Pablo Picasso Napping 1932
Trump
This is why they all wanted him gone pic.twitter.com/ajUPUvFzNY
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 8, 2022
“When evil comes disguised as progress, celebrated in ignorance as righteous, when truth triggers vitriol & disgust, as the good are slandered & silenced, and when the sick are hailed as heroes, while the natural state of things is ridiculed, then truly we are in dangerous times”
“Either Russia is victorious in this Very Special Operation or else we shall enter a Dark Age..”
• The Very Special Operation (Batiushka)
A Russian Orthodox priest and cultural historian, who has lived in several Western and Eastern European countries, including Russia and the Ukraine, I cannot fail to feel great sorrow at the events unfolding today. But I also feel great hope. The process of barbarous injustice that began in 1914 and ended the Old Europe and has been through all manner of fateful dates, 1917, 1929, 1939, 1945, 1968, 1989, 1991, 2014, to name but a few, is now further unfurling and reaching a global crescendo. As Nikolai Patrushev has stated, the Special Operation is not just a military event, it is far, far more profound than that, this is military, political, economic and cultural. This is why it took so long, eight years, to carry out the necessary painstaking preparations for the Operation, in view of the high probability that the West would refuse to get off its high horse of hubris and negotiate like reasonable people do.
Since the West did refuse to negotiate, the battleground is for now the ultra-militarised Eastern Ukraine. However, the War is not between brother Ukrainians and brother Russians, but between Washington with its NATO/EU vassals and Moscow with its Donbass Allies. There is no doubt that Russia will win in the Ukraine, as it has complete air and naval superiority. The Russian-speaking East and South of the Ukraine, Novorossija, part of Russia until 1922, is being liberated by a smallish expeditionary force of the Russian Army together with local troops. However, the Operation was never planned to be a short one, most knew that it would take months and perhaps, on account of possible NATO meddling, a year or more.
The War is longer because the Kiev Army has been preparing for it for eight long years. It has been building trenches and fortifications, arming itself with a huge amount of NATO training and weaponry, which the Russian Armed Forces are being forced to destroy, together with Ukrainian Nazis, Western mercenaries and NATO instructors. From this conflict a new Ukraine will be born. Perhaps it will once more be called Malorossija or perhaps it will keep its ‘Borderlands’ name. In any case it will be a smallish country, with a population of perhaps some 15 million, centred on Kiev. Whatever its name, it will effectively be the Kievan Protectorate, part of the Union State with the Russian Federation, Belarus and probably others.
[..] Let us be honest. Either Russia is victorious in this Very Special Operation or else we shall enter a Dark Age, from which there will be no end because it will be an Orwellian One World Government. Such One World Dictatorship will brook no opposition, all who challenge it will be repressed. This is our last chance to resist and strike back against the aggression that began in 1914, aggression that was military, political, economic and cultural, a totalitarian aggression that leads to total death, the death of body and soul. But according to all the military reports, let alone the prophecies, Russia will be victorious.
“..it is actually blocked in by Ukraine’s own mines, which they currently refuse to allow Turkey to remove.”
• Biden Works to Prolong Ukraine War (Craig Murray)
I was in Turkey to try to further peace talks, as an experienced diplomat with good contacts there, and as a peace activist. I was not there as a journalist and much of what I discussed was with the understanding of confidence. It will be probably be some years before I judge it reasonable and fair to reveal all that I know. But I can give some outline. Turkey continues to be the centre of diplomatic activity on resolving the Ukraine war. It is therefore particularly revealing, and a sign of Western priorities, that I did not come across a single western journalist there trying to follow and cover the diplomatic process. There are hundreds of Western journalists in Ukraine, effectively embedded with the Ukrainian authorities, producing war porn. There appear to be none seriously covering attempts to make peace.
There was a sea change two weeks ago when Ukraine shifted to a public stance that it would cede no territory at all in a peace deal. On 21 May, Zelensky’s office stated that “The war must end with the complete restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.” Previously while they had been emphatic that no territory in “the East” would be ceded, there had been studied ambiguity about whether that referred to Donbass alone or also the Crimea. The new Ukrainian stance, that there will be no peace deal without recovering the Crimea, has ended for now any hopes of an early ceasefire. It appears to be a militarily unachievable objective – I cannot think of any scenario in which Russia de facto loses Crimea, without the serious possibility of worldwide nuclear war.
