Jun 192022
 


Henri Matisse Still Life with Apples on Pink Cloth 1925

 

When The Lies Come Home (Douglas Macgregor)
Biden Tries To Climb Down From Ukraine Ledge (AT)
World War 3 For Dummies (Baltar)
Europe Committing Energy Suicide By Imposing Sanctions On Russia (PressTV)
Ukraine Proposed Viable Peace Plan in April, Then Cut Off Negotiations (LI)
Record Diesel Prices Could Lead To Food Shortages In US, Farmers Warn (NYP)
WHO Chief ‘Believes Covid Did Leak From Wuhan Lab’ (DM)
America Is The Only Country That Authorizes Covid Shots For Infants (Schachtel)
Contagious Vaccines: A Warning (Kheriaty)
Tribe Declares Trump Committed Attempted Murder (Turley)
French National Assembly Vote Decides Battle Between Macron And Left (BBC)
The Shameless Farce of UK Attempt to Send Refugees to Rwanda (NewYorker)
Assange’s Extradition – War Criminals And Murderers, Rejoice (Oborne)
The Guardian View On Julian Assange Extradition: A Bad Day For Journalism (G.)

 

 

 

 

German truth

 

 

 

 

Tucker FBI Biden

 

 

Nils Melzer

 

 

 

 

 

 

Macgregor has been a voice of reason all through the conflict. He’s so highly thought of in military circles that none of the usual suspects dares touch him.

When The Lies Come Home (Douglas Macgregor)

The Western media did everything in its power to give the Ukrainian defense the appearance of far greater strength than it really possessed. Careful observers noted that the same video clips of Russian tanks under attack were shown repeatedly. Local counterattacks were reported as though they were operational maneuvers. Russian errors were exaggerated out of all proportion to their significance. Russian losses and the true extent of Ukraine’s own losses were distorted, fabricated, or simply ignored. But conditions on the battlefield changed little over time. Once Ukrainian forces immobilized themselves in static defensive positions inside urban areas and the central Donbas, the Ukrainian position was hopeless. But this development was portrayed as failure by the Russians to gain “their objectives.”

Ground-combat forces that immobilize soldiers in prepared defenses will be identified, targeted, and destroyed from a distance. When persistent overhead intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, whether manned or unmanned, are linked to precision guided-strike weapons or modern artillery systems informed by accurate targeting data, “holding ground” is fatal to any ground force. This is all the more true in Ukraine, because it was apparent from the first action that Moscow focused on the destruction of Ukrainian forces, not on the occupation of cities or the capture of Ukrainian territory west of the Dnieper River. The result has been the piecemeal annihilation of Ukrainian forces. Only the episodic infusion of U.S. and allied weapons kept Kiev’s battered legions in the field; legions that are now dying in great numbers thanks to Washington’s proxy war.

Kiev’s war with Moscow is lost. Ukrainian forces are being bled white. Trained replacements do not exist in sufficient numbers to influence the battle, and the situation grows more desperate by the hour. No amount of U.S. and allied military aid or assistance short of direct military intervention by U.S. and NATO ground forces can change this harsh reality. The problem today is not ceding territory and population to Moscow in Eastern Ukraine that Moscow already controls. The future of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions along with the Donbas is decided. Moscow is also likely to secure Kharkov and Odessa, two cities that are historically Russian and Russian-speaking, as well as the territory that adjoins them. These operations will extend the conflict through the summer. The problem now is how to stop the fighting.

Read more …

“Climbing down off this ledge won’t be easy. It may be impossible. Biden denounced Russia’s leader as a war criminal, averred that he couldn’t be allowed to remain in office and bragged that US sanctions would cut the Russian economy in half.”

Biden Tries To Climb Down From Ukraine Ledge (AT)

President Joe Biden’s administration faces a double disaster after its Ukraine miscalculation, namely a US recession and a second strategic humiliation in the space of a year. The US economy is almost certainly in recession, while oil prices drive inflation that has cut workers’ real pay by about 6% year on year. Washington’s earlier boasts of driving Russian President Vladimir Putin from power, destroying Russia’s capacity to make war and halving the size of the Russian economy look ridiculous in retrospect. The world economy is reeling from supply shocks in energy and food provoked by Western sanctions on Russia. Monetary policy can reduce inflation only by forcing consumers to stop buying, which forces retailers to liquidate inventory at lower prices and crushes demand for raw materials – a cure that is worse than the disease.

Russia meanwhile earned a record €93 billion (US$97 billion) from energy exports during the first 100 days of the war, a Finnish study concluded. China and India, which refused to join Group of Seven sanctions against Russia, reportedly are buying oil at a discount of $30 to $40 per barrel, while American and European consumers are paying the full price. Energy prices have become the main driver of G7 inflation. Changes in the oil price lagged by one to four months explain 70% of the monthly change in the CPI, according to an Asia Times study. The sensitivity of the US Consumer Price Index to the oil price, moreover, was about twice as high during the February 2020 to May 2022 period than it had been during the preceding 15 years, the study shows.

US GDP contracted at a 1.9% annual rate during the first quarter. The surprise drop in May retail sales that was reported June 15 by the Commerce Department and the 14.4% month-on-month fall in US housing starts reported on June 16 point to a second quarter of contraction – that is, a recession according to the standard criterion. That spells catastrophe for the Democrats in next November’s election. [..] Climbing down off this ledge won’t be easy. It may be impossible. Biden denounced Russia’s leader as a war criminal, averred that he couldn’t be allowed to remain in office and bragged that US sanctions would cut the Russian economy in half. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin claimed that the US would destroy Russia’s capacity to make war.

A compromise in Ukraine with significant territorial concessions to Russia – the only conceivable way to end the war – would humiliate Washington. A negotiated solution to the Ukraine war, though, is not impossible. Washington could continue to portray itself as the defender of Ukraine’s sovereignty while encouraging European leaders to do the dirty work and force Ukraine into negotiations with Moscow. A possible hint in this direction came on June 14 from US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin H Kahl, who declared: “We’re not going to tell the Ukrainians how to negotiate, what to negotiate and when to negotiate. They’re going to set those terms for themselves.”

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“Part of the reason for the pressure on the Independents, particularly Russia and China, is simply that they have resisted western hegemony. That is enough for getting on the West’s naughty list.”

World War 3 For Dummies (Baltar)

How do Russia and China, and the war in Ukraine, factor into all of this? Why all the pressure from the West throughout the years and why all this panic now? Part of the reason for the pressure on the Independents, particularly Russia and China, is simply that they have resisted western hegemony. That is enough for getting on the West’s naughty list. But why the increased pressure in recent years? The reason is that Russia and China cannot be subjugated through bankruptcy and their assets harvested. They do not have much debt in western currencies which means that the people who own the West through debt do not currently own Russia and China (like they own the West and the indebted ‘third world’) and cannot acquire them through debt. The only way to acquire them is through regime change.

Their governments must be weakened by any means, including economic sanctions and military means if necessary -thus the use of Ukraine as a battering ram for Russia and Taiwan for China. Subjugating Russia and China is an existential issue for our Davos owners because when they take the western economy down, everything else must go down too. If the western economy is taken down and a large economic block doesn’t participate in the downfall, it will be a disaster for the West. The new block will gain massive economic power, and possibly unipolar hegemony of sorts, while the West descends into a feudal Dark Age and irrelevance. Therefore the entire world must go down for the Great Reset to work. Russia and China must be subjugated by any means, as well as India and other stubborn nations.

This is what has fueled the situation we now find ourselves in and will fuel the continuation of World War 3. The western owner-elites are going to war to keep their wealth and power. Everyone who resists must be subjugated so they can follow the West into the planned Great Reset Dark Age. The reason for the current panic among western elites is that the Ukraine project isn’t going as planned. Instead of Russia being bled on the battlefield, it is Ukraine and the West that bleed. Instead of the Russian economy crashing resulting in Putin’s replacement by a Davos-compatible leader, it is the West’s economy that is crashing. Instead of Russia being isolated, it is the West that is being increasingly isolated. Noting is working, and to top it all off, Europe has given the Russians the means and motive to destroy the European economy by partly shutting down its industry.

Without Russian resources, there is no European industry, and without industry, there are no taxes for paying for unemployment benefits, pensions, all the refugees, and pretty much everything else which holds European societies together. The Russians now have the ability to engineer an uncontrolled crash in Europe which is not what Davos planned. An uncontrolled crash might see Davos’s heads roll, literally, and that is causing fear and panic in elite circles. The only solution for them is to move on with World War 3 and hope for the best.

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“Nordstream 1 is scheduled for annual maintenance that will halt all flows between July 11 and July 21.”

Europe Committing Energy Suicide By Imposing Sanctions On Russia (PressTV)

The head of a Russian oil giant says European nations are committing energy suicide by following the United States in imposing sanctions on Moscow over the war in Ukraine. Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Igor Sechin, the head of Russian oil company, Rosneft, said that the Europeans are shooting themselves in the foot by restricting Russian oil and gas imports. “Europe is committing energy suicide by imposing sanctions on Russia,” Sechin said. The United States placed an embargo on Russian oil earlier this year, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a military campaign against Ukraine on February 24. Europe, particularly, has struggled to wean itself off from Russian energy.

