Nov 062022
 
 November 6, 2022  Posted by at 8:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Ivan Shishkin The wilds 1881

 

Berlin – Moscow – Beijing (Escobar)
The End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End (Batiushka)
Global Bankers ‘Very Pro-China’ – UBS (RT)
Russia Seeks Sanctions Waiver To Facilitate Grain Exports (RT)
The Oil Nationalization Two-Step (Luongo)
Media Identifies Major Beneficiary Of Ukraine Crisis (RT)
US Wants Official Of Ukrainian Descent To Run NATO (RT)
Over 50 Countries Vote Against Anti-Nazism UN Measure (RT)
The Great Unwind II (Alasdair Macleod)
Lockdown Lefties Struggle In Governor’s Races, Reopen Righties Win (JTN)
If Republicans Win On Tuesday, Thank The Election Integrity Movement (Fed.)
Biden’s Midterms Message Includes False And Misleading Claims (CNN)
NY Times Report That Biden Exaggerates His Economic Wins Stuns Twitter (Fox)
Biden Unleashes Tirade Over Musk Restoring Free Speech on Twitter (Turley)
The Twitter Massacre (MoA)
Understanding the Reveal Stage of the Pandemic Play – Are We Winning? (LDS)

 

 

 

 

The Oil Price Cap Idiocy

 

 

 

 

Tucker Pelosi

 

 

Until proven otherwise

 

 

 

 

Pepe sees some optimism. It goes through China.

“..the Scholz caravan went to Beijing to essentially lay down the preparatory steps for working out a peace deal with Russia, with China as privileged messenger..”

Berlin – Moscow – Beijing (Escobar)

Solid German business sources completely contradict the “message” delivered by the German Council on Foreign Relations on the trip to China. According to these sources, the Scholz caravan went to Beijing to essentially lay down the preparatory steps for working out a peace deal with Russia, with China as privileged messenger. This is – literally – as explosive, geopolitically and geoeconomically, as it gets. As I pointed out in one of my previous columns, Berlin and Moscow were keeping a secret communication back channel – via business interlocutors – right to the minute the usual suspects, in desperation, decided to blow up the Nord Streams. Cue to the now notorious SMS from Liz Truss’s iPhone to Little Tony Blinken, one minute after the explosions: “It’s done.”

There’s more: the Scholz caravan may be trying to start a long and convoluted process of eventually replacing the US with China as a key ally. One should never forget that the top BRI trade/connectivity terminal in the EU is Germany (the Ruhr valley). According to one of the sources, “if this effort is successful, then Germany, China and Russia can ally themselves together and drive the US out of Europe.” Another source provided the cherry on the cake: “Olaf Scholz is being accompanied on this trip by German industrialists who actually control Germany and are not going to sit back watching themselves being destroyed.” Moscow knows very well what the imperial aim is when it comes to the EU reduced to the role of totally dominated – and deindustrialized – vassal, exercising zero sovereignty.

The back channels after all are not lying in tatters on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Additionally, China has not provided any hint that its massive trade with Germany and the EU is about to vanish. Scholz himself, one day before his caravan hit Beijing, stressed to Chinese media that Germany has no intention of decoupling from China, and there’s nothing to justify “the calls by some to isolate China.” In parallel, Xi Jinping and the new Politburo are very much aware of the Kremlin position, reiterated again and again: we always remain open for negotiations, as long as Washington finally decides to talk about the end of unlimited NATO expansion drenched in Russophobia. So to negotiate means the Empire signing on the dotted line of the document it has received from Moscow on December 1st, 2021, focused on “indivisibility of security”. Otherwise there’s nothing to negotiate.

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5 May 2024.

The End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End (Batiushka)

Many ask how much longer will the US war against Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine last? Some say only another two or three months, others much longer, even five years and more. For my own reasons I say another eighteen months, until 5 May 2024. Whatever you think, it all depends on how much the American neocon/neoliberal elite via their NATO allies, especially the UK, the Zelensky sect and their hired killers (so-called mercenaries – for few Kiev nationalists are now left to fight) want to escalate their war. And they do, which is why it did not all end last March when it could have ended. In other words, how much does the American elite want their subject-peoples, in Northern America, Western Europe and the Ukraine, to suffer?


It appears that the US elite wants them to suffer until they are all dead. But that will not happen, for the worm will turn, long, long before that. Indeed, in today’s energy and water-restricted Ukraine, some worms are already turning. And even some cold and hungry people in Western Europe and Northern America are turning too. What the elite wants, and what the people, especially in the Ukraine, will put up with, are two different things. It could all be ended tomorrow, if the elite wanted. Much more likely, this is going to take quite some time, for the war is not between the Ukraine and Russia, but between the USA and Russia. The Ukraine is merely the battlefield. No, I repeat, wait patiently until May 2024.

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“Don’t bet against China and Hong Kong..”

Global Bankers ‘Very Pro-China’ – UBS (RT)

International investment bankers are bullish about the Chinese economy despite worrying reports by the Western media, the chairman of UBS Bank, Colm Kelleher, said on Wednesday. Kelleher was speaking at the Global Financial Leaders Investment Summit in Hong Kong, which brought together more than 200 bankers and investors from 20 countries, after more than two and a half years of Covid restrictions there. Hong Kong is now reportedly seeking to boost its status as an international financial hub. “We’re not reading the American press, we actually buy the [China] story,” he said, as quoted by the Financial Times. “But it is a bit of waiting for zero-Covid to open up in China to see what will happen.

According to the FT, Kelleher’s reference to the media was “an apparent joke and a nod” to earlier remarks made by Fang Xinghai, the vice chair of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Fang, along with other Chinese officials, used pre-recorded video interviews to reassure international investors of the country’s economic strength. He told attendees: “I would advise international investors to find out what’s really going on in China and what’s the real intention of our government by themselves. Don’t read too much of the international media.” Fang’s comments, which came after a record sell-off of Chinese equities last week in the wake of President Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power, prompted laughs and applause from the audience. “Don’t bet against China and Hong Kong,” he added.

Last week, the Chinese stock market had its worst day since the 2008 global financial crisis, with the yuan hitting a new 14-year low against the US dollar, as Xi secured his third term and undertook a major leadership reshuffle. The sharp selloff was triggered by concerns that a number of senior officials who have backed market reforms and opening up the economy were missing from the new top team. This sparked investor concerns about the future direction of the country and its relations with the US.

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The west doesn’t care about feeding the poor.

Russia Seeks Sanctions Waiver To Facilitate Grain Exports (RT)

Russia has asked the EU and other Western nations to lift sanctions on state lender Rosselkhozbank, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing sources. According to the news agency, such a move would allow the bank to restore relations with its correspondent banks abroad and process payments for Russian grain and fertilizer exports. Prior to the introduction of anti-Russia sanctions, such payments were serviced by international banks and subsidiaries of Russian banks in Switzerland, the report says. According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Rosselkhozbank is currently “servicing the lion’s share” of Russia’s fertilizer and food related transactions. The report did not mention whether Russia has received a response to its appeal. According to Reuters, the request was made during talks on the fate of the Ukrainian grain deal, which expires later this month.


As part of the agreement, reached in July, Western countries were supposed to ease restrictions on Russian agricultural exports. While the sanctions do not directly target these exports, certain curbs on payment processing, shipping and insurance have created obstacles for Russian exporters. Washington has taken steps to convince businesses that there are no sanctions on Russian food exports, a senior State Department official told the news outlet. The department reportedly sent out letters of reassurance to companies seeking proof that their deals with Russia would not violate restrictive measures. Nevertheless, Moscow has repeatedly said that sanctions make agricultural exports next to impossible and has demanded their cancellation. Rosselkhozbank fell under Western sanctions along with Russia’s other largest banks earlier this year, and its assets and correspondent accounts in US dollars and euros were frozen.