This blow to the peace process was a setback in Ankara, and I should say that every source I spoke with believed the Ukrainians were acting on instructions conveyed from Washington to Zelensky by Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who openly stated he wanted the war to wear down Russian defence capabilities. A long war in Ukraine is of course massively in the interest of the US military industrial complex, whose dripping roasts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have gone rather off the heat. It also forwards the strategic objective of severely damaging the Russian economy, although much of that damage is mutual. Why we live in a world where the goal of nations is to damage the lives of inhabitants of other nations is a question which continues to puzzle me.
Turkey has for now turned towards the more limited goal of ensuring that grain supplies can be shipped out from the Black Sea through the Bosphorus. This is essential for developing nations and essential for world food supplies, which were already under pressure before this war began. Turkey is offering to clear sea lanes of mines and to police the ships carrying grain from the port of Odessa, which is still under Ukrainian control. Russia has agreed to the deal. Ukraine is objecting to this plan to export its own wheat, because it objects to the removal of the mines, which I should be clear were put down in the sea lanes by Ukraine to prevent amphibious attack on Odessa. There is monumental hypocrisy by the West on this, blaming Russia for preventing the export of the grain while it is actually blocked in by Ukraine’s own mines, which they currently refuse to allow Turkey to remove.
“..did we think we can adequately address a global starvation crisis by pointing the finger at Putin?”
• The West and the Rest (Münchau)
The pandemic and the war taught me something I sort of knew, but not really. It is a one thing to say that the world is interconnected, as a cliché. It is quite another to observe what actually happens on the ground when those connections get torn apart. The western sanctions were based on a formally correct but misleading premise, one that I believed myself at least up to a point: That Russia is more dependent on us than we are on Russia. Russia has more wheat than it can eat, and more oil than it can burn. Russia is a provider of primary and secondary commodities, on which the world has become dependent. Oil and gas are the biggest sources of Russian export revenues. But our dependency is most acute in other areas: food and also rare metals and rare earths.
Russia is not a monopolist in any of the categories. But when the largest exporters of those commodities disappears, the rest of the world experiences physical shortages and rising prices. Russia is the world largest exporter of gas, accounting for just under 20% of global exports. Russia is the largest exporter of oil, after Saudi Arabia, and accounts for 11% of world exports. It the largest exporter of fertilisers, and of wheat. Russia and Ukraine together account for almost a third of global wheat exports. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of palladium, a metal that is critical in the production of catalytic converters and fuel cells. Russia is also the largest world exporter of nickel, which is used in batteries, and in the production for hybrid cars. German industry is warning that it is reliant not only on Russian gas, but on other critical supplies from Russia.
Did we think this through? Did the foreign ministries that drew up the sanctions discuss at any point what we would do if Russia were to blockade the Black Sea and not allow Ukrainian wheat to leave the ports? Did we develop an agreed-upon response to Russian food blackmail? Or did we think we can adequately address a global starvation crisis by pointing the finger at Putin? The lockdown taught us a lot about our vulnerability to supply chain shocks. It has reminded Europeans that there have only two routes to ship goods en masse to Asia and back: either by container, or by rail through Russia. We had no plan for a pandemic, no plan for a war, and no plan for when both are happening at the same time. The containers are stuck in Shanghai. The railways closed because of the war.
“..she said Ukraine “was not a democratically consolidated country” then, still strongly influenced by oligarchs and plagued by corruption..”
“Then”? But not now? What changed?
• ‘I Don’t Blame Myself’: Merkel Defends Legacy On Russia And Ukraine (Pol.eu)
Angela Merkel defended her diplomatic legacy as German chancellor Tuesday, rejecting accusations that her policies while leading Europe’s largest economy for 16 years were indirectly to blame for Russia’s ongoing attack on Ukraine. In her first public interview since leaving office in December, Merkel argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have fully invaded his neighboring country much earlier if she and other allies had not taken controversial decisions such as blocking Ukraine’s membership bid for the NATO military alliance in 2008, or negotiating the Minsk peace accords in 2014 and 2015, which Ukraine viewed as disadvantageous for its own security. “I don’t blame myself,” Merkel told an audience at the fully sold-out Berliner Ensemble theater in the German capital.