The continent’s reliance on Russian gas and Moscow’s slashing of supplies in retaliation have proven a headache for the 27-member bloc. To that aim, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen proposed a gradual ban on Russian oil imports last month. The proposal would ban Russian crude gradually over the next six months and refined fuels by the end of this year.. The EU and Britain also agreed recently to prohibit insurance on tankers carrying Russian oil at the end of last month. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the EU “has completely lost its political sovereignty, and its bureaucratic elites are dancing to someone else’s tune, accepting whatever they are told from above, causing harm to their own population and their own economy.”

Putin previously described the sanctions on his country as a double-edged sword. Reports said Russian gas flows to Europe fell short of demand on Friday as temperatures blew past historical records for this time of the year, hitting over 40°C in some places. Italy and Slovakia reported receiving less than half of the usual volumes through the Nordstream 1 pipeline. The pipeline, which crosses the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, accounts for around 40% of Russian pipeline flows to the EU. Nordstream 1 is scheduled for annual maintenance that will halt all flows between July 11 and July 21.

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Does anyone believe Lavrov is lying here?

Ukraine Proposed Viable Peace Plan in April, Then Cut Off Negotiations (LI)

As talks toward a peaceful settlement to the war in Ukraine have all but collapsed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow received a workable proposal from Ukrainian negotiators soon after the conflict began, but claimed Kiev abruptly broke off all dialogue and has been ‘silent’ ever since. Speaking to TASS for an interview on Thursday, Lavrov said that while peace talks held in Istanbul in March offered some promise for an end to the fighting, the efforts quickly crumbled after Ukraine’s negotiation team ceased all contact with its Russian counterpart. “These negotiations at some point at the end of March … led to a result that gave hope to all of us, thanks to the fact that the Ukrainian side for the first time put on paper a position that suited us as a basis for work,” the FM said.

As of mid-April, however, “the Ukrainian side has not responded to the proposals that we transmitted to them,” Lavrov went on, adding “There has been complete silence” ever since. “If the Ukrainian side shows understanding that it is still necessary to conclude some agreements, we are ready for this. But they showed no such desire.” It’s unclear what proposal was advanced by Kiev, but Lavrov said the talks were ended soon after the “provocation in Bucha,” referring to a series of alleged Russian war crimes in the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital. Though the minister dismissed the charges, claiming the atrocities were ‘staged,’ evidence has emerged indicating Russian soldiers were behind a number of grisly executions in the city. The allegations have yet to be probed by an impartial investigator.

While Kiev has previously signaled that it would be open to a diplomatic settlement, its rhetoric has become increasingly bellicose, with President Volodymyr Zelensky vowing to achieve a full military victory over Moscow earlier this week. Ukraine’s Western allies, meanwhile, have at times discouraged negotiations altogether, while simultaneously funneling billions of dollars in heavy weapons into the chaotic warzone.

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Will, not could.

Record Diesel Prices Could Lead To Food Shortages In US, Farmers Warn (NYP)

Record-setting prices on diesel fuel, coupled with soaring inflation and the ongoing war in Ukraine, could lead to food shortages in the US, farmers warned. “For so long, we’ve enjoyed lots of food in this country, so we’ve never ever faced a food shortage and I think that’s coming in the coming months,” John Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association, said during an interview on NewsNation’s “On Balance” with Leland Vittert on Monday. Average diesel prices in the US Monday reached $5.70 per gallon, representing a $2.40 increase compared to the same period last year. Farmers disproportionately rely on diesel to fuel their tractors and other heavy machinery used to plant and harvest crops, burning up to thousands of gallons a month, depending on the size of their operation.


Feeling the pinch at the pump, farmers can decide to stop planting certain crops to save money on fuel, which, in turn, could result in higher food prices and even food shortages. During this week’s hearing on inflation held by the Pennsylvania House Republican Policy Committee, Kyle Kotzmoyer, a legislative affairs specialist for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, offered a bleak outlook, describing the current situation on local farms as “teetering on the edge,” reported the Morning Call. “If the farmers cannot get crops out of the ground, then there is not food on the shelves,” the Farm Bureau aide explained. In Pennsylvania, average diesel prices Tuesday were $6.19 per gallon, up 75% compared to last year, AAA reported. Kotzmoyer said he has already heard of farmers opting to plant hay instead of corn or beans, because it is more economical.

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What is it, 2 1/2 years? Go f*ck a duck.

WHO Chief ‘Believes Covid Did Leak From Wuhan Lab’ (DM)

The head of the World Health Organisation privately believes the Covid pandemic started following a leak from a Chinese laboratory, a senior Government source claims. While publicly the group maintains that ‘all hypotheses remain on the table’ about the origins of Covid, the source said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), had recently confided to a senior European politician that the most likely explanation was a catastrophic accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, where infections first spread during late 2019. The Mail on Sunday first revealed concerns within Western intelligence services about the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where scientists were manipulating coronaviruses sampled from bats in caves nearly 1,000 miles away – the same caves where Covid-19 is suspected to have originated – in April 2020.

The worldwide death toll from the Covid pandemic is now estimated to have hit more than 18 million. The WHO was initially criticised for its deferential approach to China over the pandemic, as well as a willingness to accept Beijing’s protestations that claims of a laboratory leak were just a ‘conspiracy theory’. However, in the absence of any compelling evidence of ‘zoonotic’ spread – the process by which a virus leaps from animals to humans – it is now adopting a more neutral public stance. Dr Tedros updated member states on the pandemic this month, admitting: ‘We do not yet have the answers as to where it came from or how it entered the human population. ‘Understanding the origins of the virus is very important scientifically to prevent future epidemics and pandemics.

‘But morally, we also owe it to all those who have suffered and died and their families. The longer it takes, the harder it becomes. We need to speed up and act with a sense of urgency. ‘All hypotheses must remain on the table until we have evidence that enables us to rule certain hypotheses in or out. This makes it all the more urgent that this scientific work be kept separate from politics. The way to prevent politicisation is for countries to share data and samples with transparency and without interference from any government. The only way this scientific work can progress successfully is with full collaboration from all countries, including China, where the first cases of SARS-CoV-2 were reported.’

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Now ask why.

America Is The Only Country That Authorizes Covid Shots For Infants (Schachtel)

It appears that the United States just became the only country in the world to “vaccinate” babies and toddlers with COVID injections. Despite what you are reading in the press, the U.S. seems to be, as of Friday, the only country in the world to partake in experimental COVID therapeutics for infants. On Friday, the FDA authorized mRNA COVID shots (both Pfizer and Moderna) under emergency use authorization for children under 5 years old, all the way down to 6 months of age. As you’ll see in a moment, this is unprecedented anywhere in the world. The approval made its way through the halls of the federal bureaucracy, regardless of any studies showing a positive benefit for injecting young children with mRNA shots, which, even in adults, do not effectively prevent coronavirus infection.

Making matters worse, our deceitful corporate press is actively engaged in a cover up operation to make it seem like the new policy is not particularly unique, when in fact, it is exclusively unique. Many corporate press reports, in hailing the announcement, churned out stenography today that made a quick mention of the fact that “a dozen countries, including China, already vaccinate kids under 5.” But when you break down the data further, a true scandal arises. As of a couple weeks ago there were only 7 countries where kids under 5 were given COVID injections, though the WHO now claims that number is 12. The seven countries on record are: -Argentina -Bahrain -Chile -China -Cuba -UAE -Venezuela (the territory of Hong Kong, which uses the Chinese-made shots, is sometimes listed as the eighth country on record). But that’s only the beginning of the madness.


Venezuela and Cuba are the only countries that allow for COVID shots between the ages of two and three. The rest of the countries only go as young as three. Moreover, none of the nations are using mRNA. 5 out of 7 are using Chinese manufactured inactivated vaccines. Cuba and Venezuela are using the Cuban homebrew shot. And NONE of these countries are allowing for COVID shots between the ages of 6 months to two years, which means that the United States has become the only country in the world to allow for experimental COVID injections shots for babies and 2 year old toddlers.

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Yes, it can still get worse.

“This technology bypasses the inconvenience of recalcitrant citizens who may refuse to give consent.”

Contagious Vaccines: A Warning (Kheriaty)

For two decades scientists have been quietly developing self-spreading contagious vaccines. The NIH funded this research, in which either DNA from a deadly pathogen is packaged in a contagious but less harmful virus, or the deadly virus’s lethality is weakened by engineering it in a lab. The resultant “vaccines” spread from one person to the next just like a contagious respiratory virus. Only five percent of regional populations would need to be immunized; the other ninety-five percent would “catch” the vaccine as it spread person-to-person through community transmission. This technology bypasses the inconvenience of recalcitrant citizens who may refuse to give consent. Its advocates highlight that a mass vaccination campaign that would ordinarily take months of expensive effort to immunize everyone could be shortened to only a few weeks.

Scientists have already shown proof of concept in animal populations: in 2000, Spanish researchers injected seventy rabbits with a transmissible vaccine and returned them to the wild, where they quickly passed the vaccine on to hundreds more, reportedly stopping a viral outbreak. European countries are now testing the technology on pigs. In the wake of the covid pandemic, about a dozen research institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Australia are investigating the potential human uses for self-spreading vaccines. The federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), for example, is examining this technology for U.S. military to protect against the West Africa lassa fever, a virus spread by rats to humans. This project, it should be noted, does not require the consent of our military service men and women.

