they might therefore increasingly object to their governments scaling up their commitment to NATO’s proxy war on Russia under American pressure. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic recently joined Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in condemning this campaign and raising wider awareness of just how counterproductive it’s been for Europe’s objective interests.

As Europeans come to realize that they’re the only ones suffering from the anti-Russian sanctions that their American overlord coerced them into imposing and that their sacrifices haven’t adversely affected that targeted multipolar Great Power’s special operation, massive unrest might follow. It’s unlikely to influence their US-controlled leaders into reversing course, remembering that the German Foreign Minister vowed late last year never to do so, but could instead catalyze a violent police crackdown.

The reason behind this pessimistic prediction is that a reversal or at the very least lessening of the presently rigid anti-Russian sanctions regime would represent an unprecedentedly independent move by whichever European state(s) does/do so. Seeing as how that didn’t even happen in the eight years prior to the US’ successful reassertion of its unipolar hegemony all across 2022, the likelihood of that happening nowadays under those much more difficult conditions is practically nil.

The US’ “Lead From Behind” subordinate for “managing” European affairs as part of its new so-called “burden-sharing” strategy, Germany, has more than enough levers of economic, institutional, and political influence to several punish any of those lower-tier American vassals who get out of place. It’s therefore unrealistic to expect any single EU member to unilaterally defy the bloc’s anti-Russian sanctions that their own government previously agreed to.

Considering this reality, those leaders who want to remain in power or at least not risk the US’ German-driven Hybrid War wrath against their economies are loath restore a semblance of their largely lost sovereignty in such a dramatic manner. Instead, their most pragmatic course of action is to not participate in the military aspect of this proxy war by refusing to dispatch arms to Kiev exactly as the emerging Central European pragmatic bloc of Austria, Croatia, and Hungary have done.

The population of those countries are thus unlikely to protest against the sanctions even after being made aware of the facts contained in the NYT’s latest piece and naturally coming to the conclusion that the anti-Russian sanctions have only harmed their own economies and not that targeted Great Power’s. Folks in France, Germany, and Italy, however, could very well react differently, especially considering their tradition of organizing massive protests.

In such a scenario, their governments are expected to order a violent police crackdown under whatever pretext they concoct, whether it’s falsely accusing the protesters of employing violence first or accusing them all of being so-called “Russian agents”. Regardless of how it happens, the outcome will be the same whereby Western European countries will slide deeper into liberal-totalitarian dictatorship, which will in turn contribute to further radicalizing their population towards uncertain ends.

Returning back to the NYT’s piece, it represents a remarkable reversal of the “official narrative” by frankly admitting that the West’s anti-Russian sanctions are a failure. This coincides with the decisive shift of the larger narrative driven by American and Polish leaders over the past month whereby they’re nowadays seriously warning about Kiev’s likely loss in NATO’s proxy war on Russia. It remains to be seen what other narratives will change as well, but it’s predicted that more such ones will inevitably do so.

 

 

 

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Oct 172022
 
 October 17, 2022  Posted by at 8:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  69 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1919

 

Gazprom Outlines Consequences For Price Cap On Russian Gas (RT)
Ukraine Finance Minister To Chair IMF, World Bank Governing Boards In 2023 (R.)
Russia Responds To UN Official’s Rape Claims (RT)
EU Blackmails Serbia – Interior Minister (RT)
Kremlin Speaks On NATO’s ‘De-facto’ Role In Ukraine (RT)
China Orders Evacuation Of All Citizens Still In Ukraine (ZH)
Energy Crisis Will Breed Extremism – Bavarian President (RT)
From Decolonisation to Desperation to Hopelessness to Farce (Batiushka)
Echoes Of A Brush With ‘Armageddon’ (Tony Cox)
The Gaslighting of the Masses (CJ Hopkins)
The Non-West Coalesces (Patrick Lawrence)
EU to Demand Holidaymakers’ Fingerprints and Facial Images at Borders (DS)
Why Ron DeSantis Doesn’t Stand a Chance Against Donald Trump (CTH)
Alarming Rise In Cancer Among Young People Across Globe (CNN)
One Serious Adverse Event Per Eight-Hundred Vaccinations (Arora)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halloween

 

 

 

 

Fauci

 

 


Iran hasn’t invaded a country in 300 years, yet we, the United States, being 246 years old, have been at war for 236 years.

 

 

Tedros
https://twitter.com/i/status/1581732938957443098

 

 

The universe contains more planets than seconds that have passed since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

 

 

 

 

The consequences have been known for months: NO GAS. And also:

“..Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksander Novak said the US should set a price cap on its own liquified natural gas (LNG) going to Europe..”

I think if serious peace talks don’t start within a month, it’s too late to stop the cold, the hunger, and the resulting riots.

Gazprom Outlines Consequences For Price Cap On Russian Gas (RT)

Plans to set a price cap on Russian gas sales, which are currently being considered by Western leaders, would cause supplies to be halted, according to Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller. “We rely on the contracts that have been signed. A unilateral decision of the kind is, of course, a violation of essential terms of the agreements which would lead to a termination of supplies,” Miller said on Sunday in an interview with Russia 1 TV. Numerous sanctions have been introduced by the US, EU, and allies on Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine. EU customers have so far reduced their purchases of Russian energy, and the G7 and EU are currently trying to introduce a price cap on Russia’s oil and gas.

Miller’s comments echoed a similar warning from President Vladimir Putin, who said last month that Moscow would cut off energy supplies if price caps are imposed. Earlier this month, EU leaders reached an agreement to impose yet another package of sanctions on Russia, including banning maritime transportation for Russian oil to third-party countries unless the oil is sold below or at a certain price. The measures would take effect after December 5, 2022 for crude and February 5, 2023 for refined petroleum products.

Earlier this week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that a price cap on Russian oil exports of around $60-per-barrel would likely reduce Moscow’s energy revenues while allowing profitable production, thus keeping Russian crude on the global market. Yellen stressed that the measure is still being discussed by the US and its Western allies. On Friday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksander Novak said the US should set a price cap on its own liquified natural gas (LNG) going to Europe, as American fuel is being delivered to Europe at prices four times higher than the price for domestic consumption.

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We’ve given them so much money, might as well hand over the keys to the safe too…

Ukraine Finance Minister To Chair IMF, World Bank Governing Boards In 2023 (R.)

The shareholders of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on Friday selected Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko as the next rotating chair of the boards of governors of both institutions in 2023. The decision, which was announced during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, means that Marchenko will also chair next year’s annual meeting of the institutions, which is scheduled to be held in Morocco. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war’s massive impact on the global economy have dominated this year’s meetings, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urging international donors to provide $55 billion in additional funding next year to keep his country’s economy running and fund some initial reconstruction.

World Bank President David Malpass told shareholders of both institutions on Friday that the World Bank Group had mobilized $13 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine since the war began, including grants, guarantees, and linked parallel financing from the United States, Britain, Europe and Japan. “I remain horrified by Russia’s actions and call for Russian forces to leave Ukraine,” Malpass said in his most explicit remarks on the war to date. Marchenko said his selection was unanimously approved by all governing member countries of the two global lenders, and marked the first time that Ukraine would lead the institutions since it joined 30 years ago.

The move was unanimously approved since there was no objection during the business portion of the plenary, a source close to the discussions said. Russia is a member of the institutions and could have objected, but did not. “It is a great honor to represent Ukraine” in the international financial arena, Marchenko said in a statement released by his ministry, adding that Ukraine would be able to increase its cooperation with international financial organizations and the member countries of the World Bank and IMF.

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From the Putin (and Genghis Khan, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Saddam) Eats Babies book:

Russia Responds To UN Official’s Rape Claims (RT)

Claims made by the UN special representative on sexual violence, Pramila Patten, go “beyond the reach of reason,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Sunday. Earlier this week, Patten accused Russia of employing a “deliberate” rape “strategy”as part of its military campaign in Ukraine. “One cannot even comment on P. Patten’s … words in a serious way,”Zakharova said, adding that the UN official’s conclusions were based on data that is difficult to verify, according to Patten herself. “Once again, what we are seeing is a classic ‘highly likely’ [story], which has this time reached the level of twisted imagination,” Zakharova said.

According to her, the UN official made her conclusions based on fragmentary data provided by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine – a group created in spring 2022 on the basis of a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council. Russia has not recognized its mandate, Zakharova added. Patten’s claims resemble those made by the former Ukrainian human rights commissioner, Lyudmila Denisova, Zakharova said. Denisova was fired from her position in late May after a no-confidence vote over her failure to perform duties such as organizing humanitarian corridors and prisoner exchanges amid the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Later, Ukrainian media reported that most of Denisova’s allegations regarding “sexual atrocities”committed by Russian soldiers in the country had not been confirmed by Ukrainian prosecutors.

The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman’s reaction was sparked by an interview Patten gave to AFP this week, in which she claimed that sexual violence is a “deliberate tactic” and “military strategy”of Russia, aimed at dehumanizing its “victims.” She also claimed that Russian soldiers are “equipped with Viagra.” Zakharova pointed out that similar claims have been made by Western officials in the past. In 2011, the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, reportedly accused then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi of supplying his troops with Viagra to supposedly encourage mass rape during a conflict that broke out following a NATO-backed coup attempt which ended with the brutal murder of Gaddafi. US military and intelligence officials subsequently told NBC that there was no evidence that the Libyan military was being supplied with Viagra or engaging in systematic rape in “rebel areas.” “The West is using the same patterns in its hybrid war,” Zakharova said on Sunday, commenting on Patten’s statements.

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“Judging by the insane blackmail they are exposing us to…they don’t want us. The sooner we accept that they don’t want us and that we don’t belong there, the better off we will be.”

EU Blackmails Serbia – Interior Minister (RT)

The EU’s offers to Serbia are unacceptable, and Serbs should “accept that they don’t want us,” Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin told the Novosti news site on Saturday. He added that Belgrade should instead turn its attention to “free countries that accept us without blackmail,” such as Russia and China. “The question is not whether we want to join the EU, but whether the EU wants Serbia,” Vulin told Novosti. “Judging by the insane blackmail they are exposing us to…they don’t want us. The sooner we accept that they don’t want us and that we don’t belong there, the better off we will be.” A traditional ally of Russia, Serbia has come under intense pressure from the West to back the sanctions regime against Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine.

The European Parliament has considered freezing accession talks with Belgrade over the latter’s refusal to back its eight rounds of economic penalties, US state media reported last month, while Germany and France have offered to “accelerate” Serbia’s path to EU membership if it recognizes the independence of the province of Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated last week. For Vulin and Vucic, the answer to these offers is a clear “no.” “How much would our friends respect us if they saw us neglecting our interests in the face of enemy force?” Vulin asked. “Who would fight for us if we chose not to fight for ourselves? “Relations with Russia, China and other free countries that accept us without blackmail and conditions are the future of Serbia,” he continued.

“I believe that friendship with Russia is of the greatest importance and that without it we risk the physical disappearance of Serbia.” sAccording to a poll taken in March, some 61% of Serbs oppose any cooperation with the US-led NATO alliance, largely due to the bloc’s support for Kosovo’s independence and its 1999 bombing campaign that brought about the end of Yugoslavia. Furthermore, while Serbia applied for EU membership in 2009, accession looks to be off the table for now. The EU’s latest sanctions package targeting Russian oil exports looks set to cost Belgrade hundreds of millions of euros, Vulin said last week, describing it as the “first EU sanctions package against Serbia.” Hungary has responded to the sanctions by announcing a new pipeline to help Serbia tap into the supply of Russian crude oil.

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If you live in a NATO country, you are now in a war you can’t win.

Kremlin Speaks On NATO’s ‘De-facto’ Role In Ukraine (RT)

NATO has “de-facto become involved in the Ukraine conflict,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russia 1 TV on Sunday, adding that this will not prevent Moscow from following through with its plans and achieving its military goals in Ukraine. The Kremlin spokesman acknowledged, however, that NATO’s interference makes it “significantly harder” for Russia to conduct its operation, though it does not change the goals. “This [NATO involvements] requires… our internal mobilization in the field of economy and other spheres,” he told Russia 1, adding that there is a major difference between “the Kiev regime and… the NATO potential.” However, Russia’s own “potential allows [it] to continue the operation under such circumstances,” Peskov said.


The Kremlin spokesman provided no further details about Moscow’s plans and strategy in the military campaign, which has lasted for more than seven months. Earlier this week, Moscow denied rumors that the operation in Ukraine is being redesignated as a counter-terrorism campaign. Peskov also said at the time that there have been no decisions regarding the introduction of martial law in Russian regions which have been targeted by Ukrainian strikes in recent weeks. Moscow also denied that it has considered travel restrictions for men eligible for military service amid the continuing partial mobilization. Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that over 200,000 reservists have been called up, most of which are still undergoing training, while adding that the draft will be completed in around two weeks.

Jimmy Dore

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Because it’s now NATO vs Russia.

China Orders Evacuation Of All Citizens Still In Ukraine (ZH)

China’s foreign ministry on Saturday issued an urgent call for any Chinese nationals still in Ukraine to exit immediately, kicking off speculation over what’s behind the unspecified appeal and scramble. The notification is being widely seen as the most forceful evacuation order yet, and suggests that Beijing might be aware of Russian plans for possibly imminent bigger, sweeping airstrikes against Ukrainian cities, such as the widespread escalatory strikes conducted last Monday into Tuesday. The first big evacuation of Chinese citizens took place starting last March, in which some 6,000 Chinese nationals left the country amid the Russian invasion.

But now, as state media Global Times writes, “Some Chinese nationals still in Ukraine have signed up for evacuation from the country, with most registering for organized evacuations, while others are preparing to leave Ukraine on their own, the Global Times learned on Sunday, after the Chinese Foreign Ministry urged Chinese citizens to leave Ukraine, citing the grave security situation.” The foreign ministry and embassy warned of the “grave security situation” and ordered an immediate departure, citing the need “to enhance safety precautions and evacuate.” The statement indicated that “the embassy will assist in organizing the evacuation of people in need.” Russian state sources also on Sunday began publicizing the new alert notification.

GT is reporting that an evacuation is now in progress: “As of press time on Sunday, 161 people had registered on the form the embassy sent out for organized evacuation, and another 27 people registered on the form for self-evacuation, according to a Global Times’ count of the registration on the embassy’s WeChat account.” It additionally comes at a moment of stepped-up cross-border attacks on the Russian city of Belgorod, which lies just north of the Ukrainian border opposite Kharkiv.

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The energy crisis is the result of NATO extremism.

Energy Crisis Will Breed Extremism – Bavarian President (RT)

Skyrocketing energy costs could lead to a rise in extremist sentiment across Germany, Bavarian President Markus Soder told Bild am Sonntag on Sunday. “The mix of crises, such as energy and coronavirus, can lead to overstrain and destabilization of democracy,” he said, urging “democratic parties” to “take a clear position, argue less, and encourage citizens.” Soder pointed to the increasing electoral success of the right-wing AfD party as proof that extremism is on the rise. He argued for a cap on gas prices and financial relief for citizens, as well as aid to small and medium-sized businesses to head off growing anti-government sentiment. Some 15,000 German stores are reportedly on the brink of closure due to spiraling energy costs, according to Der Spiegel.

Economy Minister Robert Habeck and Finance Minister Christian Lindner must also quit arguing over the future of nuclear power in the country, Soder continued. He insists the government should extend the operation of the remaining nuclear plants through at least 2024, as Lindner has proposed, and has called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to broker a peace between the two officials. Germany began shutting down its nuclear reactors in 2011 following the Fukushima disaster in Japan but has recently reconsidered the move in light of record gas prices exacerbated by the sanctions on Russian supplies. While former Chancellor Angela Merkel had promised to phase out all 17 of Germany’s nuclear reactors by the end of 2022, three remain in service. Lawmakers recently agreed to keep at least two of those on standby status, should the plan to make it through the winter by burning coal prove insufficient to meet demand.

In August, Stephan Kramer, president of the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, predicted a “winter of fury” in which “violent” extremists would hijack “legitimate” protests against the energy crisis. He also expects higher unemployment and other economic issues, warning broadcaster ZDF that mounting economic pressures combined with the strsess of the pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine could shake the nation when the temperature drops. While both Soder and Kramer have argued that “the trust of the population in state institutions and authorities” is crucial to maintaining order come winter, just 38% of the population believes Chancellor Scholz is fit for the top job, according to a poll conducted last month – and that was an improvement over public sentiment in August. Habeck and Lindner rate even lower, with approval ratings of 35% and 33.6%, respectively.

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“Then it will be the turn of the EU to be kicked out of Europe and ultimately the US will be kicked out of the Americas, especially out of the US.”

From Decolonisation to Desperation to Hopelessness to Farce (Batiushka)

The Western European Empires have gone. The bankrupt Spanish Empire went first, in the century before last, the Germans lost their colonies in 1919 (at the same time as the Austro-Hungarians lost their European colonies), then the Italians lost their fantasies in Africa during the Second World War, the Germans got kicked out of their colonies in Eastern Europe in 1945, but the Portuguese much later, only getting kicked out of Africa in the 1970s. By that time the Dutch, the British, the Belgians and the French had also been kicked out of their colonies. Only the NATO Danes still hold on to Greenland, which is a lot of ice and snow and all of 56,000 people, though both Eisenhower and Trump wanted to buy it. However, since the US has its base at Thule, it effectively controls the country anyhow.

Since 1947 the UK has been kicked out of almost everywhere, infamously from the Indian Subcontinent in 1947, from Palestine in 1948 and humiliatingly, by their Americans ‘allies’, from Suez in 1956. All that remains is, for the moment, a small group of tiny enclaves and islands like Bermuda, the Caymans, Gibraltar, St Helena, the Falklands etc, about 18,000 square kilometres and fewer than 300,000 people in all, plus a lot of ice in the ‘British Antarctic Territory’. As for France, after its humiliation in South-East Asia in 1954, it has gradually been kicked out of Africa (1946-2022) (Suez in 1956, Algeria in 1962 etc) and soon, even after its decades of assassinating independentist African politicians and military interventions, it will have nothing left there, though it still has a few islands in various oceans here and there.

As for the short-lived US Empire, over the last fifty years it has largely been kicked out of several Asian countries (Vietnam (1975), Iran (1979), Iraq (2011-2021) Afghanistan (2021), now out of Russia (2022), and soon out of China, India and Saudi Arabia. True, it still hangs on in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Israel, but not for much longer. Eurasia is to be US-free. As regards the Western withdrawal from Europe, the UK left Europe in 2020. It still hangs on to Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and above all to England, but it will not last. Now it is the turn of the US to be kicked out of Europe. It is happening in the Ukraine at this very moment, but this rejection will later spread to Western Europe. Then it will be the turn of the EU to be kicked out of Europe and ultimately the US will be kicked out of the Americas, especially out of the US.

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“At the time, the long-range missiles in Soviet territory took hours to fuel up and fire, meaning a delayed response to a US first strike.”

Echoes Of A Brush With ‘Armageddon’ (Tony Cox)

In 1962, the triggering event was the secret placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba, right on America’s doorstep. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev saw the move as a way to protect Cuba against a US invasion after the failed Bay of Pigs assault in April 1961, as well as a tit-for-tat response to the Pentagon’s deployment of Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy, which positioned Washington’s nuclear warheads to hit USSR territory in as few as 10 minutes. At the time, the long-range missiles in Soviet territory took hours to fuel up and fire, meaning a delayed response to a US first strike.