“I have tried to work in the direction of preventing mischief. And if diplomacy doesn’t succeed, this doesn’t mean that it was therefore wrong. Thus I don’t see why I should say: ‘That was wrong.’ And therefore I won’t apologize.” However, Merkel — who condemned Putin’s invasion as “a brutal assault in defiance of international law for which there is no excuse whatsoever” — also showed some cautious self-criticism: She said she had failed during her tenure “to create a security architecture that could have prevented this [war] from happening.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in April called out Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, arguing their longstanding policy of “concessions to Russia” and opposition to putting Ukraine and Georgia on a path toward NATO membership had encouraged Moscow to think “they are allowed to do anything they want” with Ukraine and commit “even the most horrific war crimes” such as in Bucha.
Yet Merkel on Tuesday defended her decision not to grant Ukraine the so-called NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the alliance’s Bucharest summit in 2008, citing two reasons: First, she said Ukraine “was not a democratically consolidated country” then, still strongly influenced by oligarchs and plagued by corruption. Second, Merkel said she was convinced taking such a step would have certainly led to war. “I was very sure that Putin would not just let [Ukraine’s NATO membership] happen. That would have been … a declaration of war for him,” she said, arguing that the Russian leader would have used the NATO accession process, during which Ukraine probably would not have yet benefitted from the alliance’s mutual security guarantees, to “do something.”
Germany's Merkel says she does not agree at all with Russia's Putin on the Ukraine issue. "But we've also not been able to forge a security architecture that could have kept this from happening."
For more: https://t.co/BauTxSyMBV pic.twitter.com/bapULENpEk
— DW News (@dwnews) June 7, 2022
It’s getting very scary.
• Studies Show Link Between Prion Brain Disease and Covid-19 Vaccine (GP)
Two new clinical studies – one peer-reviewed by researchers in Turkey, and one pre-print by researchers in France – have begun to establish an alarming link between an incurable, degenerative brain disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and the experimental Covid-19 vaccine. CJD is a “rare” disease that is caused by abnormal infectious proteins in the brain called “prions,” according to NHS. Although the presence of prions is not necessarily dangerous or deadly, the proteins will cause degenerative brain damage if they become diseased or misfolded. Once this process begins, the malfunctioning prions will continue to corrupt other cells, leading to a prognosis that is always fatal.
As of right now, CJD is uncurable. There are zero treatment options available. The diagnosis is essentially a death sentence, but symptoms are traditionally dormant for several years before manifesting into a deadly complication. Unfortunately, with the new cases of CJD that have been linked to the vaccine, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The disease is progressing at an alarming and unprecedented rate. So much so that the team of French researchers highlighted their concerns of the experimental mRNA vaccines contributing directly to creating a new, more aggressive type of CJD. According to the French study, a total of 26 cases of vaccine-linked CJD were included in the research.
At the time of the study’s publication, a whopping 20 out of the 26 CJD patients had already passed away from the disease. Additionally, researchers found that there were “more than 50 cases” of the fatal disease that appeared after taking the experimental vaccines. Despite traditionally taking as much as a decade to manifest with symptoms, the study found symptoms in these new cases began appearing just 11.38 days post-vaccination. In these cases, the disease is killing the affected individuals in under 5 months’ time (4.76 months).
Everything “green” is falling apart.
• This Is Why It Doesn’t Work (Denninger)
Folks, right here: “To meet the nation’s clean energy goals, the US must develop a robust manufacturing capability to produce solar energy panels and components. It can do that by providing financial incentives to US manufacturers to help offset higher domestic production costs, which have been estimated to be 30% to 40% more than imports.” That is the problem. Congress handing out money will not solve it; forcing Americans to pay that 30-40% more simply bankrupts Americans but through a different way. There are many things we can do but they don’t make any sense to do. The only reason someone does it is that there’s a boot on someone’s neck (they’re a slave), the environment is destroyed without care (remediation costs money) and similar.
That’s the beginning and end of it, when you get down to facts. This is not just limited to solar panels. Its also true for EVs; you have to dig half a million pounds of earth up to make just one battery, and there is no economically viable means of recycling them either. Yes, technically they can be recycled, but then you get to pay even more. If the industry will collapse if the 30-40% has to be paid by the end consumer of the product then whatever you’re proposing does not work. Why would you pay 30 cents/kwh for power you can have for 10? Do you understand that this is exactly what we’re talking about here? At 30-40% more the panels are non-economic to put in and use; they’re simply not competitive. At 300% more than what you pay now for electric power you can’t heat or cool your house and eat at the same time.
Craziest story of the day?! The head of the Brookings Institution.