In 2019 the U.K. government began exploring this technology to address the seasonal flu. A research paper from Britain’s Department of Health and Social Care advised that university students could be an obvious target group: “They do not work so [vaccinating them] will not cause much economic disruption and most have second homes to go to, thereby spreading the vaccine.” Researchers admitted a contagious vaccine for an attenuated flu virus would cause some deaths but estimated these would be less than the original influenza virus. As the U.K. government report described: “Self-spreading vaccines are less lethal but not non-lethal: they can still kill. Some people will die who would otherwise have lived, though fewer people die overall.”

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Still afraid of Trump.

Tribe Declares Trump Committed Attempted Murder (Turley)

In past columns, we have discussed how Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe seems intent upon running through the entire criminal code in declaring clear evidence of every federal crime by former President Donald Trump and/or his family. In light of Tribe’s prior declarations of the long litany of criminal acts by Trump, the opening question of Burnett seemed almost rhetorical bordering on the comical: “From everything you have seen so far, including the hearing today that focused so much on Trump causing violence against Pence, do you believe the committee has proven that Trump himself knowingly committed crimes?”

Tribe responded: “Without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt, and the crimes are obvious. The most obvious was that he was ordering his vice-president to do what everyone in the room knew would be illegal, namely, exercise power to pick the next president. It would be very convenient if Al Gore could have picked himself as the next president in 2000, very convenient if Richard Nixon could have done it in 1960. “Ordering your vice-president to violate the law in order to stay in power is a very serious federal crime, but there are other crimes as well. One that occurred to several people today is attempted murder. You know, under the criminal code of the United States, the attempted murder of the vice-president is punishable by life imprisonment. What we saw with the president egging the crowd on, telling them that, basically, his own vice-president was a traitor while he knew that the mob had gallows waiting for him, that’s pretty serious stuff. You don’t have to go to law school to know that there’s something seriously criminal about that. There are other crimes that have been proven. Those are plenty to start with.”

It is a curious thing that these crimes “have been proven” but Trump has not been charged with them. After the riot, District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine announced that he was considering arresting Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and charging them with incitement. So what happened to that prosecution? The failure of Racine to charge Trump was not due to any affection or loyalty to the former president. It was due to the paucity of direct evidence of a crime that would hold up in court.

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“..he remains controversial, tweeting that “the police kill” and promising to naturalise Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as French if he wins the election.”

French National Assembly Vote Decides Battle Between Macron And Left (BBC)

It’s not even two months since Emmanuel Macron was convincingly re-elected as president but he is already in a crunch election that could prevent him pushing through his reforms. French voters are going to the polls to decide who will control their National Assembly. Mr Macron beat the far right in April, but this time the challenge is harder. Far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon leads a left-green alliance that finished neck and neck with Macron only a week ago. They call themselves Nupes, which stands for New Ecological and Social Popular Union, and the polls suggest they could stop the president winning the 289 seats he needs for an outright majority. The centrist Macron alliance, Ensemble, portrays them as a “marriage of convenience” of Communists, Socialists, far-left Mélenchonists and Greens.

But Nupes have galvanised voters with a promise to fight spiralling prices, bring down the retirement age and tackle climate change. Green leaders and many green voters back them, accusing President Macron of doing little in the past five years. Sunday’s second round is almost entirely made up of run-off duels between two candidates, and almost half involve the two big alliances. Several ministers in the Macron government are battling to keep their seats and hold on to their jobs, and two of the toughest fights involve Europe Minister Clément Beaune and Green Transition Minister Amélie de Montchalin. Without an outright majority of 289 seats, Mr Macron will need the support of other parties to push through his big-ticket reforms, such as raising the retirement age, cutting taxes and reforming benefits. Pollsters suggest Ensemble will win 255-305 seats and Nupes 140-200.

While fighting for the presidency, Mr Macron rallied voters across the spectrum by presenting his main rival Marine Le Pen as an extremist and contrary to the republic’s values. With mainstream parties joining the Mélenchon alliance it has become harder to do that with this rival. President Macron has appealed to voters to give him a solid majority in the “superior interest of the nation”, while Russia’s war rages at the gates of Europe. Former Marxist Jean-Luc Mélenchon has long wanted France to leave Nato but says that is now not a priority. However, he remains controversial, tweeting that “the police kill” and promising to naturalise Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as French if he wins the election.

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Governed by criminals.

The Shameless Farce of UK Attempt to Send Refugees to Rwanda (NewYorker)

On Tuesday evening, a chartered Boeing 767 passenger jet, in a blue-and-white livery, waited in the summer sunshine on the tarmac of Boscombe Down, a testing site for military aircraft, in the South of England. The plane was scheduled to take off at 10:30 p.m. and fly to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, initiating a new arrangement in which the African country will process and house asylum seekers who have sought refuge in the United Kingdom.Priti Patel, Boris Johnson’s Home Secretary, has described the deal—which almost certainly breaches international law and will cost at least a hundred and twenty million pounds in the next five years—as a “first-class policy,” but, as with anything agreed to by Johnson’s government, it’s usually worth checking the small print. Officials said that there would be a hundred and thirty people on the first flight to Kigali.

But, after dozens of successful legal challenges, only seven asylum seekers were taken to the airbase. “I can’t say exactly how many people will be on the flight,” Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, told the media. “But the really important thing is that we establish the principle.” Around 7:30 p.m., the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, ruled that one of the seven, an Iraqi man known as K.N., should be allowed to remain in the U.K. until three weeks after all his legal options were exhausted. K.N. had crossed the English Channel in a boat on May 17th. Three days after he was ordered to be sent to Rwanda, a doctor found that he may have been a victim of torture. The European court ruling prompted a wave of emergency appeals from the other six passengers.

At around 10 p.m., half an hour before the plane was due to take off, there was no one left to take to Rwanda. Later, the jet, which had been hired at a reported cost of five hundred thousand pounds, flew back to Spain. The U.K.-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership was signed in April. It immediately invited comparisons to a similar arrangement that existed, until 2017, between Israel and Rwanda and Uganda. In the three and a half years of that program, which was secret, around four thousand Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers were relocated from Israel to sub-Saharan Africa, where they promptly disappeared. (Between 2009 and 2017, Israel accepted a total of ten refugees from Eritrea and Sudan.)

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Two pieces from the Guardian on Assange. No publication has done more to hurt him.

Assange’s Extradition – War Criminals And Murderers, Rejoice (Oborne)

Murderers, torturers and war criminals will be toasting the British home secretary, Priti Patel, tonight. Her decision to approve the extradition of Julian Assange turns investigative journalism into a criminal act, and licenses the United States to mercilessly hunt down offenders wherever they can be found, bring them to justice and punish them with maximum severity. Julian Assange’s supposed crime was to expose atrocities committed by the US and its allies, primarily in Afghanistan and Iraq, during the war on terror. He shone a light on the systematic abuse dealt out to prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. He revealed the fact that more than 150 entirely innocent inmates were held for years without even being charged.

He published a video of helicopter gunmen laughing as they casually massacred unarmed Iraqi civilians in an attack that killed around 15 people, including a Reuters photographer and his assistant. The US declined to discipline the perpetrators of that atrocity. But they are pursuing Assange to the ends of the earth for revealing it took place. Once safely in US hands, it’s all but certain that Assange will spend the remainder of his life in jail. That’s because the US is determined to show that terrible reprisals lie in store for any reporter who runs a story based on US government documents. That’s why Daniel Ellsberg, the former US Marine Corps officer behind the Pentagon Papers revelations that exposed the secret US bombing of Cambodia and Laos, has said that he feels a “great identification” with Assange’s work.

Edward Fitzgerald, Assange’s lawyer, argued convincingly in court that Assange’s only crime is investigative journalism. For example, the US charge states that he tried to conceal “the source of the disclosure of classified records”. Every journalist worth her or his salt would do the same, but the US insists that Assange is guilty of espionage – and the British home secretary shamefully agrees. While it is true that Patel is an unusually authoritarian home secretary, I suspect that every recent holder of the office, Labour or Conservative, would have made an identical decision. Britain values beyond measure its security relationship with the US.

Judge Nap Assange

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Now they think they can benefit from a 180º. Talk about shameless.

The Guardian View On Julian Assange Extradition: A Bad Day For Journalism (G.)

The decision by Priti Patel, the home secretary, to extradite the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US ought to worry anyone who cares about journalism and democracy. Mr Assange, 50, has been charged under the US Espionage Act, including publishing classified material. He faces up to 175 years in jail if found guilty by a US court. This action potentially opens the door for journalists anywhere in the world to be extradited to the US for exposing information deemed classified by Washington. The case against Mr Assange relates to hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, which were made public by WikiLeaks, working with the Guardian and other media organisations.