“Since the Americans have already surrounded the Soviet Union with a ring of their military installations, we should pay them back in their own coin and give them a taste of their own medicine so that they find out for themselves how it feels to live as a target of nuclear arms,” Khrushchev was quoted as saying by Aleksandr Alekseev, then Moscow’s ambassador to Cuba. US President John F. Kennedy didn’t see it that way when a U-2 spy plane spotted surface-to-surface missiles in Cuba on October 16. As Ukrainian-born author Serhii Plokhy wrote in his 2021 book, ‘Nuclear Folly,’ Kennedy was initially inclined to order an attack on the missile sites, which easily could have escalated into a Soviet response and, eventually, mushroom clouds on both sides.

The American president wasn’t yet aware that the Soviets had already shipped nuclear warheads to Cuba. Nor did he know that the USSR had 43,000 troops on the island, as well as tactical nukes that could be used to destroy a US attack force. But Kennedy knew that having Soviet ballistic missiles just across the Florida Straits – Havana is only about 1,100 miles from Washington and 230 miles from Miami – was intolerable and potentially gave the USSR the ability to win a nuclear war with the US. Russia has raised similar concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion. The Western military alliance was formed to ensure collective security against the USSR, but instead of reaping a peace dividend after the Soviet collapse in 1991, the bloc expanded to 30 states, nearly doubling in size. It also placed strategic weapons in Eastern Europe, which Moscow perceived as a threat.

As if those moves weren’t provocative enough, NATO has also pledged to eventually let Ukraine and Georgia join the US-led bloc, which would expand its reach into two former Soviet republics on Russia’s borders. Tensions escalated further when a US-backed coup overthrew Ukraine’s elected government in 2014, setting off a war between Kiev and separatists in the Donbass that left an estimated 14,000 people dead even before Russia began its military offensive last February. Some observers have blamed the US and NATO for provoking the conflict. “As the one who started the Ukraine crisis and the biggest factor fueling it, the US needs to deeply reflect on its erroneous actions of exerting extreme pressure and fanning the flame on the Ukraine issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in July.

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“They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity.”

The Gaslighting of the Masses (CJ Hopkins)

For students of official propaganda, mind control, emotional coercion, and other insidious manipulation techniques, the rollout of the New Normal has been a bonanza. Never before have we been able to observe the application and effects of these powerful technologies in real-time on such a massive scale. In a little over two and a half years, our collective “reality” has been radically revised. Our societies have been radically restructured. Millions (probably billions) of people have been systematically conditioned to believe a variety of patently ridiculous assertions, assertions based on absolutely nothing, repeatedly disproved by widely available evidence, but which have nevertheless attained the status of facts. An entire fictitious history has been written based on those baseless and ridiculous assertions. It will not be unwritten easily or quickly.

I am not going to waste your time debunking those assertions. They have been repeatedly, exhaustively debunked. You know what they are and you either believe them or you don’t. Either way, reviewing and debunking them again isn’t going to change a thing. Instead, I want to focus on one particularly effective mind-control technology, one that has done a lot of heavy lifting throughout the implementation of the New Normal and is doing a lot of heavy-lifting currently. I want to do that because many people mistakenly believe that mind-control is either (a) a “conspiracy theory” or (b) something that can only be achieved with drugs, microwaves, surgery, torture, or some other invasive physical means. Of course, there is a vast and well-documented history of the use of such invasive physical technologies (see, e.g., the history of the CIA’s infamous MKULTRA program), but in many instances mind-control can be achieved through much less elaborate techniques.

One of the most basic and effective techniques that cults, totalitarian systems, and individuals with fascistic personalities use to disorient and control people’s minds is “gaslighting.” You’re probably familiar with the term. If not, here are a few definitions: “the manipulation of another person into doubting their perceptions, experiences, or understanding of events.” American Psychological Association “an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity.” Psychology Today

“a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim’s mind. Typically, gaslighters are seeking to gain power and control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and intuition.” Newport Institute. The main goal of gaslighting is to confuse, coerce, and emotionally manipulate your victim into abandoning their own perception of reality and accepting whatever new “reality” you impose on them. Ultimately, you want to completely destroy their ability to trust their own perception, emotions, reasoning, and memory of historical events, and render them utterly dependent on you to tell them what is real and what “really” happened, and so on, and how they should be feeling about it.

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“Every nation just named is currently subjected to U.S. sanctions.”

The Non-West Coalesces (Patrick Lawrence)

Something of epochal importance happened in Vienna, where the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, now known as OPEC–Plus with the inclusion of the Russian Federation, convened recently for its first in-person session since 2020. You would not know of this development if you rely solely on the reports carried in our corporate-owned media. The world just took a significant turn into the 21st century. Let us stay abreast of it, leaving those who refuse to see this to their own devices. [..] As reported everywhere, OPEC–Plus decided to reduce the oil production of member nations by two million barrels per day as of next month. This may amount to an actual cut of half that amount, as many OPEC–Plus members—Nigeria, for instance—have not been lifting to their quotas anyway. But oil prices are already increasing, and we will soon see this at our filling stations. As retail prices rise, it is likely to complicate the political fortunes of the Biden administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill just as the midterm elections approach. So, a pretty big deal.

But this is not the half of what transpired in Vienna two weeks ago. Saudi Arabia, long the driving wheel in OPEC, effectively declared its long history of subservience to Washington, by way of which oil production has been exchanged for security guarantees, to be on the way out. One of Washington’s bedrock allies in the Middle East, Israel being the other, just took a major step toward the coalescence of non–Western nations into a coherent bloc acting in its own interests. This is more than a pretty big deal. It brings us considerably closer to the new world order Russia and China, the two most influential non–Western nations, have been talking about for several years and notably since the Biden administration took power in January 2021.

Within months, Beijing and Moscow concluded that there is no making sense of a nation that, even as its power declines, has no intention of working with them as equals to mutual benefit. Since then, numerous other countries have had little trouble detecting which way the wind blows.The Ukraine crisis has sent a new bolt of electricity through this geopolitical trend. Nations representing more than 80 percent of the global population and a like percentage of global gross domestic product are perfectly capable of seeing the Biden administration’s pointed provocations and do not approve. Partnerships that stop just short of alliances—a term of statecraft entailing explicit obligations in the way of mutual defense—have multiplied so quickly since Joe Biden took office it is hard to keep track of them.

Russia’s “no limits” relationship with China is the premier case. Russia has recently consolidated its cooperative ties with Iran. So has China. Iran and Venezuela, China and Cuba, China and Nicaragua—the list goes on. As we speak, Moscow and Beijing are developing partnerships of various kinds in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. But these nations, it is easy to note, are by and large beyond Washington’s fence posts: The policy cliques, this is to say, have them down as enemies. Every nation just named is currently subjected to U.S. sanctions. Parenthetically, I do have to wonder what happens when most of the world other than the Anglosphere and Western Europe is condemned in this way, but that is another conversation.

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“This may be the biggest biometric data collection operation in European history. What could possibly go wrong?

EU to Demand Holidaymakers’ Fingerprints and Facial Images at Borders (DS)

As of May 2023, the EU is to start demanding holidaymakers’ biometric data at its borders, greatly increasing both the level of surveillance in the bloc and the length of delays at transport terminals. Silke Carlo sounds the warning in the Telegraph: “Brits hopping across the Channel will first have their fingerprints and photos taken. The new mass data-gathering scheme, which will go live in May, is part of the evolution of a so-called ‘Smart Border’. But there is nothing ‘smart’ about the plans. The data grab has been justified by the aim of improving detection of dangerous travellers, finding vulnerable people, and reducing fraud, but it comes at an eye-watering cost to liberty and logistics. The border plans have been rightly described by civil society groups as “disproportionate and unnecessary”, while the Port of Dover’s boss has warned of “significant and continued disruption for a very long time”.

All travellers aged over 12 will need to be biometrically logged, creating an EU datastore loaded with hundreds of millions of people’s unique personal data. The EU is demanding not only a U.S.-style set of four fingerprints, but facial images too. Holiday-makers’ personal information will be mixed in with eventually billions of pieces of data, spanning photographs, palm prints, DNA records and facial biometrics, to which controversial recognition algorithms can be applied. This may be the biggest biometric data collection operation in European history. What could possibly go wrong?

Too many of our European friends have an indifferent attitude to the emergence of a data-hungry superstate – over 1.7 billion EU Digital Covid Certificates were issued during the pandemic – but even those falling out of love with liberté must be concerned about the disastrous impact on tourism and transport. The Big Brother-style EU border checks are estimated to take seven times longer than checks today and the tailback at Dover could grow by 19 miles – roughly the distance of the Channel crossing itself.

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Just explaining this to a friend yesterday. DeSantis’ moment is 2028.

Why Ron DeSantis Doesn’t Stand a Chance Against Donald Trump (CTH)

Appearing for an interview with Dave Rubin, the founder of Locals and a major conscript of the branding and image shaping effort behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Megyn Kelly gives Mr. Rubin the bitter pill of truth. Within this excerpt, Mr. Rubin struggles through the five stages of grief following Kelly’s red pill delivery, eventually stabilizing his emotion by accepting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis can still deliver good political outcomes for the state. It’s a very interesting dynamic to watch for a few reasons. First, because Megyn Kelly has first-hand experience with the power of the MAGA attachment to the atypical America-First leader. Second, because Kelly’s truthful statements cut against the objective for why Rubin was recruited by DeSantis Inc.

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Get them vaxxed!

Alarming Rise In Cancer Among Young People Across Globe (CNN)

More young people around the globe under the age of 50 are being diagnosed each year with early-onset cancer, according to a new study. Dr. Suneel Kamath, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, said the variety of different cancers on the rise in young people really surprised him. “The number of people that are presenting with advanced and unfortunately often incurable cancers in their 20s and 30s definitely seems to be skyrocketing,” Kamath said. Early-onset cases are rising for 14 types of cancers, many of which affect the digestive system, according to a review of 44 countries’ cancer registries published in the journal Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.


“The typical risk factors we think of that would cause these different tumor types are definitely different, specific to each one,” Kamath said. The review mentions that sensitive testing happening more in young people could account for part of the upswing, but many, including Kamath, say it mostly comes down to lifestyle: obesity, diets rich in processed foods, smoking and alcohol consumption are among the factors. Kamath said one of the most important things young people can do is advocate for themselves when something doesn’t feel right. “Pay attention to, you know, what’s going on with your body,” Kamath said. “Some people are going to get some resistance from their medical team, and it does mean they need to push a little harder to get to the bottom of what’s going on.”

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Should be 1 in 1 million at most.

One Serious Adverse Event Per Eight-Hundred Vaccinations (Arora)

A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Vaccine—known for publishing the highest-quality vaccinology research—contains bombshell findings about the safety of Covid vaccines. Crucially, the authors found one serious adverse event for ever 800 mRNA vaccinated participants, orders of magnitude higher than the 1 to 2 per million reported for other vaccines. The researchers conducted a secondary analysis of original data from Pfizer and Moderna’s phase 3 clinical trials, focusing on “adverse events of special interest (AESIs)” as listed by the Brighton Collaboration—a “global authority” on vaccine safety. As the authors write, this World Health Organization-approved priority list of adverse vaccine events hasn’t been used to examine side effects in COVID-19 vaccine trial data. The stunning finding was as follows: the risk of serious adverse events from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine exceeds the benefit of reduction of COVID-19 hospitalisation.


In the analysis, Moderna caused higher adverse events than Pfizer, but both were elevated compared to the placebo arm. “Higher risk of serious AESI was observed in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine group relative to placebo in both the Pfizer and Moderna adult phase III trials, with 10.1 (Pfizer) and 15.1 (Moderna) additional events for every 10,000 individuals vaccinated,” the authors wrote. The average risk difference across both vaccines was 12.5 serious AESIs per 10,000 individuals vaccinated. As the authors write, these results “raise concerns that mRNA vaccines are associated with more harm than initially estimated at the time of emergency authorization.”

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Seed oils

 

 

 

 

Odense geese
https://twitter.com/i/status/1581540446576250881

 

 

 

 

 

 

A handful of insects.

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 232022
 
 April 23, 2022  Posted by at 8:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Jackson Pollock Number 31 1949

 

Does Paul Craig Roberts like Genocide? (Orlov)
Zelensky Gets John F. Kennedy Award For Defending Democracy (AP)
Daddies in Mommie-land (Kunstler)
Migratory Birds Of Mass Destruction (IPL)
Xi Echoes Putin in Proposal for New ‘Global Security Initiative’ (ET)
Biden Proposes $500 Million In Aid For Ukrainian Government (Hill)
Turkey Says Some NATO Members Want Longer Ukraine War to Hurt Russia (Antiwar)
Russia Warns Greece of Complete Breakdown in Relations (GR)
FDA and Pfizer Knew COVID Shot Caused Immunosuppression (Mercola)
Patients Report A Rebound Of Covid-19 Symptoms After Taking Paxlovid (BGlobe)
The IMF and the Law of Unintended Consequences (CTH)
Staring Into the Abyss (CHS)
Woke Elitists Are Too Stupid To See Elon Musk Is Saving Twitter (Smith)
The Coming Removal of the Mandate of Heaven, Part 2: Water (GCW)

 

 

Gonzalo Lira

 

 

A different view.

 

 

Attacking PCR without even linking to what you’re citing is not great.

But Orlov’s view of the future is interesting.

Does Paul Craig Roberts like Genocide? (Orlov)

3. Russia has a great and prosperous future as a wealthy, well-educated, civilized, vast and resource-rich country, but this future has nothing to do with Europe or the rest of the West, which are going to collapse. The fact that Russia has been rather tightly integrated with the West ever since Peter the Great moved the capital to St. Petersburg has complicated its transition away from the West and its turn eastward. Western sanctions, rampant Russophobia and the application of cancel culture to Russian culture has made this transition inevitable in the eyes of most Russians, but the process takes time. It would not be helpful if tensions with the West decreased prematurely or if anti-Russian sanctions were removed before they are made completely irrelevant. Also, the West’s unwillingness to buy Russian energy, metals, fertilizer and other essentials speeds up its collapse timeline and that, for Russia, is also a positive.

4. Immediately after Russia commenced its Special Operation in the Ukraine, much of Russia’s remaining fifth-columnists departed for other lands. They already had no impact on Russian politics, but they still exerted some amount of influence in culture and education, and their departure has been most welcome. Given the absolutely overwhelming public support for the Special Operation in Russia, those liberals who have spoken out against it have thereby excused themselves from Russian public life, making room for new talent and new blood. This is also a process that needs to run its course and should not be rushed.

5. The Special Operation has allowed Russia to demonstrate the overwhelming superiority of its armed forces vis-à-vis NATO. All of the weapons that the West has managed to infiltrate into the Ukraine are either being destroyed by rocket attacks or are accumulating in stockpiles after being abandoned by retreating or surrendering Ukrainian troops. None of the obsolete Stingers, Javelins or other military junk has made much of a difference at all. There is very little of any significance that the West can do to hurt Russia’s careful and measured progress in the Ukraine. Once more, time is on Russia’s side: it will take another few months for it to register in the West that all those billions spent on aid to the Ukraine have gone into a black hole with nothing to show for it.

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We all know what award he’ll be heavily nominated for. That’s how crazy this has all become.

Zelensky Gets John F. Kennedy Award For Defending Democracy (AP)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is among five people named Thursday as recipients of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for acting to protect democracy. Zelensky was chosen because of the way he has “marshaled the spirit, patriotism and untiring sacrifice of the Ukrainian people in a life-or-death fight for their country,” as Russia pours in troops and assaults cities and towns, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation said. The foundation said four U.S. officials were chosen for standing up for free and fair elections, as the system is challenged in ways it has never been before. They are: Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers and Fulton County, Georgia, elections worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss.


Caroline Kennedy and her son, Jack Schlossberg, will present the awards May 22 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. The award was created by the family of the late president to honor public figures who risk their careers by embracing unpopular positions for the greater good, and is named after Kennedy’s 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Profiles in Courage.” “There is no more important issue facing our country, and the world, today than the fight for democracy,” Kennedy said in a statement. “The war in Ukraine has shown the world that we can’t take freedom for granted, and the courage of our elected officials in the U.S. reminds us that as citizens we each have a responsibility to protect our democracy and exercise our fundamental right to vote.”

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“..a shell of a man who, in his prime, lived just to work his official positions for millions in grift.”

Daddies in Mommie-land (Kunstler)

If the USA and its NATO allies actually cared about Ukraine, we would have just left the place alone to slowly settle into the de-industrialized agricultural backwater it was becoming. And if we wanted to prevent widespread devastation once Operation Z got underway, we would have promoted peace talks, with an emphasis on our previous declaration that Ukraine would not be a candidate to join NATO. Instead, we set up Ukraine as a launching pad for annoying Russia (while also using Ukraine as a money laundromat for public officials and arms-makers). America is a drama queen, like the Queen Bee in one of those Real Housewives shows on cable TV, whose entire purpose in life is creating colorful conflicts within her circle of sisters. Daddy is not needed around that house, except offstage maybe as the wide-receiver for a multi-million-dollar paycheck courtesy of the NFL (a rival entertainment).

When one of America’s drama queen stunts goes wrong, the Queen Bee melts into a puddle of tears — boo hoo — tripping the empathy toggle.The sisters cluster around her, beating their wings. Somebody, please, help her feel better… fetch her a glass of pino grigio or a Xanax! Drama Queen Bee America does not like how the Ukraine drama is playing out. The mean old Daddy Putin is rocking the joint, cleaning out the place like Gary Cooper in some Long Branch Saloon of the Eurasian steppe — heaving all those Azov Nazis through the swinging doors out into the dusty street. The other sisters in the NATO circle were induced to acting as cheerleaders for the Azov boys, and now Mr. Putin has gone and turned off Europe’s gas. Western Civ is about to be sent to bed without dinner — the ultimate daddy trick. Now the sisters are all going boo hoo. Nothing is working for the sisterhood.

America’s president, “Joe Biden,” suits the current national script perfectly. He’s a mere prop for the drama queens. No one mistakes him for “Daddy.” He’s the old, impotent, intemperate, often confused “Grampy,” a figure of bathos and derision, a shell of a man who, in his prime, lived just to work his official positions for millions in grift. How, otherwise, do you account for his fortune? The Ukraine money laundromat was one of his favorite stops, managed carefully by cheerleaders Victoria Nuland, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and NSC official Fiona Hill, America’s foreign policy establishment there back in the day. But who, exactly, is managing Grampy now backstage in the White House? My guess would be Susan Rice because you never hear anything about Susan Rice or her role there: Director of the Domestic Policy Council of the United States. Wow! Sounds weighty. When was the last time you saw her name in The New York Times or cable TV news? You’d think they’d be interested in her doings.

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“But the cover-up was only partially successful. Indeed, Russia is in possession of highly incriminating evidence.”

