May 132022
 


Margaret Gillies Charles Dickens 1844

 

Rand Paul Blocks Fast-Track Senate Vote for $40 Billion Ukraine Funding (CTH)
Finlandization of Ukraine, Ukraine-ization of Finland (Nuna Costa)
The Guardian View On Expanding Nato: Putin Has Only Himself To Blame (G.)
‘Finland Will Be A NATO Backwater’ (ZH)
Two Months of Operation Z (Malenica)
‘Russia Started the War’ and Other Fallacies (Whitney)
The Destiny of Civilization – Michael Hudson (Norton)
Diesel Fuel Shortage Sets Stage for Next Biden Created Crisis (CTH)
Meet the Head of Biden’s New “Disinformation Governing Board” (Golinkin)
Beijing Residents Swamp Supermarkets After Lockdown Rumours (CNA)
“Genetically Edited” Food – The Next Stage of the Great Reset? (OffG)

 

 

I kid you not: People today blame NATO’s expansion on Putin.

 

 

Immune system shutdown
https://twitter.com/i/status/1524509732878548992

 

 

Russia has named 12 EU countries involved.

 

 

COVID vaccines have “rigorous standards that are much higher” than any in U.S. history

 

 

 

 

Glenn Beck Ecohealth

 

 

“Printing $40 billion to send to a deeply corrupt nation in Eastern Europe”. Rand Paul wants oversight of how the money will be spent. He can’t have it. None of the people who voted in favor have actually read the bill. There was no time. This will go into next week, giving them that time. How many do you think will read it?

Rand Paul Blocks Fast-Track Senate Vote for $40 Billion Ukraine Funding (CTH)

Senator Rand Paul has blocked a fast-track senate vote on the additional $40 billion funding package created by Joe Biden and House Democrats. Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell approved a fast-track vote; however, senator Rand Paul (KY) stood defiant against their effort. Despite the high-profile pressure from the two Senate leaders, Rand Paul refused to move and that means the Senate will have to take procedural steps to overcome his objection, which could take several days. “My oath of office is the US constitution not to any foreign nation and no matter how sympathetic the cause, my oath of office is to the national security of the United States of America,” Paul said in his remarks before objecting to moving to swift passage of the bill. “We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the US economy.”


The $40 billion supplemental spending bill for Ukraine is more than the total military budget of Russia. The combined Ukraine aid packages now exceed $60 billion, more than the entire budget for the U.S. Dept of Homeland Security including border protection. Rand Paul is on the right side of history with his position, and the overwhelming majority of Americans agree with him. However, the opinion of the people is irrelevant to the Senate. Even democrat Senator Chuck Schumer seemed to admit this point when he said Rand Paul’s position “was not the opinion of the overwhelming majority here,” meaning in the senate. Schumer would have used other terms if he thought the American people agreed with him. They don’t, and he knows it.

Rand Paul

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“..if this “express” entry of the Nordic country into the Alliance goes ahead, it will suppose an increment of more than double the length of the current border between NATO and Russia.”

Finlandization of Ukraine, Ukraine-ization of Finland (Nuna Costa)

The Finnish President and Prime Minister today announced their support for the country’s membership of NATO at the forthcoming summit in Madrid on 29-30 June. I have no illusions, this is bound to happen without the will of the Finns for which a popular referendum had been promised on the matter, or that it will even be submitted to Parliament, where it would be approved anyway. The main internal requirement for the admission of new countries is that they “add security” to the bloc. Since when does this move make Europe safer? But there are more conditions and clauses of the international legal framework that are being purposefully violated, and shameless disregard for signed agreements.

Let us not even mention the still pending demands that the Kremlin notified in writing to NATO in December, which NATO chose not even to respond to, and which obviously clash with the current situation. Russia had already made it known that the entry of Sweden and especially Finland into NATO is perceived as a threat. Perhaps it was reasonable to understand the Russian point of view. The President of Croatia has recently made it known that he will veto the planned extension as it is “a very dangerous adventure”, in the words of his MFA. Any country can and should oppose this clear provocation, but we know that if this happens, those who are interested in the militarisation of Europe will spin the issue one way or another, as there have never been legal or procedural limits of any kind to this complex.

So, if this “express” entry of the Nordic country into the Alliance goes ahead, it will suppose an increment of more than double the length of the current border between NATO and Russia. This should be viewed with great caution, since all members will be affected by whatever may happen from there. This has been said here before, but today the irresponsibility becomes clearer and the concomitant danger more imminent. After long years of discussion about the so-called possible and reasonable Finlandisation of Ukraine’ as a militarily neutral zone between Europe and the nuclear superpower Russia, we are now much closer to the Ukraine-ization of Finland. Do you know what that means?

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Willfully blind.

The Guardian View On Expanding Nato: Putin Has Only Himself To Blame (G.)

Nato expansion has doubtless contributed to Mr Putin’s paranoid mindset. He sees the organisation as little more than an expression of US power. But it is primarily Russian aggression that has driven expansion, not vice versa. The fear of provoking Moscow tied the hands of its neighbour Finland, and Sweden, for years. Now the all-out assault on Ukraine has led many to conclude that there is nothing to lose – while Russia’s failures there have suggested that it may be less fearsome than they thought. Sweden and Finland joining Nato would leave Kaliningrad, home of Moscow’s Baltic Sea fleet, encircled. Predictably, Russia has vowed retaliation for the Finnish announcement. It had already said it would deploy nuclear weapons in the Baltic, though the real threat is more likely to come in the form of disinformation, cyber-attacks, and other provocations.


Yet Moscow should not be the alliance’s only concern. It must also look closer to home. In the US, 57 Republicans voted against the $40bn aid package for Ukraine in the House of Representatives and it faces Republican objections in the Senate. As the Democrats flounder, the spectre of Donald Trump – or someone like him – as the 47th president looms larger. And despite the defeat of Marine Le Pen in last month’s French presidential election, ambivalence or antagonism towards Nato has not vanished from Europe. In Italy, where a general election is due next year, most voters oppose the government’s decisions to increase defence spending and send arms to Ukraine. The alliance exists to counter the threat on its eastern borders. It can only do so by remaining vigilant to internal vulnerabilities.

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Will Russia cut off oil and gas to Finland? It gets 100% of both that way.

‘Finland Will Be A NATO Backwater’ (ZH)

A Kremlin spokesman earlier in the day warned that Finland joining NATO would “definitely” be a threat that would trigger “retaliatory steps” – but stopped short of identifying specific possible courses of action. “NATO is moving toward us. That’s of course why all of this will warrant a special analysis and the development of necessary measures needed to balance the situation and guarantee our security,” the initial Kremlin response stated. Later in the day Thursday – a number of hours after Finland’s president Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced the country will apply for NATO membership “without delay” – Russian Ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov elaborated on Moscow’s likely response in an interview with Sky News.

“Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of military and other nature, in order to curtail the threats that arise to its national security in this regard,” Chizhov stressed in the interview when asked about its neighbor Finland as well as Sweden applying to NATO. The two countries first sent strong signals regarding this complete U-turn in historic policy last month in response to Russia’s ongoing military aggression against Ukraine. The Russian ambassador said further in the UK television interview that he’s “deeply disappointed and saddened” by the development, while saying in a somewhat condescending tone that Finland has been “pushing above its weight, having become in the last few decades a major power in promoting European security architecture.”

Further he said the Scandinavian neighbor which shares an 810-mile border with Russia would inevitably become a “NATO backwater” if it does move forward in entering the military alliance. Sky News also quoted Chizov as explaining the following possible change in defense posture: The ambassador said such a move would “certainly necessitate rethinking of Russian defence posture” but wouldn’t “necessarily [involve] troops and tanks, but certain preparations definitely… like radars, perhaps”.

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A long detailed overview.

Two Months of Operation Z (Malenica)

From the author’s perspective, what is currently happening in Ukraine is a conflict between the Russian and Western concepts of war, that is, the concept of war as conceived by NATO. Among other things, this conflict is also a question of the prestige for the West, which has so far seen itself as the most militarily capable bloc on the planet. Having trained Ukrainian ground army[50] to NATO standards and equipped it with anti-tank and anti-aircraft portable systems, the West is now observing performance of these forces against Russian troops. This is, as well, one of reasons for the omnipresent Western propaganda campaign. Moreover, within this conflict, it is necessary to view Ukrainian media and propaganda sources as organic offshoots of Western intelligence agencies and public relations firms, of which at least 150 have participated in creating and spreading propaganda for Kiev since the beginning of hostilities.

Likewise, make no mistake, majority if not all intelligence at disposal of Kiev is of NATO origin. In an event that Ukrainian troops are defeated by Russian units, it will be clear that equipping and training army in accordance with NATO standards does not guarantee the highest level of combat capability. At the same time, the possible defeat of Ukraine will shake the reputation of NATO itself, especially the United States, whose last year’s debacle in Afghanistan is still fresh in memory. Russia’s eventual victory would be the second major case in modern times where forces equipped and trained by the West have been defeated by non-Western armies.