They revealed horrifying abuses by the US and other governments that would not otherwise have been disclosed. Despite claiming otherwise, US authorities could not find a single person, among the thousands of American sources in Afghanistan and Iraq, who could be shown to have died because of the disclosures. Mr Assange, who has a reputation for being a brilliant but difficult character, has suffered enough. Until 2019 Met police had waited seven years for him to emerge from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Since then he has spent three years in Belmarsh high-security prison without being convicted of any crime. Mr Assange should have been given bail to be with his wife and their two young children. To keep track of him, the authorities could have insisted that he be electronically tagged and monitored.

The use of the Espionage Act to prosecute him should be seen for what it is: an attack on the freedom of the press. As the Knight First Amendment Institute’s Carrie DeCell wrote in 2019, when the charge sheet was published, “soliciting, obtaining, and then publishing classified information … [is] what good national security and investigative journalists do every day”. Ms Patel could have turned down the American request. Britain should be wary of extraditing a suspect to a country with such a political justice department. Her predecessor Theresa May halted the extradition proceedings of Gary McKinnon, who hacked the US Department of Defense. The UK could have decided that Mr Assange faces an unacceptably high risk of prolonged solitary confinement in a US maximum security prison

Assange eternal war

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Democracy dies in dumbness

 

 

 

 

Our health czar is getting mighty fat

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle June 19 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 60 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #109972

    Henri Matisse Still Life with Apples on Pink Cloth 1925   • When The Lies Come Home (Douglas Macgregor) • Biden Tries To Climb Down From Ukraine
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle June 19 2022]

    #109974
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    • World War 3 For Dummies (Baltar) & • When The Lies Come Home (Douglas Macgregor)

    Two very excellent reads, thanks Ilargi…………

    #109975
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    The summer solstice is coming; Yay…

    The June solstice occurs on Tuesday, June 21, 2022, at 5:14 A.M. EDT.

    #109976
    Red
    Participant

    Can’t happen soon enough!

    The Justin Trudeau brand is in trouble.

    The 2015 fresh prince of politics with the celebrity hair and rock star aura is heading into a 2022 summer of inflation-driven Canadian discontent as a faded force of personality in need of an exit strategy.

    You know there’s a reputation hit happening when Trudeau becomes the unnamed star of a children’s book “How the Prime Minister Stole Freedom,” a satire about his handling of the Freedom Convoy and vaccination mandates, which now sits atop the Amazon Canada bestseller list.

    https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/don-martin-the-fall-of-justin-trudeau-has-begun-1.5946788

    #109977
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Lee Merritt: Covid is More About 1984 Than Medicine, U.S. is Behind This Biowarfare

    Dr. Lee Merritt discusses the medical technocracy and how it’s really more about 1984 than it is about medicine. The globalists used health to do an end run around the constitution and have been more successful than they’ve ever been. They’ve used the unproven point that Covid is a virus that is transmitting disease. There is much evidence that what we call influenza is in fact an electromagnetic problem of the ionosphere, we never had seasonal flu until we laid down telegram lines. Covid is convenient to cover up the changes we would’ve seen from rolling out 5G, but is also likely a man-made bioweapon or genetic poison (synthetic nanoparticle). She believes the U.S. and not the Chinese is behind this biowarfare and that we’re in a genetic war with the goal of depopulation, transhumanism, as well as bringing down Western civilization. The Russians and Chinese didn’t force their armies to take this genetic agent, the militaries of the Western world have been compromised.

    Lee Merritt: Covid is More About 1984 Than Medicine, U.S. is Behind This Biowarfare

    #109978
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    A New Perspective On Mexico

    joined by Hrvoje Moric of Geopolitics and Empire to get his perspective on Mexico and how it fits into the coming agenda.

    #109979
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “New Reuters Survey Finds That Trust In Mainstream News Is Rapidly Declining

    Says Reuters who accepts millions from MI6 to print disinformation.

    Speaking of: forgot USA Today! 100% news rating! Removed 2 dozen fake stories at a pop because they have no editorial process. Literally any writer can click “Post” and there it is. No fact checkers. As you you can tell by typos from not being proofread. Still NewsGuard rated 100% after this. Still official Facebook factcheckers, who always approve fake facts.

    “The UK Is Prioritizing Energy Security over Climate Pledges”

    So are we. Biden is all for drilling oil and pipelines as long as it’s not here. As long as we don’t get the money and don’t have control of our destiny. We prioritize burning all the carbon we can find so long as it’s from safe, morally upstanding Green democracies like Saudi Arabia, it doesn’t pollute!

    …Exactly like all the Green Tech and iPhones in China. We pollute and enslave there. So long as the pollution happens to brown people, it’s not pollution when I don’t care.

    RedFin. Yes, that’s a problem. The whole Redfin article has 20 charts as startling as that one. We’re at that part in “The Big Short” where the pole dancer with 5 houses and a condo says “It’s just a little trough.” Except this time she only owns one house, the one she lives in, which costs 5x the ones from ‘08.

    It’s just standard Disaster Capitalism, the only thing left if you have no markets, no property, and no rule of law. They printed $3 Trillion, gave it to their friends, and now when homeowners default, they will use that bailout 0% free money to buy out your bankruptcy. So “They’ll own nothing.” No small businesses, no homes, no cars, nothing. They can die and be quick about it. If they don’t do what I say, or make any noise, I’ll shut off their food too. Maybe why 90 food plants had unlikely plane crashes this month? And more than one refinery?

    “The Western media did everything in its power to give the Ukrainian defense the appearance of far greater strength than it really possessed.”

    Lira said that the Ukr Army was a very good, well-trained one and Rus blew through them anyway. I suspect only a front edge of Ukr was fully trained as we are, but that’s a good point. Certainly they were supernaturally motivated. Also I’m pretty sure the West did inflate their appearance, so we’re somewhere in-between. Despite the dismal dinosaurs running everything, it’s not 1949 anymore.

    “Only the episodic infusion of U.S. and allied weapons kept Kiev’s battered legions in the field”

    Yes, “in the field” merely to be killed there. While our experts say “There is no possible path for Ukraine to win.”

    “The problem now is how to stop the fighting.”

    It will stop whenever Russia feels like it. At whatever day and whatever conditions they choose. Pothead comedians told 5-star generals this on the first day, and who was right? Yeah, even guys stoned at 9am, Cleetus and Jimmy NASCAR know better, if they have a lick of common sense. No one in our government, from Freshmen Congressmen to Henry Kissinger, does.

    If you didn’t click it, Lira then says “Because they lost” and “Because the machine doesn’t know HOW to back up (and surrender)” they will fabricate a war in Lithuania, involve NATO, get nuked, and lose those as well. “Those” being Lithuania loses and the land-bridge to Kaliningrad is created, even if they have to re-locate every Lithuanian. NATO loses, and by losing ceases to exist along with “Europe”, that is Europe as we know it, and the gravity and force of the EU. Serious issues, but I can’t stop them.

    Luongo points out that the U.S., while being evil, is also practical. And the EU/WEF has directly attacked our commercial banking and is running a takeover or even a coup with the WEF/Davos installing Mooselini, half our people, and Biden’s cabinet. If the U.S. is not to be a colony again, and commercial banking cease to wealth-pump money into Wall Street for Jamie Dimon’s bonuses, then Wall Street must stop “Europe”, that is, the Davos/WEF.

    They are nuking Europe from behind by raising interest rates. Who do you think “The Fed” is? Are they Deutsche/UBS, or are they JP Morgan? Toss up, but apparently Morgan. The U.S. has cut off European energy, and therefore European manufacturing. Then they raise rates until it sucks money off the moon, or at least sucks all the money out of Europe.

    “Europe” – that is Soros and the WEF — is trying to start a Civil War Stateside to do the opposite. If the U.S. is in a war, money will flee us and go there instead. I think they lost and the look on LeGarde’s face says so. The Fed isn’t trying to stop inflation – hahahahaah no! That’s why I mock them for raising .75 when their own logic demands 5.75%! Or 15.75%!! They just need to utterly destroy their financial enemies in Europe, who have declared war on us. …Declared and moved like 20 years ago. And they need not to be blamed for it. The Fed barely raised rates! Certainly nothing exceptional. It’s not our fault if you’re so incredibly weak you can’t even go rate positive!

    Anyway, at the moment and unexpectedly, we have Putin in the front, and Wall Street in the rear sandwiching Europe to a flatbread. Because they actually ARE a threat to all life on earth, as their own meetings and papers prove. Wall Street and Jamie Dimon may be incredible, greedy scoundrels, but even they’re not “Hey let’s genocide 2/3rds or 4 Billion people, it’ll be hilarious.” For Dimon that would be bad for business, because he’s not a zealot of their weird, illogical, eugenics religion.

    …But we’ll deal with Jamie later. Right now I’m willing to watch two arch-enemies destroy each other.

    “Europe” doesn’t have to do this, of course. Please don’t. Just remove and purge all the Nazi-loving WEF/Davos members from your positions of power and represent the interests of the people again. But you can see when I say that, that it can’t really happen from within. Europe will need us outsiders to destroy the WEF before they can clean-up after. Sorry. You could have done it yourselves, and we’d avoid it if we could, but we can’t.

    “he couldn’t be allowed to remain in office and bragged that US sanctions would cut the Russian economy in half.”