Migratory Birds Of Mass Destruction (IPL)

The UN Security Council held an extraordinary event on April 6 under the rubric Arria Formula Meeting on Biological Security regarding the biological activities in countries including Ukraine. Predictably, the US and UK representatives didn’t show up at the event and the western media also blacked out the proceedings. But that does not detract from the profound significance of what transpired. The highlight of the Security Council proceedings lasting over two hours was the disclosure by General Igor Kirillov, chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, that Washington is creating biological laboratories in different countries and connecting them to a unified system.

He said the US has spent more than $5 billion on military biological programs since 2005 and detailed that in territories bordering Russia and China alone, about 60 facilities have been modernised during this period. The Ukrainian network of laboratories is designed to conduct research and monitor the biological situation consisting of 30 facilities in 14 populated locations. Highly sensitive materials from the Ukrainian biological laboratories were exported to the US in early February just before the Russian special operation began, and the rest were ordered to be destroyed lest they fell into Russian hands. But the cover-up was only partially successful. Indeed, Russia is in possession of highly incriminating evidence.

Previously also, Russia had released a number of documents related to the biological military activities of the Pentagon, which pointed toward a worldwide project to set up biological laboratories in rival countries with the goal of developing targeted viral weapons against those countries. The proceedings of the Security Council conference on April 6 are in the public domain and are accessible. Russia has made specific allegations, pointing finger at:
• Pentagon funding for the bio-labs in Ukraine;
• Location of these bio-labs (not only in Ukraine but in 36 countries around the world);
• Diseases and epidemics on which research work is going on, focusing on the means for their release, the countries where they are being tested (even without the knowledge of the governments of these countries); and, of course,
• Experiments relating to coronavirus (and bats used to transmit this virus).

However, the US has so far point-blank refused to accept any supervision and verification of such incriminatory evidences and has stonewalled the demand for a verification mechanism. It is unlikely that the US will permit an international verification process that holds the potential to expose it as indulging in crimes against humanity — although there are appropriate frameworks in place including the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the UN, to hear the clarifications from the relevant country in a fair and impartial manner.

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Xi doesn’t echo anyone.

Xi Echoes Putin in Proposal for New ‘Global Security Initiative’ (ET)

Chinese leader Xi Jinping on April 21 took several veiled swipes at Washington and allies’ sanctions on Russia, while proposing what he called a new China-led “global security initiative.” Xi said the new initiative takes “legitimate security concerns of all” and upholds “the principle of indivisibility of security,” key concepts that Russia has used to justify its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its current assault on Ukraine. The “indivisibility of security” broadly refers to the idea that the security of one state is inseparable from that of other countries in the region, and thus no state should enhance its security at the expense of another’s. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in justifying his invasion of Ukraine, had argued that NATO’s strategy breached this principle.

The Chinese leader’s remarks, made during a video speech to the annual Boao Asia Forum, came as Beijing continues to strengthen its ties with Moscow even after Putin’s invasion. Earlier this week, a top Chinese diplomat pledged to deepen links with the aggressor state during a meeting with Russia’s envoy to China in Beijing. Since the war, the Chinese regime has repeatedly criticized Western sanctions and refused to condemn Moscow. It has also echoed Moscow’s propaganda claim that the United States and NATO instigated the conflict. During his speech, the Chinese leader said the security initiative would uphold “non-interference in internal affairs” and respect “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” slogans consistently used by Beijing to justify and deflect criticism of its aggression towards Taiwan. Beijing views the self-ruled island as its own territory to be taken by force if necessary.

The Chinese leader also reiterated Beijing’s opposition to “long-arm jurisdiction” and “unilateral sanctions,” without directly naming any country. Last month, Western officials warned that Beijing had signaled a willingness to provide Moscow with economic and military aid for its war effort. This prompted President Joe Biden to warn Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a March 18 video call of unspecified “consequences” should the regime materially support Moscow.

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It will all land in the pockets of the oligarchs.

Zelensky wants $7 billion per year.

Biden Proposes $500 Million In Aid For Ukrainian Government (Hill)

The Biden administration is seeking to send Ukraine $500 million to help keep its government services running as the war with Russia stretches into its third month, the Treasury Department announced Thursday. The administration will ask Congress to approve $500 million to cover the cost of Ukraine’s basic government services, including pensions, salaries and aid programs, the Treasury Department said. The aid package would be in addition to another $800 million in military support proposed by Biden on Thursday, which would also require approval from Congress. Biden said Thursday the U.S. has almost exhausted the $13.6 billion in Ukraine aid approved in a March government funding bill. Any new federal spending must be approved by the House and Senate before the president can sign the bill and send out the money.


“This is money the government can help use to stabilize their economy, to support communities that have been devastated by the Russian onslaught and pay the brave workers that continue to provide essential services to the people of Ukraine,” Biden said in remarks from the White House Thursday morning. Both Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met separately Thursday with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Wasington, D.C. Yellen and Shmyhal were joined by Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo and Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko. The U.S. and its allies have provided tens of billions of dollars in military and economic support to Ukraine as it attempts to fend off the Russian invasion. Mass emigration, compulsory military service for working-age men, the destruction of Ukrainian cities and the upended wheat planting season have derailed the Ukrainian economy, exacerbating the deep humanitarian costs of war.

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“The [Washington Post] report said: “For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

Turkey Says Some NATO Members Want Longer Ukraine War to Hurt Russia (Antiwar)

In an interview on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said some NATO member states want the war in Ukraine to last longer as a way to hurt Russia. “There are countries within NATO who want the war to continue,” Cavusoglu told CNN Turk. “They want Russia to become weaker.” According to Iran’s Mehr News Agency, Cavusoglu did not think the war would last long after Russia and Ukraine held peace talks in Istanbul last month. But following a NATO foreign ministers meeting, he was given the impression that some alliance members don’t want the war to end.


Since Russia invaded on February 24, the US and many of its NATO allies have abandoned diplomacy with Russia. Instead of seeking a diplomatic solution, the Western powers are pouring weapons into Ukraine and waging an economic sanctions campaign against Russia. The view among some NATO members on the war was summarized by a recent report from The Washington Post. The report said: “For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

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“this happened despite the fact that we share the same faith with the Greeks, the same traditions, and were always there to help our Greek friends.”

Russia Warns Greece of Complete Breakdown in Relations (GR)

Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned Greece on Friday that the relations between the two nations that “share the same faith” have been “reduced to almost nothing.” Maria Zakharova, director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, warned in a statement released on social media that the “historical parallels” between Greece and Russia were in danger of becoming “a solid double line between us.” The Russian official focused on Greece’s decision to declare 12 Russian officials “personae non-gratae,” on April 6 joining other European states that had taken similar steps in response to accusations of atrocities committed by Russian forces against civilians in Ukraine. The Foreign Ministry said the decision was made in line with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963.

Russia’s embassy in Athens condemned Greece’s decision and warned of consequences. “We have strongly protested against this unjustified and hostile step which aims to further destroy our bilateral relations,” the Russian embassy announced in a statement. “We made clear that this action will not remain without consequences,” it further said. In her social media post, Zakharova lamented the breakdown of relations between Russia and Greece and delved in the historic ties between the two countries. “There was a time when Russia helped Greece achieve independence and restore its statehood, and its first head was previously Russia’s foreign minister, but now this country’s diplomatic relations with Russia have been reduced to almost nothing,” Zakharova warned.

She added that “this happened despite the fact that we share the same faith with the Greeks, the same traditions, and were always there to help our Greek friends. “This is not so much an issue of Euro-Atlantic solidarity erasing the past, since it is a sovereign choice for every nation to decide whom to honor. Even worse, this deprives people and nations of their future, independence and the right to make sovereign choices,” Zakharova concluded.

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“Pfizer’s own consent form clearly states: “Although not seen to date, it cannot yet be ruled out that the studied vaccine can make a later COVID-19 illness more severe.“

FDA and Pfizer Knew COVID Shot Caused Immunosuppression (Mercola)

With another batch of 11,000 Pfizer documents, released April 1, 2022, old suspicions have gained fresh support. As reported by “Rising” cohost Kim Iversen (video), the first bombshell revelation is that natural immunity works, and Pfizer has known it all along. The clinical trial data showed there was no difference in outcomes between those with previous COVID infection and those who got the shot. Neither group experienced severe infection. Natural immunity was also statistically identical to the shot in terms of the risk of infection. The second revelation is that side effects from the shots were more severe in younger people, aged 18 to 55, than those aged 55 and older. (The risk of side effects also increased with additional doses, so the risk was higher after the second dose than the first.)

As many of us have said all along, the risk of severe COVID is dramatically lower in younger people than those over 60, which makes an elevated risk of side effects unacceptable. As noted by The Naked Emperor on Substack,[1] “with a vaccine that is producing more frequent and more severe reactions and adverse events in younger individuals, the vaccine should have been restricted to those who were actually at risk of severe COVID-19.” Interestingly, Pfizer’s documentation also includes medical information that mainstream media and fact checkers have labeled as misinformation or disinformation. A pediatric consent form lists several possible side effects, including a myocarditis rate of 10 in 100,000 — far greater than the 1 in 50,000 (i.e., 2 in 100,000) rate previously reported.

We also know that myocarditis is far more frequent in young males, so for them, the risk is significantly higher than 10 in 100,000, as they make up the bulk of these injuries. Many who have warned about the possibility of mRNA shots causing antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) — a situation in which you end up being more susceptible to serious infection than you would have been otherwise — have been smeared and demonized by media and labeled as disinformation spreaders. Yet Pfizer’s own consent form clearly states: “Although not seen to date, it cannot yet be ruled out that the studied vaccine can make a later COVID-19 illness more severe.” As noted by Iversen, if ADE truly was of no concern at all, the consent form would not include it. Yet there it is.

Vaccine-associated enhanced disease (VAED) is also listed as an “Important Potential Risk” in Table 5 on page 11 of a document called “5.3.6 Cumulative Analysis of Post-Authorization Adverse Event Reports.”As of February 28, 2021, Pfizer had 138 cases of suspected VAED, 75 of which were severe, resulting in hospitalization, disability, life-threatening consequences or death; a total of 38 cases turned out to be lethal and 65 remained unresolved. Moreover, as noted by the Daily Expose, “Phase 3 clinical trials are designed to uncover frequent or severe side effects before a vaccine is approved for use, including ADE. But herein lies the problem, [because] none of the COVID-19 vaccines have completed Phase 3 trials.”

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Anyone surprised?

Patients Report A Rebound Of Covid-19 Symptoms After Taking Paxlovid (BGlobe)

When it first hit the market in December, the COVID-19 antiviral treatment, Paxlovid, was hailed as a game-changer, an effective medicine that kept at-risk people out of the hospital. But now some patients are reporting on social media an unusual and unnerving phenomenon: their COVID symptoms appear to rebound after taking the medication. And it’s not just their symptoms that reappear. Many report that after finishing their five-day course of treatment, feeling better, and testing negative on an at-home rapid test, they then test positive again a few days later. The issue has captured the attention of at least two teams of Boston-area scientists, who are trying to understand what might be fueling the problem. Resistance to the drug? Patients being quickly reinfected?

Or maybe some people just need to take the medicine longer to mount a more effective immune response. Twitter and Reddit have been filled with patients and doctors sharing their experiences and hypotheses over the past few days, including John Donoghue, a 71-year-old emeritus physics professor in Amherst. “We had three cases in the house with the same pattern,” Donoghue said, in an interview. He, his wife, and her 95-year-old mother all were infected with COVID in the last month. All three received Paxlovid, felt better, and tested negative on rapid tests for four or five days. Then their symptoms returned and each one tested positive again.

“The symptoms the second time were milder,” Donoghue said. “In some ways, we feel that Paxlovid did its job. It took away the extreme symptoms of the first round and reduced them very quickly in all three cases.” Paxlovid, granted an emergency use authorization by federal regulators in late December, is an at-home treatment prescribed at the first sign of infection to patients at high risk of serious COVID complications. The treatment consists of a series of three pills taken twice a day for five days. In its clinical trial, Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant that manufactures Paxlovid, reported an 89 percent reduction in COVID-related hospitalization or death from any cause in patients who received Paxlovid within three days of symptoms, compared with patients who received a placebo.

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“Now, the world is facing massive inflation, economic contraction, looming hunger, widespread famine and a pending global financial collapse.”

The IMF and the Law of Unintended Consequences (CTH)

It’s not exactly a confidence builder when the Director of the International Monetary Fund answers the question about forward priorities by saying, “Perhaps we need to pay attention to the law of unintended consequences.” You had one job Kristalina, one job. During an International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring debate and discussion segment, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, outlined her perspective against the backdrop of massive inflation caused by the global financial institutions telling government to spend money and they will print it, during COVID. [The video is prompted to 01:04:50].


The discussion included EU Central Bank President Lagarde, US Fed Chair Powell, Indonesian Finance Minister Mulvani – when IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva admitted they channeled their COVID fear and emotions by unsustainably printing money without pausing to think through the consequences. Now, the world is facing massive inflation, economic contraction, looming hunger, widespread famine and a pending global financial collapse. Their response? “Whoops.” Not to worry, they’ll have a little wine and chocolate and figure things out. Swear.

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“..the Fed has exacerbated socially fatal neofeudal inequality..”

Staring Into the Abyss (CHS)

The global economy is perched on the edge of an abyss, and averting our gaze doesn’t actually lessen the risk, it increases it because problems which aren’t faced directly and addressed directly fester and rot the system from within. This is why we’re collectively staring into the abyss: all the big problems have been dismissed, ignored or papered over with PR-happy-talk “solutions” that only make the problem worse. There are three basic techniques that our “leadership” (public and private) have used to avoid dealing directly with our pressing problems: 1. Appear to address the problems by doing more of what’s failed spectacularly. 2. Propose magical-thinking happy-happy technological “solutions” that are appealing but impractical. 3. Keep the status quo glued together to maximize quick-buck gains for the elite while guaranteeing long-term catastrophe for the entire society / economy.

Doing more of what’s failed spectacularly is one of the phrases you’ve seen here over the years. This generates an illusion of control because the tried-and-true Band-Aid makes it look like the problem is being addressed. Since doing more of what’s failed spectacularly doesn’t break the system immediately, everyone incorrectly assumes it’s benign or actually helping. The Federal Reserve’s blowing of serial speculative credit-asset bubbles is a good example. With the bogus goal of generating a “wealth effect” that only rewards the already-rich, the Fed has exacerbated socially fatal neofeudal inequality and created guaranteed-to-pop bubbles that each collapsed with devastating consequences for the credulous who believed the Fed’s poisonous assurances that a) this isn’t a bubble and b) bubbles never pop.

The Fed’s “solution”–blowing an even bigger bubble to paper over the catastrophic losses when the previous bubble popped–has finally reached the endgame: three bubbles and you’re out (2000, 2008-09 and 2021-22). Sorry to disappoint the beneficiaries of the three Fed bubbles, but there won’t be a fourth bubble. Bubbles don’t inflate at the bottom of the abyss.

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Does woke Twitter have a future?

Woke Elitists Are Too Stupid To See Elon Musk Is Saving Twitter (Smith)

In the past year Big Tech and Big Media are learning a valuable lesson – That “Get Woke, Go Broke” is not just a mantra, it’s a rule. We’ve just seen companies like Netflix take a massive market beating because of their hubris and their presumption that they can simply dictate the path of our culture from on high through leftist propaganda. CNN just shut down their premium “+” service after a single month because no one trusts them enough to pay them pocket change for content. And Disney is about to lose their municipal charter in Florida because they thought they were in charge of the state and its laws, when in fact they are not. Woke corporations are slowly but surely dying and leftists don’t seem to grasp the situation.

They’ll never admit openly that the reason these companies are seeing declines is because of their cult-like political stance that justifies the forced indoctrination of everyone, including children. They’ll say it was covid, they’ll say it was inflation, they’ll say it was bigotry, but in reality it was always them. No one likes them, and people are finally realizing they don’t have to spend money buying products from insane leftists they don’t like. In this regard Twitter is a bit of an enigma. The social media company has gone from a relatively innocuous space for people to market online businesses and for politicians and celebrities to engage with their followers or detractors, to a vicious battleground overrun with leftist zealots hellbent on using the platform as a weapon to silence dissent and destroy the lives of people that disagree with them. The platform went from average social media outlet to becoming a birthplace for evil behavior.

If I was to describe what Twitter really stands for today, I would say it is an attempt to build a global hive mind; a place where everyone is coerced into conformity with establishment ideals through peer pressure and mob aggression. That is to say, Twitter is the antithesis to a free speech society; a beta test for the future of authoritarianism where you THINK you are allowed to speak your mind but only the “correct” opinions are allowed to pass. How this happened is hard to say. Some theorize that leftist cultists scrambled like rats from the sinking ship of Tumblr and found their way over to Twitter to take up residency. I would argue that maybe Twitter was always intended to become what it now is. Just take a look at the monster’s gallery of its largest shareholders.

If Elon Musks Takes Over, He’ll Expose Twitter

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The water wars will not be pretty. Promise.

The Coming Removal of the Mandate of Heaven, Part 2: Water (GCW)

In order to understand the grave danger China is facing, we need to understand water usage and thresholds below which the population begins to face some level of danger. For that, we’re going to turn to Reuters for an overview. At a minimum, a civilization requires 1,700 cubic meters of water per person per year to be considered water secure. This amounts to 373,947 gallons of water per person, with a minimum of 4,156 gallons of water per year to ensure good health. Freshwater is used for everything from industry to agriculture to power generation, and our infrastructure is rated for a minimum level of water moving through the pipes. If that water falls below that level, pressure drops and the water can become unsafe.

This starts to become a problem at 1,000 cubic meters per person per year, and reaches a threat level at 500 cubic meters per person per year. Beijing is currently sitting at 100 cubic meters of fresh water per person per year. Barely seven times the necessary minimum for a person to remain healthy, with the rest stretched thin and endlessly recycled as it eventually becomes useless for any purpose which brings it into contact with humans in any way. When examining the water situation in a given country, the first place to look is always the groundwater situation. Which, in China’s case, isn’t very positive. Over 80% of the groundwater in China is unsafe, according to publicly available data attained from a Chinese government survey. Information which is normally a closely held secret.

Same with the fact that 47% of the groundwater in China is so badly polluted it can’t even be used for industrial purposes. Note, Beijing gets almost a third of their water from groundwater sources, which must be thoroughly treated at massive cost in man-hours, materials, and energy before it can be used by the general public. This has resulted in Beijing sinking at a rate of 11 cm per year as the depleted aquifer results in subsidence. Assuming its even at a level which can be affordably treated. Which 47% of the groundwater can’t be. This situation is even worse in the cities, where 90% of the groundwater is unusable for purposes which would bring it into contact with people. And, ironically, although the groundwater pollution is worse in the cities, rural areas are more heavily affected due to the fact most rural communities lack the resources to treat either the water they take in for normal usage or the waste water they release back into the wild.