In this context, one should also observe the huge military aid that has been pouring into Kiev for two months now by countries of the West and European Union. As US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently pointed out, the United States wants “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”[53] This only confirms what many analysts have already pointed out, that Kiev and Moscow are not at war in Ukraine, but Russia against the collective West led by Washington. The United States needs, both for domestic and foreign policy, Russian defeat in Ukraine.

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“..the indivisibility of security..”

“..signatories to these treaties are not free to develop their own military capability to the point where it poses a danger to their neighbors..”

‘Russia Started the War’ and Other Fallacies (Whitney)

On Monday, Putin delivered the annual “Victory Day” speech celebrating Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. The Russian president made none of the hyperbolic pronouncements the media had predicted but, instead, gave a brief recap of the events leading up to the war in Ukraine. There was none of the bravado you’d expect from a leader trying to gin up support for the ongoing war. Putin simply reminded the crowd that he had done everything he could to avoid the bloody conflict in which Russia is currently embroiled. Here’s part of what he said: “Last December we proposed signing a treaty on security guarantees. Russia urged the West to hold an honest dialogue in search for meaningful and compromising solutions, and to take account of each other’s interests. All in vain. NATO countries did not want to heed us, which means they had totally different plans. And we saw it.”

This is an accurate account of what took place in the months preceding the war. Putin tried to avoid a confrontation by repeatedly asking the US to address Russia’s reasonable security concerns. Unfortunately, the Biden administration brushed off Putin’s demands without even providing a response. The US and NATO insist that Ukraine has every right to choose whatever security arrangement it wants. But that’s clearly not the case. The United States and every nation in NATO have signed treaties (Istanbul in 1999, and Astana in 2010) that stipulate they cannot improve their own security at the expense of others. The principle underlying these agreements is called “the indivisibility of security”, which means that the security of one state can’t be separated from the security of the others.

In practical terms, that means that signatories to these treaties are not free to develop their own military capability to the point where it poses a danger to their neighbors. These terms are especially applicable to Ukraine which is seeking membership in a military alliance that is openly hostile to Russia. NATO membership has always been a “red line” for Putin who has stated repeatedly that he will not allow NATO bases, combat troops and missile sites to be located on Ukrainian soil where they’d be just a stone’s throw from Moscow. As one critic from Texas put it, “You wouldn’t let a rattlesnake make its home on your front porch, would you?” No, you wouldn’t, and neither would Putin.

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“..financial planning is short-termism; it’s short-term planning; it’s take your money and run. And that’s what is stripping and impoverishing the global economy today.”

The Destiny of Civilization – Michael Hudson (Norton)

[..] finance capitalism is what has essentially de-industrialized the United States and turned the Midwest into a Rust Belt. Well, the alternative, obviously, are the societies that have not followed this neoliberal finance capitalist plan. And the most successful economy, obviously, has been China, which is why it has been spending so much time there. And China has done exactly what 19th-century United States, Germany, England, and France did. It has kept basic utilities, basic needs, housing, and above all, finance and banking, in the public domain, as public utilities. Instead of having an independent financial sector operating on its own self-interest, the Bank of China creates the money.

And the Bank of China lends money by deciding, where do we need to have investment in real estate to provide housing for the population at as low a price as we can make it? How do we build up the industry? How do we provide an educational system with training? How do we provide health? And the fact is that the central planning in an efficient socialist style, not the Stalinist planning that everybody refers to of Russia, but a mixed economy as you have in China, which is truly a mixed economy, with guidance, like the French planification. Well, that is obviously the way in which you survive and you avoid the kind of overloading the economy with debt service, with high rents, with high payments to the health-care monopoly in the United States, by avoiding all of this payment to a rentier class that has what the classical economists call unearned income, predatory income.

And instead of unseating them, we’ve put them in charge, and made the banks and Wall Street, and the city of London, and the Paris Bourse, the central planners. So we do have central planning much more centralized than anything that was dreamed by the socialists. But the planning, the centralized planning is done by the financial sector. And financial planning is short-termism; it’s short-term planning; it’s take your money and run. And that’s what is stripping and impoverishing the global economy today.

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“..shortages of diesel fuel on the East Coast may happen in the coming week at some stores..”

Diesel Fuel Shortage Sets Stage for Next Biden Created Crisis (CTH)

It has often been said that if you chase the global climate change ideology to its natural conclusion, we end up in communal groups sitting around a tepid campfire eating some form of sustainable algae cakes and picking parasites off each other… Prior to Joe Biden that prediction might have seemed like hyperbole. Now, not so much. Indeed, the Green New Deal energy policy of Joe Biden creates massive downstream consequences. Unfortunately, the White House doesn’t seem to care. The high prices and scarcity of critical goods are a feature, not a flaw, as they chase their climate friendly Build Back Better agenda. Following the continuum of intended consequence, now we have diesel fuel shortages beginning to hit the U.S. economy; and with scarcity comes higher prices of an almost astronomical scale.

“The national average price of diesel is now $5.54 per gallon, which is an increase of 22 cents from last week, which was when the most recent record was set. Data shows there’s no state that’s currently seeing diesel prices below $5.12 per gallon.” Making matters even worse is a drop in available inventory of diesel fuel which is about to become a crisis for the east coast of the U.S. Some Truck Stop operators like Love’s and Pilot are already warning their big rig customers they may not have fuel for truckers. […] “Love’s is monitoring the fluid situation on the East Coast, we have experienced minimal outages during low traffic hours,” Oklahoma-based Love’s Travel Stops said in an emailed statement. “The company has no plans to restrict purchases of diesel.”

[…] Earlier on Wednesday, the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration said total inventories of distillates, which is mainly diesel fuel but also heating oil, fell last week to a 17-year low of 104 million barrels, which is 23% below normal. On the East Coast, the situation is even worse. The EIA said distillate fuel oil inventories in the so-called PADD 1 district that covers the Northeastern states fell by 1.1 million barrels last week to just 21 million barrels, the lowest ever recorded in data going back to 1990. Love’s truck stops, with some 550 locations across 41 states, also seemed to confirm reports on social media Wednesday that said Love’s and other truck stops such as Pilot were informing their fleet operators that shortages of diesel fuel on the East Coast may happen in the coming week at some stores.

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Azov whitewasher.

Meet the Head of Biden’s New “Disinformation Governing Board” (Golinkin)

Late last month, the Joe Biden administration publicly confirmed that a “Disinformation Governing Board” working group had been created within the Department of Homeland Security. The news prompted a flood of concern about the impact of such an Orwellian organ on America. But there’s no need to engage in hypotheticals to understand the dangers. One has to only consider the past of Nina Jankowicz, the head of the new disinformation board. Jankowicz’s experience as a disinformation warrior includes her work with StopFake, a US government-funded “anti-disinformation” organization founded in March 2014 and lauded as a model of how to combat Kremlin lies. Four years later, StopFake began aggressively whitewashing two Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups with a long track record of violence, including war crimes.

Today, StopFake is an official Facebook fact-checking partner, which gives it the power to censor news, while Jankowicz is America’s disinformation czar. If the Biden administration is serious about combating threats such as white supremacy, perhaps it should first reflect on the old Roman question: Who will guard the guardians? StopFake was founded right after Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan uprising ousted the country’s president and swept a new, US-backed government into power. Formed by professors and students from the Kyiv Mohyla Journalism School, StopFake presented itself as a plucky, grassroots group wielding hard facts and semi-permanent smirks as it shredded Russian propaganda. It gained notoriety by producing slick videos hosted by dynamic disinformation warriors debunking the Moscow lies of the day.

Western reporters—and checkbooks—were paying attention. Shortly after its creation, StopFake began receiving funding from Western governments, including the National Endowment for Democracy—an organization mainly funded by the US Congress—and the British embassy in Ukraine. It was also supported by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation. (StopFake has run numerous episodes that cover Soros but fail to disclose this potential conflict of interest—a violation of basic tenets of journalism.) Among StopFake’s hosts was Jankowicz, a graduate of Bryn Mawr and the Georgetown School of Foreign Service who was already part of the burgeoning disinformation warrior industry while in Ukraine as a Fulbright Clinton Public Policy Fellow. On January 29, 2017, she hosted StopFake Episode 117, whose lead story dealt with a perennial obsession of Russian propaganda: Ukraine’s volunteer battalions.

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“I’ll be fine whether I’m required to stay home for three days or seven.”

Beijing Residents Swamp Supermarkets After Lockdown Rumours (CNA)

Beijing residents rushed to supermarkets on Thursday (May 12) as Chinese officials tried to curb mounting panic over a rumour the capital would be placed under stay-at-home orders. The city has been trying to stamp out a wave of cases in recent weeks, closing subway stations and telling many residents to work from home, with hundreds of communities sealed off to contain cases. On Thursday there were rumours online that authorities were about to impose a strict lockdown, prompting many to rush to food stores and stock up. Beijing residents fear they may face draconian measures similar to those that have trapped most of Shanghai’s 25 million people at home for weeks – after what was initially described as a days-long shutdown.