• FBI Seizes Retired General’s Data Related To Qatar Lobbying (AP)
The FBI has seized the electronic data of a retired four-star general who authorities say made false statements and withheld “incriminating” documents about his role in an illegal foreign lobbying campaign on behalf of the wealthy Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. New federal court filings obtained Tuesday outlined a potential criminal case against former Marine Gen. John R. Allen, who led U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan before being tapped in 2017 to lead the influential Brookings Institution think tank. It’s part of an expanding investigation that has ensnared Richard G. Olson, a former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan who pleaded guilty to federal charges last week, and Imaad Zuberi, a prolific political donor now serving a 12-year prison sentence on corruption charges.
Several members of Congress have been interviewed as part of the investigation. The court filings detail Allen’s behind-the scenes efforts to help Qatar influence U.S. policy in 2017 when a diplomatic crisis erupted between the gas-rich Persian Gulf monarchy and its neighbors. “There is substantial evidence that these FARA violations were willful,” FBI agent Babak Adib wrote in a search warrant application, referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Allen also misrepresented his role in the lobbying campaign to U.S. officials, Adib wrote, and failed to disclose “that he was simultaneously pursuing multimillion-dollar business deals with the government of Qatar.” The FBI says Allen gave a “false version of events” about his work for Qatar during a 2020 interview with law enforcement officials and failed to produce relevant email messages in response to an earlier grand jury subpoena.
Just keep publishing them. Hunter will have to resurface at some point.
• White House Refuses To Comment On Hunter Biden Pictures (Radar)
White House officials and representatives of Hunter Biden remained mum in the wake of Radar Online reports showing President Joe Biden’s son naked with an illegally obtained gun. Officials from the White House, Hunter’s criminal attorney Christopher Clark and Hunter’s lover, Hallie Biden, all ignored requests to comment after the Radar report. Hours after being asked, all three had yet to respond about the pictures or possible legal charges in the case. A White House press office representative told Radar to email its request for comment, but that email has gone unanswered. On Monday, Radar published a series of stories about new photos. The images showed a naked Hunter Biden in October 2018. They also showed him holding a gun, including his finger on the trigger.
The gun was illegally obtained as Hunter lied on an application about his past drug use. His substance abuse addiction has long been documented and he has spoken about it, but he put “no” on a form when asked if he had an issue. The photos also showed apparent drug use and a prostitute as Hunter Biden engages in sex games. Making a false statement on a federal criminal background check, known as ATF Form 4473, is a violation of federal law under Section 922(a)(6) of the U.S. criminal code. It also could violate Section 922(g)(3), which prohibits a drug user from possessing a firearm with ammunition. Hunter was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2014 after he tested positive for cocaine.
Eleven days after Hunter illegally purchased the weapon, his lover Hallie, the widow of his late brother Beau Biden, threw the gun into a supermarket garbage can, triggering a Secret Service, FBI, and Delaware State Police investigation. The photos are the latest in a string of wild behavior for the President’s son, including questions on his business dealings. His current partner, Hallie, is the widow of Hunter’s brother Beau, who died years ago. The newest gun pictures also come at a time when the White House is calling for new gun control measures after a series of mass shootings across the country.
Infallible stock tip. Your chance to do some insider trading.
• Nancy Pelosi’s Husband Bought $2.1M Worth Of Apple, Microsoft Shares (NYP)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband bought up to $1.5 million worth of Apple stock as well as up to $600,000 in Microsoft shares, according to recent financial disclosures submitted by the powerful Democratic lawmaker. The periodic transaction report, which was posted on the House of Representatives’ website, indicates that Paul Pelosi bought Apple call options between $500,001 and $1 million on May 13. Eleven days later, the venture capitalist bought additional Apple call options worth an amount between $250,001 and $500,000, according to the disclosure forms. That same day, Paul Pelosi also purchased Microsoft call options worth as much as $600,000.
A call option, or “call,” is a financial contract that gives the option buyer the right to purchase the stock at a certain price. In December, Nancy Pelosi, 82, revealed in filings that she and her husband made as much as $30 million in stock trades involving Big Tech firms. The financial windfall spurred lawmakers from both parties to push forward legislation that would ban members of Congress from trading in stocks. The latest disclosures come just days after it was learned that Paul Pelosi, 82, crashed a new Porsche just five miles from their multimillion-dollar Napa home and vineyard while allegedly under the influence of alcohol. Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, has been accused of profiting off companies which she is responsible for regulating.
The circus starts tomorrow.