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Brand

 

 

 

 

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Feb 072022
 


René Magritte Meditation 1936

 

Ottawa Mayor Declares State of Emergency Due to Convoy Protest (ET)
Ottawa Police Threaten Arrests For Sharing Fuel With Freedom Convoy (RT)
Canada Contracts To Deliver 100 Million Vaccine Doses Annually For Years (CBC)
6 Big Differences Between Natural Vs. Vaccine-Induced Immunity (Verkerk)
Why Was There No Warp Speed for Therapeutics? (Suissa)
EU Wants To Keep Vaccine Passports In Place For Another Entire Year (SN)
Broad Support For Petition Puts A Lot Of Pressure On Corona Pass (Tr.)
The Revolution Has Come For Joe Rogan (Techno Fog)
Mark Zuckerberg Could Face Jail Time Under New UK Law (RT)
Trapped in IMF debt, Argentina Turns To Russia And China (Norton)
Biden Security Advisor Sullivan: Russian Invasion ‘Any Day Now’ (CNBC)

 

 

 

 

Bulford
https://twitter.com/i/status/1490418278157717518

 

 

 

 

 

 

“To anybody who is annoyed, we apologize. Please call Justin Trudeau, his office, and get these mandates lifted, and we’re out of here..”

Sending in the riot police when there is no riot…

Ottawa Mayor Declares State of Emergency Due to Convoy Protest (ET)

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson has declared a state of emergency due to the trucker protest that continues in the city’s downtown core. In a brief statement, the city said the decision reflects the “serious danger and threat to the safety and security of residents posed by the ongoing demonstrations and highlights the need for support from other jurisdictions and levels of government. ” “It also provides greater flexibility within the municipal administration to enable the City of Ottawa to manage business continuity for essential services for its residents and enables a more flexible procurement process, which could help purchase equipment required by frontline workers and first responders,” the city said in its statement. Protest organizers say their demonstration is peaceful.

The protest started as a demonstration by truckers against the federal government’s requirement for cross-border truck drivers to be vaccinated, but has since evolved into a large movement joined by people from across Canada to oppose different COVID-19 mandates and restrictions. Vehicle convoys came to Ottawa on Jan. 29, and many have stayed in the city, with trucks and other vehicles parked by Parliament Hill. Many protesters say they will remain until the mandates are lifted. Sounds of honking horns can be heard throughout the day in the Parliament Hill area, which residents are complaining about.Protest organizer Benjamin Dichter says people who are unhappy about the honking should be contacting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and ask him to lift COVID-19 mandates.“To anybody who is annoyed, we apologize. Please call Justin Trudeau, his office, and get these mandates lifted, and we’re out of here,” Dichter said at a press conference in Ottawa on Feb. 6.

Trudeau has refused to meet with the protesters. Tom Quiggin, who is helping the organizers with “protective intelligence,” said many people across Canada have lost their jobs, homes, and businesses as a result of COVID-19 mandates and restrictions, and they have grievances too, which is why they are protesting in the nation’s capital. “Let’s remember most of Ottawa is government, huge number of civil servants here. They haven’t missed a paycheque. They’ve got pay raises, some of them have got back pay, most of them are working from home. Some of them who can’t work from home are just doing nothing and still getting paid,” Quiggin said at the press conference. “So yes, it’s unfortunate that they feel bad about the horns, yes, it’s unfortunate they feel bad about the disruption, but the rest of the country is hurting.”

Ottawa riot police

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In the middle of winter…

Ottawa Police Threaten Arrests For Sharing Fuel With Freedom Convoy (RT)

Anyone who attempts to provide “material support” to the Freedom Convoy truckers and other anti-Covid-mandate protesters could be subject to arrest, Ottawa police announced, as Mayor Jim Watson declared a state of emergency in the city. Police issued the warning on Twitter on Sunday afternoon. Asked whether “material support” included vital necessities like food and water, a police spokesperson told Fox News that the announcement “relates to hazardous materials that represent a public safety or fire hazard.” Officers on the ground in downtown Ottawa reportedly told the drivers that after midnight on Sunday, no gas and diesel cans or propane tanks would be allowed into the area.

Officially, the Ottawa Police Service would not comment on the alleged deadline, saying they do not speak about operations “for officer safety reasons,” according to the Ottawa Citizen. According to several videos shared on social media, police have already seized multiple batches of fuel from protesters, but there were no reports of arrests as of 9pm local time. Mayor Jim Watson declared a state of emergency in Ottawa on Sunday afternoon, citing “serious danger and threat to the safety and security of residents,” as the Freedom Convoy shows no signs of ending. “The situation at this point is completely out of control because the individuals with the protest are calling the shots,” Watson said, adding that the protesters have “far more people than we have police officers.”

Over the past week, authorities placed heavy barricades at key crossing points throughout downtown and closed multiple roads, effectively blocking new trucks with full tanks of fuel from coming into the so-called ‘red zone’, so the protesters started using gas cans. Now authorities are seeking to cut off this lifeline as well. The protesters have promised to hold the line until the government repeals its vaccination mandates and QR code “health passports.” Organizers have indicated that they plan to stay in Ottawa for the “long haul,” seeking donations from supporters to cover the costs of fuel, food and lodging. After fundraising platform GoFundMe froze some $7 million in donations following “discussions” with Canadian authorities, the movement regrouped on competitor GiveSendGo, raising another $3.8 million in less than three days.

Ottawa fuel

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Population Canada: 38 million.

Canada Contracts To Deliver 100 Million Vaccine Doses Annually For Years (CBC)

Federal COVID-19 vaccine contracts mean Canada should get enough doses to give two or three more mRNA shots to every Canadian, every year, until at least 2024. But even as the National Advisory Committee on Immunization is now suggesting some Canadians get in line for their fourth doses, the World Health Organization is warning that “repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition” are not a sustainable plan to end the pandemic.The WHO’s vaccine technical committee said today vaccines need to become more effective at keeping up with emerging variants.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday there will be third and fourth booster doses available in this country if or when they’re needed.

Contracts signed last year provide for delivery of up to 65 million doses from Pfizer and 35 million from Moderna this year, followed by 60 million from Pfizer and 35 million from Moderna in each of the next two years. More than three in four Canadians already have their first two doses, and more than one in four already have a booster shot as Canadian health authorities try to cut off the Omicron variant. The variant is breaking through the original vaccines but is mostly not causing serious illness, even in those with just the first two doses. Dr. Srinivas Murthy, a British Columbia pediatrician and co-chair of the WHO’s clinical research committee on COVID-19, said the booster response is panicky politics not public health.

“It’s a continually boost and boost and boost and hope that the virus will eventually go away or will build up enough of a immunity wall so that the virus can’t creep over it and get into Canada,” he said. Murthy said with Omicron there is some data that suggests a third dose is doing better at preventing infection outright than the original two doses, but he said there is no evidence a fourth dose is helping at all.

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Good and long. Do read.

6 Big Differences Between Natural Vs. Vaccine-Induced Immunity (Verkerk)

Look again at figure 3 and note the vertical red lines we’ve inserted for all age groups 50 and older. The red line on the left of each of the lower 6 graphs intersects the horizontal axis on the date antibodies were found in 80% of the population. The red line on the right side intersects the horizontal axis on the date boosters were administered to 80% of that same age group. Note the many months that separate these two events. The take-home is that elevated antibodies were already widespread in the older age groups well before the booster campaign was even started — and even longer before coverage reached 80% of each of the age groups.


It’s also worth noting that antibody-mediated partial (non-sterilizing) immunity in heavily vaccinated populations is increasingly clouded by the fact that it is in essence “hybrid” immunity that, at least for a short period, includes naturally-acquired and jab-induced immunity. For any population group that isn’t vulnerable to severe COVID-19 disease and COVID-19 death – which represents almost everyone since omicron has become dominant – the risk of serious adverse events almost certainly outweighs any benefits. Deception no. 2 can therefore be summarized as follows: Boris Johnson deceived the public when he said boosters were the reason the UK was ready to lift restrictions. One wonders, rhetorically, who put those words in his mouth? I, cynically speaking, just can’t imagine.

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We know why.

Why Was There No Warp Speed for Therapeutics? (Suissa)

When Congress investigates our response to the pandemic, this ought to be the first question: Why was there no Operation Warp Speed for therapeutics, just as there was for vaccines? This question is crucial for the obvious reason that countless lives could have been saved, but also because a warp speed initiative for therapeutics might have minimized the relentless lockdowns and mandates that have devastated and divided our country, not to mention triggered a mental health crisis and forced millions of school children to isolate at home in front of computer screens. A lot may have changed in two years as we’ve learned more about the virus and its variants, but this truth hasn’t changed: We should have treated therapeutics a lot more seriously from the very beginning.

Why didn’t we? Congress must get to the bottom of this, but there are things we already know. For starters, we know the elephant in the room: drug companies make more money with vaccines. That’s just a fact. Whereas vaccines aim for 100 percent of a population and have repeat doses, therapeutics aim only for those who get sick. According to Nature magazine, global sales of COVID vaccines were expected to top $50 billion in 2021. It’s no surprise, then, that the warp speed initiative for vaccines was so speedy—the drug companies had a major financial incentive. We also know that the hyperfocus on vaccines had serious repercussions. Because vaccines prioritize mass protection over treatment, we were urged to protect ourselves at all cost.

This created a climate of fear, making us more willing to accept any public measure or mandate we believed would protect us. Eventually, it made us resentful of anyone who didn’t share our beliefs. Therapeutics nurture caution but not paranoia. You know that even if you get infected, there is a treatment. In recent months, as the health establishment has tried to catch up, more and more doctors have been using different sorts of therapeutics to help treat COVID, using the best data available. Unfortunately, without a massive, concerted and credible effort behind them, therapeutics are still seen as the stepchild to vaccines. This is tragic, because with millions of lives at stake around the world, therapeutics deserve to be at least equal partners. While vaccine efficacy can wane with time, as we’re seeing now with COVID vaccines, therapeutics are precision weapons that have no such limitation.

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My precious…

EU Wants To Keep Vaccine Passports In Place For Another Entire Year (SN)

The unelected bureaucrat governors of the EU in the European Commission have proposed keeping the bloc’s COVID vaccine passport system in place for another entire year, despite the fact that many member countries are ramping down restrictions. In a notice on its website, the Commission states “Today the European Commission is proposing to extend the EU Digital COVID Certificate by a year, until 30 June 2023.” It continues, “The COVID-19 virus continues to be prevalent in Europe and at this stage it is not possible to determine the impact of a possible increase in infections in the second half of 2022 or of the emergence of new variants.”

“Extending the Regulation will ensure that travellers can continue using their EU Digital COVID Certificate when travelling in the EU where Member States maintain certain public health measures,” the statements adds. It continues, “The Commission is adopting the proposal today to make sure the European Parliament and the Council can conclude the legislative procedure in time before the current Regulation expires.” The move comes even as several countries, including Denmark, Norway, Italy, Sweden, France, in addition to non-EU countries such as Switzerland and England move to scrap restrictions including the vaccine passes. The European Commission admits in its statement that it is up to the individual countries whether they carry on using the EU COVID vaccine passport scheme.

“The domestic use of EU Digital COVID Certificates remains a matter for Member States to decide, the statement notes, adding “The EU legislation on the EU Digital COVID Certificate neither prescribes nor prohibits the domestic use of EU Digital COVID Certificate (such as for access to events or restaurants).” It also notes that “At the same time, where a Member State establishes a system of COVID-19 certificate for domestic purposes, it should continue to ensure that the EU Digital COVID Certificate is also fully accepted for those purposes. Beyond that, the Commission also encourages Member States to align their domestic validity periods with the validity period set at EU level for the purpose of travel.”

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Google translation from Dutch.

Broad Support For Petition Puts A Lot Of Pressure On Corona Pass (Tr.)

Immediately abolish the corona ticket because the pass does not work and does not suit the Netherlands. In short, that is the message of a manifesto drawn up by the ‘Undistributed Open’ action group, led by CDA celebrity and former State Secretary Mona Keijzer. The call received support from hundreds of thousands of people over the weekend. The question that arises is: are politicians in The Hague sensitive to such a large movement and does this action herald the end of the QR code? Within 24 hours, the counter was already above 300,000 signatures, the limit that until recently existed to enforce an advisory referendum. By Sunday evening, 480,000 people had put their names to the petition.

The authors of the manifesto are against any form of a corona pass, now and in the future, because they believe that the damage caused by the pass – reduced freedom of movement for many Dutch people and polarization in society – is disproportionate to the marginal gain for public health. The corona ticket is currently mandatory in many places from the age of 13: in the catering industry, the cultural sector and in indoor sports (from 18 years). People get a QR code if they are vaccinated, cured or tested (3G). The manifesto is a logical consequence of a broadened opposition to the corona pass. The QR code has been a controversial subject since its introduction in September last year.

While demonstrations against the regular corona policy last year often did not attract more than a thousand demonstrators, there were 20,000 demonstrators in Amsterdam just before the introduction. Distinguishing between vaccinated and unvaccinated was going too far for many people and there was a lack of good evidence, they said. When the coalition wanted to expand the pass to ‘2G’ at the end of November, whereby unvaccinated people no longer have access, the discussion became sharp. Omikron gave the resistance an extra push: due to the contagiousness of this milder variant, the effect of the pass is very limited, a recent study by TU Delft showed.

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Taliban tactics.

The Revolution Has Come For Joe Rogan (Techno Fog)

The Taliban took back Afghanistan in the late summer of 2021, shortly after the Americans withdrew, tired and weary and broke after nearly 20 years of fighting. They seized control of the country in the broad and particular sense: setting up command in the presidential palace in Kabul and targeting the individuals who criticized the new government. By December 2021, regular Afghans and the members of the Afghan press who had expressed critical views of their new rulers had “been subjected to months of intimidation and fear.” The Biden Administration has adopted these same tactics, calling for their critics to be silenced by the Administration’s corporate and media allies.

After 20 years of trying to export Western values to Afghanistan, they ended up importing Taliban-style repression to the United States. And it only cost us trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. Now, the Regime and its comrades target Joe Rogan, an inquisitive comedian with a podcast. He is accused of spreading “misinformation” by those that illegally spy on their citizens and lies without remorse. In reality, this isn’t about misinformation. It’s that Rogan’s crimes are those of words and thought. They prosecute on behalf of the god they have created, searching to eradicate those guilty of the sin of blasphemy. The Taliban would be proud. We can be certain that the Regime is not concerned with the truth. Have you seen them struggle to explain the “evidence” that Russia was planning a false-flag in Ukraine to justify an invasion?

Or, consider how the COVID-19 misinformation originated from the U.S. government and its bureaucratic arms. In early 2020, Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins were both presented with arguments that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered. Instead of investigating this issue, they saw to it that this theory was killed off. Despite – or perhaps because of – these lies, Fauci and Collins remain dear sons of the Regime. Reminders that “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.” (The Christians of the Left – such as David French – even go so far as to say that you have a “spiritual problem” if you don’t trust Fauci and Collins. Both the left and the right make their idols.) They killed the truth before. Who is to say they’re not trying to do that with Rogan?

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Apparently we all could, for sharing Covid disinformation.

Mark Zuckerberg Could Face Jail Time Under New UK Law (RT)

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other Big Tech executives risk ending up in jail if their social media platforms do not block content deemed harmful under upcoming online safety laws, UK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has warned. Speaking to Times Radio on Saturday, Dorries said Zuckerberg, who heads Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and other tech bosses could “absolutely” be put behind bars if they did not comply with the government’s draft Online Safety Bill. She expressed hope that the legislation would be a “notice to the online platforms to say here it is, we’re letting you know what it is now, so start doing what you need to do.”


Under the bill’s proposed ‘duty of care’ regime, communications regulator Ofcom’s powers could jail tech executives for up to two years for failing to remove illegal content, The Telegraph reported. The government had announced on Friday that several new criminal offenses had been added to the bill, including revenge porn, hate crime, fraud, the sale of illegal drugs or weapons, the promotion or facilitation of suicide, people-smuggling, and sexual exploitation. The government claimed that naming these offenses would enable Ofcom to take enforcement action against non-compliant firms more quickly. But Dorries said these platforms “don’t need to wait for the bill” since they “have the powers to [take action] now.”

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Once a country is part of Brick and Road, it’s much harder for the CIA to work its magic.

Trapped in IMF debt, Argentina Turns To Russia And China (Norton)

The United States constantly intervenes in the internal affairs of Latin America, organizing coups d’etat, destabilizing independent governments, trapping nations in debt, and imposing sanctions. Washington sees the region as its own property, with President Joe Biden referring to it this January as “America’s front yard.” Seeking alternatives to US hegemony, progressive governments in Latin America have increasingly looked across the ocean to form alliances with China and Russia. Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández did exactly that this February, taking historic trips to Beijing and Moscow to meet with his counterparts Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.


Fernández signed a series of strategic agreements, officially incorporating Argentina into Beijing’s international Belt and Road Initiative, while expanding economic partnerships with the Eurasian powers and telling Moscow that Argentina “should be the door to enter” Latin America. China offered $23.7 billion in funding for infrastructure projects and investments in Argentina’s economy. In the meetings, Fernández also asked for Argentina to join the BRICS framework, alongside Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Xi and Putin reportedly both agreed. “I am consistently working to rid Argentina of this dependence on the IMF and the US,” Fernández explained. “I want Argentina to open up new opportunities.” The Argentine president’s comments and meetings with Putin and Xi reportedly angered the US government.

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Fake news.

Biden Security Advisor Sullivan: Russian Invasion ‘Any Day Now’ (CNBC)

A Russian invasion of Ukraine could be imminent, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan warned on Sunday. “We are in the window,” Sullivan said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “Any day now, Russia could take military action against Ukraine or it could be a couple of weeks from now, or Russia could choose to take the diplomatic path instead.” Sullivan appeared on several morning news programs to discuss the ongoing situation in Eastern Europe. His appearances come after two U.S. officials said Russia has in place about 70% of the combat power it believes it would need for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The number of battalion tactical groups in the border region has risen to 83 from 60 as of Friday and 14 more are in transit, according to Reuters.

“We believe that the Russians have put in place the capabilities to mount a significant military operation into Ukraine and we have been working hard to prepare a response,” Sullivan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” The form of attack could take different forms, Sullivan told NBC. Possible attacks could include annexing Ukraine’s Donbass region, cyberattacks or a full-scale invasion. “Part of the reason we’ve been working so intensively over the last few months is not just to prepare for one contingency but to prepare for all contingencies and to work with our allies and partners on what a response would look like in each of those instances,” Sullivan said. The U.S. and its allies have been clear the nations would act aggressively if Russia launches an attack. The U.S., for example, has threatened severe sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin invades.

The timeline for diplomatic negotiations could be dwindling. “We believe that there is a very distinct possibility that Vladimir Putin will order an attack on Ukraine,” Sullivan said on ABC’s “This Week.”If a full-scale Russian invasion occurs, thousands of civilians and troops could die, according to Reuters. Ukraine could suffer 5,000 to 25,000 troop casualties, the outlet reported, citing a U.S. official. Russia’s troop casualties could be between 3,000 and 10,000, and civilian casualties could range from 25,000 to 50,000, according to U.S. estimates. It would also prompt millions of Ukrainians to be displaced.