    He DID cut the economy in half: ours. And as to who remains in office after that, well, “Midterms are Coming.”

    Subjugating Russia and China is an existential issue for our Davos owners”

    “Davos owners.” Not “American” owners. America has a mutiny and different people are still grabbing the wheel here.

    “Record Diesel Prices Could Lead to Food Shortages in US, Farmers Warn (NYP)

    Sort of. It depends how far away you are. You have to remember, all papers are in cities, staffed by city people, writing city articles. If they ever left the city and looked upon the countryside, they’d probably turn into a pillar of salt. They won’t even write about Chicago and the CME: Not city enough. So they’re not wrong that the CITIES will have food shortages: but they already do and have for 40 Blue years: it’s called “Poverty”. If you’re in Iowa on a cornfield between an orchard and a broccoli field, I think they’ll figure it out. Cheap. But I can’t help them. They “chose” Biden, or enough of them, and he is only keeping his promise to raise gas to $10 and outlaw cars. We told cities they were unstable and lack of investment in … everything… but: rail, bridges, refineries, fertilizer, put the cities every year many times more at risk. Used to be market growers drove into the city from Jersey, “The Garden State.” Now from where? Pittsburgh? Your choice. You wanted the wealth pump that caused overbuilding there and underbuilding in Flyover. For 60 years you chose it, wouldn’t stop, killed every American in your way and laughed while “The Boss” sang songs describing to you the collapse you were causing.

    So these same articles say “There’s a housing shortage!!! Aaaiiii!” No, YOU don’t have houses. There are plenty of houses, millions and millions. So many that houses are falling down empty in Gary Indiana, but you won’t buy them. Same with food. They got the crops in this year, so there is the same food as ever. But if you let Biden hold diesel at $10 with no refineries, YOU won’t get any. Cleetus will. Suit yourself, man. I literally can’t help you now. You can only help yourselves by stopping the bad thing and choosing the good thing.

    “WHO Chief ‘Believes Covid Did Leak from Wuhan Lab’ (DM)”

    See? Was that so hard? It all depends on who pays me hush money. So if the money is cut off…. Yeah, like Lake Mead, a whole bunch of bodies will suddenly appear. And several trillion just vanished from Stocks, so the money is being cut off.

    Also, and from the Child Vaccine: “What Covid?” Covid died with Omicron if not before. What the heck do they think they are fighting? Attila the Hun? The Han Dynasty? Pontiac and Guyasuta? Yeah they’re all gone too, just like Delta, and the slight danger it ever posed. At the moment, Omicron and present strains don’t even have the danger of the common cold.

    So again: What Covid? They WILL, however, sacrifice all their children, and everybody else’s, to their authority-god.

    Contagious Vaccines: A Warning (Kheriaty)”

    Yes, this is what Omicron is and why it took that long. But both sides have these labs. So ask why they haven’t just released something bad created this way? There is a reason they chose a fake, non-illness pandemic and not a real one.

    illegal, namely, exercise power to pick the next president.”

    No, there is a legal process that this legal human should know, Congress would then have INVESTIGATED, and therefore either proved or cleared the concerns. Eventually there would have been certification. That was the POINT of the electoral PROCESS. This lie is told like every other. To trusting, ignorant people from liars who promote known lies. Because if he didn’t know, the first person like me would have informed him.

    Okay since this is upcoming, my take: Not having the 81% and avoiding the Civil War that would mean Davos wins and the free human race is extinguished, they let the resident into office which is known illegally. The White Hat military is keeping him in check from going truly crazy. But conceptually, CONGRESS is in charge, and THEY seat the President. Using electoral college votes from the States. If Congress affirms the (illegal) vote, well, there you are. They COULD call the military and make them, which is what all the stupid fences were about, although “Walls don’t work” except at Nancy Pelosi’s and Joe Biden’s house. But that would start the Civil War within the military and is hard to contain.

    As all you need to win is not lose, add more time by voting in an anti-Resident Congress. I mean, Congress was you problem, right, not looking, having crooked law and committees, approving crooked votes? Each iteration has the people overrunning ever-larger vote rigging, if you get them in for the midterms, you can still unwind it legally.

    Then, the story goes, we can find out the truth at last, and “Fraud vitiates”: All acts of the Biden administration in theory are reversed and cease to exist, the fake GA senators are tossed, and Gas goes to $3 again. Given this, we either hold a special election or Cheeto swings in and lands in the Big Chair. The nation is righted and everyone lives happily ever after. Because the Left has been sapped by their own ruinous policies and the financial system collapse will halt the money-pump to buy protesters and D.A.s.

    Of course this won’t happen, but it’s a good idea. It’s too narrow a target to hit. So the actual outcome upcoming will be far messier, if that is even possible to imagine right now. More like: they claim a new fake outbreak AND shut down power to the crooked voting machines, then call a mistrial. People both are or aren’t certified as Congressmen, or both are. They already just beta-tested this in AZ or somewhere. No one knows who Congress is, so no one knows who to follow(obey).

    The End and Civil War? I don’t think so, although they’re sure to triple the mass shootings and burn things down besides food plants. Every time we do this, the people become less trusting and obedient. More local. Buy more food to be more independent. THAT, is what America is. WE, are the government, not “Them”, the elected. So the more power WE take, and the less legitimacy THEY have, the more America exists again.

    …Although you won’t like it and neither will I.

    Anyway, it’s all a show, a circus, a fiction. They’re holding meetings nobody’s watching, and when they watch, no one believes. The Committee has already said they’re not going to indict anyone for a single thing. Tits on a boar hog doesn’t come close to it. They’re discredited clowns we’ve stopped listening to. If a congressman flaps his gums in a forest and nobody’s around, did he lie? Yes. But we won’t care about that either.

    A third of the nation only follows POWER. They believe whoever has the POWER today, who is holding the magic feather or the pointy hat. But there’s a corollary: If the Center doesn’t appear to have the POWER, half the nation will ignore them and wander off. The center does not seem to be projecting much power and control right now, and that’s only over their own people. People who never followed POWER are already a third of the country and already their enemy. They only control those few in the first place and are losing/will lose them

    They call themselves Nupes, NOPES”

    We need a party like that! Right away! “The Audacity of NOPE.”

    Macron has 20% approval, that is, a 20% mandate with the people. Um…I think you might find whole Provinces breaking away and ignoring Paris when that happens? Like the Military has already said it has?

    “I can’t say exactly how many people will be on the flight,” Liz Truss,”

    That’s okay, she’ll probably fly them to the Isle of Man since she doesn’t know where Rwanda is.

    “Assange’s Extradition – War Criminals And Murderers, Rejoice (Oborne)”

    Yes, The Guardian. See how like USA Today the paper doesn’t really exist? Anyone can click “Print” even as the paper disagrees with itself, publishes contradicting stories, or in this case positions, as they have no editorial board or process. They’re just a random bunch on the internet, so why would I read them or pay for it? I can get that from free from Rogan without the obvious misinformation.

    Saying this means they are not a Paper, and not an outlet, and therefore, not a company.

    We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our value.” –Karlin

    Hear, hear. My point is also that: It makes us unhappy. So you’re losing your values AND are miserable for it? Time to check out of the Matrix.

    T-Bear: that’s an interesting argument. Yes, I propose that there is “Truth”, objective big “T”, but that we as humans are unlikely to know it. Even that might not be true as it appears perhaps people, or their consciousness, live inside a self-created reality dream-consciousness bubble: like literally the “tree” does not exist until your eyes and consciousness interact with it (see sub-atomic physics). So there is no objective reality and strict rules. But I’m not a layer out like you seem to be, that there is literally no such thing. Although complicated, the universe exists in only one way, and that’s a thing. Truth existing despite our limitations is like a musician looking for that perfect note. Yes, you might never find it or find it only once on accident, but that doesn’t make the pursuit not worthwhile. It directs and keeps you in the right path. We can know this by the lives of people who decide “What is Truth? Vanity, Folly, so I’ll just create my own better one.” The outside has bad habit of intruding and disrupting them, although it can take a while.

    But importantly, in argument, they can say and have their truth, and I mine, and that can be different, but that doesn’t have to bother me at all since we’re both in error and it would be a miracle if we weren’t. The Truths can be pretty dramatically different, but I’m not threatened and can try to be where they are and understand what they’re seeing. But creating a consensus reality is pretty important to getting things done, so we have free speech and discuss opinions, have juries, rule and decide things. That’s the point of incarnation, to “decide” or choose what “Consensus reality” will be.

    Western democracies were dismantled. Public Health, Public Education and Public Safety all gone.”

    Yes, I’m afraid so. But where are these things? On the desk in the Principals office, in a drawer at the hospital? No. They are in US, the People. They are ideas that are internal, choices and sacrifices we make. So if WE are an immoral people, and with the slightest pressure give up public health in favor of saving our jobs because Administration and felony corporations just asked us to, then we receive the consequences of who WE are. “They” did not do this. If you have an army, and after a while they refuse to arm, to train, to fight, then lounge around all day in high heels for 50 years while the tanks rust away and aliens cross the border freely, whose fault is it when somebody finally knocks them off and takes them over?