No lockdown was announced Thursday, but officials confirmed they will start three more rounds of mass testing for residents in 12 of the city’s main districts and “recommended” that people stay home and “reduce movement” during that time. AFP saw staff at one local supermarket in central Beijing rushing to restock as shelves of vegetables were emptied out. Sui Xin, 41, told AFP that he had gone to the store after he read on social media that the capital’s officials might keep residents at home. “Everyone is stocking up,” he said, buying eggs and instant noodles. “I’ll be fine whether I’m required to stay home for three days or seven.” “I’m just buying some chicken wings and instant noodles, there’s nothing left,” a shopper surnamed Huang said, queueing at another packed supermarket.

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From “genetically modified” to “genetically edited”..

First you make them hungry, then you push their “new food” on them.

“Genetically Edited” Food – The Next Stage of the Great Reset? (OffG)

But the part I found most interesting is the stated plan to “encourage agricultural and scientific innovation at home” via the proposed Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill. The proposed bill (which, for some reason is not available through the parliament website) follows on from DEFRA’s announced “loosened regulation” of genetic research back in January. To quote the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), the legislation would “take certain precision breeding techniques out of the scope of restrictive GMO rules”. Essentially, this would see new “gene-edited” foods as distinct from old-fashioned “genetically modified” foods, and therefore not subject to the same rules and oversight.

The claimed distinction is that gene editing, as opposed to genetic modification, doesn’t introduce DNA from other species. Therefore, in effect, is merely speeding up what could potentially naturally happen over time. Now, you might think this is just semantics, and that such a law will just provide a loophole for ALL “genetically modified” foods to simply rebrand themselves as “genetically edited” foods, and thereby avoid regulation. But that is disgustingly cynical and shame on you for even thinking it. All in all, this is pretty on-message stuff, and not especially surprising. What’s noteworthy is – by pure happenstance, I’m sure – it appears to coincide with a renewed push on the GM food front in other countries all over the world.

In December 2021, Switzerland added an amendment to its moratorium on GMO crops, permitting the use of certain “gene editing” techniques. Last month, Egypt announced their new strain of GM wheat. Just two days ago, Ethiopia’s National Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center announced they had researched, and the country will now be growing, genetically modified cotton and maize. Despite Russia’s sweeping ban on the cultivation and/or importing of genetically modified crops, they have nonetheless created a 111 billion Ruble project to create up to 30 varieties of genetically edited plants and farm animals. Britain’s deregulation of GM food is always described as a “post-Brexit” move – with the EU chided around the world for its “precautionary principle” on GM crops – and yet as long ago as last April, the EU was calling for a “rethink” on GM crops.

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Madonna

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle May 13 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 54 total)
  • Author
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  • #107835

    Margaret Gillies Charles Dickens 1844   • Rand Paul Blocks Fast-Track Senate Vote for $40 Billion Ukraine Funding (CTH) • Finlandization of Ukrai
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 13 2022]

    #107836
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Margaret Gillies Charles Dickens 1844

    Dickens could paint????????????
    Who knew??????
    Surely not me……………… 😉

    #107837

    He did not paint himself

    #107838
    Red
    Participant

    Russia the one notable exception! Salt in the self inflicted wound.

    Global Wheat Production Faces Weather Threats, While U.S. Food Prices Climb

    “Droughts, flooding and heatwaves threaten output from the U.S. to France and India, compounding shrinking production in Ukraine. Just about every major producing region is facing one threat or another. The one notable exception is Russia, which is shaping up for a bumper crop and stands to benefit from the rising prices and limited supply elsewhere.

    #107839
    chooch
    Participant

    Sounds like Xi might needs a pivot, could always send troops to Ukraine or take Taiwan.

    https://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/11/xi-jinping-step-down-rumors-suggest-amid-harsh-chi/

    Rumors in China are usually false. However, in some cases information derived from rumors preceded actual events. Examples include reports of the arrest of the “Gang of Four” Communist leaders following Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, and the downfall of regional CCP leader Bo Xilai on corruption charges in 2012.

    Rumors can be unofficial leaks in a nation with little press freedom and tight government control over media. but several analysts of Chinese affairs say the rumors of a leadership change are probably not true.

    But they may reflect either a party power struggle in advance of the forthcoming conclave, or deliberate disinformation by Mr. Xi aimed at burnishing the CCP’s tarnished image.

    #107840
    Dr. D
    Participant

    ComicDidntPost

    “Lockdown Advocate Admits Negative Impacts Were Never Considered”

    Why should he? He was never going to pay them, he was never going to follow them. That’s for the ‘other’ people. That is, the people that we ‘othered’.

    Martenson is following the Pfizer data, much of which we thought. (Duh, why else would you hide it?) Almost certainly whole groups, like at least 10% of study, were fabricated on the spot, or duplicated from another group to get the numbers barely over the threshold. Got uptake like they were handing out free bimbos, signed up 4k members, all their names, histories, records, in three days, the last day before cutoff?

    That is not suspicious at all. And also not hardly the worst thing in the docs, just easy to talk about. No pregnancy testing. No fertility testing. No toxicity testing. Erased the control group.

    A convicted felon, who paid the largest corporate fine ever, for killing people medically, created this drug. And what did you expect? “Pay the fine. Carry on good sir. We’ll be back for more vig next month.”

    “We need to keep boosting the elderly and the young (and not me). Because I just said in my new book that Covid is only as bad as the common cold and barely reduces death rates, killing people mostly over 75.” –B. Gates

    “ Beijing Residents Swamp Supermarkets after Lockdown Rumours (CNA) “

    As I said originally about our lockdown, work from home? Who comes to fix the cable internet? Who fixes your plumbing? “Essential workers”? Who and what is “essential”? If anyone moves, it’s not a lockdown, probably even with their stunning measures. And of course all the extra people you kill.

    Nato expansion has doubtless contributed to Mr Putin’s paranoid mindset.” Yes, when they said NATO wouldn’t move an inch to the east and every year added a country and is now on the direct borders a 5-minute missile flight away, he’s just seeing things.

    He’s just seeing things about it being a mere “expression”, a puppet of U.S. power when in just 30 days we’ve sent $40B and all the heavy weaponry in the warehouse, running out of Javelins, a thing that has never been done before in U.S. history, or perhaps the world. But that’s not a proxy war run by the U.S. to send ½ of the whole Russian defense budget to Ukraine. He’s just paranoid. Why do I talk? They are incapable of logic. How’s this: “YOU ARE PLANNING ON GETTING YOUR CHILDREN, YOUR CITY, AND IN FACT THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE NUKED.” Nope. Nothin’. No comprehension, no reaction.

    “The alliance exists to counter the threat on its eastern borders. It can only do so by remaining vigilant to internal vulnerabilities.”

    Russiaphrenia. We spend a trillion dollars to ward off the threat of a nation the size of Holland. And we must destroy all human rights in Europe to do so.

    “Russia’s eventual victory would be the second major case in modern times where forces equipped and trained by the West have been defeated by non-Western armies.”

    Are you kidding? Bush started 2 wars, Obama 5 or more, and we lost all of them. We also lost every war before that like Korea and Vietnam, and including the Panama/Nicaragua, the war on Drugs, as well as the war on Poverty. P.S. looks like from 30,000/yr we’re already at 100,000/yr in ODs. Opium Wars, and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

    ..shortages of diesel fuel on the East Coast may happen in the coming week at some stores..”

    Biden just said they may put in price controls, hallmark of failure, which is a guarantee of shortages 100% of the time.

    As Martenson says, this is not just a resource, this is the MASTER resource. A shortage of diesel means a shortage of everything. But when you’re shutting down baby formula factories until there’s a shortage, clearly that’s your plan. (N.B. only 2 cases from the factory, investigated and it turned out the formula was not the cause. That was a month ago, and the FDA still hasn’t re-opened the plant, knowing there is a shortage and far more than 2 babies will die because of it. Killin’ some babies!!! So excited! Our favorite!!! Just think of the mother’s panic as she sees her child withering and dying in her loving arms! O-face!)

    “Are Americans ready to defend Finland against a nuclear-armed power based on Article 5?”

    Yes, yes, yes!!! Any time, any reason, any cost. Just please don’t make us get drinking water to Flint or clean up Blue City ghettos. Shut up and nuke my money!

    “Vacation Canceled For Chicago PD After Nearly 1,000 Cops Quit Last Year”

    Oh wait. We can’t. But that wasn’t the kind of clean up I meant anyway. $40B for Ukraine, zero for the shooting capital of the U.S., where 90% of murders are unsolved. That’s alright, kill all the people you want, we’ll import more.

    Murder Inc. The Death Eaters universal death cult. Sign ups have been brisk this week as everyone approves! MOAR.

    #107841
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Germany. Bio-labs. No waaaaaayyy! I don’t believe it. Germans are wholesome, they would never.

    #107842
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    He did not paint himself

    Okay; got it… 😉

    #107843
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    I think Russia’s threats of military action with regard to Finland as a NATO member pertain to positioning missile-launchers on Finland’s border with Russia. Russia would probably immediately destroy such missile-launchers. It is worrisome indeed to imagine what might happen after that.