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Narrative.

The Oil Nationalization Two-Step (Luongo)

[..] say your goal is to legitimize the state takeover, or advance another step forward the state takeover, of an industry. Let’s use oil and gas for today’s lesson. The first thing you do is manufacture a crisis that will disrupt the supply of the product you want to takeover. In this case, it started with COVID-19, which disrupted far more than just the energy sector. More than 2 million barrels per day of refining capacity was lost world wide thanks to COVID-19. Given the current hostility to new refineres (more on this later), those barrels are not coming back. Don’t forget, that for a “Straussian Two-Step” this big you will have to brainwash and/or gaslight two entire generations into hating themselves for being rich, wasteful, spoiled, alive or worse, just plain white.

So, they are already primed to hate all the things at play here — capitalism, Big Oil, Banks, Old White Guys (rich or poor) — and enrage your useful idiots by pushing their already tenuous hold on reality to the literal breaking point. “I can’t even….” isn’t the most common phrase uttered on Tik-Tok for nothing. That’s the Thesis part. So, when the crisis hits thanks to natural gas disruption you forbid buying of from a particular country… — Hello, Vlad? We’re in a helluva pickle, would you mind invading Ukraine…? Nyet…? Well, we’ll see about that…. — MISSING PAGES FROM THE RETURN OF DR. STRANGELOVE WORKING SCRIPT. … you demonize not only Vlad but the industry itself for price gouging and preying on the widdle guy during a war. There’s a word for this… chutzpah.

Predictably, you then allow your fake political opponents … [enter Cocaine Mitch from Stage Right] … to produce the opposite argument. In this case, the counter is obviously we need free markets to produce oil and gas. The refiners are just responding to the market. That fake opposition, of course, also blames Vlad for this crisis to ensure the market’s champion looks not only patriotic but also suitably bought and paid for by Big Oil, Old White Guys, etc.

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“..EU nations have committed to about $230 billion in new weapons purchases since the Russian military offensive against Kiev started..”

Media Identifies Major Beneficiary Of Ukraine Crisis (RT)

Yahoo News has identified a major beneficiary of the Russia-Ukraine slugfest: the US military industrial complex, which is reaping a windfall even as the bloody conflict causes economic havoc, energy shortages and a looming food crisis around the world. As the media outlet reported on Saturday, EU nations have committed to about $230 billion in new weapons purchases since the Russian military offensive against Kiev started in February. US defense contractors are poised to land the lion’s share of those orders, given their dominance as suppliers to European militaries, Yahoo added. Many European nations turn to US arms makers for more than half of all their weapons purchases. Yahoo cited data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) to show examples of US dominance in European arsenals.

For instance, US-made arms accounted for 95% of the weapons purchases by the Netherlands from 2017 to 2021. The ratios were 83% US weaponry for Norway, 77% for the UK, and 72% for Italy. European weapons imports jumped 19% during the five-year period as then-President Donald Trump prodded his NATO allies to meet their obligations for defense spending. The Ukraine crisis is set to create an even bigger windfall, as President Joe Biden leads an international campaign to flood Ukraine with weapons and the conflict triggers accelerated steps by European nations to bolster their own defenses. “This is certainly the biggest increase in defense spending in Europe since the end of the Cold War,” Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Center for European Reform, told Yahoo. The crisis in Eastern Europe dispelled the notion that war on the continent is no longer possible, he added.

“They’re waking up to the fact that not only is it very possible, but it is happening, and it’s happening not that many miles away from them.” Since Biden took office in January 2021, European countries entered at least the initial stage of negotiations for $33 billion in arms purchases, including $21 billion since February, Yahoo said, citing figures from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. US defense contractors will also benefit from Washington’s massive military aid to Kiev, as the Pentagon races to replenish stocks of artillery pieces, rocket launchers and other weapons. Biden has set aside more than $65 billion in military and economic aid for Ukraine since the conflict began. Russia has warned that the influx of Western weapons will prolong the crisis while making the US and other NATO members de facto participants.

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This comes far too close to putting Bandera in charge.

US Wants Official Of Ukrainian Descent To Run NATO (RT)

The “prime candidate” favored by Washington to replace outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is Chrystia Freeland, currently Canada’s Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, the New York Times reportedon Friday. The bloc reportedly aims to install a woman at its helm for the first time, with other likely contenders being Estonian premier Kaja Kallas, Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, former president of Croatia, who was also Zagreb’s ambassador to Washington. The “strong contenders”list provided by the NYT corresponds with earlier media reports this year. The selection of a new NATO Secretary General, however, is still months away and “the names that surface first” may not survive the bargaining among the bloc’s members, unnamed NATO officials told the NYT.

Incumbent head of the bloc Stoltenberg was set to leave his post on September 30, but his term was prolonged to late 2023 amid the conflict in Ukraine. The NATO boss might ultimately end up having his tenure extended for another year, one of the officials reportedly suggested. Still, Freeland is believed to be the “prime candidate” for the post of NATO chief, favored by the US itself. “Where any of the candidates come down on support for Ukraine in the war against Russia will be a critical factor,” the paper writes. Freeland, whose mother was Ukrainian, is known to have a strong pro-Ukrainian stance. She is the granddaughter of Michael Chomiak, described by the NYT as a “grateful immigrant to Canada” who was during World War Two a “younger man involved with a Ukrainian nationalist movement that saw the Nazis as useful foils to counter the Soviets.”

The paper didn’t mention, however, that Chomiak was a prominent Ukrainian Nazi collaborator and the editor-in-chief of a Ukrainian-language propaganda daily Krakivs’ki Visti. The outlet, published between 1940 and 1945, was funded directly by Nazi Germany and described by Canadian historian – and Chomiak’s son-in-law – John-Paul Himka as a “vehemently anti-Semitic”publication. Freeland has been extremely ambiguous on her ancestry, not only refusing to condemn her maternal grandparents but somewhat endorsing them instead. In 2015 she wrote an essay called “My Ukraine,” stating that her Nazi collaborator grandparents “saw themselves as political exiles with a responsibility to keep alive the idea of an independent Ukraine.” “That dream persisted into the next generation, and in some cases the generation after that,” Freeland wrote in the essay.

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Pretzel: You can’t condemn nazism without also condemning Russia, which fights nazism.

Over 50 Countries Vote Against Anti-Nazism UN Measure (RT)

A UN resolution opposing the celebration of Nazism and related ideologies has met with significant resistance from the US and other western democracies, with 52 countries voting against it on Friday. The draft resolution “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,” introduced by Russia’s representative to the UN, was adopted with 105 votes in support. In addition to the 52 votes against it, 15 countries abstained from choosing sides.

The resolution expresses profound concern about glorifying Nazism, neo-Nazism and former Waffen SS members, condemning the construction of monuments and the holding of public ceremonies honoring the Third Reich. Introducing the resolution, the Russian delegate referenced an increase in xenophobia, anti-migrant sentiment, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, among other forms of discrimination, as necessitating it. The US and several of its allies attempted to explain their vote against the measure by claiming Russia was exploiting Nazi atrocities to justify its military operation in Ukraine, insisting that to join them in condemning the lionization of Nazis would be letting them get away with weaponizing the Holocaust to serve their nefarious ends.

The UK accused Moscow of “furthering lies and distorting history,” even while acknowledging it was using “legitimate human rights concerns raised by neo-Nazism mobilization” to justify its activities in Ukraine. The US went further, arguing that Russia’s “pretextual use of fighting neo-Nazism undermines genuine attempts to combat neo-Nazism.” And Ukraine claimed Moscow’s anti-Nazism message had “nothing in common with the genuine fight against Nazism and neo-Nazism,” which Kiev stressed it condemned in all forms. Australia, Japan, Liberia and North Macedonia proposed an amendment to clarify that while they were very much anti-Nazi, they were also profoundly anti-Russian.