    What I’m annoyed at is I’m trying very hard to do my duty as always, same as 100 years before, and without being arrested and shot which which will do nobody any good. Yet although I am doing the work, I am still punished and share in the consequences of louts who refuse all duty – or worse, are active enemies to life – solely because they live nearby and are my neighbors, an accident of birth. What can I do? Go MAKE them be moral? Inside their hearts? That’s what they’re trying to do to me. Refer them to Mr. Comey at the FBI to be ruled on by Judge Sullivan? And I’m a little salty about it.

    “No seasonal colds before telegraph”

    No. Even the word “Cold” is wildly older than telegraphs in every nation. However, a “cold” could be called a “Low Vitamin D Season” and (almost) everyone used to be outside 90% of the time. Around the time of telegraph lines.

    #109980
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Correction – “No evidence Justin Beiber’s facial paralysis NOT tied to covid vaccines”

    #109981
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Douglas Macgregor is an actual Officer and a Gentleman.

    In the classic sense.

    In the Empire of Lies, he stands as a beacon of sanity and truth.

    The Media Whores have laid down their legacy of lies and killed tens of thousands in Ukraine for a pay check.

    The blood drinking reptiles who infest the Empire of Lies have burned their bridges with the Russians.

    The Russians don’t bluff when they say something in a diplomatic context.

    They have stated in point blank language that the collective west is ‘agreement incapable’.

    The Neotards in DC think this is just a toss away line.

    No, the Russians finally realized that the ONLY thing the Empire of Lies understands is FORCE.

    Period.

    There’s not going to be any ‘negotiations’.

    The Russians will get unconditional surrender or they will take the entire Ukraine.

    End of story.

    From Douglas Macgregor:

    ” if.. Kiev will continue to operate as a base for the buildup of new forces poised to threaten Moscow. In practice, this means Kiev must commit national suicide by exposing the Ukrainian heartland west of the Dnieper River to massive, devastating strikes by Russia’s long-range missile and rocket forces.”

    If we get to this point, the Russians are not going to hold back like they’re been doing in Donbass.

    The shelling of civilians in Donetsk will be remembered.

    I would start by taking out all the cell towers and the electric grid for Kiev first.

    Then the sewage treatment plants

    Then the municipal water infrastructure.

    Don’t shell the civilians in Kiev like the Ukronazis did in Donetsk,

    just reduce them to a medieval existence going into winter.

    And call it even.

    #109982
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Dr D, yes hush money – I think you nailed it there. bodies will start floating and people will start suing and things will start getting done even while a new type of Turn-key Totalitarianism becomes built around us. The tension is positively Shakespearian to me.

    #109983
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Germany wants to make masks permanent in winter.

    Craptistic!

    Germany, no food, no fuel, cold, dark….and in a mask!

    Hey, everyone in Deutschland is the Phantom of the Opera über alles!

    #109984
    Kassandra
    Participant

    Can someone explain the Mexico thing to me? I had to stop reading Morris Berman because I couldn’t take it anymore. I have friends that have moved to Mexico, a good friend is down there in one of those little wanna-be utopias for ex-pats to escape the vaccine mandates in California, they are full blown anti vaxxers so when this all hit they panicked. But I also know Mexico is ruled by gangs and cartels, and the murders are real, much of Mexico is some of the most dangerous places on earth to live. Do upper middle class gringos living in their compounds really think they will be safe there if/when the SHTF? I grew up in SoCal in primarily Mexican neighborhoods in the 80s. I know how I was treated. Sure, it can be a lovely culture and I have close friends who are from Mexico, but I also know the history. I really don’t understand how people think Mexico is going to be their safe haven. Or Egypt or Pakistan. Really? Enlighten me.

    #109985
    zerosum
    Participant

    Look.
    Its there.
    Can you see it.
    The Good News

    Russia meanwhile earned a record €93 billion (US$97 billion) from energy exports during the first 100 days of the war, a Finnish study concluded. China and India, which refused to join Group of Seven sanctions against Russia, reportedly are buying oil at a discount of $30 to $40 per barrel, while American and European consumers are paying the full price.
    ———–
    Without Russian resources, there is no European industry, and without industry, there are no taxes for paying for unemployment benefits, pensions, all the refugees, and pretty much everything else which holds European societies together. The Russians now have the ability to engineer an uncontrolled crash in Europe which is not what Davos planned. An uncontrolled crash might see Davos’s heads roll, literally, and that is causing fear and panic in elite circles. The only solution for them is to move on with World War 3 and hope for the best.
    ———
    “Nordstream 1 is scheduled for annual maintenance that will halt all flows between July 11 and July 21.”
    —————–
    Unusual, Unexpected, Extreme Weather Everywhere are taking front stage/concerns
    Will the heat wave kill c-19?

    ————-
    What about Legal and/or illegal immigrant.
    What about critical thinkers
    .
    the U.S. seems to be, as of Friday, the only country in the world to partake in experimental COVID therapeutics for infants.
    ————-
    Moreover, none of the nations are using mRNA. 5 out of 7 are using Chinese manufactured inactivated vaccines. Cuba and Venezuela are using the Cuban homebrew shot.
    ———–
    about a dozen research institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Australia are investigating the potential human uses for self-spreading vaccines.
    “Self-spreading vaccines are less lethal but not non-lethal: they can still kill. Some people will die who would otherwise have lived, though fewer people die overall.”

    —————
    My way or the highway
    Still afraid of Trump.
    Still hate Trump
    Still panicking
    Still lying
    ————-
    Its all downhill, After, The June solstice occurs on Tuesday, June 21, 2022, at 5:14 A.M. EDT.
    ———-

    #109986
    Oroboros
    Participant

    @Kassandra

    We don’t need no stinking badges!

    #109987
    John Day
    Participant

    Formerly T-Bear said:
    “Truth is a mirage, it can evaporate upon approach. Things are either true or not and are not fungible between those conditions. Once a great debate took place, whether stones fell from the sky. Those witnessing such asserted the truth that they did. Those not witnessing that event held the truth stones did not fall from the sky. Both sides assuredly held to their truth which once true facts were known, the truth evaporated for one set and was assured the other. That is what I referred to as the mirage of truth. Your definitions may differ.
    Some exception is taken to the necessity of subjugation to your classification – materialistic worldview, particularly when coupled with judgmental right or wrong, all on a presumption. Better you guess the answer.
    Trust the above will settle some of your troubles. Thanks”

    Both Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein had deep spiritual beliefs, arising from their own conscious experiences of life and attempts to fully comprehend nature. They both believed in “absolute truth”, but Truth is an enigmatic puzzle. How is the life of a universe NOT pre-ordained when it goes Big-Bang?

    The uncertainty-principle holds from the viewpoint of an investigator, who must affect reality to observe it. This is a point-of-view. Is there an absolute truth which underlies it, but is not accessible by scientific investigation? That is the enigma of truth.

    One school of Buddhism, “mind only”, citta-mātra postulates that all of reality exists within consciousness, within universal-mind, which might be called “God” and is not described as having or not-having personality. From where we stand as conscious physical/animal beings, it does not appear that there is a phsycal investigation which could settle this philosophical question.

    From the other side of the question, if we are conscious and are part of universal consciousness, then it should be possible for us to “know” that somehow.
    Such knowlege would not be transferrable by physical means. It would be words, not proof.
    One thought-problem I have worked with in life is that of Karma, spiritual cause-and-effect, which is taught in most major religions (not a proof , nor a refutation).
    To my assessment the world can either act like a machine with uncertainty jitter, or karma can be an efffective law of existence. They seem mutually exclusive to my analysis.
    I have investigated karma throughout my 64 years, and it appears to be a “law” in my life. I think anybody can do this investigation.
    I am a meditation-practitioner (unimpressively so). I have epiphanies occasionally, and generally experience a connectedness to others, even when not-present.
    This is non-transferrable. It is just my anecdote.

    Every “mystic”must still have a working-model of hysical reality.
    Those who hold to physical-only reality, which is avery well developed model now, do not need to have any model of mysticism. It can be completely discounted in our society.

    Mysticism melds well with principled morality. Materialism has a harder time aligning with principled morality. What is materially rational will often be selfish and immoral, which we see in the corruption of government and other institutions.

    Again, there are tests a person can do in his/her/it/their life, which are no-communicablr, so to speak.

    #109988
    Oroboros
    Participant

    In between the torrent of lies the Empire of Cut & Run presents:

    Ukraineistan or Afghaniukraine

    Your pick.

    The parts of the Brandon Muppet Show is measuring up Zelensky for a casket

    Parts of Biden White House see Ukraine as disaster, other parts want escalation

    #109989
    John Day
    Participant

    Kassandra said:
    “Do upper middle class gringos living in their compounds really think they will be safe there if/when the SHTF? I grew up in SoCal in primarily Mexican neighborhoods in the 80s. I know how I was treated. Sure, it can be a lovely culture and I have close friends who are from Mexico, but I also know the history. I really don’t understand how people think Mexico is going to be their safe haven. Or Egypt or Pakistan. Really? Enlighten me.”