    #107844
    zerosum
    Participant

    Senator Rand Paul , TAE, ME, and the majority of people are on the same side.
    1. For PEACE
    2. In opposition to our leaders

    • Rand Paul Blocks Fast-Track Senate Vote for $40 Billion Ukraine Funding (CTH)

    Senator Rand Paul Blocks Fast-Track Senate Vote for $40 Billion Additional Ukraine Funding


    382 COMMENTS
    ———-
    Sweden and Finland, ae under pressure/attack by Nato to join NATO

    Are they self sufficient in food production, and in energy production?
    Modern Missile-Launchers don’t need to be in Sweden and Finland to hit any targets.

    • Finlandization of Ukraine, Ukraine-ization of Finland (Nuna Costa)
    • The Guardian View On Expanding Nato: Putin Has Only Himself To Blame (G.)
    • ‘Finland Will Be A NATO Backwater’ (ZH)
    • ‘Russia Started the War’ and Other Fallacies (Whitney)
    ———

    #107845

    “…most voters oppose the government’s decisions to increase defence spending and send arms to Ukraine.”
    I’m guessing this is true most everywhere. Politicians say they can’t vote for the platform they campaigned on if it doesn’t align with their party.
    What are they threatened with? Brass knuckles? Dead pets?

    #107846
    zerosum
    Participant

    Experts say, “Russia is losing the war”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/military/russian-drawback-north-proves-inability-capture-key-ukrainian-cities-uk-intelligence
    UK Says Russian Drawback In North Proves “Inability To Capture Key Ukrainian Cities”
    ———–
    https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/russia-prepares-cut-gas-supplies-finland-tomorrow-local-media
    Russia Prepares To Cut Gas Supplies To Finland On Friday: Local Media
    Hours after Moscow warned there would be retaliation for Helsinki’s announcement that it is applying for NATO membership, Finnish media reports that the Kremlin threatened to cut the country off from Russian gas by Friday. Citing unnamed sources, Finland’s Iltalehti reported the Russian warning to politicians, who refrained from specific comment.

    Prior to this warning, the local media outlet noted expectations that Finland would be cut off from Russian gas after May 23rd, when its next contract payment with Gazprom comes due and the country refuses to pay in rubles. In late April, Russia cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria for refusing to pay in accordance with the Kremlin’s ruble scheme

    #107847
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Russia’s defense budget in 2019 was $48 billion.

    Sending over $40 billion Biden bucks seems extravagant but most of that $40B is for GRAFT.

    Ukraine is the ultimate 21st century laundromat.

    Congress Critters Kids will vacuum up a large portion.

    Zelinsky’s nazi goon squad gets a big slice.

    Ukraine Oligarchs get their taste.

    Mix in some Pork for reluctant members of Congress to vote, you’re almost there.

    The Military Industrial Mafia is spreading it’s cheeks wide.

    The only puzzle is the network of bio-weapons labs spread across the desolate Ukrainian landscape.

    How does Fauci and Collins and Gates get a hit?

    Rome is on fire, smokem if you got’em

    .

    #107848
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    I recall reading on Twitter last night that Senator Paul is obstructing quick passage of the money to Ukraine because he wants an inspector appointed to make sure there is some sort of accountability with regard to how the money is spent. This sounds pretty reasonable, as so much of that money could disappear into the sinkhole of corruption and graft that is modern-day Ukraine.

    #107849
    kultsommer
    Participant

    I warned him but he apparently enjoys stepping on the art-rake over and over.
    Encouraged by the TAE community and the host, he views me as his menace.

    #107850
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    “we need to keep boosting” (Gates)

    Some data from Denmark which he should look into:
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSlKKI1VsAINbFU?format=jpg&name=small
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSlKKI1VsAINbFU?format=jpg&name=small

    #107851
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    RE: formula. There is opportunity in REALITY – adapting/adjusting, building new support/information networks, and in producing homemade formula = self-reliance. Power comes back to you/is reclaimed through the effort.

    Google “homemade baby formula” today and nearly every result is a red-alert DANGER warning screaming “don’t do it!”. See how the industry-monopoly wants to keep moms addicted to their product at any cost.

    NOTE: I have never made formula in my kitchen at home. However, the recipes posted here caught my attention.The only change I would make to them is to eliminate the Karo syrup. Why get baby hooked on sugar? A substitute (used in moderation) might be coconut nectar (dissolved in warm water, then add) or figs puree (dissolved in warm water, strained, then add). My usual go-to sweeteners including honey and maple syrup are not recommended for infants.

    LOVE to All.

    #107852
    Dora
    Participant

    The homemade baby formula recipe with water, evaporated milk, syrup and baby vitamins looks like the baby formula mom fed me and all my younger siblings. She boiled the water for 5 or 10 minutes to kill any bacteria and let it cool before mixing in the evaporated milk. Still remember those cans of evaporated milk.

    #107853
    Dora
    Participant

    From Ed Dowd.
    Read this comedy piece.
    https://gettr.com/post/p19azvr0779

    (The MSM is really stretching belief with this headline. “Breakthrough death?” wtf?)

    #107854
    zerosum
    Participant

    RE: formula.
    Those snowflakes. Those helicopter moms.
    Survived on breast milk.
    Survived on home made formula.
    We failed to pass on our wisdom.

    #107855
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Canada’s PM “Socks” travelogue disclosed: Travel Kyiev details*:

    “The Prime Minister and his delegation departed Ottawa on Saturday [ May 8th ] morning aboard a Canadian Air Force Airbus CC-150 for an eight-hour flight to Rzeszow in southeastern Poland. From there, a high-ranking government source said, they took the train to Kiev Central Station. Once in Ukraine, they traveled in a motorcade convoy of two dozen vehicles, including police escorts and an ambulance.

    Trudeau’s small delegation included Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Secretary of State Mélanie Joly, National Security and Intelligence Adviser Jody Thomas, Chief of Staff Katie Telford, Deputy Chief of Staff Brian Clow and photographer Adam Scotti.”

    bold added by moi

    How Justin Trudeau’s People Arranged His Whirlwind Visit to Ukraine at War

    How Justin Trudeau’s People Arranged His Whirlwind Visit to Ukraine at War

    … now we all know!

    F.S.

    *) Information comes from Government of Canada, therefore it must be true, … or not!

    #107856

    Ukraine winning the Eurovision Song Festival tomorrow will hopefully be the lowest point of this circus performance. How much worse could it possibly get?

    #107857
    Noirette
    Participant

    I posted previous about the very low cost of Educ Uni level in Ukraine, where many students from ‘developing’ countries go, very popular. An estimate of the no, it is about 80K, almost all were in Kiev, and they all left.

    Many from Africa, the Maghreb, etc. It was seen as a gateway to Europe, or a ticket for a top job at home (properly educated second son who speaks Russian, etc.)

    For the Biolabs, it is not the *same* story but somewhat similar.

    It is low-cost to set up the labs and hire ppl, and the lack of oversight is key.

    — The US, the R Federation, the EU, .. don’t oversee, no mandate to do so!

    However, the WHO was / is roped in / responsible for evaluation (this is a whole other complicated story I don’t really grasp for the mo.)

    There was / is one (and only one), high-level Bio Lab in Mariupol. The latest WHO report is very critical:

    Mariupol City Branch of Donetsk Oblast. Laboratory Center of MOH, Laboratory of Especially Dangerous Infections and Laboratory of Virology (GCA) Laboratory Assessment Report
    November 2020.

    PDF

    https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/sites/www.humanitarianresponse.info/files/documents/files/laboratory_assessment_report_mariupol.pdf

    Imho the idea that bio-labs exist in the Azovstahl plant is idiotic.

    #107858
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks for the last couple of days of blog and comments, Ilargi & Friends.
    We found the same stuff.

    Michael Hudson does the best overall summation, finally in a transcript format.
    It is all relevant, and the time factor (10-40 years per Prof. Hudson) is highly variable, due to tipping-point effects on the $US as global reserve currency, and sudden destabilization by shortages of food and fuel.
    I have to wonder when the crisis point will be reached.
    The “Davos crowd” are pushing it closer, so they must have a rescue-plan ready for us to “choose”.
    It looks like a year of crises is developing. Those often spin out of control.

    TROTW (the rest of the world) may repudiate $US debts if it can get food and oil from the new Eurasian bloc without dollars. Perhaps the crisis is move forward to pre-empt that.
    Maybe it will happen anyway.
    People in the west also have to feel desperate, so they will grasp at whatever straws are offered.
    Greece has been getting the austerity for a decade now, as sort of an internal EU lab for starving people into submission.
    It may not completely work. That’s what I hear.
    Prepare yourself to help friends and family…

    #107859
    John Day
    Participant

    Zelensky to address Davos/WEF crowd” virtually”, wants MOAR.
    Turkey not favorable to Swedish & Finnish NATO emergency-inductions?
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-says-83bn-spent-war-so-far-zelensky-addresses-davos-wef

    #107860
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    (7 : God’s pH)

    We all do the same
    (we do it all the same):
    We do what we can to become
    what we’re supposed to be.
    What are we?
    A bittersweet degree.

    Everything comes from God.
    What reasons do I have to be grateful for some things, and displeased with another?
    Radical Acceptance: no questions – no doubts.