Their addition “notes with alarm that the Russian Federation has sought to justify its territorial aggression against Ukraine on the purported basis of eliminating neo-Nazism,” reminding everyone that the “pretextual use of neo-Nazism to justify territorial aggression seriously undermines genuine attempts to combat neo-Nazism.” Russia opposed the amendment, accusing the writers of “trying to drive a wedge between states” by dropping it on the committee at the last minute. It was adopted with 63 votes approving, 23 against, and 65 abstaining. Moscow introduced a similar resolution last year, before the military operation in Ukraine had begun but after the US-backed coup had installed a government that allowed neo-Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion and lionized Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator whose Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of Poles and Jews during World War II. The 2021 resolution was opposed by just two states: the US and Ukraine.

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Banks have been encouraged to increase risk and leverage. Now that bites.

The Great Unwind II (Alasdair Macleod)

Imagine, for a moment, that you are the CEO of a commercial bank involved in lending to businesses and with profit centres acting in a range of financial activities. As CEO, you are answerable to the board of directors for the bank’s performance, and ultimately the bank’s shareholders for maintaining and advancing the value of their shares. Furthermore, let us set this imaginary exercise in the present. These are the issues that should keep you awake at night: In common with your competitors, the ratio of your balance sheet assets to total equity is almost the highest in the history of the bank, in many cases for other banks over twenty times leaveraged. Official inflation, measured by the CPI is about ten per cent, and producer prices are rising somewhat faster.

Your central bank expects a return to the 2% target in two- or three-years’ time. But your contacts at the central bank have privately admitted to you that they cannot imagine the circumstances where this would be true without a deep recession. Bond yields are rising, and losses are beginning to impact on the bank’s investments. The bank has relatively little direct exposure to corporate bonds and equities, but they are commonly held as collateral against customer loans. How are higher interest rates impacting the quality of the bank’s loan book? The bank supported its business customers through the covid pandemic, which increased the indebtedness of them all. This exposes the bank to excessive default risk if rates rise further.

The mortgage loan book has been a profitable business for decades. But the bank is beginning to see a material rise in delinquencies. If loan guarantees are not forthcoming from government agencies, the bank may have to shut this activity down. What impact will higher interest rates have on the bank’s derivative exposure? What are the counterparty risks in derivative chains? Derivatives that involve inadequately capitalised counterparties should perhaps be sold on, or where the bank has the option to do so, closed down. The underlying problem is that the conditions that led to the bank becoming increasingly involved in diversified activities, such as investment banking, trading, and investment management have now changed.

Since financial deregulation in the 1980s, the bank has expanded into these profitable areas. The whole industry moved from dealing in credit into generating fee income. The growth in fee income can be directly related to the long-term trend of falling interest rates, which apart from interruptions such as the dot-com excesses and the Lehman crisis, stimulated growth in corporate finance, underwriting, investment management, and trading in financial securities. The expansion of these activities in turn led to a massive expansion of derivative markets, with new instruments being devised, such as credit default and interest rate swaps.

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“Don’t mess w people’s kids. It lands differently — and they will hold a grudge.”

Lockdown Lefties Struggle In Governor’s Races, Reopen Righties Win (JTN)

Some of the Democratic governors most associated with harsh and prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns are facing stiff electoral headwinds in the midterms, while Republicans who endured national scorn by quickly reopening their states are cruising toward reelection. Republicans were already in an advantageous position with voters on crime and the economy, particularly inflation, the top two issues in polling this fall. Education issues, which propelled Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to victory a year ago, are a leading concern in some races. And while elections tend to focus more on the future than the past, the starkly contrasting performances of lockdown lefties and reopen righties suggests that a reckoning on pandemic policies may be a stealth issue in major governor’s races.


The repercussions of lockdown policies are also felt indirectly in the top issues for voters, from supply-chain problems and inflation driven by COVID relief spending to plummeting test scores and parental outrage over school curricula resulting from remote learning. “Red wave is coming Tuesday,” freespoken sports show host Colin Cowherd tweeted Thursday. “Don’t mess w people’s kids. It lands differently — and they will hold a grudge.” “I lean mostly left, but data clearly proved kids 18 and under were safe,” and yet many were kept out of school, resulting in plunging test scores, rising suicides and “[c]haos for parents,” he continued. “A price will be paid and hopefully a lesson learned.” “Her Excellency the Queen of Michigan,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), “made it illegal … to visit friends, sell paint, mow grass, and golf” while flouting her own unilateral orders, The Spectator wrote in a recent list of “Eight Democrats we all hope lose this November.”

Maher

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No chance it will go smooth.

If Republicans Win On Tuesday, Thank The Election Integrity Movement (Fed.)

If Republican candidates do as well as expected on Tuesday, they can credit the new, widespread, and coordinated effort to begin securing U.S. elections, helping give candidates the best opportunity possible to win a fair fight in the new voting environment of mail-in balloting. The Republican National Committee, other party entities, and dozens of public interest election nonprofit groups built over the last two years a multimillion-dollar election integrity infrastructure that passed laws improving voter ID and other election security measures, defended those laws from legal attacks by Democrats, and sued states and localities that failed to follow the law. They also recruited, educated, trained, and placed tens of thousands of new election observers and other workers throughout the long midterm voting season.

And they did it all in one of the most hostile propaganda environments on record. The 2020 election was a massive wake-up call for many Americans on the right. In the months leading up to it, Democrats forced through changes to hundreds of laws and processes governing how elections are conducted. The rule-change scheme was run by Marc Elias, a Democrat election attorney who also ran his party’s Russia collusion hoax, which falsely claimed Donald Trump stole the 2016 election by colluding with Russia. Sometimes Democrats’ 2020 changes were instituted legally. Frequently, though, they were effected by other means, such as getting a friendly state or local official to change the rules unilaterally.

The 2020 election plan, some of which was admitted to in a flattering Time magazine story, sought to flood the zone with tens of millions of unsupervised mail-in ballots, historically understood to be riper for fraud and other election irregularities than supervised, in-person voting. The plan also involved the private takeover of government election offices to run Democrat-focused get-out-the-vote operations. Mark Zuckerberg, one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men, financed the project, doling out $419 million to two left-wing groups that focused grants and assistance to government offices in the Democrat areas of swing states.

This radical change — “practically a revolution in how people vote,” as Time put it — included the widespread practice of placing ballot drop boxes predominantly in Democrat areas of the country, mailing out unsolicited mail-in ballots or applications for mail-in ballots, using well-funded teams of ballot harvesters both inside and outside of government, lowering and changing the standards for mail-in ballot acceptance, and fixing or “curing” ballots that were improperly filled out. Corporate media and other Democrats claimed the election was the best-run in history. In reality, it was a mess. Big Tech and the media ran coordinated disinformation campaigns to benefit Democrats by suppressing news that hurt the party. Big Tech also deplatformed effective conservative voices and media outlets, suppressed fundraising emails from Republicans, and elevated certain information to help Democrats.

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Biden loses both CNN and NYT mere days before the midterms.

Biden’s Midterms Message Includes False And Misleading Claims (CNN)

Social Security, part 1 Biden said at a Democratic fundraiser in Pennsylvania last week: “On our watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are going to get the biggest increase in their Social Security checks they’ve gotten.” He has also touted the 2023 increase in Social Security payments at other recent events. But Biden’s boasts leave out such critical context that they are highly misleading. He hasn’t explained that the increase in Social Security payments for 2023, 8.7%, is unusually big simply because the inflation rate has been unusually big. A law passed in the 1970s says that Social Security payments must be increased by the same percentage that a certain measure of inflation has increased. It’s called a cost-of-living adjustment.