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Turin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1490253682721574915

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Aug 192021
 


Henri Matisse View of Nôtre Dame 1914

 

Early Covid-19 Therapy Significantly Improved Covid-19 Outcomes (SD)
Up To 100 May Already Be Infected In New Zealand Covid Outbreak (G.)
Jabbed Adults Infected With Delta ‘Can Match Virus Levels Of Unvaccinated’ (G.)
Get Ready for a Nationwide Eldercare Shortage (CTH)
Former Purdue Pharma Chair Denies Responsibility For US Opioid Crisis (AP)
How Americans View Government Restriction Of False Information (Pew)
New US Air Force Secretary Wants To “Scare” China (Antiwar)
Fire The Military And Intelligence Bigs Who Bungled Afghanistan – Now (NYP)
We Failed Afghanistan, Not the Other Way Around (Taibbi)
IMF Suspends Afghanistan’s Access To Resources (Hill)
Taliban To Reap $1 Trillion Mineral Wealth (DW)

 

 

 

 

Polysaccharides may work. I think I like the illustration.

 

 

Science Direct is an Elsevier publication. We’re getting serious. The shift is slow but real.

Early Covid-19 Therapy Significantly Improved Covid-19 Outcomes (SD)

In a prospective observational study (pre-AndroCoV Trial), the use of nitazoxanide, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine demonstrated unexpected improvements in COVID-19 outcomes when compared to untreated patients. The apparent yet likely positive results raised ethical concerns on the employment of further full placebo controlled studies in early-stage COVID-19. The present analysis aimed to elucidate, through a comparative analysis with two control groups, whether full placebo-control randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on early-stage COVID-19 are still ethically acceptable. The Active group (AG) consisted of patients enrolled in the Pre-AndroCoV-Trial (n = 585). Control Group 1 (CG1) consisted of a retrospectively obtained group of untreated patients of the same population (n = 137), and Control Group 2 (CG2) resulted from a precise prediction of clinical outcomes based on a thorough and structured review of indexed articles and official statements.


Patients were matched for sex, age, comorbidities and disease severity at baseline. Compared to CG1 and CG2, AG showed reduction of 31.5–36.5% in viral shedding (p < 0.0001), 70–85% in disease duration (p < 0.0001), and 100% in respiratory complications, hospitalization, mechanical ventilation, deaths and post-COVID manifestations (p < 0.0001 for all). For every 1000 confirmed cases for COVID-19, at least 70 hospitalizations, 50 mechanical ventilations and five deaths were prevented. Benefits from the combination of early COVID-19 detection and early pharmacological approaches were consistent and overwhelming when compared to untreated groups, which, together with the well-established safety profile of the drug combinations tested in the Pre-AndroCoV Trial, precluded our study from continuing employing full placebo in early COVID-19.

[..] Drugs offered included azithromycin 500mg daily for five days for all patients, in association with one of the following: hydroxychloroquine 400mg daily for five days, nitazoxanide 500mg twice a day for six days, or ivermectin 0.2mg/kg/day in a single daily dose for three days, In addition, repurposed drugs, including dutasteride 0.5mg/day for 15 days and spironolactone 100mg twice a day for 15 days, were optionally offered. Vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, apibaxan, rivaroxaban, enoxaparin and glucocorticoids were added according to clinical judgement, the risk for thrombosis and progression of the disease to the inflammatory stage. Patients that decided to adhere to any treatment were included in the AG. All patients of AG and CG1 groups were followed longitudinally for 90 days for the occurrence of a new-onset or persistence of physical or mental manifestations.

Of the 585 subjects, all patients used azithromycin. A total of 357 patients used NIT, 159 used HCQ and 110 patients used IVE, alone with azithromycin or in combination with other drugs. Of the 357 patients that used NIT, 69 used the same in combination with HCQ, 46 used in combination with IVE, 146 used in combination with SPIRO, and 27 males used in combination with DUTA. Of the 110 patients that used IVE, 22 used in combination with HCQ, 82 used in combination with NIT, 66 used in combination with SPIRO and four males used in combination with DUTA. Of the 159 patients that used HCQ, 21 used in combination with IVE, 113 used in combination with NIT, 86 used in combination with SPIRO and seven males used in combination with DUTA.

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Not one word on how severe their cases are. Typical.

Up To 100 May Already Be Infected In New Zealand Covid Outbreak (G.)

New Zealand’s coronavirus cluster has grown to 21, with a strong link discovered to a case at the border, as the country began day two of a national lockdown. On Thursday, New Zealand reported another 11 cases of the Delta variant in the community, all in Auckland. The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, also announced that children between the ages of 12-15 would now also be eligible for the vaccine, from 1 September. “My message to parents who will need to of course provide consent for the children, is that I would not have been a part of a process and approving this, unless I believed it was safe, because around that table, we are parents too, all affected by these decisions, so we take them very seriously,” she said. The first case, a 58-year-old man from Auckland, emerged on Tuesday, prompting the government to put the entire country into a level 4 lockdown – the highest level of restrictions.

Ardern said genome sequencing has linked the cluster to a returnee from Australia. A New Zealander returned from Sydney on a managed red-zone flight and tested positive for the Delta variant on 7 August before being moved to quarantine the next day. After becoming unwell, they were transferred to Middlemore hospital, on 16 August. “This is a significant development and means now we can be fairly certain how, and when, the virus entered the country, and that based on timelines, there are minimal, possibly only one, or maybe two, missing links between this returnee and cases in our current outbreak,” Ardern said. The period in which cases were in the community is relatively short, she said, adding that it was unlikely the virus was spread at the hospital because the case was transferred there just one day prior to the first positive local case being discovered.

Ardern thanked the 58-year-old man for getting tested when he did. “If it wasn’t for you getting tested when you did, this could be a much, much more difficult situation. Having said that, I know we’re all prepared for cases to get worse before they get better. There is always a pattern with these outbreaks.” The prime minister cautioned that the country would need to remain open to other possibilities, but that the new information gives officials the confidence to focus on how the virus was transmitted, with a particular focus on the isolation and quarantine facilities. “Today we believe we have uncovered the piece of the puzzle we were looking for, and that means our ability to circle the virus, lock it down and stamp it out generally has greatly improved.”

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In real life, we’ve seen levels of 4-5 times higher (get me a booster!). But the Guardian brings it to you gently.

And stupidly: “But the fact that they can have high levels of virus suggests that people who aren’t yet vaccinated may not be as protected from the Delta variant as we hoped.”

Jabbed Adults Infected With Delta ‘Can Match Virus Levels Of Unvaccinated’ (G.)

Fully vaccinated adults can harbour virus levels as high as unvaccinated people if infected with the Delta variant, according to a sweeping analysis of UK data, which supports the idea that hitting the threshold for herd immunity is unlikely. There is abundant evidence that Covid vaccines in the UK continue to offer significant protection against hospitalisations and death. But this new analysis shows that although being fully vaccinated means the risk of getting infected is lower, once infected by Delta a person can carry similar virus levels as unvaccinated people. The implications of this on transmission remain unclear, the researchers have cautioned.

“We don’t yet know how much transmission can happen from people who get Covid-19 after being vaccinated – for example, they may have high levels of virus for shorter periods of time,” said Sarah Walker, a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Oxford. “But the fact that they can have high levels of virus suggests that people who aren’t yet vaccinated may not be as protected from the Delta variant as we hoped.” Positive tests, hospitalisations and deaths linked to Covid have been rising slowly in the UK recently. In the week to 18 August, 211,238 people had a confirmed positive test result, an increase of 7.6% compared with the previous seven days. Over the same period, there have been 655 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, a rise of 7.9% versus the previous seven days.

Hospitalisations have also risen slightly, with 5,623 going into hospital with coronavirus between 8 August 2021 and 14 August 2021, a rise of 4.3% compared with the previous seven days. The study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, found vaccine performance has waned against Delta versus the previously dominant Alpha variant. The analysis did not directly investigate whether the lower level of vaccine protection against Delta affected jabs’ ability to prevent severe disease. However, Dr Penny Ward, a visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King’s College London, noted: “The low incidence of hospitalisation seen to date suggests that in this respect at least the vaccines are protecting individuals from developing severe Covid.”

Read more …

“.. as Biden Forces Mandatory Vaccines For Any Worker Paid by Medicare and Medicaid Money..”

Get Ready for a Nationwide Eldercare Shortage (CTH)

…As predicted, and the ‘next step’ will be colleges, universities, students and anyone receiving federal education funding, loans or grants. Today, the White House occupant announced a federal regulatory requirement that all nurses and healthcare workers who work in facilities funded by Medicaid and/or Medicare will be required to be vaccinated. Ironically Joe Biden noted that nurses, those professionally trained in healthcare systems – who understand the issues of vaccination, are at a lower vaccination rate than the less trained and educated population. “Vaccination rates among nursing home staff significantly trail the rest of the country“, Biden said; while never questioning ‘why’. As pointed out recently, a large subset of the vaccine resistant population are the most educated.


[Speech Transcript] – […] “Today, I’m announcing a new step. If you work in a nursing home and serve people on Medicare or Medicaid, you will also be required to get vaccinated. More than 130,000 residents in nursing homes have sa- — have sadly, over the period of this virus, passed away. At the same time, vaccination rates among nursing home staff significantly trail the rest of the country.” The downstream consequence from this action will be a shortage of healthcare providers in nursing homes. This has already become an issue for hospitals coast to coast who require vaccinations of their staff. CTH has been warning about the Chicago network behind Biden and their objective. We have accurately predicted their moves, but what we cannot determine is how the larger American electorate will respond to these encroachments.

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As go the Sacklers, so goes Pfizer.

Former Purdue Pharma Chair Denies Responsibility For US Opioid Crisis (AP)

The former president and board chair of Purdue Pharma told a court Wednesday that he, his family and the company are not responsible for the opioid crisis in the United States. Richard Sackler, a member of the family who owns the company, was asked whether each bears responsibility during a federal bankruptcy hearing in White Plains, New York, over whether a judge should accept the OxyContin maker’s plan to settle thousands of lawsuits. For each, he gave a one-word answer: “No.” Richard Sackler’s denial of responsibility for the opioid crisis comes a day after another Sackler family member said the group wouldn’t accept a settlement without guarantees of immunity from further legal action.

The previous words of Richard Sackler, now 76, are at the heart of lawsuits accusing the Stamford, Connecticut-based company of an outsized role in sparking a nationwide opioid epidemic. In the 1996 event to launch sales of OxyContin, he told the company’s sales force that there would be “a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition”. Five years later, as it was apparent that the powerful prescription pain drug was being misused in some cases, he said in an email that Purdue would have to “hammer on the abusers in every way possible”, describing them as “the culprits and the problem”. For those reasons, the activists crusading against companies involved in selling opioids often see Richard Sackler – who was president of the company from 1999 to 2003, chair of its board from 2004 through 2007, and a board member from 1990 until 2018 – as a prime villain.

[..] Sackler, whose father was one of three brothers who nearly 70 years ago bought the company that later became Purdue Pharma, didn’t recall emails he wrote a decade or more ago; whether Purdue’s board approved certain sales strategies; whether a company owned by Sackler family members sold opioids in Argentina; or whether he paid any of his own money as part of a settlement with Oklahoma to which the Sackler family contributed $75m. Often, he answered questions with more questions, asking for precision. When Edmunds asked him if he knew how many people in the US had died from using opioids, Sackler asked him to specify over which time period. Edmunds did: 2005 to 2017. “I don’t know,” Sackler said. He said that he had looked at some data on deaths in the past, though. (The US Centers for Disease Control has tallied more than 500,000 deaths in the US to opioid overdose, including both prescription drugs and illicit ones such as heroin and illegally produced fentanyl, since 2000.)

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How did that country get so scary so fast?

And how can a government or Big Tech restrict false information when they are the biggest source of it? You know, just in theory …..

How Americans View Government Restriction Of False Information (Pew)

Amid rising concerns over misinformation online – including surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, especially vaccines – Americans are now a bit more open to the idea of the U.S. government taking steps to restrict false information online. And a majority of the public continues to favor technology companies taking such action, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Roughly half of U.S. adults (48%) now say the government should take steps to restrict false information, even if it means losing some freedom to access and publish content, according to the survey of 11,178 adults conducted July 26-Aug. 8, 2021. That is up from 39% in 2018. At the same time, the share of adults who say freedom of information should be protected – even if it means some misinformation is published online – has decreased from 58% to 50%.

When it comes to whether technology companies should take steps to address misinformation online, more are in agreement. A majority of adults (59%) continue to say technology companies should take steps to restrict misinformation online, even if it puts some restrictions on Americans’ ability to access and publish content. Around four-in-ten (39%) take the opposite view that protecting freedom of information should take precedence, even if it means false claims can spread. The balance of opinion on this question has changed little since 2018. Partisan divisions on the role of government in addressing online misinformation have emerged since 2018. Three years ago, around six-in-ten in each partisan coalition – 60% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents and 57% of Democrats and Democratic leaners – agreed that freedom of information should be prioritized over the government taking steps to restrict false information online.


Today, 70% of Republicans say those freedoms should be protected, even it if means some false information is published. Nearly as many Democrats (65%) instead say the government should take steps to restrict false information, even if it means limiting freedom of information. Partisan views on whether technology companies should take such steps have also grown further apart. Roughly three-quarters of Democrats (76%) now say tech companies should take steps to restrict false information online, even at the risk of limiting information freedoms. A majority of Republicans (61%) express the opposite view – that those freedoms should be protected, even if it means false information can be published online. In 2018, the parties were closer together on this question, though most Democrats still supported action by tech firms.

Read more …

Washington hasn’t processed its defeat yet.

New US Air Force Secretary Wants To “Scare” China (Antiwar)

Researching and developing new weapons technologies is a key part of the Pentagon’s strategy to counter China. In an interview with Defense News, President Biden’s new Air Force secretary said he’d like to see the US military field the type of new technologies that “scare China.” Frank Kendall, who was sworn in as Air Force secretary on July 28th, made it clear in the interview that he is focused on China. “I’ve been obsessed, if you will, with China for quite a long time now — and its military modernization, what that implies for the US and for security,” he said. Hyping up the threat of China’s military serves the Pentagon to justify more spending, and Kendall hinted that he believes the Air Force doesn’t have a sufficient budget. “The Air Force has been overly constrained,” he said.


“I think we’ve not been allowed to do things we really need to do to free up resources for things that are higher priority. We’ve had a very hard time getting the Congress to allow us to retire older aircraft.” One project that Kendall discussed is the B-21 bomber, which is currently being developed. “I think that’s going to be something that will be intimidating, it’s going to be very capable. And there are a few others like that that are coming down the pipeline. … But I think we have to be continuously thinking about other things that will be intimidating to our future enemies.” The Pentagon budget requested by President Biden prioritized spending on new weapons technology. The budget request asked for over $112 billion for research, development, testing, and evaluation, known as RDT&E. Besides new long-range bombers, US military leaders are calling for investment in technology like artificial intelligence, robotics, space and cyber capabilities, and hypersonic missiles.

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And then you will have what?

Fire The Military And Intelligence Bigs Who Bungled Afghanistan – Now (NYP)

This is the biggest foreign failure in most Americans’ lifetimes, and there needs to be an accounting. The normal course of business after government bungling nowadays is that everyone involved tut-tuts a bit, then gets a raise and a promotion, while the government goes back to business as usual. But in a sane nation, failure would be punished. To begin with, Milley must resign or be fired. And the same for our triple-masking defense secretary, Lloyd Austin. This was a failure that happened on their watch, and it happened through bad management. We could have pulled out without nearly the level of chaos, confusion and terror.

But Milley and Austin weren’t on top of their jobs. They may feel that firing is unfair, but they’d be getting off light by the standards of military history: In the 18th century, the British executed an admiral, John Byng, for failing to “do his utmost” in combat. It was harsh, but the Royal Navy became more aggressive. Likewise, the intel agencies and officers who provided the bad, er, intelligence need to go. Many others who failed, from contractors to lower-level officers and bureaucrats, need to go, too. You punish a bureaucracy by shrinking its staff and cutting its budget. That needs to happen here. The brass and agencies will complain that it was Biden who ultimately made the call. Indeed, they are already furiously leaking to that effect to the press.

Maybe they’re right. But it’s up to voters to fire the president at the ballot box. If they thought what Biden planned was disastrous, they should have resigned in protest. But they didn’t. Meanwhile, we also need a probe, with independent investigators with strong powers. That should be followed by deep structural changes in a military that hasn’t really won a war since well before I was born. Bottom line: Our military must be disciplined to win wars, rather than promote gender ideology and postmodern race theories (at home or abroad). None of this will transpire, of course. Our society is run by a technocratic-managerial class that never pays a price for failure. Democracy is a glossy finish over an unelected administrative state that isn’t really accountable to anyone and measures success or failure in terms of budgets, p.r. and power, not results.

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$300 million per day for 20 years.

We Failed Afghanistan, Not the Other Way Around (Taibbi)

On MSNBC the other night, Rachel Maddow told a story about visiting Afghanistan a decade ago. She described being taken on a tour of a new neighborhood in Kabul of “narco-palaces,” what she called, “big garish, gigantic, rococo, strange-looking places” that hadn’t existed before the Americans arrived. This was said to be symbolic of the “fantastically corrupt elites” among the Afghan political class who put themselves into position to siphon off big chunks of the “billions of dollars per month” we sent into the country. Noting that, “the U.S. effort and expenditure in that country did build some stuff, roads and waterways and schools,” Maddow decried the fact that “so much of what we put in by the boatload was shoveled off by a fantastically corrupt elite.”

She showed video of Taliban conquerors lounging around in the tackily furnished homes of former Afghan officials in Kabul, pointing out that, “dictator chic is the same the world over.” In a not-so-subtle dig at Donald Trump, she added, “And they really like gold fixtures.” From Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, the pattern of American officials showering questionable political allies abroad with armfuls of cash is a long-established practice. However, the idea that this is the reason the “missions” fail in such places is just a continuation of the original propaganda lines that get us into these messes. It’s a way of saying the subject populations are to blame for undermining our noble efforts, when the missions themselves are often preposterous and, moreover, the lion’s share of the looting is usually done by our own marauding contracting community.

It’s bad enough that Maddow/MSNBC played a big part in delaying the withdrawal last year with hype of the bogus Bountygate story, which gave one last (false) dying breath to the war rationale. This latest criticism of theirs ignores the massive amounts of corruption that were endemic to the American side of the mission. Contractors made fortunes monstrously overcharging the taxpayer for everything from private security, to dysfunctional or unnecessary construction projects, to social programs that either had no chance for success, or for which metrics for measuring success didn’t exist. The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) some years ago identified “$15.5 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse… in our published reports and closed investigations between SIGAR’s inception in 2008 and December 31, 2017,” and added an additional $3.4 billion in a subsequent review.

All told, “SIGAR reviewed approximately $63 billion and concluded that a total of approximately $19 billion or 30 percent of the amount reviewed was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse.” Thirty percent! If the overall cost of the war was, as reported, $2 trillion (about $300 million per day for 20 years), a crude back of the envelope calculation for the amount lost to fraud during the entire period might be $600 billion, an awesome sum. It could even be worse than that. SIGAR for instance also looked at a $7.8 billion sum spent on buildings and vehicles from 2008 on, and reported that of that, only $343.2 million worth “were maintained in good condition.” They added that just $1.2 billion of the original expenditure was used as intended. By that metric, the majority of the monies spent in Afghanistan might simply have gone up in smoke in bogus or ineffectual contracting schemes.

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Either the IMF distances itself from the US, or it becomes irrelevant.