    A heroic freedom fighter to one, an imbecile in a clown custom to another – it doesn’t matter: humans are not meant to escape dualism’s confinement. Here’s a clue, though: everything is necessary, until it ceases to be.

    (You’re welcome)

    #107861
    willem
    Participant

    “Russia’s eventual victory would be the second major case in modern times where forces equipped and trained by the West have been defeated by non-Western armies.” To which @Dr. D added: “Are you kidding? Bush started 2 wars, Obama 5 or more, and we lost all of them…”

    We can no longer talk about victory and defeat, winning and losing, unless we first define what that is now understood to be. The classical definitions apparently no longer hold.

    When one side loses (say) 50,000 soldiers and 500,000 civilians and has its infrastructure completely shattered while the other side loses maybe 10,000 soldiers and NO civilians, and goes home to a country as intact as the one it left, who won? By any classical standard, the latter would be considered the winner. Now? It depends. What was the objective? If success is measured in terms of forcing “the invaders” to go home, perhaps body count is secondary. If it is measured in the number of weapons sold or financial profits made, or in the ability to blind a foolish and distracted public to the other crimes going on under their very noses, body count is irrelevant to the declaration of victory (though certainly NOT irrelevant to the recently deceased owners of those bodies).

    #107862
    Noirette
    Participant

    Not so far in the past, nov. 2014, much was laid out.

    UNITED NATIONS, November 22. TASS.

    The third committee of the UN General Assembly on Friday adopted a resolution urging countries to adopt more efficient measures to struggle against the heroization of Nazism and other forms of racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance. 
     
    A total of 115 out of 193 UN member-states voted in favor of the document, initiated by Russia. Three countries opposed the document – Canada, the United States and Ukraine. Another 55 delegations, including from the European Union countries, abstained
    .

    https://tass.com/russia/761115?utm_source=tass.ru&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=tass.ru&utm_referrer=tass.ru

    #107863
    zerosum
    Participant

    Booooo

    Turkey not favorable to Swedish & Finnish NATO and Ukraine says that NATO is discriminating against Ukraine’s application.
    Russia made everyone fight against their WWII inventory.
    NOW …. its a contest of “mine are better than your missiles.”
    Now, the USA and Canada are saying “all gone, no more giving away.”
    (Senator Ron Paul is not accepting a $40 billion armament replenishing bill that pretends that its for Ukraine.)

    Peace

    #107864
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Since Finland is considering joining NATOstan, … here is – just perhaps – a germane history bit:

    Early on November 30, 1939, the USSR launched a massive attack against Finland, the start of the 105-day Winter War.

    … above was preceded by following:

    On 26 November, a Soviet border guard post on the Karelian Isthmus was shelled, reportedly resulting in the deaths of four border guards, with nine injured. A false flag attack, carried out by a Soviet unit, the incident provided the USSR with a pretext to start the war four days later.

    https://yle.fi/news/3-11081924

    … fwiw,

    F.S.

    P.S.: … my wife is Finish, above is a story she just fished out for me!

    #107865
    zerosum
    Participant

    HOOOPS
    https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/russia-cut-electricity-finland-saturday-heels-announced-nato-bid
    Russia will cut its delivery of electricity to Finland starting Saturday, RAO Nordic said Friday, which is a subsidiary of Russian state energy holding Inter RAO. It’s calling the stoppage unprecedented.

    “We are forced to suspend the electricity import starting from May 14,” RAO Nordic said, explaining as the reason that it had yet to receive payment for volumes sold in May. “RAO Nordic is not able to make payments for the imported electricity from Russia.”
    The unprecedented stoppage comes immediately on the heels of Finland’s prime minister and president in a joint announcement Thursday affirming the Scandinavian country’s intent to apply for NATO membership. Sweden too has been coordinating with Helsinki over joining the Western military alliance.

    Given Finland relies on Russia for 10% of its electricity supply, the stoppage is not expected to have significant effect – also as nuclear power accounts for over 35% of Finland’s electricity needs among five operating nuclear reactors.

    #107866
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    … further to my post #107864 and this part, … about false flags:

    On 26 November, a Soviet border guard post on the Karelian Isthmus was shelled, reportedly resulting in the deaths of four border guards, with nine injured. A false flag attack, carried out by a Soviet unit, the incident provided the USSR with a pretext to start the war four days later.

    … I just remembered a border squabble story that, presumably, was the result why WW-2 was started ( German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939 ). Here is what supposedly happened back then according to Wikipedia: Operation Himmler:

    The operations were mostly carried out on 31 August.[7] The operation, as well as the main German offensive, was originally scheduled for 26 August; the shifting diplomatic situation resulted in delay until 31 August and 1 September. However, one of the German undercover units was not informed and carried out its attack on a German customs post, and several Germans were killed before the incident ended.[8] The operations were carried out by agents of the SS[7] and the SD.[9] The German troops, dressed in Polish uniforms, would storm various border buildings, scare the locals with inaccurate shots, carry out acts of vandalism, retreat and leave behind dead bodies in Polish uniforms.[9] The bodies were really prisoners from concentration camps who were dressed in Polish uniforms, killed by lethal injection, shot for appearances and left behind.i

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Himmler

    F.S.

    #107867
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “How much worse could it possibly get?”

    U2 playing?

    “Russia will cut its delivery of electricity to Finland starting Saturday,”

    They seem incapable of awareness or thought. Did anyone ask if this had to do with NOT PAYING? Because I hear they were stonewalling on the ruble requirement, so Finland was simply refusing to buy. That’s not Russia. But we wouldn’t know because nobody asked even after putting the two sentences in the same paragraph. You’re fired.

    However the False Flag article is nonsense: all GOOD people know there is no such thing as false flags and wars are always started on completely accurate pretenses, and are carried out with full transparency. So somebody better censor Wikipedia right away. Whoops! Distracted by every word of every sentence of every article every day being a lie: they are still on about Russia “losing the war”, “leaving the north”, “desperate”, etc. That means they are still on target to make one of those is-they-is or is-they-ain’t FF attacks of Russia chemicals or some such. The ones that don’t exist, but are in Encyclopedia Britannica.

    Come to think of it though, a lot not happening, no hacking, attacks, or communication outages. Yet. And no one keeping those stories warm. There are some other predictions but I forget.

    #107868
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    How’s this: “YOU ARE PLANNING ON GETTING YOUR CHILDREN, YOUR CITY, AND IN FACT THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE NUKED.” Nope. Nothin’. No comprehension, no reaction.

    #107869
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #107870
    WES
    Participant

    F.S.:

    I am often surprised at how few people are even aware of the Dec-Mar 1939-40 Winter War that followed shortly after the German/Russian Sept/Oct 1939 conquest of Poland. This was a result of an earier pact Germany and Russian had signed. Germany conceded Finland and the 3 Baltic states as Russian pheres of influence giving Russia a free hand to do whatever they wanted.

    Supposedly Finland’s border was too close to Leningrad so Russia wanted to swap land (I.e unproductive forest land up north for Finland’s best southern farmland). The Finns did not trust Russia.

    One possible mistake the Finns may have made, when negotiating, was not realizing the significance of Stalin being personally involved in the negotiating meetings. This personal involvement meant he was sincere?/serious about swapping land. Naturally Stalin wanted land above the only Finnish defensive point, the Mannheim line. Accepting this meant the Finns would leave themselves wide open to a future sudden attack on Helsinki. In the end Finnish distrust of Stalin prevailed. It is interesting to note the 3 Baltic states got none of Stalin’s personnal involvement in their fate.

    When Russia invaded Finland, they did not realize how poor condition their army’s leadership was in. In the late 1930s the Russian army had expanded greatly but in 1938 Stalin had purged/shot most of the existing experienced officers and generals 50,000? because he feared them.

    Replacement officers also included a equal rank but politically superior commusar. The army officer had to first get approval of the commusar before he could do anything. The commusuars emphasized political endocrination as more important than army training. There were many stories of the political commusars shooting the army officers for disloyalty to the communist party. Thus many army officers dared not do anything that might upset their commusars. Stalin might have felt more secure but that meant the Russian army couldn’t operate properly nor efficiently. This hidden defect in the Russian army’s command structure is what made it possible for Finland to hold out for nearly 3 months despite being ill prepaared for war.

    The Finns did have one thing going for them, a handful of good experienced generals and staff officers. The Finns’s top general, Mannheim, was an experienced officer in the Czars Russian army. Many staff officers had fought in the German army. All had fought against the communist take over attempt of Finland after the1917 Russian revolution. So Finland had generally good army leadership when war broke out despite little modern equipement. What they had, had come from the Czars army when Finland had declared independence from Russia in 1917.

    This initial poor performance of the Russian army is probably what lead Hitler to summarized that to conquere Russia, all one had to do was kick in the front door and Russia would immediately collapse. What Hitler overlooked was immediately after the Winter War was over, Stalin started to bring back many of the experienced officers he had purged in 1938 to try and improve the Russia army’s fighting capabilities. He may have also limited the commusars powers too.

    From a Russian point of view, imagine what would have happened if Stalin had not brought back some of the Russian army’s most experiencer officers in 1940, to improve the Russian army, driven by the poor showing in the Winter War against Finland?