• Civil Liberties Are Being Trampled by Congress’s 1/6 Committee (Greenwald)
[..] ever since the pro-Trump crowd was dispersed at the Capitol after a few hours of protests and riots, the same repressive climate that arose after 9/11 has prevailed. Mainstream political and media sectors instantly consecrated the narrative, fully endorsed by the U.S. security state, that the United States was attacked on 1/6 by domestic terrorists bent on insurrection and a coup. They also claimed in unison that the ideology driving those right-wing domestic terrorists now poses the single most dangerous threat to the American homeland, a claim which the intelligence community was making even before 1/6 to argue for a new War on Terror (just as neocons wanted to invade and engineer regime change in Iraq prior to 9/11 and then exploited 9/11 to achieve that long-held goal).
With those extremist and alarming premises fully implanted, there has been little tolerance for questions about whether proposed responses for dealing with the 1/6 “domestic terrorists” and their incomparably dangerous ideology are excessive, illegal, unethical, or unconstitutional. Even before Joe Biden was inaugurated, his senior advisers made clear that one of their top priorities was to enact a bill from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) — now a member of the Select Committee on 1/6 — to import the first War on Terror onto domestic soil. Even without enactment of a new law, there is no doubt that a second War on Terror, this one domestic, has begun and is growing, all in the name of the 1/6 “Insurrection” and with little dissent or even public debate.
Following the post-9/11 script, anyone voicing such concerns about responses to 1/6 is reflexively accused of minimizing the gravity of the Capitol riot and, worse, of harboring sympathy for the plotters and their insurrectionary cause. Questions or doubts about the proportionality or legality of government actions in the name of 1/6 are depicted as insincere, proof that those voicing such doubts are acting not in defense of constitutional or legal principles but out of clandestine camaraderie with the right-wing domestic terrorists and their evil cause.
When it comes to 1/6 and those who were at the Capitol, there is no middle ground. That playbook is not new. “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” was the rigidly binary choice which President George W. Bush presented to Americans and the world when addressing Congress shortly after the 9/11 attack. With that framework in place, anything short of unquestioning support for the Bush/Cheney administration and all of its policies was, by definition, tantamount to providing aid and comfort to the terrorists and their allies. There was no middle ground, no third option, no such thing as ambivalence or reluctance: all of that uncertainty or doubt, insisted the new war president, was to be understood as standing with the terrorists.
“..no senior White House official has ever been put in leg irons for a contempt-of-Congress charge.”
• Peter Navarro: Jan. 6 Panel’s Tactics Designed to Stop Trump Before 2024 (NM)
Peter Navarro, former trade adviser to former President Donald Trump, had some choice words for the federal government Tuesday on Newsmax in terms of its conduct with his arrest from last week and subsequent indictment on contempt-of-Congress charges, after defying a subpoena from the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. On “Eric Bolling The Balance,” Navarro characterized last week’s arrest and indictment experience as “beyond appalling,” before sharing a daily timeline of pre-arrest events with host Eric Bolling: On Tuesday of last week, Navarro said, he filed a lawsuit against the Jan. 6 House panel, which he called a “kangaroo committee.”
The rationale for the lawsuit: Navarro says the committee’s “illegal and unenforceable subpoenas” should never carry more weight than a senior White House official’s right of executive privilege. Also, Navarro bluntly says the Jan. 6 committee’s primary purpose isn’t to investigate the events leading up to the Capitol attack. Instead, their “No. 1 job is to stop Trump from running” for president in 2024. On Wednesday, Navarro says he penned a letter to the Jan. 6 panel’s deputy attorney, explaining that his executive-privilege rights would preclude him from speaking formally to the “witch hunt” committee. Later in the day, Navarro called the same FBI agent who visited his home the previous week, and said he’d be willing to surrender under “peaceful” circumstances.
Fast-forward to Friday morning: The feds apparently allowed Navarro to eat breakfast and pack for a quick domestic plane trip before making a “showy” arrest at the airport — with five FBI officials apparently taking Navarro down in public. After the arrest, Navarro said, federal officials didn’t let him make a phone call. Law enforcement officials also put Navarro in leg irons, strip-searched him, and provided no food or water, he said. Navarro’s perspective: This was akin to being in “solitary confinement.” In American history, Navarro said, “no senior White House official has ever been put in leg irons for a contempt-of-Congress charge.” He then added: “I remember thinking, while being held up in the cell, ‘This feels like Stalin’s Russia.'”