IMF Suspends Afghanistan’s Access To Resources (Hill)

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday announced it was suspending Afghanistan’s access to its resources due to what it called a “lack of clarity” surrounding the recognition of the country’s government after the Taliban took control of the capital city of Kabul. “As is always the case, the IMF is guided by the views of the international community,” a spokesperson for the IMF said in a statement, according to Reuters. “There is currently a lack of clarity within the international community regarding recognition of a government in Afghanistan, as a consequence of which the country cannot access SDRs or other IMF resources.” This move by the IMF comes after the Biden administration reportedly froze Afghan government reserves held in U.S. banks, blocking the Taliban from accessing billions in funds.

“Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban,” one administration official told The Washington Post. It is currently unclear whether the Taliban will be recognized by the international community, though China has indicated that it is open to establishing formal relations, being one of the few countries that did not evacuate its embassy when the Afghan government fell. Shortly after the Taliban entered Kabul on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if the U.S. would ever recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government. “A future Afghan government that upholds the basic rights of its people and that doesn’t harbor terrorists is a government we can work with and recognize,” Blinken said.

“Conversely, a government that doesn’t do that, that doesn’t uphold the basic rights of its people, including women and girls, that harbors terrorist groups that have designs on the United States, our allies and partners, certainly, that’s not going to happen,” he added.

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No boycott possible. There will always be customers.

Taliban To Reap $1 Trillion Mineral Wealth (DW)

The Taliban have been handed a huge financial and geopolitical edge in relations with the world’s biggest powers as the militant group seizes control of Afghanistan for a second time. In 2010, a report by US military experts and geologists estimated that Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, was sitting on nearly $1 trillion (€850 billion) in mineral wealth, thanks to huge iron, copper, lithium, cobalt and rare-earth deposits. In the subsequent decade, most of those resources remained untouched due to ongoing violence in the country. Meanwhile, the value of many of those minerals has skyrocketed, sparked by the global transition to green energy. A follow-up report by the Afghan government in 2017 estimated that Kabul’s new mineral wealth may be as high as $3 trillion, including fossil fuels.


Lithium, which is used in batteries for electric cars, smartphones and laptops, is facing unprecedented demand, with annual growth of 20% compared to just 5-6% a few years ago. The Pentagon memo called Afghanistan the Saudi Arabia of lithium and projected that the country’s lithium deposits could equal Bolivia’s — one of the world’s largest. Copper, too, is benefiting from the post-COVID global economic recovery — up 43% over the past year. More than a quarter of Afghanistan’s future mineral wealth could be realized by expanding copper mining activities. While the West has threatened not to work with the Taliban after it effectively seized control of Kabul over the weekend, China, Russia and Pakistan are lining up to do business with the militant group — further adding to the US and Europe’s humiliation over the fall of the country.

As the manufacturer of almost half of the world’s industrial goods, China is stoking much of the global demand for commodities. Beijing — already Afghanistan’s largest foreign investor — is seen as likely to lead the race to help the country build an efficient mining system to meet its insatiable needs for minerals. “Taliban control comes at a time when there is a supply crunch for these minerals for the foreseeable future and China needs them,” Michael Tanchum, a senior fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy, told DW. “China is already in position in Afghanistan to mine these minerals.”


One of the Asian powerhouse’s mining giants, the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC), already has a 30-year lease to mine copper in Afghanistan’s barren Logar province. Some analysts, however, question whether the Taliban have the competence and willingness to exploit the country’s natural resources given the income they generate from the drug trade. “These resources were in the ground in the 90s too and they [the Taliban] weren’t able to extract them,” Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at the Counter Extremism Project, told DW. “One has to remain very skeptical of their ability to grow the Afghan economy or even their interest in doing so.”

Read more …

 

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Oct 132020
 


Giotto Legend of St Francis, Exorcism of the Demons at Arezzo c.1297-1299

 

Declassified FBI Spreadsheet Exposes Folly Of Steele Dossier (JTN)
Steele Dossier: Media Reports On FBI Reports Of Media Reports (sundance)
Team Obama Invented The Whole Russiagate Scandal (NYP)
The Truman Show Election: The Public Is Left In The Dark (Turley)
What’s Behind No-Show Joe (Jim Kunstler)
Coup Who? (Hemingway)
Kidnapping Dissent: The Whitmer Plot and the End of Freedom (MPN)
IMF Seizes on Pandemic to Pave Way for Privatization in 81 Countries (MPN)
CDC: 85% of COVID19 Patients Report ‘Always’ Or ‘Often’ Wearing A Mask (JS)
Johnson&Johnson Covid19 Vaccine Study Paused Due To Unexplained Illness (STAT)
Economists Are More Like Storytellers Than Scientists (Benack)

 

 

Imagine if the MSM had refused to report on Watergate. That is what is happening now. And this is starting to feel a whole lot worse than that. Not sure “folly” covers it.

Declassified FBI Spreadsheet Exposes Folly Of Steele Dossier (JTN)

An FBI spreadsheet that evaluated the credibility of Christopher Steele’s dossier found almost no corroborating evidence from official intelligence reporting, leaving analysts to grope after flimsy sources like a Democratic operative, a Russian propaganda news site and U.S. news media story leaks that amounted to circular reporting.In one entry, FBI analysts tried to evaluate one of Steele’s most lurid claims — later debunked — that Trump was videotaped committing lewd sex acts with prostitutes at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Moscow. “There is no confirmation that Trump stayed here,” they found. “There is no ‘Presidential Suite’ currently listed.”

[..]Another entry encapsulated much of the FBI’s assessment of Steele’s reporting: It seemed based on Internet rumors that could never be corroborated.”Other than open source speculation, the only reporting that mentions this is the Steele Reporting from 5 July 2016 and 2 August 2016,” the analysts wrote about a claim in the dossier that the Russian spy agency known as the FSB had a “pervasive and sophisticated” operation focused on Trump. Other entries dinged the Steele dossier for sloppiness like misspellings of key names, or for making claims that were debunked by official travel records like passport entry records.

“There doesn’t appear to be any record of Trump visiting Baku or the presidential palace,” one entry read, knocking down a claim the future president visited the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. Added another: “There is no record of Trump personally organizing a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) visit to Baku.”Likewise, one of the most famous claims of the now-discredited dossier — that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen flew to Prague in summer 2016 to help cover up a Russia-Trump plot — was debunked by analysts. “The CROSSFIRE HURRICANE team has been unable to verify travel by Cohen to the Czech Republic in August 2016,” analysts wrote.

With little formal intelligence reporting to back anything Steele had offered the FBI, analysts often turned to suspect sources, such as biased actors connected to the Democratic National Committee or leaked news media stories that could be traced back to Steele and his boss, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. “On September 23, 2016 Yahoo News published an article claiming Carter Page was under investigation by the FBI and US intelligence due to his ties with Russia,” analysts wrote, citing that source as the only piece of evidence corroborating former Trump adviser Carter Page’s alleged meeting with a senior Russian official. The FBI later determined the meetings never happened.

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They are hoping to bury it all after the election.

FBI agents getting paid by the press for leaks.

Steele Dossier: Media Reports On FBI Reports Of Media Reports (sundance)

CBS News Catherine Herridge has obtained a 94-page spread sheet showing dates of media reports, dates of Steele reports on the same material, and the FBI effort to verify or validate the circular process. In essence this is evidence of the process we initially shared almost three years ago; only now we know the names. Former SSCI staffer Dan Jones, former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson, and Simpson’s crew at Fusion-GPS, pitched and planted phony Trump-Russia evidence with the media and simultaneously gave those fake points to Chris Steele to supplement the dossier. Using the same method of Ezra Klein’s “JournOList” replication, Dan Jones and Fusion-GPS paid the journalists to run the stories.

Steele then used the same information from Jones and Fusion in his Dossier and cited the planted media reports; as evidence to substantiate. The Dossier is then provided to the FBI. The journalists then provide *indulgences* to the FBI as part of the collaboration. The FBI, specifically Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and public information office Mike Kortan, then leak the outcomes of the FBI Dossier investigative processes to the same media that have reported on the originating material. It is all a big circle of planting and laundering the same originating false material; aka a “wrap up smear.” Michael Isikoff highlighted the level of how enmeshed media is with the Fusion team in February 2018 when he admitted his reporting was being used by the DOJ and FBI to advance the political objectives of the intelligence community.

Additionally, FBI investigator Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page were shown in their text messages to be leaking stories from the Clinton Investigation, the Trump investigation and the Mueller investigation to journalists at Politico, The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was busted by the Inspector General leaking stories to the media and then lying about it to INSD and IG investigators. FBI Director James Comey admitted to leaking stories to the New York Times, and even hired his friend Andrew Richman (off-the-books), gave him access to FBI and NSA databases, and then leaked information to Richman along with another friend Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare blog.

Lest we forget, the IG report on how the FBI handled the Clinton investigation revealed that dozens of FBI officials were actually taking bribes from the media for information: IG REPORT – “We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters. Attached to this report as Attachments E and F are two link charts that reflect the volume of communications that we identified between FBI employees and media representatives in April/May and October 2016. We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review.”

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” In notes also released last week, Brennan describes telling Obama about the “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 28 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to villify [sic] Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.”

Team Obama Invented The Whole Russiagate Scandal (NYP)

In mid-2016, the FBI got word that Russian intelligence believed Hillary Clinton’s campaign was planning to frame Donald Trump as colluding with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to hack her computers. Yet somehow, the crack agents never connected the dots when handed the Steele “dossier” commissioned and paid for by the Clinton campaign that claimed Trump was colluding with Putin. Instead, the Justice Department used that dossier as a pretext to spy on at least Trump aide Carter Page as it investigated the clearly spurious charges. Justice also distorted the facts about Page’s past relations with the CIA to suggest he had a history of working with Russian agents when his actual record involved turning them in. Meanwhile, it buried the fact that Steele’s main source was himself a suspected Russian agent.

Nor did it connect the dots to another “Russiagate” lead, the third-hand rumors passed along by a Clinton-allied diplomat that supposedly implicated another Trump aide, George Papadopoulos. The news of the 2016 intel comes from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s gradual release of Russiagate records — which show that the true scandal was the investigation itself. Maybe the Russian analysis was mistaken. But the info should have prompted far greater skepticism on all the Clinton-connected “dirt” on Trump, none of which ever panned out, despite years of investigation. From Justice to the CIA, the Obama administration politicized a host of nonpartisan institutions to stain the Trump campaign and then sabotage the Trump administration. And, with selective leaks to major media, the plotters managed to convince much of the country.


The info was credible on its face: US intelligence “obtained insight” into the Russian analysis using highly classified methods (which are redacted in the now-public documents). The Russians had determined that Clinton wanted to blame Trump for the hacking of Democratic National Committee e-mails to distract from the growing scandal over her use of a non-secure home-brew server for official business as secretary of state. The US intel community found it was authentic Russian analysis, though it couldn’t judge the veracity of the claim. And President Barack Obama was briefed on it, per his CIA director, John Brennan. In notes also released last week, Brennan describes telling Obama about the “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 28 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to villify [sic] Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.”

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“All of this recent evidence happens to tie in to other earlier facts, from the Clinton campaign lying about funding the dossier to Steele misrepresenting his sources and his conclusions.”

The Truman Show Election: The Public Is Left In The Dark (Turley)

As news emerged that United States Attorney John Durham uncovered some serious and possibly criminal conduct in the Russia investigation, Democrats demanded that he not release his report before the election. Indeed, the federal rules tell prosecutors to avoid timing “investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting an election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.” However, major cases often do affect elections, and they are not sealed in amber until the votes are counted. The investigation by Durham is focused on conduct in the election four years ago. His subjects of scrutiny are not candidates on this ballot but rather federal officials involved in the investigation of potential collusion between Russia and the Donald Trump campaign in 2016.

This proved to be unfounded. Ultimately, there was no evidence of collusion, let alone anyone who committed crimes related to collusion. Indeed, disclosed evidence shows the FBI was told early on that the allegations were not only dubious but possibly disinformation from Russia. In recent weeks, we learned that the primary source used by Christopher Steele in his now infamous dossier was believed to be an agent of Russia. Recent declassified material also showed that in 2016, then CIA director John Brennan had briefed President Obama on an alleged plan by Hillary Clinton to tie then candidate Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” The handwritten notes from Brennen would seem extremely serious on their face. Indeed, the allegation was sufficiently serious to brief the president.


It reflected intelligence reports given to the FBI and then director James Comey. When asked last week about the report, Comey simply said it did not “ring a bell.” What rings his bell is precisely what the investigation by Durham could reveal. All of this recent evidence happens to tie in to other earlier facts, from the Clinton campaign lying about funding the dossier to Steele misrepresenting his sources and his conclusions. There are arguments for delaying the release of the report by Durham this close to the election. But there is a lack of assurances that we would ever know the findings after the election. If Democrats control both chambers of Congress, it is unlikely they will have hearings on the report. Democrats on the intelligence committees have said they want the investigations into 2016 to end so we can all “look ahead rather than back.” If Biden becomes the next president, the Justice Department could shut down or curtail the investigation, or even classify its final report as privileged.

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“Criminal liability may even extend into the news media itself — though they may only be named as unindicted co-conspirators.”

What’s Behind No-Show Joe (Jim Kunstler)

Something even stranger and more sinister than the Covid-19 virus is creeping across the USA: Joe Biden’s Flying Dutchman campaign which, like the ghost-ship of legend, plies the vasty electoral seas with a skeleton crew and no hope of ever landing. Late last week, the candidate blew into Yuma, AZ, for a rare, joint appearance with veep pardner Kamala Harris and, guess what, absolutely no civilians (i.e. voters) showed up at the event, though the local TV news had publicized it. Weird, a little bit? Face it: we’re living in the days of fantastic high-tech information mischief. Virtually all of the traditional news media, plus the powerful new social media, plus the news media of foreign lands, and scores of other embeds in the federal bureaucracy, are behind the story that Ol’ White Joe and his understudy, Ms. Harris, are way ahead in the polls.

Do you ask yourself, as I must, whether this is all a gigantic psy-op? And why would it be? All right, I know that many readers are cross-eyed to the point of nausea over the Barr-Durham investigation, especially the failure to deliver indictments before the election. The complete absence of leaks from that outfit has been crazy-making itself for many. But I take that as a sign of the profound seriousness of the investigation. Durham’s crew is methodically making a case for the worst and largest seditious conspiracy in US history. It requires the most extreme care. They are not going to blow it by allowing any suspicion that it is being used as a campaign ploy on behalf of Mr. Trump.

Sometime after the election and before the 20th of January, a great big hammer is going to come down on the people who organized the RussiaGate op and many of its spinoffs. As the late Tom Petty observed, the waiting is the hardest part, and not only for those in the Counter-resistance who have already connected the felonious dots based on publicly available documents, but also for the targets of the Barr-Durham RussiaGate probe, the Resistance itself — the long log of Obama Admin officials, Clinton campaign minions, and even senators who worked to prevent Donald Trump’s election by foul means and then tried to disable and overthrow him when it didn’t work, in order to cover up their criminal culpability.

You understand that the targets of Barr and Durham are almost all lawyers, Democratic Party-connected lawyers, that is. And so, what they are doing in the shadows of Joe Biden’s ghost campaign is attempting to mount a last-ditch lawyers’ assault on their antagonists, who have regained control of a rogue Justice Department. Thus: Lawfare. If RussiaGate was the most dastardly crime of government against itself ever in US history, then the final result will be the most awful roundup and prosecution of disgraced former officials ever seen in the history of the world’s great nations. Criminal liability may even extend into the news media itself — though they may only be named as unindicted co-conspirators.

Read more …

“Should you remain silent, you will be complicit in a coup d’état.”

Coup Who? (Hemingway)

In August, two retired military officers published a piece in Defense One which literally encouraged America’s top military leadership to have the 82nd airborne to descend on Washington in the event of a disputed election and escort President Trump out of office. “In the Constitutional crisis described above, your duty is to give unambiguous orders directing U.S. military forces to support the Constitutional transfer of power,” they write. “Should you remain silent, you will be complicit in a coup d’état.” In other words, the military must prevent a coup by staging one of their own. Thankfully, the Pentagon publicly condemned John Nagl’s and Paul Yingling’s musings.

In some regards it is unremarkable in a nation with millions of military veterans that two of them would have some kind of Clockwork Orange-style MSNBC viewing party and put crayon to paper long enough to come up with this violent fantasia. However, the problem isn’t so much that Nagl and Yingling gamed out this scenario – every election that I can remember for the last 30 years has featured fringe voices expressing concern that the current occupant will refuse to leave. The real problem is that, for once, a respectable media outlet went ahead and published it. If anything, the Defense One op-ed was just the most explicit example of the anti-Trump coup pornography that’s become a staple of mainstream media.


And when the media is not baselessly fretting Trump will refuse to leave office, they’re outrageously and falsely characterizing Trump and his administration in ways that justify his violent removal. The Washington Post recently ran an “analysis” in the business section, quoting a bunch of academics warning that Trump was leading America into autocracy. The article ended with this kicker quote from a Swedish political scientist, Staffan I. Lindberg at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg: “‘if Trump wins this election in November, democracy is gone’ in the United States, [Lindberg] says. He gives it about two years. ‘It’s really time to wake up before it’s too late.’”

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“..all of the individuals charged in the plot had been under intense scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation months prior to the scheme being hatched..”

Kidnapping Dissent: The Whitmer Plot and the End of Freedom (MPN)

Stoked for decades by an extremist capitalist oligarchy which has slowly and methodically disabled the levers of democracy to achieve its interests, the latent racial tensions that haunt America’s collective psyche are being exploited in ways never before possible with the advent of online disinformation mashups, like QAnon, Antifa, BLM and others along the spectrum of modern-day social media constructs. As we near the 2020 presidential election, the skeletons in America’s closet are being dressed in the latest fashion and paraded before a terrified citizenry, whose health and peace of mind is under siege as a result of the pandemic crisis while simultaneously bombarded with apocalyptic scenarios of societal collapse and civil war, like the alleged conspiracy to kidnap and murder Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer as part of a larger plan to storm the Michigan State Capitol with hundreds of armed men.

But, considering the fact that all of the individuals charged in the plot had been under intense scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation months prior to the scheme being hatched, it is not surprising that suspicions of entrapment by the FBI have begun to swirl around the high profile case, which was filed before the U.S. District Court of Western Michigan last Tuesday.

[..] Prior to the 2018 midterm victory that put her in the governor’s mansion, Whitmer had served in the Michigan state Senate from 2006 until 2014. More recently, she had assumed the role of interim Ingham County prosecutor in 2016 after the serving prosecutor had to resign over a lurid sex scandal. Whitmer beat Republican Bill Schuette to take the governorship and after just one year in office, she came into the national spotlight for the first time when she was selected to deliver the Democrats’ response to the Trump’s last State of the Union address in February, which also coincided with the start of the FBI’s investigation into her would-be kidnappers.

In August, Whitmer again garnered national attention amid speculation that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was going to choose her as his running mate. By then, the FBI had compiled hours of conversations between the ragtag crew of convicted criminals and U.S. Marines, who in June, allegedly targeted Governor Whitmer as part of a grand plan to storm the Michigan State Capitol with 200 men and take hostages before the upcoming presidential election. The group’s motivation is said to come from Whitmer’s “unilateral” lockdown policies, extending the state’s coronavirus emergency measures beyond the original April 30 cut-off date through executive order.