    Germany came dam close to defeating a 1941 Russia army as was. Against a 1940 year prepared Russian army, Germans would have probably won.

    So the Winter War experience with Finland in 1939-40, is probably what saved Russia from Germany in WW2. So much for an insignificant Winter War that nobody knows anything about!

    #107871
    John Day
    Participant

    I really spent all day on this blog post, mainly editing Michael Hudson for brevity, without sacrificing his insights. Picture of food security project, too
    https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/understanding-financial-capitalism?s=w

    I am happy to be able to provide a transcript (finally) of Professor Michael Hudson’s recent interview, which succinctly explains our current moment in history from the perspective of power-elites using financial paradigms, like “financial capitalism”, “industrial capitalism” and “socialism”. He directly addresses the underlying realities.

    Michael Hudson: Destiny of Civilization
    ..Wednesday, May 11th, the book comes out. And it’s called “The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism or Socialism.”…

    ..In order to understand today’s finance capitalism, you have to understand what industrial capitalism was, as it was described in the 19th century.
    And it’s often forgotten, or played down, that industrial capitalism was revolutionary. What it was trying to do – from the physiocrats in France in the late 18th century to Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Marx, and the whole late-19th century flowering of socialism – the ideal of classical value theory and rent theory, was to say what is the actual value, the cost value of producing goods and services?
    And what is earned by the capitalist, when he employs labor to make a profit, and what is unearned?
    And what is unearned was the landlord class. That was the hereditary warrior class that conquered all of the European kingdoms in the Middle Ages…
    ..look, we cannot become the workshop of the world; we cannot undersell foreign countries if we have a landlord class ripping off all of the money in land rent​…
    ..we have predatory banking, or the wealthy people just lend really for buying property, or making distressed loans or predatory loans that have nothing to do with financing actual capital formation…
    ​..​If we have democratic reform and give voting to the people, they’re going to vote against the landlord class, and then we can have an efficient economy where our prices of our exports and our goods and services reflect the actual cost of production, not the rake off for the rentiers class, not the rake off of what landlords take, not the rake off of what predatory bankers take.
    ​ ​And the whole long 19th century leading up to World War One was this revolutionary value theory that depicted land rent and monopoly rent and financial returns as being unearned income and wanting to strip it away.
    ​ ​And all of this seemed to be moving toward socialism. The industrialists were all in favor of government public utilities, of government enterprise, because they said, if the government doesn’t provide health care, then individuals are going to have to pay it, and it’ll cost a lot of money, like it does in the United States.​..
    ..So all of this move towards socialism was not only in favor of increasing living standards, which soared in the 19th century, but also in freeing the economy from the rentier class, from the landlords, from the bankers.
    ​ ​And for the classical economists, a free market was a market free from landlords, free from bankers, free from monopolists.

    ​ ​Well, needless to say, the rentiers fought back. And by after World War Two, we’ve seen a continual anti-classical theory replacing the classical idea of free markets with a value of free theory, saying, well, everybody earns whatever they they have. All wealth is earned, not unearned. And if Goldman Sachs partners are paid more than anyone else, that’s because they’re so productive.​..
    ..And as it turns out, the business plan of finance capitalism was so predatory that it was anti-industrial…
    ..So finance capitalism is what has essentially de-industrialized the United States and turned the Midwest into a Rust Belt.
    Well, the alternative, obviously, are the societies that have not followed this neoliberal finance capitalist plan. And the most successful economy, obviously, has been China…
    ​ ​And China has done exactly what 19th-century United States, Germany, England, and France did. It has kept basic utilities, basic needs, housing, and above all, finance and banking, in the public domain, as public utilities.​..
    ..Well, that is obviously the way in which you survive and you avoid the kind of overloading the economy with debt service, with high rents, with high payments to the health-care monopoly in the United States, by avoiding all of this payment to a rentier class that has what the classical economists call unearned income, predatory income.​ ​And instead of unseating them, we’ve put them in charge, and made the banks and Wall Street, and the city of London, and the Paris Bourse, the central planners.​.. it’s short-term planning; it’s take your money and run…

    ​ ​“The neoliberal ideology inverts the classical idea of a free market from one that is free from economic rent to one that is free for the rentier classes” – that is the rent-extracting classes – “to extract rent and gain dominance.” … That is, of course, what we could call the Washington consensus.​..
    ..“U.S. foreign policy seeks to extend this neoliberal rentier program throughout the world.” .. “free-trade imperialism.”​ …
    ​..And the term “free-trade imperialism” was actually created by a British historian of trade theory who pointed out that, wait a minute, when England went for free trade, the idea was, if we have free trade, we can stifle other countries from being able to industrialize, because if we have free trade, then we can tell America, we will open our doors to your markets – meaning the markets of the slave South, that Britain supported – and in exchange, you will open your markets to our industrial goods.
    ​ ​And America followed that until the Civil War, which was fought not only over slavery, but by the Republican Party after 1853 that said very explicitly, if we’re going to win the election – the Whigs never could win – if we, the new party, are going to win the election and industrialize America, we’ve got to integrate ourselves with the anti-slavery issue, with emancipation, but for us, the economic war of America is a war of, either we’re going to have protective tariffs in the North, or we’re going to end up as a non-industrial, raw materials-producing society, as the South wants.
    ​ ​And that was the debate from 1815, when the Napoleonic wars ended and world trade began again, until really the Civil War.
    ​ ​And America became strong in the way that Germany became strong too, by having protective tariffs, in order to have prices large enough to nurture what was called infant industry, to nurture American manufacturing.​.. the reality is, if we have free trade, you’ll get poor, if you’re not already able to have industrial and labor productivity and agricultural productivity on par with the most advanced countries.​..
    ..the leading American protectionist economist, Erasmus Peshine Smith, went to Japan and helped industrial help Japan break away from British free trade, helped Japan industrialize.​..

    ..But after World War One, America had already achieved its industrial dominance. And it was after World War One that America said, ok, now our protective tariffs have enabled us to outproduce all the other countries, and our protectionist agriculture especially – the most protected sector in America, has always been agriculture, since the 1930s.
    Basically it said, well, now we can outproduce other countries, we can undersell them, now we can tell them to go for free trade. And after World War Two, the Americans created the World Bank for economic impoverishment, and the International Monetary Austerity Fund.
    And the World Bank’s leading objective was to prevent other countries from investing in their own food production…
    ​ ​And so the function of free trade, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund has been to finance dependency, backed up by the American support of dictatorships throughout Latin America who agree to have client oligarchies supporting pro-American trade patterns and avoiding any kind of self-reliance, so that the United States can do what it has recently done to Russia and other countries, impose sanctions – say, well, now that you depended on us for your grain, we can now impose sanctions, and you can’t feed yourself if you don’t follow the policies we want…
    ​..​So basically, free trade means no government, no socialism. It means central planning essentially by Wall Street – countries should let American firms come in, buy control of their raw materials, resources, control of their oil and gas, and mineral rights, and forests and plantations, and basically let other countries send their whole economic surplus to the United States, where it will be duly financialized to buy out other countries’ raw materials and rent yielding resources.​..

    ​ ​“We must recognize how finance capitalism has gained power over industrial economies, above all in the United States, from which it seeks to project itself globally, led by the financialized U.S. economy. Today’s new Cold War is a fight to impose rentier-based finance capitalism on the entire world.”​ …

    ​..Well, as we’re seeing now, the world is dividing into two parts. We can see that in the fight against Russia, which is also a fight against China, and against India, as you noted. And it seems Indonesia and other countries as well.
    ​ ​The United States is pushing a world that can be controlled by American investors. The ideal of the American neoliberal plan is to do to other countries what it did to Russia after 1991: take all of your public domain, your oil companies, your nickel mines, your electric utilities, give them all to the wealthy oligarchy, that can only make money once it’s taken control of these companies, by selling the stocks to the West.
    ​ ​The West will buy out oil, just like Mikhail Khodorkovsky tried to sell Yukos oil to Standard Oil in the West. And we’ve got to put an oligarchy that will sell all of the national domain, all of the patrimony and natural resources, and all the companies, to American investors on the cheap.​..
    ​..And it was furious when Russia said, we’ve lost more population as a result of neoliberalism than we did in all of World War Two fighting against Nazism. We’ve got to stop.
    ​ ​And Russia began to say, we’ve got to use Russia’s population, and industry, and natural resources for Russia’s benefit, not for the United States’ benefit.​..