Social Security, part 2 Biden said at a Democratic rally in Florida on Tuesday: “And on my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks.” The claim that the 2023 increase to Social Security payments is the first in 10 years is false. In reality, there has been a cost-of-living increase every year from 2017 onward. There was also an increase every year from 2012 through 2015 before the payment level was kept flat in 2016 because of a lack of inflation. The context around this Biden remark in Florida suggests he might have botched his repeat campaign line about Social Security payments increasing at the same time as Medicare premiums are declining. Regardless of his intentions, though, he was wrong.

A new corporate tax Biden repeatedly suggested in speeches in October and early November that a new law he signed in August, the Inflation Reduction Act, will stop the practice of successful corporations paying no federal corporate income tax. Biden made the claim explicitly in a tweet last week: “Let me give you the facts. In 2020, 55 corporations made $40 billion. And they paid zero in federal taxes. My Inflation Reduction Act puts an end to this.” But “puts an end to this” is an exaggeration. The Inflation Reduction Act will reduce the number of companies on the list of non-payers, but the law will not eliminate the list entirely. That’s because the law’s new 15% alternative corporate minimum tax, on the “book income” companies report to investors, only applies to companies with at least $1 billion in average annual income.

The debt and the deficit Biden said at the Tuesday rally in Florida: “Look, you know, you can hear it from Republicans, ‘My God, that big-spending Democrat Biden. Man, he’s taken us in debt.’ Well, guess what? I reduced the federal deficit this year by $1 trillion $400 billion. One trillion 400 billion dollars. The most in all American history. No one has ever reduced the debt that much. We cut the federal debt in half.” Biden offered a similar narrative at a Thursday rally in New Mexico, this time saying, “We cut the federal debt in half. A fact.” There are two significant problems here. First: Biden conflated the debt and the deficit, which are two different things. It’s not true that Biden has “cut the federal debt in half”; the federal debt (total borrowing plus interest owed) has continued to rise under Biden, exceeding $31 trillion for the first time this October. Rather, it’s the federal deficit – the annual difference between spending and revenue – that was cut in half between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2022. Second, it’s highly questionable how much credit Biden deserves for even the reduction in the deficit. Biden doesn’t mention that the primary reason the deficit plummeted in fiscal years 2021 and 2022 was that it had skyrocketed to a record high in 2020 because of emergency pandemic relief spending. It then fell as expected as the spending expired as planned.

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“..don’t blame this poor old man it’s not his fault.”

NY Times Report That Biden Exaggerates His Economic Wins Stuns Twitter (Fox)

Critics of President Biden got a surprise on Friday, as the New York Times published a report grilling the 46th president for making exaggerations about his successes on the economy. Times reporters Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley published a piece on Friday titled, “As Elections Approach, Biden Spins His Economic Record,” which claimed that the president’s boasts about his economic achievements were not true. The report began by summing up the White House economic spin, “As President Biden and his administration have told it in recent months, America has the fastest-growing economy in the world, his student debt forgiveness program passed Congress by a vote or two, and Social Security benefits became more generous thanks to his leadership.” The piece declared, “None of that was accurate.”

The report also claimed, “The president, who has long been seen as embellishing the truth, has recently overstated his influence on the economy, or omitted key facts.” It then mentioned an erroneous claim recently made by the White House on Social Security. Quoting Biden and then correcting him, the Times said, “’On my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks,’ he declared. The problem: That increase was the result of an automatic cost-of-living increase prompted by the most rapid inflation in 40 years.” The piece added, “Mr. Biden had not done anything to make retirees’ checks bigger — it was just a byproduct of the soaring inflation that the president has vowed to combat.”

The official White House Twitter account made that same claim about Social Security this week, receiving a swift, community-based fact check from Twitter. The White House then took the tweet down. Further skewering Biden, the Times stated, “It is common for presidents to spin economic numbers to improve their pitch to voters,” yet “the president’s cheerleading has increasingly grown to include exaggerations or misstatements about the economy and his policy record.” The piece did insist that Biden’s “economic exaggerations generally pale in comparison to the tales spun by his predecessor, President Donald J. Trump,” though the very fact that a major liberal media outlet would go after Biden on falsehoods, turned heads on social media.

Conservative journalist Michael Caputo encouraged the paper to go further: “Go ahead say it, NYTimes, do it. You can say it: Biden is a liar.” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., tweeted, “I’m suspicious of NYT’s motivation for printing the truth about Biden. It’s out of character for them. Perhaps blaming him and his gaffs for the midterm results is the beginning of the left’s effort to replace him with a different nominee in 2024.” [..] National Review’s Jeff Blehar commented, “don’t blame this poor old man it’s not his fault.”

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One week after Musk took over, and 4 days before the midterms, Biden accused Twitter of “spewing lies all across the world”. I don’t recall Biden having said this before, but he must have, right?! Because content moderation hasn’t changed at all yet, as per Musk. Oh, and 60 orgs call on advertizers to withdraw their money. But what exactly made Twitter toxic? Just that Musk mentioned free speech?

There is no way this is not coordinated.

Biden Unleashes Tirade Over Musk Restoring Free Speech on Twitter (Turley)

Elon Musk has not actually changed the “content moderation” policies at Twitter yet, but President Joe Biden went on a virtual rave on Friday over the prospect of free speech breaking out on a single social media site. As a type of censor-in-chief, Biden has led calls for censorship on social media, which have been largely heeded by companies like Facebook and Twitter. Now Biden is accusing Twitter of “spewing lies all across the world” by seeking to reduce one of the largest censorship systems in history. The President lamented that the influence of the media will be “de minimus.” He is a bit late on that front. President Biden has previously accused social media companies of “killing people” by refusing to impose robust censorship over a wide range of subjects.

Many of those banned or censored were doctors with opposing views on the data and the science related to the pandemic. Some of those doctors were the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for a more focused Covid response that targeted the most vulnerable population rather than widespread lockdowns and mandates. Many are now questioning the efficacy and cost of the massive lockdown as well as the real value of masks or the rejection of natural immunities as an alternative to vaccination. Yet, these experts and others were attacked for such views just a year ago. Some found themselves censored on social media for challenging claims of Dr. Fauci and others. The Great Barrington Declaration was not the only viewpoint deemed dangerous.

Those who alleged that the virus may have begun in a lab in China were widely denounced and the views barred from being uttered on social media platforms. It was later learned that a number of leading experts raised this theory with Fauci and others early in the pandemic. We are now seeing increasing evidence of back channels used by government and political figures to maintain a censorship system by surrogate in the social media companies and foreign allies. The President, however, was in full censor-in-chief mode this week, referring to censors as “editors.” He denounced Musk who “goes out and buys an outfit that spews lies all across the world.” He then claimed “There are no editors anymore. There are no editors anymore.” The President added “the ability of newspapers to have much impact is de minimis.”

That last statement seemed to lament the loss of a close and active ally for the Democrats. Neutrality is anathema if you have largely been able to control political and social exchanges on social media. What the President said next. however, was particularly telling and chilling: “How do people know the truth? What do they — how do they make — make a distinction between fact and fiction? There’s so much — so much going on. And we’re in the middle of this.” Indeed, perish the thought that citizens might be left to pursue the truth on their own without the government or surrogates in the media framing it for them. How could we possibly “know the truth” without our social media overlords?

Read more …

“If one trains the system with badly categorized data it will be badly categorize data. It does not need an extra team to learn that.”