The move elicited an immediate reaction from conservatives in the state and the very influential Koch-funded Mackinac Center, which filed an injunction against the governor’s executive action in May. After challenges to the governor’s orders were struck down in lower courts, the Republican-majority Michigan Supreme Court last week added fuel to the fire by ruling Whitmer’s executive orders to be unconstitutional and setting off a firestorm of controversy on the same day FBI agents murdered Eric Mark-Matthew Allport in Detroit and just before the FBI decided to submit their affidavit against the Whitmer plotters.

Read more …

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

IMF Seizes on Pandemic to Pave Way for Privatization in 81 Countries (MPN)

The enormous economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to fundamentally alter the structure of society, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if using the crisis to implement near-permanent austerity measures across the world.76 of the 91 loans it has negotiated with 81 nations since the beginning of the worldwide pandemic in March have come attached with demands that countries adopt measures such as deep cuts to public services and pensions — measures that will undoubtedly entail privatization, wage freezes or cuts, or the firing of public sector workers like doctors, nurses, teachers and firefighters.

The principal cheerleader for neoliberal austerity measures across the globe for decades, the IMF has recently (quietly) begun admitting that these policies have not worked and generally make problems like poverty, uneven development, and inequality even worse. Furthermore, they have also failed even to bring the promised economic growth that was meant to counteract these negative effects. In 2016, it described its own policies as “oversold” and earlier summed up its experiments in Latin America as “all pain, no gain.” Thus, its own reports explicitly state its policies do not work.


“The IMF has sounded the alarm about a massive spike in inequality in the wake of the pandemic. Yet it is steering countries to pay for pandemic spending by making austerity cuts that will fuel poverty and inequality,” Chema Vera, Interim Executive Director of Oxfam International, said today. “These measures could leave millions of people without access to healthcare or income support while they search for work, and could thwart any hope of sustainable recovery. In taking this approach, the IMF is doing an injustice to its own research. Its head needs to start speaking to its hands.”

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Wouldn’t many say that so they look like good citizens?

CDC: 85% of COVID19 Patients Report ‘Always’ Or ‘Often’ Wearing A Mask (JS)

An underreported, recently-published CDC study adds to the pile of evidence that cloth masks or other forms of mandated face coverings only contribute negatives to our COVID-19 problem. The study also displays — despite the constant accusations of widespread misbehavior from public health officials — that Americans are adhering to mask wearing, but mask wearing is not doing us any good. The CDC study, which surveyed symptomatic COVID-19 patients, has found that 70.6% of respondents reported “always” wearing a mask, while an additional 14.4% say they “often” wear a mask. That means a whopping 85% of infected COVID-19 patients reported habitual mask wearing. Only 3.9% of those infected said they “never” wear a face covering.


The study offers insight into the reality that tens of thousands of Americans are acquiring COVID-19 on a daily basis despite overwhelming adherence to mask wearing. Masks simply aren’t working to “slow the spread” or “stop the spread.” The study also dismisses “public health experts’” claims from individuals such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and others that Americans are not following the guidance being disseminated by the CDC and other disease control agencies. Americans are following the CDC guidance. It’s just not working.

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These trials all have problems.

Johnson&Johnson Covid19 Vaccine Study Paused Due To Unexplained Illness (STAT)

The study of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine has been paused due to an unexplained illness in a study participant. A document sent to outside researchers running the 60,000-patient clinical trial states that a “pausing rule” has been met, that the online system used to enroll patients in the study has been closed, and that the data and safety monitoring board — an independent committee that watches over the safety of patients in the clinical trial — would be convened. The document was obtained by STAT. Contacted by STAT, J&J confirmed the study pause, saying it was due to “an unexplained illness in a study participant.” The company declined to provide further details.

“We must respect this participant’s privacy. We’re also learning more about this participant’s illness, and it’s important to have all the facts before we share additional information,” the company said in a statement. J&J emphasized that so-called adverse events — illnesses, accidents, and other bad medical outcomes — are an expected part of a clinical study, and also emphasized the difference between a study pause and a clinical hold, which is a formal regulatory action that can last much longer. The vaccine study is not currently under a clinical hold. J&J said that while it normally communicates clinical holds to the public, it does not usually inform the public of study pauses. The data and safety monitoring board, or DSMB, convened late Monday to review the case.


J&J said that in cases like this “it is not always immediately apparent” whether the participant who experienced an adverse event received a study treatment or a placebo. Though clinical trial pauses are not uncommon — and in some cases last only a few days — they are generating outsized attention in the race to test vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Given the size of Johnson & Johnson’s trial, it’s not surprising that study pauses could occur, and another could happen if this one resolves, a source familiar with the study said. “If we do a study of 60,000 people, that is a small village,” the source said. “In a small village there are a lot of medical events that happen.”

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Fairy tales.

Economists Are More Like Storytellers Than Scientists (Benack)

When you listen to an economist, chances are you’ll hear a lot of statistics. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech at the National Association for Business Economics on Oct. 6 is a case in point. In the first two minutes alone he referred to a dizzying range of economic indicators: growth, unemployment rate, personal consumption expenditures inflation, labor force participation, productivity gains, real wage gains and so on. But if you watch the speech, you may notice that he rarely cites the actual numbers. That’s because Powell, and economists generally, tend to be more interested in the direction in which the numbers are going rather than the numbers themselves. Is unemployment high or low? Is the Dow up or down? Is GDP growth trending upward or downward?

In other words, Powell is telling you a story. And although economists have historically wanted their field to be associated with the so-called hard sciences – a conjuring act exemplified by the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences – I’ve come to see it as having a lot more in common with literature, especially novels, than physics or chemistry. As a literary scholar researching economics and its history, I have found that being aware of the similarities between economists and novelists helps us to better evaluate the claims they make. Both are telling stories. Understanding that empowers us to judge the credibility of what they’re saying for ourselves. The notion that economics shares a lot with fiction may seem counterintuitive. That feeling is not incidental.

Ever since the inception of economics in the late 1800s, economists have sought to associate their discipline with the very opposite of fiction: the natural sciences. Unlike economics, which deals with human relationships, the hard sciences study phenomena in the natural world. As such, a claim by a natural scientist reflects a different kind of truth than one by an economist. For example, the law of gravity describes an immutable physical fact; the law of supply and demand describes a relationship between people. What we know as mainstream economics today began with the concept of marginal utility, which posits that individuals make purchases by considering how much happiness they will derive from each additional unit of a good or service.

What attracted many economists to the concept was that it provided a way to make economics more mathematical. The concept of marginal utility allowed economists to turn sensations into quantities. Happiness was imagined as a pile of many little units of pleasure, which some economists actually believed could be physically measured. Francis Y. Edgeworth even conceived of a “psychophysical machine” to do precisely that in his beautifully titled book “Mathematical Psychics.” This is to say that, in the 19th century, the resemblance of economics to the natural sciences fooled even some of its own practitioners.

Read more …

 

 

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“Medieval man was a cog in a wheel he did not understand; modern man is a cog in a complicated system he thinks he understands.”
– Nassim Nicholas Taleb

 

 

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Apr 162020
 


Dorothea Lange Richmond, California 1942

 

Coronavirus Testing Hits Dramatic Slowdown In US (Pol.)
Antibody Tests For Coronavirus Can Miss The Mark (NPR)
The Coronavirus Is Particularly Unkind To Those Who Are Obese (LAT)
New York Taps Mckinsey To Develop ‘Trump-Proof’ Economic Reopening Plan (R.)
New Zealand PM: Many Restrictions To Be Kept In Place When Lockdown Ends (R.)
Investors Are Underestimating The Economic Shock The World Is Facing (AEP)
Trump Threatens To Adjourn Congress Over ‘Scam’ Preventing Appointments (R.)
US Coronavirus Small-Business Program Funding Nearly Spent (LAT)
Real Time US Labor Market Estimates During 2020 Coronavirus Outbreak (Bick)
Overcapacity/Oversupply Everywhere: Massive Deflation Ahead (CHS)
US Opposition Seen Stalling Major IMF Liquidity Boost (R.)
We Scientists Said Lock Down. But UK Politicians Refused To Listen (G.)
Inception (Ben Hunt)
The Golden Rule (Ben Hunt)
Major Blow To Keystone XL Pipeline As Judge Revokes Key Permit (G.)
FBI Repeatedly Warned Steele Dossier Fed By Russian Misinformation (Solomon)

 

 

We are facing prolonged discussions and chaos about testing. Everyone wants to reopen their economies, but that is not feasible if there is no testing. Nobody wants to go to a bar or an office or factory floor if they can catch a deadly virus there. Very few people will volunteer to sit on, or work on, a plane or train under such conditions, and few countries would welcome travelers anyway.

But from what I gather, testing facilities and capacities are few and far between, other than perhaps in Wuhan or maybe maybe Seoul. Testing 1% of people doesn’t get you anywhere, not with 15-50% of people being asymptomatic carriers infecting others around them.

Many countries claim they don’t need to do more testing, and most do that only because they can’t. And then you get into antibodies testing, and you find the mess and uncertainties are even bigger there. The entire situation screams for one thing: lockdown, minimize contact, but that’s what they all want to get away from.

 

• US records nearly 2,600 #coronavirus deaths in 24 hours – a new record and the heaviest daily toll of any country, Johns Hopkins University reports.

• The total number of US deaths is now 28,326 — higher than any other nation

 

 

Cases 2,094,884 (+ 80,884 from yesterday’s 2,014,000)

Deaths 135,569 (+ 7,977 from yesterday’s 127,592)

 

 

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close- (Note: Brazil and Russia are climbing fast)

 

 

From Worldometer – NOTE: mortality rate for closed cases remains at 21% –

 

 

From SCMP:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live:

 

 

 

 

How accurate is it anyway?

Coronavirus Testing Hits Dramatic Slowdown In US (Pol.)

The number of coronavirus tests analyzed each day by commercial labs in the U.S. plummeted by more than 30 percent over the past week, even though new infections are still surging in many states and officials are desperately trying to ramp up testing so the country can reopen. One reason for the drop-off may be the narrow testing criteria that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last revised in March. The agency’s guidelines prioritize hospitalized patients, health care workers and those thought to be especially vulnerable to the disease, such as the elderly. Health providers have been turning away others in part due to shortages of the swabs used to collect samples.

It’s not clear whether demand has peaked among the groups on the CDC’s priority list. But after being overwhelmed for weeks, commercial labs say they are now sitting with unused testing capacity waiting for samples to arrive. The continued glitches in the U.S. testing system are threatening to impede attempts to reopen the economy and return to normal life. Expanding testing as much as possible is essential so officials have enough data to determine when it’s safe to lift social distancing measures and allow people to go back to work. Continued testing beyond that point will help officials detect — and stamp out — sparks that could set off new outbreaks. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn told POLITICO on Tuesday the White House Coronavirus Task Force is continuing to discuss whether changes to the testing criteria are warranted.

“This is part of an ongoing discussion that we’re having,” he said. “People are working overtime on that one.” Hahn’s comments came as the American Clinical Laboratory Association reported that the number of samples commercial labs handle each day fell from 108,000 on April 5 to 75,000 by April 12. The group’s members, including commercial giants Quest and LabCorp, analyze about two-thirds of all coronavirus tests in the U.S. “ACLA members have now eliminated testing backlogs, and have considerable capacity that is not being used,” ACLA President Julie Khani told POLITICO. “We stand ready to perform more testing and are in close communication with public health partners about ways we can support additional needs.”

Read more …

You couldn’t create a bigger mess if you tried with all your might.

Antibody Tests For Coronavirus Can Miss The Mark (NPR)

Dozens of blood tests are rapidly coming on the market to identify people who have been exposed to the coronavirus by checking for antibodies against it. The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t set standards for these kinds of tests, but even those that meet the government’s informal standard may produce many false answers and provide false assurances. The imperfect results could be a big disappointment to people who are looking toward these tests to help them return to something resembling a normal life. First of all, it’s not clear whether someone who has antibodies to the coronavirus in their blood is actually immune. Your body produces these antibodies within about a week of infection.

In many other diseases, people do have a period of immunity after they have been exposed to a microbe and recover from illness. But that has not been demonstrated yet with the coronavirus. Another problem is that test results are wrong much more frequently than you might expect. While tests may truthfully say they are more than 90% accurate, in practical use they can often perform far below that level. [..] Dr. Jeremy Gabrysch runs a mobile medical service in Austin, Texas. He got a supply of antibody tests made by a major Chinese manufacturer and says he has tested several hundred people in the last few days. “We offer the test for people who may have suspected they might have had coronavirus back in February or March when testing with the nasal swab [and PCR diagnostic test] was very limited,” he says. The charge: $49 a test.

Gabrysch says he only tests people when he has other evidence they might have been exposed. “If they had an illness that sounds like it could have been coronavirus and they had a positive antibody test, then it’s very likely that this is a true positive, that they indeed had COVID-19,” he says. The test he’s using, produced by Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech in China, boasts a specificity of 99%, which means it only falsely says a blood sample contains antibodies against the coronavirus 1% of the time. But despite that impressive statistic, a test like that is not 99% correct, and in fact in some circumstances could be much worse.

That’s because of this counterintuitive fact: The validity of a test depends not only on the technology, but how common the disease is in the population you’re sampling. “It is kind of a strange thing,” admits Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who studies issues surrounding tests and screening. “An antibody test is much more likely to be wrong in a population with very little COVID exposure.” This is a result of statistics, rather than the technology of any given test.

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But not those above 65. A very curious finding.

The Coronavirus Is Particularly Unkind To Those Who Are Obese (LAT)

America’s obesity epidemic appears to be making the coronavirus outbreak more dangerous — and potentially more deadly — in the United States, new research suggests. For younger and middle-aged adults in particular, carrying excess weight may significantly boost the likelihood of becoming severely ill with COVID-19. The evidence for this comes from thousands of COVID-19 patients who sought treatment in emergency departments in New York, and it’s prompting alarm among doctors and other health experts. In the U.S., 42.4% of adults have obesity, which means their body-mass index, or BMI, is 30 or more.

In one of two new studies released this week, COVID-19 patients who were younger than 60 and had a BMI between 30 and 34 were twice as likely as their non-obese peers to be admitted to the hospital for acute care instead of being sent home from the ER. They were also 1.8 times more likely to require critical care in a hospital’s intensive care unit. More severe obesity posed an even greater risk to COVID-19 patients in this under-60 age group. When these patients had a BMI of 35 or higher, they were 2.2 times more likely than their non-obese peers to need standard hospital care and 3.6 times more likely to end up in the ICU. “Obesity appears to be a previously unrecognized risk factor for hospital admission and need for critical care,” wrote the authors of the study published this month in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

But that only applies to relatively younger patients; among those ages 65 and older, there was no link between obesity status and hospital care. The authors, from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, suggested that the country’s high prevalence of obesity might be nudging rates of severe illness and death higher in the U.S. than in South Korea, China and Italy, where obesity rates are lower. The results also give doctors a new way to predict which COVID-19 patients who are not yet senior citizens run a higher risk of hospitalization and critical illness. “Unfortunately, obesity in people <60 years is a newly identified epidemiologic risk factor,” wrote the researchers, who included 3,615 patients in their study.

Read more …

We need more Wall Street.

New York Taps Mckinsey To Develop ‘Trump-Proof’ Economic Reopening Plan (R.)

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has hired high-powered consultants to develop a science-based plan for the safe economic reopening of the region that can thwart expected pressure from President Donald Trump to move more rapidly, state government sources told Reuters on Wednesday. Cuomo, along with many other U.S. governors, shut his state economy to limit the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus and has warned that he is are prepared to keep businesses shut – perhaps for several months more – unless he can assure public safety. Governors from seven East Coast states formed a coalition on Monday, led by New York, to develop a joint reopening plan. Three governors from the West Coast formed a similar plan. The 10 states, mostly led by Democrats, together make up 38% of the U.S. economy.


As part of Cuomo’s effort, McKinsey & Company is producing models on testing, infections and other key data points that will underpin decisions on how and when to reopen the region’s economy, the sources said. Cuomo has also recalled three former top aides: Bill Mulrow, a senior adviser at Blackstone Group; Steven Cohen, an executive vice president and CEO of MacAndrews & Forbes Inc; and Larry Schwartz, a deputy Westchester County executive. Deloitte is also involved in developing the regional plan, a source said. The goal is to “Trump-proof” the plan, said an adviser to New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. “We think Trump ultimately will blink on this, but if not, we need to push back, and we are reaching out to top experts and other professionals to come up with a bullet-proof plan,” to open on the state’s terms, said a Cuomo adviser.

Read more …

Please don’t claim you’re about to eliminate the virus. Ramp up testing as of your life depended on it.

New Zealand PM: Many Restrictions To Be Kept In Place When Lockdown Ends (R.)

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday that significant restrictions would be kept in place even if the country eases the nationwide one-month lockdown enforced to beat the spread of the coronavirus. New Zealand introduced its highest, level 4 lockdown measures in March, under which offices, schools and all non-essential services like bars, restaurants, cafes and playgrounds were shut down. A decision on whether to lift the lockdown would be made on April 20. The measures were tougher than most other countries, including neighbouring Australia, where some businesses were allowed to operate.


Ardern said if New Zealand moves to the lower level 3 of restriction, it would permit aspects of the economy to reopen in a safe way but there will be no “rush to normality”. “We have an opportunity to do something no other country has achieved, eliminating the virus,” Ardern said at a news conference. New Zealand reported 15 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, taking the total to 1,401 in a nation of about 5 million people. There have been nine deaths. Ardern said under level 3, some people could return to work and businesses reopen if they are able to provide contactless engagement with customers. Shops, malls, hardware stores and restaurants will remain shut but can permit online or phone purchases.

Read more …

It’s been a while since I saw a piece by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. Very much stuck in business-only mode.

Investors Are Underestimating The Economic Shock The World Is Facing (AEP)

Investors are repeating the mistake they made all through February and early March. They are again underestimating the immense economic shock of COVID-19. Can there be any parallel in market history to the surreal clash of narratives we saw this week? Global bourses soared even as the International Monetary Fund painted a series of scenarios ranging from dire – the most violent slump since the Great Depression – to catastrophic, with all the potential chain-reactions spelt out in its Global Financial Stability Report. Yet Goldman Sachs tells us that COVID-19 is under control and the worst is over. “The number of new active cases looks to be peaking globally, projections of cumulative fatalities and peak healthcare usage are coming down,” it says.

From this breathtaking premise, Wall Street’s fashion leader argues that we should “look through” the Great Lockdown to sunlit uplands ahead, anticipating a further 8% rise in the S&P 500 index by the end of the year. We can disregard normal bear market rules. This time we will avoid the textbook sequence of events in recessions: a swift crash followed by a torrid buy-the-dip rebound, and then a slow downward grind over months as reality hits home, ending only in capitulation at far lower levels. Authorities have spared us such a fate by rescuing everything immediately. “The Fed and Congress have precluded the prospect of a complete economic collapse,” it says.