    I have different kinds of friends living-sojourning in Mexico in different ways.
    You observe those who are sold a good-bargain-living-arrangement product. Mexico is regionalized into fiefdoms. Cartels are not powerful in many places, or know to leave themalone and take some tribute, so as to not kill the tourism goose that lays golden eggs.
    On the other hand are people with family connections and other real connections, people who garden and homestead themselves within non-tourist communities. They are different. They are more realistic and self-reliant problem-solvers, not product-buyers. They often have several options in several places, upon which they regularly work and invest sweat equity, farming somwhere in summer and somewhere else in winter, so to speak (or actually).

    #109990
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://thesaker.is/sitrep-operation-z-%f0%9f%92%a5-theme-kalibr-kaboom/
    By Saker Staff for the Saker Blog

    This is about the most significant of the last two quiet days. But the silence is over. Some may remember that Military Summary said about two days ago, that there is little to report as there is very little movement on the front. Wait for it, I think we now know why.

    Let’s take some extracts, somewhat cleaned up, from the Russian MoD report today which is noticeably longer than the previous reports.

    https://t.me/mod_russia_en/2282

    https://t.me/mod_russia_en/2283

    At 12.30 PM, Kalibr high-precision long-distance sea-based missiles were launched at a command post of the Ukrainian troops near the village of Shirokaya Dacha (Dnepropetrovsk region).

    At that moment a working meeting of the commanders of the Aleksandriya operational-strategic group was in progress.

    More than 50 generals and officers of the AFU was eliminated. This included the General Staff of the Kakhovka group, airborne assault troops and units that operate towards Nikolayev and Zaporozhye.

    (Also confirmed by RT: https://www.rt.com/russia/557428-50-ukrainian-generals-officers-killed-russia/ )

    ▫️At 08.20 AM, Kalibr high-precision long-distance missiles destroyed 10 M777 155-mm howitzers and up to 20 armoured combat vehicles delivered by the West to the Kiev regime over the past 10 days that were located in a transformer plant in Nikolayev.

    And further on in that same report, we see the results of AFU friendly fire, destroying about 40 of their own.

    ❗️Big losses of the AFU in manpower force the Ukrainian command to involve unprepared personnel in combats, despite their lack of necessary skills in using armament and military equipment.

    ▫️At 01.30 PM, 2 Su-25 assault fighters of the Ukrainian Air Force launched an attack at the positions of its units near Shirokoye (Dnepropetrovsk region).

    #109991
    Kassandra
    Participant

    John Day, I am well aware of the current situation, what I am talking about is if/when the STHF. Protecting the tourists spots will no longer be relevant, and the violence is already getting closer and closer to some of these “safe” spots. My argument is if things get SO BAD in the US one feels they have to flee, a gringo in Mexico will likely not be better off, quite the opposite. There’s a reason literally millions of people are fleeing Mexico for the US, when only a few of the relatively wealthy are heading down there to the nice areas for a better standard of living. I’ve been to these ex-pat areas in Mexico and Costa Rica. Very few are contributing to the country and locals, other than providing menial “jobs” to maintain their lovely homes and gardens. I liken them to the rich people buying their compounds in Montana. They will be targets for the locals if things get bad enough.

    #109994
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    “ The federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), for example, is examining this technology for U.S. military to protect against the West Africa lassa fever, a virus spread by rats to humans. This project, it should be noted, does not require the consent of our military service men and women”

    But does, however, violate the Nuremberg Code.

    #109995
    christine
    Participant

    This Mexico thing:You shouldn’t talk about Mexico when you don’t have a clue what you are talking about.It only reflects your ignorance.

    I’m a single, older woman, living in the campo…fields…outside of a well known small town…been in this rented house for 8 years…alone…safe, 4 dogs, old truck, careful, but I go out on long walks with the dogs. My Mex neighbors, the campesinos know me and talk to me…house/property looks sort of trashed outside (pretty modest inside too). Safe, quiet, happy, I lived in 6 other houses before I found this and had to be speaking Spanish to find it, with the help of a Mexican friend.

    I lived in 26 places in the US in my life, was raped at knifepoint in my own bed in Salt Lake in a good neighborhood; run over by a car on the sidewalk in mid day in Santa Monica; lived safely in Cairo, Egypt for 4 years, traveled the world, sometimes alone, sometimes with others, always safely.

    You shouldn’t talk about Mexico when you don’t have a clue what you are talking about. It only reflects your ignorance and acceptance of US propaganda. If you are careful and thoughtful, you can live much better here than in the US and certainly as safely. If you are fool…well, that’s your problem in Mexico.

    #109996
    Noirette
    Participant

    On the economy, from prev. thread. Formerly T posted (truncated)…

    quote: Economics can be modelled as two cycles that feed each other. The production cycle that provides the economic goods that feed the consumption cycle which in turn provides the economic actors that populate the production cycle. That is the economic model at its stark simplicity. Economic production has four sources of economic goods, they are: Land, Labour, Capital and Entrepreneurship that provide economic goods filling economic: Needs, Wants and Desires that satisfy economic consumption.

    I don’t disagree, really. Just the descriptions are different, as is wont to be when discussing a hugely complex topic. You include ‘labour’ – as a basic element – I speak of interaction between humans and the environment (I left out interactions between humans as that can be assumed, be a pre-supposition, a given, e.g. the Capo orders the Slave to collect stones to build the temple..) Needless to say, I don’t have a complete model so I’m just chatting. Your model, as I understand it, implies a translation into action, even ultimately groups, that seeks to fulfills desires, aspirations, by ‘capitalising’ aka awarding importance and value to various inputs to economic activity (and ‘growth’?) and analysing them.

    Mine if it existed ( 🙂 ) would just lodge all that under ‘greed’ and ‘need for domination’ or something like that. Anyways Formerly T I’m sure you get the drift and I don’t want to take up too much space with this.

    #109997
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    There is Self – and there is the self.

    There is Truth – and there is the truth.

    There is a difference between the personal and the UNIVERSAL. You can find/KNOW the difference through life experience.

    IF YOU ASK.

    IF YOU LISTEN AND LEARN AND LIVE IT.

    One Universal Self.

    One Universal Truth – is LOVE.

    Om Tat Sat.

    LOVE to All.

    #109998
    those darned kids
    Participant
    #109999
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    John Day at 109987

    You’re certainly full of the blather today. What passes as spiritualism today would have been unknown to either Newton or Einstein and you have no evidence for your remarks.

    If it is not evident by now, be assured I have absolutely no intention of entering into discussions of your, or any one else’s beliefs. They have no place at this site either, please take them elsewhere and stop making an ass of yourself. Your version of hallelujah-ing, hosanna-ing, holly roller-ing, blather-ing away in tongues whatever your cult may be is for other sites, and for some reflects poorly on you. You are not that great a cut and paste artist either. And you are certainly not qualified to lecture on Buddhism any more than you are on economics.

    Yesterday at 109935 IIRC your:

    I feel that a an actual “zeitgeist” (time-spirit) is different from the attempts to creat an ersatz “noble lie”, that zeitgeist is the antithesis of the “noble lie”. My feeling is that zeitgeist takes some very long naps, but that it is awake again, like in 1967.

    (highlights mine)

    Frankly your feelings carry absolutely no weight in some quarters, mine included. Your “noble lie”, what0s that, some conspiracy theory of yours? A lot of things happened in 1967, I don’t recall that particular headline to which you refer. For an educated person, your writing leaves lots to be desired.

    This will be my last attempt to have any conversation with you, it seems not worth the candle.

    #110000
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    @ Red – Can’t happen soon enough!

    The Justin Trudeau brand is in trouble.
    ____________________

    Just wait for his replacement as Prime Minister. Here she is, demonstrating her skills:

    Chrystia Freeland Will Not Answer Questions in the Most Smarmy Demeanor – Emergencies Act Hearing

    F.S.

    #110001
    John Day
    Participant

    Kassandra said (and I never disagreed, just pointed out another group of american expats):
    “I’ve been to these ex-pat areas in Mexico and Costa Rica. Very few are contributing to the country and locals, other than providing menial “jobs” to maintain their lovely homes and gardens. I liken them to the rich people buying their compounds in Montana. They will be targets for the locals if things get bad enough.”

    To the degree that Mexicans survive in some more-stable areas, American ex-pats, who are working and contributing and become community members, should also survive. This is a smaller group, usually with mixed marriages and family-ties.

    #110002
    John Day
    Participant

    Formerly T-Bear will not consider, nor discuss that which cannot be framed “objectively”.

    Isaac Newton was a practiotioner of “Natural Philosophy”, and also an Alchemist. He had spiritual beliefs.

    Albert Eistein said “God does not play at dice”. He felt that he knew.

    “Feelings” are subjective experience. “Stones fall from the sky” on some people, but not upon others.

    1967 and this summer are times of mass changes in consciousness, “the summer of love”, and the French student movement, which became a revolution in 1968. You may use Zeitgeist in a sense of “current fashion”, but it can also efer to Jung’s “collective unconscious”, which is how I usually use the term.

    We disagree.
    I agree that it’s fine, and wish you well.