The Twitter Massacre (MoA)

I am amusing myself with watching the panic some people express over Elon Musk’s cleanup of Twitter. Yesterday 3,700 of its 7,500 workers were fired. That is not good, but the company was losing money and making money is at the core of the capitalist game. Of interest is what functions were eliminated. The Guardian provides this list: From news reports and terminated employees’ announcements, here’s what we know so far about the teams that have been hit by the layoffs of thousands of Twitter employees: • The human rights team has been laid off, according to a now former employee, Shannon Raj Singh, who said the team worked to protect those at risk in global conflicts, including in Ukraine, Afghanistan and Ethiopia. • The ML (machine learning) Ethics, Transparency and Accountability team is gone, according to a tweet of a laid-off manager. • The “internet technology team”, which helps keep the site running, has been cut to “a skeleton crew”, two sources told the Times. • An accessibly experience engineering team has been cut, according to a laid-off engineering manager. • The curation team, responsible for the Moments feature on Twitter, has also been cut, former employees reported.

Twitter’s communications department is almost entirely gone, according to the Verge. Other areas that have been heavily impacted, the Verge reported, include product trust and safety, policy, research and social good. What were these teams actually doing? The human rights team leader gave some hints: Shannon Raj Singh @ShannonRSingh – 17:58 UTC · Nov 4, 2022. “Yesterday was my last day at Twitter: the entire Human Rights team has been cut from the company. sI am enormously proud of the work we did to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights, to protect those at-risk in global conflicts & crises including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and to defend the needs of those particularly at risk of human rights abuse by virtue of their social media presence, such as journalists & human rights defenders.”

The human rights team was the ‘regime change’ force on Twitter. It intervened in conflicts where the U.S. preferred a certain side. Shannon Raj Singh had previously meddled in Afghan and other countries’ cultures: “Shannon Raj Singh is a Legal Counsel for SAHR, advising a Kabul-based team on sexual violence litigation in Afghanistan, which aims to end the invasive and discriminatory practice of female virginity testing. She is an international criminal law attorney focused on victim-centered responses to mass atrocities. Currently based in The Hague, she has experience working with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and a number of human rights NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa. She has also practiced as a litigator in the United States, appearing in both state and federal courts and assisting with overseas corruption investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The machine learning ethics, transparency and accountability team was also fired. Machine learning, also glorified as ‘artificial intelligence’, is essentially an (often lousy) pattern recognition system. It can be trained with categorized data and, after that, can categorized other data it gets presented. All one needs to know about its ethics, transparency and accountability is the old IT wisdom ‘garbage in garbage out’. If one trains the system with badly categorized data it will be badly categorize data. It does not need an extra team to learn that. I do not know what the ‘Internet technology team’ was doing but the function obviously still exists. It was merely downsized.

NBC Twitter

Read more …

“The SPARS PANDEMIC 2025-2028, published by the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security in October 2017..”

“You are the long-term data. You may die in the process but that’s science in the 21st century!”

Understanding the Reveal Stage of the Pandemic Play – Are We Winning? (LDS)

The SPARS PANDEMIC 2025-2028, published by the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security in October 2017, is another of those amazingly prescient, yet “entirely fictional” scenario plans that ended up looking like the blueprint for the actual covid pseudo pandemici. It is in fact the prequel to that other freakishly coincidental pandemic wargame, Event 201, hosted in October 2019 (a few weeks before SARS-COV-2 hit the headlines) by the same institution along with the CIA and the World Economic Forum (WEF). What business does the CIA and its brainchild, the WEF, have going anywhere near public health strategy planning? Absolutely none, unless of course public health strategy is to be used as a nefarious special purpose vehicle for intelligence services and the global corporate oligarchy.

[..] It is a masterclass in absurdity which has its roots in the inherent contradiction in drafting a plan that purports to deal with the inevitable fallout of a manufactured crisis while pretending that the crisis is not manufactured. Its aim is to present failure scenarios to public health spin doctors, referred to as “public health risk communicators”, and invite them to “mentally rehearse responses” to these failures. But, in providing pitiful explanations for all the failure scenarios, it effectively exposes the Medical Counter Measures (MCMs) of a corrupt pseudo pandemic for the sham that they are. Instead of mitigating the consequences of a real pandemic, the MCMs are the very things that perversely create the necessity for narrative spin and psyops.

[..] It is undoubtedly sinister because of its prediction of all the ‘errors’ and ‘mistakes’ that were made in the manufactured covid ‘pandemic’. In the latter sections of the document – the Reveal stage – the planners anticipate fallout from being unable to keep a lid on vaccine injury. Nevertheless, a somewhat happy ending for the pandemic planners is fashioned in their Pandemic Play. So, will they succeed in constructing the reality they desire? In the 2017 playbook, as “claims of adverse side effects beg[i]n to emerge”, the pandemic planners coyly suggest that the demands for the “removal of the liability shield protecting the pharmaceutical companies” will be deflected by the “emergency appropriation of [taxpayer] funds”. Because God forbid that Big Pharma, having siphoned off billions from the taxpayers’ purse for efficiently distributing poison, might then be subjected to the humiliation of footing the bill for the injuries caused by it.

The pandemic planners were also prepared for the ethical quandary of hastily mass injecting an experimental preparation with no long-term safety data. The ‘rare’ side effect rebuttal is alluded to by reference to “relatively few reports of neurological symptoms” while the problem is framed as an overblown social media response. Ultimately the blame is placed squarely at the feet of an ignorant public – those “demand[ing] proof that the vaccines [do] not cause long-term effects” are “displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific research”! You just don’t get it, so let me spell it out to you on behalf of the pandemic planners. You, the entire public, the 5.3 billion people injected so far – you are the subjects of the experiment, and the experiment isn’t over until the CDC, FDA, MHRA et al say it is. You are the long-term data. You may die in the process but that’s science in the 21st century!

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle November 6 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 64 total)
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  • #120313

    Ivan Shishkin The wilds 1881   • Berlin – Moscow – Beijing (Escobar) • The End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End (Batiushka) • Global
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle November 6 2022]

    #120314
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Slovakia is panicing because half the country trusts Moscow more than Washington …. according to FB posts and other social media. That is why they invade your privacy, to check that you are thinking right, the thought police are out to fix your thinking … https://www.rt.com/news/565970-slovakia-facebook-ukraine-narratives/.

    #120315
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Ivan Shishkin The wilds 1881

    That is one stunning painting, amazing talent.

    #120316
    aspnaz
    Participant

    If Republican candidates do as well as expected on Tuesday, they can credit the new, widespread, and coordinated effort to begin securing U.S. elections, helping give candidates the best opportunity possible to win a fair fight in the new voting environment of mail-in balloting.

    Surely the people have moved past this bullshit. I do not understand why people vote in state or national elections, it makes absolutely no difference to their daily lives. I have come to the conclusion that it is an exercise for their egos, they try to prove to the politicians that “we are in charge” and think they are sending a message that the people will not put up with any crap. They then make statements like “government by the people, for the people” which just identifies them as retards. When have the people ever had any influence? In very local elections, where the people know the players, where they live, where their children go to school, then voting seems to work. For anything at the state level and above, it is all pretense, people unwilling to admit that they are powerless in Washington.

    #120318
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Ivan Shishkin The wilds 1881

    The master of the palette speaks; reminds me of the olympic peninsula in Washington state…

    #120319
    Red
    Participant

    Wes: “So I have to face that dam daylight savings clock!

    The only thing I know for sure is it reduces the amount of daylight that I get to see!”

    Not so. The same amount of daylight today as yesterday shorter by only three minutes or so. Just get up earlier and get some work done.

    #120320
    Redneck
    Participant

    I donow shit about paintings, seems to me most are crap but that one I would hang on my wall
    Early start to morrow .
    G’night.