I agree that $5 trillion of central bank QE, vast fiscal packages (10% of GDP in the US), and blanket guarantees, have averted disaster. They have – in a disjointed way – bought time and given us a chance of emerging from this global sudden stop without irreparable damage to the productive system. What is surely wrong is to imagine that this pandemic is a one-off shock lasting three months or so, followed by an early release from lockdowns and a swift return to near normality. The first glimpses of antibody data – such as Denmark’s test on blood donors – show that we are nowhere near the safe threshold of herd immunity.

They confirm fears that the mortality rate is at least 1% of infections and that therefore no democracies can let the virus run its course without overwhelming their health services and destroying their political legitimacy. The supposed trade-off between lives and the economy is an illusion. The most certain way to turn this crisis into a depression is to give up too soon, as Spain is already doing, and Donald Trump is itching to do. We would end up in the worst of all worlds, with multiple waves, and another forced closure of the economy to avert a winter tsunami, requiring trillions more in fiscal relief. [..] “We need a vaccine. Until we get one, the stock markets are in cloud-cuckoo land,” says professor Anthony Costello from University College London.

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That wouldn’t be wise.

Trump Threatens To Adjourn Congress Over ‘Scam’ Preventing Appointments (R.)

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to shut down Congress so he could fill vacancies in his administration without Senate confirmation, saying he was frustrated lawmakers were not in Washington to vote on his nominees for federal judgeships and other government positions. “The current practice of leaving town, while conducting phony pro forma sessions, is a dereliction of duty that the American people cannot afford during this crisis,” an angry Trump told reporters at his daily White House briefing on the coronavirus crisis. “It is a scam that they do. It’s a scam and everyone knows it, and it’s been that way for a long time,” Trump said. No U.S. president has ever used the authority, included in the Constitution, to adjourn both chambers of Congress if they cannot agree on a date to adjourn.


It was not immediately clear if Congress’ current absence from Washington because of the global pandemic could be classified as being due to a failure to agree on an adjournment date. The Senate and House of Representatives have both announced plans to return to Washington on May 4, and had been scheduled to be out of Washington for two weeks in April for their annual Easter break even before the coronavirus crisis. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell discussed nominations with Trump on Wednesday and promised to find ways to confirm those “considered mission-critical” to the pandemic, a McConnell spokesman said. “However, under Senate rules, that would take consent from Democratic leader Chuck Schumer,” the spokesman said.

Read more …

It was obvious before it started that it would be a mess.

US Coronavirus Small-Business Program Funding Nearly Spent (LAT)

Democrats and the Trump administration were at a stalemate Wednesday over how to resupply the popular Paycheck Protection Program, which helps small businesses cope during the coronavirus pandemic and is due to run out of money as soon as Wednesday night. The standoff came as Senate Democrats pushed the administration to lay the groundwork for how the nation may reemerge from social distancing and stay-at-home orders. Republicans and Democrats agree they need to provide more funding to the Paycheck Protection Program, which offers forgivable loans to help small businesses maintain their payrolls amid the deep economic fallout from the coronavirus. But the GOP balked at additional Democratic demands, such as tagging some of the funding for businesses that don’t have an existing relationship with a bank that supply the loans.

Participating banks have largely given preference to their current customers. As of 9 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, the Small Business Administration had approved 1.5 million applications totaling more than $324 billion of the $349 billion that Congress authorized in last month’s $2.2-trillion coronavirus relief package, according to the agency. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), chairman of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over small business, said that the program is expected to “grind to a halt” Wednesday evening as it hits its spending limit. “Now 700,000 small business applications are in limbo & no new loans will be made until the game of chicken in Congress ends,” Rubio said on Twitter. “Inexcusable.”

[..] The standoff over the funding program comes as Democrats on Wednesday released a national coronavirus testing strategy, arguing that they’re filling a void left by the Trump administration, which hasn’t released a plan to scale up COVID-19 testing to allow Americans to return to work and school. “The U.S. lags the world in testing and we lead the world in COVID-19 cases,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). “We are raising the alarm bells.” [..] Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), chairmen of two Senate committees responsible for health policy and spending, have said they want to make COVID-19 antibody testing free to all Americans. They acknowledged the need for widespread testing before people will feel comfortable resuming normal activities outside their homes. But Alexander said the money Congress has already authorized should be used to ramp up testing — not new funding.

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It takes weeks for jobs numbers to come out. That is too long in virustime. These guys try to fill the gap.

Real Time US Labor Market Estimates During 2020 Coronavirus Outbreak (Bick)

Labor market statistics for the United States are collected once a month and published with a three week delay. In normal times, this procedure results in timely and useful statistics. But these are not normal times. Currently, the most recent statistics refer to the week of March 8- 14; new statistics will not be available until May 8. In the meantime, the Coronavirus outbreak has shut down a substantial portion of the U.S. economy. More timely and frequent data on the impact on the labor force would surely be useful for both policy makers and the broader public. Our core survey closely follows the CPS, which allows us to construct estimates consistent with theirs. The first wave of our survey covers the week of March 29-April 4. Our findings reveal unprecedented changes in the US labor market since the most recent CPS data were collected:

1. The employment rate decreased from 72.7% to 60.7%, implying 24 million jobs lost.
2. The unemployment rate increased from 4.5% to 20.2%.
3. Hours worked per working age adult declined 25% from the second week of March. Half of this decline is due to lower hours per employed as opposed to lower employment.
4. Over 60% of work hours were from home, compared with roughly 10% in 2017-2018.
5. Those who still have their jobs are working fewer hours; 21% report a decline in earnings.
6. Declines were most pronounced for workers who were female, older, and less educated.

Effective policies require timely and accurate data on the scale of the downturn, yet traditional data sources are only made available at a significant lag. For example, the March 2020 Employment Situation report by the the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) only reflected labor market outcomes from the week ending Friday March 13, which precedes most major developments related to the outbreak. The April 2020 Employment Situation report will reflect labor market outcomes from the third week of April, but is not scheduled for release until May 8. The gap between the data needs of policymakers and the time lag of traditional data sources has left policymakers “flying blind” to a significant degree. The goal of this project is to help fill that void. [..]

Our major findings for the last week of March are as follows.
1. Dramatic reductions in employment. (a) We find an employment rate of 60.7% during the first week of April, compared with 72.7% in the second week of March, implying 24 million fewer workers. (b) We find an unemployment rate of 20.2% during the first week of April, compared with 4.5% in the second week of March. One positive note is that over half of the unemployed reported being temporarily laid off, suggesting that many could return to work quickly if conditions improve.

2. Even larger declines in aggregate labor supply than implied by employment alone. (a) Hours worked per working age adult declined 25% from March. In the first week of April, individuals worked 20.4 hours on average, compared with 27.5 weekly hours in the second week of March. (b) Hours worked per employed declined 12% from March. Even those who are still employed are working 4.5 fewer hours per week, a reduction of over half a day of work. This implies that just under half of the decline in hours per working age adult were due to reductions in hours worked per employed, and are therefore not reflected in changes to the employment rate.

3. Unprecedented increase of the share of hours worked from home. (a) We find that 63.8% of work hours were from home during the first week of April, compared with roughly 10% in the Spring of 2017 and 2018.

4. Lower earnings even for individuals still working the same job as in February. (a) We find that 21.9% of workers still working the same job as in February experienced a reduction in their earnings last week compared to February. About half of these reported that their reduction in earnings was 50% or larger. (b) At the same time, 11% of workers with the same job as in February report higher weekly earnings last week compared with February. 5. Disparities in labor market outcomes by sex, age, education, race, and hourly status. (a) Although negative effects are widespread, they are more pronounced among workers who are female, older, and less educated.

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Charles is right. Restart the whole circus now and there will be no buyers.

Overcapacity/Oversupply Everywhere: Massive Deflation Ahead (CHS)

Oil is the poster child of the forces driving massive deflation: overcapacity / oversupply and a collapse in demand. Overcapacity / oversupply and a collapse in demand are not limited to the crude oil market; rather, they are the dominant realities in the global economy. Yes, there are shortages in a few high-demand areas such as PPE (personal protective equipment), but across the entire spectrum of global supply and demand, there is nothing but a vast sea of overcapacity / oversupply and a systemic decline in demand as far as the eye can see. Here’s a partial list of commodities that are in Overcapacity / oversupply:

1. Overvalued assets 2. Overpriced income streams (as income craters, so will the asset generating the income) 3. Labor: low-skill everywhere, high-skill in sectors experiencing systemic collapse in demand 4. AirBnB and other vacation rental properties 5. Overpriced flats, condos and houses 6. Overpriced rental apartments 7. Overpriced commercial office space 8. Overpriced retail space 9. Overpriced used vehicles 10. Overpriced collectibles

I think you get the idea. Should China restart its export factories, then almost everything being manufactured will immediately be in oversupply, as the global export sector was plagued with mass overcapacity long before the Covid-19 pandemic crushed demand. Incomes will crater as revenues and profits crash, small businesses close their doors, never to re-open, local governments tighten spending, and whatever competition still exists will relentlessly push the price of labor, goods and services lower. Globalization has generated hyper-specialization in local and regional economies, stripping them of resilience. Fully exposed to the demand flows of a globalized class of consumers with surplus discretionary income, regions specialized in tourism, manufacturing, commodity mining, etc.

All these regions are now facing a structural collapse of global demand, and they have no diversified local economy to cushion the blow to jobs, incomes, profits and tax revenues. Thousands of small business that could barely squeak through a 20% decline in revenues are facing a 50% or more decline as far as the eye can see. With costs such as rent, labor, fees, taxes and healthcare at nosebleed levels, an enormously consequential number of small businesses globally cannot survive more than a modest, brief drop in revenues, as their costs remain high even as their sales plummet: costs are sticky, profits slide quickly to zero and beyond.

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No, I don’t like Soros being involved, and no, I don’t like the US squeezing Iran in virustime.

But most of all, all countries should think twice before letting the IMF have anything to do with their money supply. It doesn’t come free.

US Opposition Seen Stalling Major IMF Liquidity Boost (R.)

U.S. opposition is expected to prevent the International Monetary Fund this week from deploying one of its most powerful tools to help countries fight the coronavirus: creating a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights. The move, akin to a central bank “printing” new money, has been advocated by economists, finance ministers and non-profit groups to provide as much as $500 billion in urgently-needed liquidity for the IMF’s 189 member countries. SDRs, based on dollars, euro, yen, sterling and yuan, are the IMF’s official unit of exchange. Member countries hold them at the Fund in proportion to their shareholdings. The IMF last approved a $250-billion new allocation of SDRs in 2009, during the last financial crisis, boosting liquidity for cash-strapped countries. Doing so again now could provide more flexibility to the 100 countries that have already sought IMF emergency loans and grants, and allow new lending to countries with “unsustainable” debt burdens, such as Argentina.


An SDR expansion has attracted some celebrity advocates, such as investor George Soros and U2 lead singer Bono’s ONE anti-poverty organization, along with trade unions and faith-based groups. Finance officials will debate the issue during this week’s virtual IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, but multiple sources familiar with the Fund’s deliberations say the United States, the IMF’s dominant shareholder, actively opposes such a move. The Trump administration opposes providing countries such as Iran and China with billions of dollars in new resources with no conditions, two of the sources said. [..] The U.S. Treasury Department would prefer to see the IMF focus on using its $1 trillion in existing resources, including $100 billion in emergency loans and grants, to aid countries’ health responses to the crisis, the sources said.

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You would think this should wake up Britain. But what are the odds?

We Scientists Said Lock Down. But UK Politicians Refused To Listen (G.)

In mid-February a colleague mentioned that for the first time in his life he was more concerned than his mother, who had been relatively blase about the risks of Covid-19. It felt odd for him to be telling her to take care. We are both professors in a department of infectious disease epidemiology, and we were worried. Two months on, that anxiety has not gone, although it’s also been joined by a sense of sadness. It’s now clear that so many people have died, and so many more are desperately ill, simply because our politicians refused to listen to and act on advice. Scientists like us said lock down earlier; we said test, trace, isolate. But they decided they knew better.

Am I being unfair? The government assures us that its decisions and timing are based on science, as if it is a neutral, value-free process resulting in a specific set of instructions. In reality, the science around coronavirus is in its infancy and developing daily, with researchers across the world trying to understand how the virus spreads, how the body responds – and how to treat it and control it. The speed at which our knowledge has increased is impressive, from the sequencing of the virus in January through to having candidate vaccines in early February.

Mathematical models are being refined to predict the extent and speed of spread and estimate the impact of control methods. My own group is studying the response of communities, showing how the epidemic is amplifying existing social inequalities. People with the lowest household income are far less likely, but no less willing, to be able to work from home or to self-isolate. But while scientists carry out observations and experiments, testing, iterating and discovering new knowledge, it is the role of policymakers to act on the best available evidence. In the context of a rapidly growing threat, that means listening to experts with experience of responding to previous epidemics.

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Ben Hunt is angry enough to start a revolution. While he’s also running a program delivering masks and other PPE to medical workers.

Inception (Ben Hunt)

The past few months are not a litany of errors and honest mistakes by the institutions we have charged with protecting us from disease and ruin. They are a litany of betrayals, and their Answers – their False Stories – have been revealed as lies. First we’re going to vaccinate ourselves to their Answers, to their False Stories, so that we think for ourselves again. Without this, we will inevitably fall back into the patterns of crony capitalism and obscene financialization that got us here in the first place. It’s a vaccine that we don’t administer anymore … an intentional decision by the high-functioning sociopaths and political entrepreneurs who rule us, of course.

Like all effective vaccines, it mimics the virus itself in its ability to trigger a physiological response in us. They want to nudge you into allegiance to a policy or a vote or a party. We want to un-nudge you into independence of spirit and thought. They want to infect you with an Answer. We want to innoculate you with a Process. The Process is one of the Old Stories. It is, in fact, the Oldest Story of what makes for a good and just human society. It is a narrative that has directly motivated hundreds of millions of people to organize themselves in hundreds of thousands of beneficial social forms, large and small, for thousands of years. We’re going to use that incepted Process to burn down these systems of iniquity from within and below.

We’re going use that incepted Process to build something better together, as brothers and sisters exercising our birthright – our autonomy of mind. I’m going to tell you exactly how we’re going to develop millions and millions of doses of the Old Story vaccine, and I’m going to tell you exactly how we’re going to administer them and exactly how we are going to change the world from below and from within. And you won’t believe me.

I mean, this happens all the time. I will sit down with someone and walk them through the entire plan … how we’re developing the science of what Isaac Asimov called “psychohistory”, how that gives us the ability to not only measure the narratives of social control that oligarchic institutions broadcast but also to design effective jamming narratives of our own, how we create a decentralized epistemic community of distributed trust and mutual support that we call the Pack, how we burn down these oligarchic institutions from below by jamming their Answers and from within by replacing the current sociopathic leadership with members of the Pack … and it is literally as if a switch goes off in their head and their eyes go dim. But then I’ll say “yada-yada-Trump” or “yada-yada-Biden” or “yada-yada-the-Fed” or “yada-yada-Bitcoin” and they’ll perk right up again!

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I’m cheating a bit. This is part of the article above, Inception. But the article is long and this is a very good bit.

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Now go and learn it.”

The Golden Rule (Ben Hunt)

It’s the Golden Rule. It’s the Oldest Story of fundamental human ethics. You can find it in ancient Egyptian stories, preserved in papyri from the Middle Kingdom. You can find it in the ancient Sanskrit epic “Mahabarata”, as the way in which dharma manifests itself in human affairs. You can find it in the ancient Greek writings of Thales and Pythagoras. You can find it in the ancient Persian texts of Zoroaster. But here’s my favorite: A gentile came before two teachers, Shammai the strict and Hillel the tolerant, and to each in turn said, “I will convert to Judaism if you can teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.” Shammai chased him away. But Hillel said to the gentile, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Now go and learn it.” The rest is commentary.


The Golden Rule is all you need to know to organize a good and just society. Everything else, all of the rules and principles and books and words and laws that engulf us … ALL of it … is just commentary. The Golden Rule is the vaccine. The Golden Rule is the simplest and most powerful form of the idea of reciprocity, ready and primed for inception in every human dreamer. The Golden Rule is the formal description of empathy. The Golden Rule is the only law of the Pack. The Golden Rule IS the full hearts of Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose. The Golden Rule is the meme that we’re going to inject in a mass-customized way straight into everyone’s veins with the Narrative Machine. And then YOU are going to burn down the current system of oligarchic iniquity from below and within. And then YOU are going to change the world. All on your own. With no centralized organization and no Answer imposed from above.

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Note that this takes place as the world is fast running out of space to store oil reserves in. I’m waiting for numbers of fully loaded tankers floating off ports for weeks or months.

Major Blow To Keystone XL Pipeline As Judge Revokes Key Permit (G.)

The controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has been dealt a major setback, after a judge revoked a key permit issued by the US Army Corps of Engineers without properly assessing the impact on endangered species. In a legal challenge brought by a coalition of environmental groups, a federal judge in Montana ordered the Army Corps to suspend all filling and dredging activities until it conducts formal consultations compliant with the Endangered Species Act. The ruling revokes the water-crossing permit needed to complete construction of the pipeline, and is expected to cause major delays to the divisive project. Keystone XL is a 1,179-mile pipeline which would transport around 830,000 barrels of oil a day from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada to Nebraska, eventually heading to refineries on the Gulf Coast.


Campaigners welcomed Wednesday’s ruling as a victory for tribal rights and environmental protection. “The court has rightfully ruled against the Trump administration’s efforts to fast track this nasty pipeline at any cost. We won’t allow fossil fuel corporations and backdoor politicians to violate the laws that protect people and the planet,” said Tamara Toles O’Laughlin of environmental group 350.org Judith LeBlanc, director of the Native Organizer Alliance, said: “The revoking of the permit is a victory for treaty rights and democracy. Tribal nations have a renewed opportunity to exercise our legal and inherent rights to protect the water of the Missouri river bioregion for all who live, farm and work on the land.”

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Prepare to hear much more about this from Horowitz. Someone will do a major write-up.

FBI Repeatedly Warned Steele Dossier Fed By Russian Misinformation (Solomon)

The FBI received repeated warnings dating to 2015 that Christopher Steele, the ex-British spy it used to build a case against President Trump, had concerning contacts with Russian oligarchs and intelligence figures that might call into question the credibility of his intelligence reporting, newly declassified documents showed Monday. The suspect sources included a person described as a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and a Russian intelligence figure under separate counterintelligence investigation by the FBI, the memos show. And the red flags included a warning that Russian intelligence appeared to be aware as early as July 2016 that Steele was working on a U.S. election-related investigation, making him susceptible to misinformation.

The revelations are found in newly declassified footnotes from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s December, 2019 report about failures in the Russia probe that included using false evidence to secure a FISA warrant against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in October 2016. Some of those red flags were raised prior to the bureau’s decision to rely on Steele’s dossier as key evidence in seeking the FISA warrant targeting the Trump campaign in the final days of the 2016 election, and nearly all were raised before Special Counsel Robert Mueller opened his probe in spring 2017.

For instance, FBI officials urged in 2015 that Steele undergo a re-evaluation as an informant (a “validation review,” in spy parlance) after the bureau’s transnational organized crime office learned that he had received contact from five Russian oligarchs, all of whom wanted to have contact with the bureau. “The report noted that Steele’s contact with 5 Russian oligarchs in a short period of time was unusual and recommended that a validation review be completed on Steele because of this activity,” one footnote stated.

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