    ..So the world is dividing into two parts. And it’s not simply the United States and its European satellites on the one hand versus the non-white population on the other hand; it’s finance capitalism versus the rest of the world, which is protecting itself by socialism, which in many ways fulfills what was the ideal of industrial capitalism during the 19th century, when industrial capitalism was actually progressive.​..
    ..And now the financial class is no longer the landlord class, but the landlord class pays most of its rent to the financial class in the form of mortgage interest, as it borrows money to buy property and housing and commercial sites on credit…
    ​..​Privatized health care, 18% of GDP, that is pricing America out of the world market. Debt, auto debt, student debt, which in other countries education is free; that’s pricing America out of the market.
    ​ ​So you have a basically un-competitive economy that’s committing financial suicide, following the same dynamic that destroyed the Roman empire, where a predatory oligarchy took over and maintained power by an assassination policy of its critics, just very similar to what America has been doing in Latin America and other countries.​.. ​

    ​..​And this split couldn’t have occurred back in the 1970s, with the Bandung Conference in Indonesia. There were other attempts by the Non-Aligned nations to break free of American imperialism, but they didn’t have a critical mass.
    ​ ​So right now, for the first time, you have a critical mass. And you have the ability of China, Iran, Russia, India, other countries together to be self-sufficient. They don’t need relations with the United States.
    ​ ​They can handle their own; they can create their own monetary system outside of the International Monetary Fund, which is basically an arm of the Defense Department. They can give loans to build up the infrastructure of countries outside of the World Bank, which is basically an arm of the Defense Department, the deep state.​..
    ​..And so we’re seeing in the last few months the beginning of a war that is going to go on for, I think, 20 years, maybe 30 or 40 years. The world is splitting away.
    ​ ​And it won’t be a pretty sight, because the United States and its European satellites are trying to fight to prevent an inevitable break away they cannot prevent, any more than Europe’s landlord class could prevent industrial capitalism from developing in the 19th century.​..

    ..But on the subject of Russia, Professor Hudson, we now have seen that since Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine on February 24th, we saw really what could be referred to as financial shock-and-awe. That’s a term that’s been used…
    ..Well, it didn’t work that way. They did grab the $300 billion of Russia’s reserves. Russia immediately said, ok, we have our own money. We now, fortunately, have enough oil and gas that we don’t have to sell to Europe and Germany. If they want to freeze in the dark and let their pipes burst when the weather gets cold, that’s their problem. We’ll sell to India, and China, and other countries….
    ​..And so what has happened is that immediately the ruble not only recovered, but is now selling at a higher rate than it was before the American sanctions. So there was no shock at all. The Americans felt shock.
    ​ ​The Americans are shocked. The Americans are awed. The Russians are laughing and everything is going their way.​..

    ​..​And the sanctions are forcing Russia to do exactly what the United States, Germany, and other protectionist countries did in the 19th century, developing their own industry by isolating it from low-priced foreign imports that would be priced so low that the Russians otherwise could not afford to make the investment in factories, plants, equipment, research, and development.​..
    ​..China is watching what the Americans are doing to Russia, and listening to President Biden saying, you know, Russia is not our real enemy, our real enemy of China. And when we’re finished with Russia, then we’re going to go against China and do the same thing to it.
    ​ ​Well you can imagine what this is leading the Chinese government to try to plan to be sufficiently independent from the United States, so that similar type sanctions will not hurt it.
    ​ ​And President Xi in the last few weeks has said we’ve got to make China as independent as possible…

    ..I had mentioned earlier that finance lives in the short term. American policy, being financial policy, lives in the short term. And it’s looking at if it can make a quick, a quick victory, and forget about what’s going to happen next.​..
    ​..​So they have people who have no idea of what’s happening in Russia, no idea what’s happening in these other countries. And they’re blinded by their ideology.​..
    ​..​So you’re having American policy pretty much run by the blind, and the Europeans are simply taking orders, and money in little white envelopes from the United States, to just show their loyalty, and basically are willing to spend three to seven times as much for their energy, for their liquefied natural gas and oil, by buying from the United States, than they are by a long-term contract with Russia.
    ​..​Europe is willing to spend now $5 trillion on putting together ports that can handle shipping tankers for liquefied natural gas instead of relying on the Russian pipeline, the Nord Stream Two, that’s already there.​..​
    ​..​To the United States, other countries protecting their economy, other countries trying to raise their living standards, and especially other countries undertaking land reform, are viewed as enemies of the United States, because they’re an enemy of the neoliberal American financial system.​..

    ​..So Europe is willing to say, well, ok, if we don’t have a Russian gas, well, that means that our chemical companies cannot buy the gas to make the fertilizer to make our crops grow, and our agricultural productivity is going to fall by about 50%.
    ​ ​We’re also going to spend a lot more money on America’s military, NATO arms to support NATO. So higher food, higher military spending, higher energy costs.
    This ends Europe as an industrial rival to Asia, and Eurasia…​leaving the United States and Europe without any industrial competitive power. They’ve priced themselves out of the world market. They’re no longer competitive.
    ​ .. And I’m sure the only way that the NATO countries can fight against it is militarily, by threatening to bomb.
    But they can’t fight economically. They can’t fight financially.​..
    ​..​It really is left without a strategy, except that it’s done a wonderful job of controlling the public relations dimension of this war, making it appear as if somehow other countries are the aggressors, in not letting America exploit them, and making it appear as if Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine, instead of NATO prodding and prodding Russia…

    ..What is in store is a new monetary system that is an alternative to the dollar IMF system.
    And in this system other countries will hold their reserves in each other’s currencies. In other words, Russia will hold Indian rupees and Chinese yuan. China will hold rupees and Russian rubles.
    ​ ​There will be the equivalent of what Keynes thought of as something like artificial special drawing rights that the banks will be able to create to help fund governments to undertake capital investment.
    ​ ​But for settlements settling balance of payments deficits among countries, once they don’t have enough foreign exchange to make a swap, they will use gold as the means of settlement, because gold is a pure asset. It’s not a liability.
    ​ ​Any foreign currency basically is held in a foreign country that has the power to do what America did to Russia and just grab it all, and say, we’re just wiping it all out.
    ​ ​It’s as if you have a bank account, and the bank says, we’ve just emptied out your account to give it to one of our friends, and you don’t have it anymore. You can’t do that if gold is held in your own country.
    ..So, obviously, countries are not going to leave their gold in other countries. Even little Germany has asked America to begin sending back the gold that it has in the Federal Reserve Bank of America because it’s worried that what if it ever buys Russian gas again? America will grab all of Germany’s gold…
    ​..​So this act that America did of grabbing Russian money, Afghanistan’s foreign reserves it grabbed, this is telling all the other countries, pull all your money out of dollars. What are they going to put it in? There’s not that much they can put it in that it is absolutely safe.
    ​ ​So gold is a flight to safety today, because it’s one of the things that all of the world realizes as having an international value for settling balance of payments deficits, that is independent of world politics.
    ​ ​So that’s the explanation. Russia is not going on gold. It’s going on an independent standard from the United States with gold as an element of its foreign reserve, just as it’s holding Chinese yuan and Indian rupees.​..

    ..So these are Russia’s deposits in American banks that it used to buy or sell rubles, or to buy goods from America, or to receive payments in, if Russia exports something such as oil. Americans buyers of Russian oil would put the money into the Russian bank account.
    They never dreamed that this would be grabbed. But now Russia says, ok, you’ve grabbed our money, now that means that we get to grab all of your assets in Russia. This is great! All of your stock holdings in nickel, and Yukos, and all these other companies, ok, you’ve got the money, we have the assets, look at us as just buying the assets on the cheap.
    ​ ​And the Western investors in Russia have all been selling their Russian assets to show that they’re good American citizens in NATO, and the Russians are buying up these European and American assets on the cheap…

    ​..(Due to entrenched ideology) ​Americans and Europe are operating in the blind, and Russia and China, and Iran, and India, are all looking at how are we going to restructure the world so that we come out of it more prosperous than we were before, not more impoverished. That’s really what the world is dividing into.​..
    ​..Germany, with all of its history of hyper inflation, I think just realizes that, now that gold is not used to settle balance of payments deficits anymore – the gold that Germany had in America was all of the exports that it made to the United States during the Vietnam War. This is Vietnam War gold…
    ​..​But now it says, well, America is never going to settle its balance of payments deficits and its foreign debt in gold again, because it doesn’t have any balance of payments surplus, any ability to do that.
    ​ ​It’s going to spend its export surplus and its investment surplus on war. So it’s never going to be able to pay. That’s obvious. Let’s get the gold back.
    ​ ​That was the calculation that every country was making already a decade ago. They realized that America can never repay its foreign debt…​

    ​​..Well, now other countries are saying, wait a minute, if America’s never going to repay its foreign debt, why do the Global South countries have to pay their debt to the IMF and the World Bank, all this dollar debt to dollar bondholders?
    If America won’t pay, we don’t have to pay. Let’s have a clean slate.
    Let’s start from the beginning. And we’re only going to have debt and credit relations with friendly countries, not countries that want to go to war with us like America did in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and now Russia.​..

    ​..​Dollar hegemony means America’s entire balance of payments deficit in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s was military. So the dollars that were being pumped into the world economy were the result of military spending.
    ​ ​But the dollars would end up in foreign central banks, especially from Asia to France, Germany, others. What were they going to do with it? Well after 1971 they could not buy gold anymore, so all they could do was buy U.S. Treasury securities. IOUs.
    ​ ​And so they re-lent to the Treasury all the money that America was spending militarily. And the more money America spent in waging its cold war militarily against the world, the more money central banks would lend to the U.S. government to finance the U.S. deficit that was spent largely on the military-industrial complex and foreign military operations.
    ​ ​So dollar hegemony was a free lunch financing America’s almost 800 military bases across the world, to fight against communism, defined as any country that doesn’t let American industry and finance buy control of its raw materials, agriculture, resources.
    ​ ​And this has now come to an end. Right now America has grabbed Afghanistan’s, and Russia’s gold.
    All of a sudden it’s obvious that, this summer, there’s going to be an enormous squeeze on Third World countries, on the Global South.
    ​ ​Their energy prices are going to go way up, and that’s going to hurt them just like the oil shock of 1974 and 1975 did.
    They’re going to have to pay higher food costs, because ​food prices are going to go way up​ now that the Ukraine war is erupting.