    #120321
    Oroboros
    Participant

    • Berlin – Moscow – Beijing (Escobar)

    I’ve always thought that the core price of Russia engaging with Germany ever again would be to kick the Empire of Lies out of Eurotardistan Totally.

    Pepe hints at that in this piece.

    Alexander Mercouris’ (the Duran) take on the Scholz China visit was that Xi basically told Scholz he did not trust Scholz. That he and Eurotardistan are ‘agreement incapable’, the same as the Russians at this point regard the Collective West.

    Also hinting that in order to prove they are ‘agreement capable’, you have to demonstrate it by kicking the Empire of Lies and it’s little buttboy the UK out of Europe, pretty much forever.

    The Duran’s position is that both Russia and China don’t trust Eurotardistan until they completely divorce the Empire of Lies and I agree.

    Xi basically snubbed Scholz in public with a lecture on trustworthiness, which the Collective West has none of.

    Very humiliating grovel on Scholz’ part.

    Xi Jinping schools Scholz during quick trip to China

    #120322
    Redneck
    Participant
    #120323
    EoinW
    Participant

    Chrystia Freeland For NATO! Where can I cast my vote?

    There was an old joke(1980s): If Trudeau, Clark & Broadbent were all in a boat and the boat sank who would be saved? Canada!

    Freeland to NATO and Canada is saved!

    tbh I would want her to run anything I hate. Only good NATO soldier is a dead NATO soldier? The sad thing is that I first said that after the attack on Yugoslavia.

    #120324
    Dr. D
    Participant

    The Oil Nationalization Two-Step (Luongo)”

    Tom Luongo’s new idea. It’s about Europe and the Left so it’s about theft, of course. This is not the best writing as he’s still developing it. Let me add in:

    In this jam, running out of money and wanting long-term power, they are making a play to nationalize the energy industry for “Windfall prices” that they themselves did everything possible to create. Problem > Solution.

    Stop all wells? Check. Stop all pipelines? Check. Stop all refineries? Check. Stop all rail, storage, electric, and other buffers? Check. Stop huge parts of electric, dams, power plants? Check. Stop transmission lines, substations, and let the local grid decay to Bolivian levels? Check. Install no tech that would allow you to transition at all, but sell constant, total fantasy that is also so expensive that you’re too bankrupt to try workable ideas? Check. Refuse to do a single obvious, environmental thing: keep building more car-based condos, plant no trees, insulate no houses, economize no factories? Double Check.

    We’re good to go! All money for fixing is gone, and all energy system is on the edge and in intentional disarray. Pull that detonator! Like every other time, every 70 years.

    Remember, the core of the Technocrats – besides tracking every thing, every screw and toilet flush, for complete efficiency (and thus complete control) — was the BTU currency. Technocrats = BTU currencyThey understood ENERGY was at the root of everything, all money. Therefore, it made sense to back the currency with Gold (which is embedded energy) Oil (Petrodollar, raw energy, via their boy Kissinger). And now the new CO2 currency. Carbon Credits. Technocrats = Carbon Credit currency And Social Credit for permission to use the carbon credits, be they petrol or even charging your lithium car and driving more than 10 miles. Without express permission and a passport.

    And all of these were lavishly funded for generations by whom? The Rockefellers among others. They were the ones picking the 1930s Technocrats out of deep sleep and quietly installing all their ideas in inventory (RFID) tracking, worldwide databases, Smart Meters, and BTU currency. Gold was a solid currency that couldn’t be “flexible”. Petrodollar was more “flexible” in that more dollars could be created than oil. The Carbon Credit is infinity money with complete central control and no attachment or oversight to reality or the economy.

    But that can’t happen right now with oil being run by semi-private hands, AND oil in the U.S. always leaning Republican. So they need to capture this, the CORE of all human activity, the whole economy, even food – life itself – and mete it out only to the Right People™ who express Right Think™. Is this not 90% of what they themselves publish? Every month? And capture it by destroying it, or at least make it a disaster, so that they can then jump into the smoldering ruin of widespread death they created and Help™. Because when have things ever got worse when government Helps™?

    Build Back Better. The Middle Class will own nothing…they will be the desperate, peasant class, on the South American model. Where even a local surgeon can have has daughter kidnapped for ransom. How are they going to finish the capture of Germany and thus Europe while there is still a German and Dutch middle class? That middle class needs to own nothing. Chop chop.

    Right now, thanks to EXCLUSIVE government policy, EXCLUSIVE government shut off of power – for no reason whatsoever – they are putting windfall taxes on German oil industry, for high prices THEY CREATED, and tax penalties so high as to be a de facto nationalization. They’re setting the PR for the same thing here, as our present administration is also on the Davos plan.

    Massive 9x profits (for this few month period) and THEY WANT THAT MONEY. They’re Socialists, so they don’t do work and can’t create anything, they can ONLY STEAL IT FROM CAPITALISM. It’s the only industry large enough, it’s a long-term goal, so they’re making the play for it. With the approval of the people, on a disaster THEY themselves created.

    They’re broke. They’re criminals. So they kill then steal. Obvious. Then Europe can be North Korea. What could be better?!?

    this trip by German industrialists who actually control Germany and are not going to sit back”

    I do not see that, but I don’t know why. The industrialists should be there, and should have a great portion of power.

    “International investment bankers are bullish about the Chinese economy despite worrying reports by the Western media, the chairman of UBS Bank, Colm Kelleher, said on Wednesday.”

    I don’t know what they mean by this. Is UBS a Euro Bank, or one of the Fed banks? Because Euro/WEF yes, wants the world to be like China, with all the freedom and environmentalism therein.

    “The west doesn’t care about feeding the poor.”

    Yeah, just drive to Flint. Or Dayton. We HAVE the food. What we don’t have is any f—s about human beings. They’re a virus to be killed. Just ask them! Killin’ some folks! And as Luongo says above, with the complete support of all the world’s children. To kill other children. What could be better? We gotta outlaw that farming as that one kid said.

    “as the Pentagon races to replenish stocks of artillery pieces, rocket launchers and other weapons.”

    They’re NOT though. They are still building no HIMARs, still no tooling up factories. Nothing’s coming off the line, not even bullets. So is this really finishing George Bush’s plan to completely sap and erase the military? And the whole WORLD’S public militaries? Who has firepower if the armies of the world turn to using sticks and stones? Why, I would think the PRIVATE militaries, who CAN get weapons. Blackwater and whoever pays them, like BlackRock, and the dark nobility of Europe.

    See, the PLAN is to erase national governments. “The end of an error.” All that Democracy, accountability stuff? That’s gotta go. Corporations like Facebook, Amazon, THEY DO WHATEVER THEY WANT. TO whoever they want, even Presidents and Prime Ministers, Gone in 60 Seconds. In a TOTAL public-private merger, but in this case with the billionaires and their front corporations as the senior partner. Unlike last time’s Fascism where government was the senior partner of the same merger. (his merger also includes the people via social media, often forgot)

    Erase the nations, make corporations bigger, more influential – AND THEN OBVIOUSLY ALSO BETTER ARMED – and voila! Your new 21st century government is in place. No one is elected. There is no platform. There is no voting. There are no rules. And there is no recourse. If Twitter bans you for life for a misunderstanding, there are no humans to review your case. They shut off your bank account AND your sales floor, especially if you’re a black man like Kanye West. They do it for the same tweets Ilan Omar posts. Or a Sihk truck driver facing a boy who specializes in Black Face. There are no courts, no rules of evidence, no appeals, and no alternatives. It’s the Mean School Girls’ Club, and YOU, my friend, are not popular.