    #110003
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    Noirette at 109996

    Acknowledging your reply. In that piece I did not define the terms but there are definitions, used as economic definitions that work. The intent was to show a simple version of what economics is when defined by basic principles; four cover production, three cover the range of consumption. At a minimum production and consumption are equal, e.g. low production, low consumption, high production, high consumption or lower consumption and retained production (savings). This eliminates all the ways these can happen as you wrote. This can be used as an analytic tool to view economic processes. Again the functioning definitions have not been included but the basic economic system might be observed.
    “Labour” is essential to the creation of economic goods. No labour involved, the goods are not economic, e.g. air is a very important good but is not an economic good as no labour is required to obtain it. Does that clarify? Capital is merely income not consumed that is used in creating fjurther income – seed corn might be an example. Perhaps these examples may shed light on how these definitions were arrived. Sorry the ‘ul’ on the box header messed up.

    #110004
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I recommend reduced consumption of caffeinated beverages for certain of our cohort. We’re all good people here. Be appropriately mean to liars, thieves and killers, not to well intentioned fellow travelers who actually do want the best for you even when you’re being mean. This is especially true for these troubled times.

    Snarky repartee (especially when funny) goes a lot further than anger and contempt.

    #110005
    willem
    Participant

    @D_Benton_Smith said: “I recommend reduced consumption of caffeinated beverages for certain of our cohort.”

    I’ll have to remember that one!

    #110006
    Sam Birch
    Participant

    Prickles and Goo

    “In the history of philosophy and poetry and art, we always find the interchange of two personality types, which I call prickles and goo.

    The prickly people are advocates of intellectual porcupinism. They want rigour, they want precise statistics, and they have a certain clipped attitude in their voices—and you know this very well in academic circles! They accuse other people of being disgustingly vague and miasmic and mystical.

    But the vague, miasmic and mystical people accuse the prickly people of being mere skeletons with no flesh on their bones. They say [to them] ‘You just rattle! You’re not really a human being. You know the words but you don’t know the music.’

    And so therefore, if you belong to the prickly type, you hope that the ultimate constituent of matter is particles. If you belong to the gooey type, you hope it’s waves.

    If you’re prickly, you’re a Classicist. And if you’re gooey, you’re a Romanticist. And going back into Medieval philosophy, if you’re prickly, you’re a Nominalist—if you’re gooey, you’re a Realist.

    And so it goes. But we know very well that this natural universe is neither prickles nor goo exclusively.

    It’s gooey prickles and prickly goo.”

    —Alan Watts

    #110007
    John Day
    Participant

    “Economics” and “truth”being topics, Michael Hudson has a new interview transcript out which addresses both of these, as relatedto “econmics” and also to the actual movements and applications of capital, which he learned are very different, so had to do his dissertation on “The History Of Economic Thought” and skip what he learned on his job evaluating global capital movements, balance-of-payments actuarial analysis.

    Economic Rent and Exploitation: Michael Hudson, Shepheard Walwyn

    Where are we now and where might we soon go?

    #110008
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    This will be my last attempt to have any conversation with you, it seems not worth the candle.

    Wow John 😯

    It appears that what we have here is a bona fide example of a “superior” being within our midst…

    Should we bow or curtsy, my memory is a little fuzzy after The Infinite repeatedly hammered my physical being with electro~chemical stimuli (aka feelings) to get my attention 😉

    I am grateful for all the toxic hubris showered upon me by “superior” beings, although a harsh education, their “speciousness” instilled within me the humility *not* to wield my IQ level tyrannically over those gifted in “other” areas of the Loving, Healing, Creative plan 💡

    Peace to all,

    Gary

    #110009
    John Day
    Participant

    @VP Gary: Thanks.
    Live and let live. Not all debates can be settled.

    #110010
    Oroboros
    Participant
    #110011
    chooch
    Participant

    In order to avoid effort, which the world demands, the human mind distorts the world, distorts its own self and goes on its own way as nothing ever happened. In other words man tries to construct a truth that suits him. In coming to know the Truth, man is the tool. With help he will arrive at the Truth. If the tool is broken, true perception is out of the question. The only way is by restoring the tool. The tool can’t be restored by trying to serve two masters.

    #110012
    Kassandra
    Participant

    Wow christine, thank you so much for your response, given the tone of it, it appears I’m on the right track. Good luck.

    #110013
    Archie
    Participant

    I often feel like I need to burn incense when reading comments here. This is especially so for the past few months. Most of the time I only skim them, if not completely ignoring them. So I have a strong sense of where T-Bear is coming from.

    However, I do have a suggestion that I was hoping Ilargi would have made by now. Or perhaps he did, in his own way, and I missed it.


    @John
    Day
    Please refrain from posting your entire blog posts here. Just mention when your posts are up and invite those that are interested to go to your site and then you all can talk spirituality and the like until the cows come home. To incessantly replicate them here in their entirety and on a seemingly daily basis is very gauche, imho.

    @VP

    Quite often, you come across as particularly sanctimonious. Are you aware of that? Or maybe that’s your point? Anyway, I would ask that you contemplate further who has the superiority complex?

    Just speaking my mind, one cent at a time. Don’t care who agrees or disagrees with me on this.

    #110014
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Thank you John Day #110007. Your comment lead me to the following videos with Michael Hudson and I watched part 1 with with my father this evening. I have a Michael Hudon’s book The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism or Socialism and dad is reading that book now. Happy Father’s Day to all.

    A Philosophy for a Fair Society (Part I) | Michael Hudson & Jonathan Brown


    Welcome to the Shepheard Walwyn podcast and a two part interview with Michael Hudson, perhaps to the world’s most influential (but rarely acknowledged) economist. Michael has had a remarkable career starting off as a practical or reality-based economist working for a variety of institutions looking and how banks really behave.

    He looked at the balance of payments economics for David Rockefeller at Chase Manhattan Bank; worked for Herman Kahn at the Hudson Institute, and advised the US State Department on how they could fund the Vietnam War when the gold was running out. He now advises the Chinese Government on how to maintain an industrial economy and avoid the traps the US Finance economy has fallen into.

    Michael’s most famous work is Super Imperialism, the Economic Strategy of American Empire but has also written extensively on ancient economies in the Near East.

    He is one of our longest running writers having co-written the soon to be re-released eBook, A Philosophy for a Fair Society with Kris Feder and the late GJ Miller and. Incidentally, this book is a great introduction to his whole body of work so do check it out!

    In this first episode we looked at how economics got corrupted from industrial economics where people made money by making things, to a finance economy where a small elite group makes money by manipulating financial instruments. There’s some meaty topics but I promise it’s worth your time.

    Time stamps are as follows:
    00:00 Welcome and introduction.
    02:30 How did he get into economics?
    10:00 The effect of real estate and credit on the economy in today’s finance economy system.
    17:00 Why did the classical economists fight so hard to get rid of the rentier class?
    21:00 Why was almost everyone a socialist at the start of the 20th century? And why was the public sector seen as the 4th factor of production?
    31:30 The fight against classical economics and its concept of rent as unearned income
    36:00 What Henry George got wrong.
    46:00 How the fight to maintain an industrial economy is being fought in Russia and China.
    53:00 How GDP calculations distort the value creation process today.
    58:00 How the University of Chicago and its graduates enjoy their free lunch.
    1:09:00 The New Road to Serfdom and the legacy of the new feudalism.

    A Philosophy for a Fair Society (Part II) | Michael Hudson & Jonathan Brown


    Hello and welcome to the Shepheard Walwyn podcast series. My name is Jonathan Brown. Shepheard Walwyn is a campaigning book publisher based in London, England. Our purpose is to uncover and promote new ideas to society’s oldest problems. Whilst our specialty is ethical economics, something Anthony Werner, our driving force for over 40 years has pioneered, we have branched out over the years to other related areas such as the environment and the lives and work of society’s change agents.

    These podcasts promote ideas we are convinced can actually help us to build a better society for all of us. So have a listen and be sure to share with your friends if you like them and tell us what you think – these are debates we all need to be a part of.

    Welcome to Part Two of our interview with Michael Hudson, perhaps the world’s most influential, (but rarely acknowledged), economist. In the first episode, we looked at how economics got corrupted from industrial economics, where people made money by making things to a finance economy where a small elite group makes money by manipulating financial instruments.

    In this episode, we dig into Michael’s most famous work, Super Imperialism, the Economic Strategy of the American Empire. In this book, first published in 1972, Michael described how the USA was able to force the world to use the US dollar as its default international currency – the so-called ‘dollarisation’ of the world economy which accelerated in the 1960s to today. We also look at the reverse which is happening as we speak – the rapidly accelerating de-dollarisation due to US actions against Russia and China. Essentially this is where economies around the world stop using the US dollar as their trading and reserve currency and start using other currencies instead in terms of impact. This change may be the most important economic event since the Second World War.

    Here are the timestamps for the conversation:
    0:00 Welcome and focus on Super Imperialism
    2:50 Understanding money and balance of payments deficits and how the USA avoided paying for its deficits.
    13:30 What’s Michael’s view on the economic impact of the Ukraine conflict?
    17:15 What’s the real cause of the grain shortage and how are we moving to a multi-polar world?
    28:00 Is Biden really in charge?
    30:30 Working with Herman Kahn at the Hudson Institute.
    37:30 How is China dealing with the Tech Billionaires?
    41:00 What are the scenarios for Russia and China?
    45:30 What is your take on China’s zero COVID policies?

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