    ​ ​And a lot of their foreign debt, dollarized debt service, is coming due. ​
    ​And they’re facing a choice: if they pay the foreign debt, they can’t afford to buy the oil and energy that they need to run their factories and heat their homes. They can’t afford to buy the food to feed their people.​..
    ​..​And so the tensions, the disruption of world prices, and inflation, and trade that is a result of the NATO attack on Russia, now threatens to drive all of the southern hemisphere countries into an alliance with Russia, China, India, and all the rest.​..
    .. America basically is creating a new Berlin Wall, but the wall is isolating itself from other countries, and driving other countries all together into what I hope will be a happy, self-sufficient, non-U.S. globalized economy.
    https://thesaker.is/ben-norton-aka-multipolarista-interviews-michael-hudson-destiny-of-civilization/

    #107872
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ This concludes a long and well documented article about the 2 months of the Ukraine war. I personally see the global financial capitalists as being independent of nations and regions, not “American” or “European”, so I think things are going bad more quickly in resource-poor Europe, but the American people are also completely vulnerable to the same economic weapons.

    ..but where will Europe turn if it really cuts itself off from Russian energy sources​?​
    ​ ​One certain consequence from all these events will be a decline in the level of security and economic stability in Europe. The decline in living standards is almost inevitable, which will, in turn, lead to progressive radicalization or demoralization of the population. The internal cohesion of the Union, already on shaky ground, will only decrease. Political dependence on imperial policy of Washington will undermine the sovereignty of European Union and its prestige on the global level. All of this will be presented as a result of Vladimir Putin’s evil genius and despotic aspirations. As usual, this will not be the truth. The only culprit for the current situation is the NATO alliance and political elite of its leading country, United States. Negative economic and social trends within the collective West will provoke a backlash from their populations, characterized by violence. No matter what form of instability it takes, Europe will be far more exposed to the crisis, given that Washington will use every instrument at its disposal, for sake of its own survival, to transfer the negative consequences of its current moves onto its European satellites in the future.
    https://thesaker.is/two-months-of-operation-z/

    ​Consciousness Of Sheep looks at some of the failures of neoliberal-central-planning, as it has come to exist, focusing on energy requirements for economic survival​.
    The problem though, is that events over the past two years have dramatically accelerated the trend of declining surplus energy to the point that non-renewable renewable energy-harvesting technologies (NRREHTs) are no longer just a sop to green protestors and a money spinner for the corporations that deploy them. With oil and gas going away, and with the coal-based infrastructure largely dismantled, NRREHTs are becoming essential to keeping the lights on… Except, of course, that the engineers who are supposed to make the system work – like the bankers before 2008 – know damned well that this project is a non-starter and that a coal-based Grid cannot accommodate a massive expansion of NRREHTs until or unless we have a massive expansion in storage technologies which have yet to even be invented. And while nobody is quite saying this in public, the bright green mask is slipping as the impossibility of the task becomes more apparent and more urgent, and the true cost of attempting it is realised…
    ..In the past it was possible to assume that because these problems are far off in the future, clever people somewhere else would come up with viable solutions. But the sudden fall in supplies of oil and gas following two years of lockdown and the – frankly insane – decision by Europe to disconnect itself from one of the last suppliers of affordable oil and gas on the planet, have put us in a position where NRREHTs, nuclear and what remains of coal power are the only things standing in the way of mass hypothermia this winter.
    ​ ​ And when the lights go out, as they surely will the moment the wind stops blowing, the whole energy Ponzi scheme will go the way of the banking and finance system fourteen years ago. Once again, the economists and policy-makers will be asked why nobody saw it coming.

    Reality bites

    ​ There will be a diesel fuel shortage this summer. That’s the hot and believable rumor. The other part of the rumor is that it is a created crisis, which is rational. Create a crisis a little bit before it would happen anyway and maybe you can control it a bit better…​

    Diesel Fuel Shortage Sets Stage for Next Biden Created Crisis

    I have to wonder if “Joe Biden” is doing everything possible (under remote-control) to bottom out the US and European economies so that whoever follows him can appear to do much better… Biden Admin Cancels Huge Alaska Oil And Gas Lease As Gas Prices Hit Record Highs
    https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/biden-admin-cancels-huge-alaska-oil-and-gas-lease-gas-prices-hit-record-highs

    #107873
    John Day
    Participant

    Soak some fake money with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis and give it to children to spread at home after they put it in their mouths… “Biowarfare”
    ​..​The special military operation by Russian troops succeeded in obtaining additional information about bio-incidents in Ukraine.
    ​ ​For example, materials indicating the intentional use of a multidrug-resistant tuberculosis pathogen in 2020 to infect the population of the Slavyanoserbsky district of the LPR were examined.
    ​ ​The flyers, made in the form of counterfeit currency notes, were infected with the tuberculosis agent and distributed to minors in Stepovoe village. The organisers of this crime took into account the behaviour of children, who have a habit of “putting everything in their mouths” and taking food with unwashed hands.
    ​ ​The results of bacteriological studies have confirmed the resistance of the isolated bacteria to first- and second-line anti-TB drugs, meaning that the disease caused by them is much more difficult to treat and the cost of treatment is much higher.
    ​ ​According to the conclusion of the Lugansk Republican Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, “…the contamination of the notes was most likely carried out artificially, as the material contains extremely dangerous strains of the pathogen in concentrations capable of ensuring infection and development of the tuberculosis process…”.
    ​ ​In his conclusion, the chief doctor of the Lugansk Republican TB Dispensary also notes that “…there are all signs of deliberate, man-made contamination of the flyers with highly pathogenic biomaterial…”.
    https://thesaker.is/briefing-analysis-of-documents-related-to-the-military-biological-activities-of-the-united-states-on-the-territory-of-ukraine-may-11-2022/

    Where is Canadian General Cadieu, captured in Mariupol by the Russian army, as he tried to escape during the release of civilians from the Azovstal complex?
    ​ ​Cadieu was especially close from their time together as cadets, as junior officers in the Strathcona regiment, and then as tank commanders in Kandahar to Colonel Mark Lubiniecki, who ran the Canadian operation in western Ukraine in 2017-2018. Lubiniecki’s family comes from the western Ukraine. Once back in that region, he taught mobile armour, tank and anti-tank tactics to the Ukrainians. The strategic target of those tactics – and of Cadieu’s and Lubiniecki’s plans – was the Russian army; that’s to say, fighting the Russian Army with NATO tanks and artillery, using Ukrainian troops and fighting on Ukrainian territory. When Cadieu moved to Ottawa in 2019, Lubiniecki also moved to Ottawa. These two Canadian soldiers have been planning the tank war in Ukraine for several years.​
    ​But Cadieu’s sexual conduct with a female cadet before they graduated in 1994 has interrupted this battle plan. Although he was promoted to lieutenant-general and to Chief of the Defence Staff at the beginning of last August, he was stopped when the woman filed formal charges against him a month later, and Cadieu was suspended.

    IN THE FOG OF WAR THERE’S THE GUTERRES CERTAINTY AND THE CADIEU CERTAINTY – GORILLA RADIO SEES THROUGH THE COVER-UP

    ​Thanks for that story and this one F.S. That is a lot of the Canadian government that went to Kiev! More than PR?
    ​ ​Trudeau’s visit was a closely guarded secret. Canadian media, including CBC News, were only made aware of Trudeau’s trip after he left Canada, on the condition that it would not be reported before it was made public.
    ​ ​The Prime Minister and his delegation departed Ottawa on Saturday morning aboard a Canadian Air Force Airbus CC-150 for an eight-hour flight to Rzeszow in southeastern Poland. From there, a high-ranking government source said, they took the train to Kiev Central Station. Once in Ukraine, they traveled in a motorcade convoy of two dozen vehicles, including police escorts and an ambulance.
    ​ ​Trudeau’s small delegation included Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Secretary of State Mélanie Joly, National Security and Intelligence Adviser Jody Thomas, Chief of Staff Katie Telford, Deputy Chief of Staff Brian Clow and photographer Adam Scotti.
    ​https://windobi.com/how-justin-trudeaus-people-arranged-his-whirlwind-visit-to-ukraine-at-war/

    Senator Rand Paul blocks the fast-track for the $40 billion money-package to Ukraine, since it lacks any oversight.
    That money can just be given to anybody, for anything, and also, nobody has had time to read it yet.
    (This may reduce the critically necessary freedom to pay out bribes quickly and massively…)
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rand-paul-delays-vote-40-billion-ukraine-package-calls-spending-oversight

    #107874
    zerosum
    Participant

    John Day
    Thank You for the work.

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