    Am I making this up? They want to get rid of Capitalism. They regularly say their enemy is MONEY. Okay, great, so what do we use to allocate resources if it isn’t money? SOCIAL credit. i.e. POPULARITY. + Power. That is the only POSSIBLE alternative system, and one we saw deeply in the Soviet System, and the EU system and parliament that’s based on it. Are you IN the Party? Or not invited to The Party?

    So can you see why Jamie Dimon is not on board with this? He, and the Fed member banks from NYC, own the MONEY system. Not the Social Credit/Popularity/PR system. Maybe they’d have a thing to say about an attempt to erase them and all their power. And replace them with ballless non-humans like Vijay and Zuck.

    (P.S. one of the major investors in Private Twitter is Jack Dorsey, shoved out, now stealing his company back from the same Derp State that chucked him)

    “the ratio of your balance sheet assets to total equity is almost the highest in the history of the bank,”

    Except this isn’t true. Thanks to the Fed’s non-stop decade-long bailout, the American banks are multiples better, and safer than European banks. No contest. If there’s a crisis, they’ll be fine. WE, the people, the real economy may not be fine, the CURRENCY may not be fine, but the NY Fed banks are about as safe as can be made. MacCleod is a Scot, in London, and this is not a widely-known fact, as well as the U.S. will surely be in crisis if Europe fails.

    “US Wants Official of Ukrainian Descent to Run NATO (RT)”

    We knew they were racists. “One drop of Ukrainian blood” fallacy. NATO – the enforcement arm of the Western Global Mafia, MUST have a Khazar as its head. Huh.

    “A UN resolution opposing the celebration of Nazism and related ideologies has met with significant resistance from the US and other western democracies,”

    Yes. Since this same Mafia IS the Nazis, both religiously and ethnically, going way back. What good was it to take over the CIA, then put in known, open Nazi supporters and collaborators like the Bush family, if you can’t come out of the closet? If that’s true, it would almost be like the Nazis didn’t win WWII, and we can’t have that. Now is the time!

    Thank God for free speech. Never stop talking, you guys, so we can learn exactly who you are.

    Hey, would this be the same group that installed Pinochet? And like 50 other torture-happy dictators worldwide?

    “No chance [the election] will go smooth.”

    And that’s because for it not to go smooth, all they have to do is SAY it didn’t. That’s it. Lie, say, and print the untruth. Boom. That’s so easy a cave man could do it. Especially for people who CAN’T tell the truth, and their mouths would burn with hellfire if they ever did.

    “It is a masterclass in absurdity which has its roots in the inherent contradiction in drafting a plan that purports to deal with the inevitable fallout of a manufactured crisis while pretending that the crisis is not manufactured.”

    This is precisely Luongo’s argument on Energy, above. And why you can never trust governments with power. Make them as small as possible to accomplish their functions and even THEN they can barely keep from killing everyone and stealing everything.

    “Turkey map 2050”

    If you thought that only Americans and the Collective West had lost their minds: nope. It’s worldwide.

    Maher/Dore

    Since I grew up with Leftists and the old left, I think that’s what makes me so critical of them. In some ways they’re the same: still too trusting and idealistic, enough that no ideas work and always bankrupt us into more misery than before. But all the good things they carried are now either missing or over the top. That’s what Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald and others maintain. They carry the flame for the real left. The worker’s left from the 1930s. I miss that, because although I could see how their ideas weren’t necessarily practical, it came from a good place for good reasons. Those included distrust of corporations, generals, wars, support for working people, awareness of real oppression ready to fall at any time and thus a high and almost limitless value on free speech, free expression, and free publishing. Out to defending neo Nazis, White supremacists, and pornography they were such free speech absolutists.

    Protecting journalists and assuming anyone after a reporter or whistleblower was by definition up to no good. That wars were by nature probably for profit and against someone downtrodden, leading to more oppression at home when promoting it. Especially and particularly when our own poor people, deplorable and forgotten, need so much help.

    Where did any of that go? I guess they have free expression to parade in thongs, but it’s hard to see any other former value they support, and I guess I still don’t understand why. That may be the other reason I return to it: an attempt to understand the origin of the madness. Madness because to me it seems to have come from no where for no reason and is not a real, organic evolution of ideas.

    Still, maybe the cure is to re-innoculate the meme space with the real old left. It doesn’t seem to have the traction one would think, quoting say George Carlin, and I’m not sure why of that either.

    “I do not understand why people vote in state or national elections, it makes absolutely no difference to their daily lives.”

    It does. Clearly. But what I don’t understand is after 50 years of this we still don’t 1) Start local first where we have the most leverage and can develop talent and 2) Capture the nomination process and not the election process. That’s what they did to us, because that’s cheaper and what works. But they wander in griping about “the lesser of two evils”. Really? Then why didn’t you start the step before and get a not-evil? It’s essentially the same amount of work, just earlier. Are you that bad at game theory, or just really lazy?

    “When have the people ever had any influence?”

    WHEN THEY TOOK IT. They need to TAKE the power. Their own autonomy and independence. Nobody’s going to GIVE it to you. TAKE your power and throw them in a ditch. Beat them and keep beating them until they fear to cross and tangle with you over anything. It’s the only thing the kind of psychos who gravitate to politics understand. Will this get me more trouble? Or less?

    Since no one’s cooperating as they all seem insane and mentally retarded right now, get as much of your life under your own control — that is, your own POWER — and position to join up when the realization finally hits them. Probably when the center fails, so the local becomes all. Starting there it will be organic to push your will upwards again.

    #120325
    Red
    Participant

    Hell No to the WHO Pandemic Treaty

    Earlier in 2022, the proposal for a WHO international Pandemic Treaty has raised alarms over the organization’s usurping the individual sovereignty of nations. The Treaty, which is scheduled to be finalized by May 2024, is largely a result of the WHO’s numerous inconsistencies, inadequacies and failures during the Covid-19 pandemic. If we call a spade a spade, the WHO has proven itself inept in handling any pandemic. Therefore, for the hardened globalists such Bill Gates and the leaders of the US and EU who wholly support the WHO, it makes perfect sense that the bumbling bureaucracy should be given more authority and control over global health.

    #120326
    John Day
    Participant

    I’m just posting my interview with Meryl Nass MD on the Children’s Health Defense site as an​ ​”episode” today. Picture of me sweeping the floor of the complete and functional new kitchen. https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/interview-with-meryl-nass-md

    ‘Good Morning CHD’ Episode 154: Meryl Nass Update With John Day, M.D.
    https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/shows/good-morning-chd/oP3pZGapbn

    #120327
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Is that televised map with all the red colored territory an outline of the Erdogan Caliphate , or of the upcoming Iranian-Turkish War?

    #120329
    Alexander Carpenter
    Participant

    Bug alert!

    An edited post disappears.

    Please repair…

    #120330
    zerosum
    Participant

    the masses waking up
    The masses have woken up.
    The masses know that they should not do a frontal attack.
    Look at my # 25 It’s happening now

    # 25. Increase of “Quiet Quitting, decrease of assuming responsibilities, increase of fault pointing
    ———-
    Secret meetings ( afraid of a frontal attack.)
    • Berlin – Moscow – Beijing (Escobar)
    ———-
    Canadians are aware of the conflict of interest of Freeland
    No frontal attacks on the leadership.
    (Freedom convoy, Teacher strikes)

    • US Wants Official Of Ukrainian Descent To Run NATO (RT)
    ———-
    A preemptive strike/fear of loss of control
    • Biden Unleashes Tirade Over Musk Restoring Free Speech on Twitter (Turley)
    • The Twitter Massacre (MoA)
    ———-
    Media did not report on the tree falling in the forest. Therefore, it was an irrelevant occurrence.
    ———–

    @Alexander
    Carpenter
    I saw it before it disappeared
    Good list. It was a relevant list for investigation.
    ——

    #120331
    Dora
    Participant

    frmr President Eisenhower’s fairwell address, 60 years ago.