We’re not done.
• Trafigura Warns Oil Prices Could Reach ‘Parabolic State’ In Threat To Economy (FT)
The head of Trafigura has warned that the oil market could reach a “parabolic state” this year with prices surging to record highs and triggering a slowdown in economic growth. Jeremy Weir, chief executive of the commodity trader, said that energy markets were in a “critical” state as sanctions on Russia’s oil exports following its invasion of Ukraine had exacerbated already tight supplies created by years of under-investment. “We have got a critical situation,” Weir told the FT Global Boardroom conference on Tuesday. “I really think we have a problem for the next six months…once it gets to these parabolic states, markets can move and they can spike quite a lot.” A parabolic move in markets is generally defined as when a price that has been rising suddenly surges to hitherto unseen levels, mimicking the right side of a parabolic curve.
Weir added it was highly probable that oil prices could rise to $150 a barrel or higher in the coming months, with supply chains strained as Russia tries to redirect its oil exports away from Europe. Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, which is trading near $120 a barrel, hit an all-time peak of $147 on the eve of the financial crisis in 2008. The Trafigura executive was the latest to warn that the economy has not yet seen the worst of the energy crisis, with little way of lowering prices as already-squeezed global supplies are likely to get scarcer if Russian production falls further. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, warned last week that prices could reach $150 or $175 a barrel this year. Analysts at Goldman Sachs are forecasting oil could average more than $140 a barrel in the third quarter, when the US summer driving season is at its peak.
Weir said the rising price of other commodities, including metals such as copper and lithium, was also likely to weigh on global economic growth and could ultimately trigger a slowdown to curb demand. “If we see very high energy prices for a period of time we will eventually see demand destruction,” he said. “It will be problematic to sustain these levels and continue global growth.” Russian oil production had already declined by as much as 1.3mn barrels a day — or more than 1 per cent of global demand — with the country’s output of refined products of diesel and gasoline also falling by a similar amount, Weir said.
Moving. I don’t think we can afford to lose Julian Assange. Because we will lose ourselves.
• Is Our Time Together Running Out? (Stella Moris)
When Julian is taken from his cell to the prison yard he tilts his head up so his eyes can focus on the distance. If he narrows his eyes, the double razor wire above becomes a blur. Beyond is the open sky. Julian recently discovered a family of nesting magpies. He spotted their home subversively nestled between the razor wire. I think our family is like those magpies. When we are together, we are always a few metres from their nest. Our children — Gabriel, who is five, and Max, three — only have memories of their father within the brutal surroundings of Belmarsh prison. We don’t know how long our children have left with their father. We don’t know if we can visit him or even talk to him on the phone. If the extradition goes ahead, US authorities retain the right to put Julian in conditions so cruel that no one in his position is likely to survive.
It is impossible for Julian and me to escape a feeling that he is on death row. Our weekly visits may be the only time we have left together. But for how much longer? A few months more, a few weeks, a few days and then only a few hours? I fear in the end we will count the minutes and the seconds. Were it not for our children, this approaching catastrophe would be all-consuming. But Julian and I know these may be the only memories that our children will have of their father. We make our visits as joyous as possible. I don’t need to explain to Gabriel and Max the reality of this place where we go to visit their father. They live it. The children walk under razor wire and past layers and layers of security to reach their daddy.
Guards search inside their mouths, behind their ears and under their feet. The prison dogs sniff them head to toe, front and back. Last week, Gabriel slipped some daisies he had picked by the prison walls into his pocket to give to his father. After he passed through the metal detector his daisies were confiscated during the pat-down search by one of the guards, albeit reluctantly. During visits, our family is allowed to embrace at the beginning and end. We can hold each others’ hands across the table. Julian and I are not allowed to kiss. But Julian would rather kiss his wife and be penalised than have that taken away from him too. So, we kiss.
George Webb
Why does Sanofi- Aventis spend billions and years to build the Wuhan Institute of Virology only to be thrown out when the pandemic starts? pic.twitter.com/uftyixwzRL
— George Webb – Investigative Journalist (@RealGeorgeWebb1) June 2, 2022
Norm McDonald
Norm Macdonald was a comedic genius.
In his final comedy special prior to his death, Norm, oh so subtly eviscerates Wokeness. pic.twitter.com/KdX2vikFic
— Mythinformed MKE (@MythinformedMKE) June 7, 2022
Secretary bird
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