    #120332
    kultsommer
    Participant

    First: the painting
    First issue of National Geographic was in 1888, seven years after the painting has bee created. I can imagine a situation where photographer of the mag was sending a telegram from the job assignment to the main HG with the message: Run out of film. There is this local guy, Ivan Shishkin that you may want to contact. Stop.
    Last: Turkish borders
    In Sarajevo there is the street that literally divides “East” and “West” part of the city. Former built by the it’s founders the Ottomans in 1500’s and latter by Austro-Hungarian empire. It may become of interest to Erdogan too. It is only a few small countries away.
    For those who care to click on link images will, also, present Austro-Hungarian idea of occupation. Compared to US “shock and wave” where unfortunate country is leveled, occupiers of the Bosnia and Herzegovina decided to build..and build… and build as if Sarajevo and many other larger cities are suburbs of Vienna. Post Ottoman historical core of the city was built in short 36 years of occupation (1878-1914). Brick-by-brick method of building, decorated, and designed by the prominent architects of the Empire in that time. Original blueprints stored in archives in Vienna helped in restoration of damaged buildings during the war and siege that city endured in 1992-95.

    Best of Sarajevo: where the East meets the West

    #120333
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I think a lot of the current geopolitical prognosticating owes a lot of its content to the hypoxic delirium of “advanced” hyper-technologized civilization running on fumes and starved for air.

    I mean, how in the hell can ANY of the main players go on pulling hyper-advanced weaponry of every possible description out of their bums when the civilization ITSELF (ya know, the civilization that is hypothetically PRODUCING all of that magic) has been categorically wrecked 6 ways from Sunday?

    The whole ludicrous situation makes me think about how the word “sabotage” refers to throwing a shoe into the machinery.

    #120334
    zerosum
    Participant

    Increase spending, Increase taxes/revenue. (You’ll owe nothing and be Happy. Hehehehe)

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fall-economic-statement-2022-1.6639440
    Ottawa offers $30.6 billion in new spending as it braces for a recession next year
    John Paul Tasker · CBC News

    “We need to strike a balance today between, on the one hand, being fiscally responsible, keeping our powder dry, given the global economic uncertainty and, on the other hand, being compassionate, providing support to those people who need it,” Freeland told reporters.

    #120335
    John Day
    Participant

    Aspnaz wrote: “Surely the people have moved past this bullshit. I do not understand why people vote in state or national elections, it makes absolutely no difference to their daily lives. I have come to the conclusion that it is an exercise for their egos, they try to prove to the politicians that “we are in charge” and think they are sending a message that the people will not put up with any crap.”

    Elections are an opinion-poll. Voice an opinion, if you want to. I generally choose “protest candidates” or write-in somebody I like.
    In 2020 I wrote-in Tulsi Gabbard, with VP Cynthia McKinney.
    It’s a fairly serious opinion poll.

    #120336
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Dr D:
    The worker’s left from the 1930s. I miss that, because although I could see how their ideas weren’t necessarily practical, it came from a good place for good reasons.

    Many of their ideas have been incorporated into our culture:

    – women’s suffrage
    – social security
    – child labor radically restricted/children should be educated rather than earning wages
    – overtime laws/40 hour work week/8 hour work day
    – employers held responsible for employee injuries “on the clock” or at the job site/workman’s comp
    – “safety net” for the impoverished
    – universal access to healthcare (in the US emergency rooms must treat regardless of ability to pay)
    – no debtor’s prison
    – unemployment insurance
    – the concept that food and drugs must state their ingredients
    – standards for meat production

    Yes, the radical utopian ideas of the Left of the 1930s were not realized…(although, the utopian ideas of the Middle Ages *have* been realized, by and large, by Western Civ.) No, the “proletariat” didn’t rise up. Instead, the wealthy made significant concessions to the working class, wealth inequality lessened, and the middle class swelled. The “proletariat” were provided access to the means of having a more comfortable life, but were kept from the levers of power. They were pacified.

    The wealthy who made those concessions have all passed on. Their heirs, the elites of today, are not faced with a radical, organized opposition. (When I notice conservatives calling out Democrats as “marxists” and “socialists” and “communists” I find it a nauseating joke: like Nancy (Pelosi) stated several years ago, they are all capitalists. The Democratic leadership doesn’t even know what the trio of terms really mean. “The Squad” may have some familiarity with those terms, but their loyalty is the the Party leadership, not to decades-old, bygone movements.)

    #120337
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fall-economic-statement-2022-1.6639440
    Freeland’s spring budget projected a deficit of $52.8 billion for the 2022-23 fiscal year. Now, the fall economic statement is forecasting a deficit of $36.4 billion
    The government’s current fiscal health is much better than expected thanks to higher oil prices and growth in personal and corporate taxes.
    “We need to strike a balance today between, on the one hand, being fiscally responsible, keeping our powder dry, given the global economic uncertainty and, on the other hand, being compassionate, providing support to those people who need it,” Freeland told reporters..

    Translation
    1. Inflation is good/increases all our revenues (see our deficit numbers)
    2. Ukrainian people need our support

    #120338
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    “If we call a spade a spade, the WHO has proven itself inept in handling any pandemic.”

    The WHO’s handling of the pandemic is barking up the wrong tree, the wrong focus. What will they say? “We made some mistakes, but learned from them. Next time will be different, we promise.”

    The pandemic was a red herring, the pretext needed to install a biomedical tyranny using a supra-national institution to grab power. Notice how all local laws and sovereignty were easily swept aside in order to deal with the manufactured crisis. It was all years in the planning. Name another crisis, other than war, which has the capability to completely unravel the status quo? Where the frightened masses cling to their authorities to guide them out of danger?

    ~~~~

    As much as I enjoy Dr. D’s sarcasm, which I truly do, today was one of those rare occasions where he puts it aside in order to shed light in dark, hidden places in such a clear fashion that even a blockhead like me can see what he sees.

    And of course, I appreciate all here at TAE for the light they bring to us all.

    #120339
    zerosum
    Participant

    Did they tell you
    8th March 2022
    Europe for Peace

    https://www.europeforpeace.eu/10/
    WAR OR PEACE?
    We deplore Russia’s military aggression in the country of Ukraine, whilst we are aware of the multiple economic and political interests that paved the way for and that are driving the conflict.

    Our priority is to stop the war, save human lives and avert an economic disaster whose price will inevitably be paid by the poorest and most vulnerable.

    We want peace. And peace is achieved by means of dialogue and negotiation, not by fuelling a conflict with shipments of ammunition and troops. Human life is what has most value and there is no geopolitical or economic reason, no alleged war for freedom, that can be put before human beings.

    Truly saving the Ukrainian population from disaster means laying down arms. For this reason we condemn the recklessness of all those institutions that are fanning the flames of the conflict by sending weapons to Ukraine: European governments, the United Kingdom, the United States government, the European Union…

    We beseech the UN to perform its role with conviction in order to uphold peace and global security.

    We implore all governments not to aid and abet this war with money, soldiers or guns as this will only serve to make it bloodier and more prolonged, leading to even more death and suffering. We urge that sanctions which might make peoples’ lives worse not be imposed anywhere in the world.

    We appeal to the European Union to strengthen peace, an aim written into the Treaty of Rome, and to be a neutral party in this conflict. We exhort it to use diplomatic mediation and talks, heeding the demands and concerns of both sides in order to reach an agreement that might put an end to hostilities.

    The threat of nuclear war is looming over all of us. It could even be triggered by accident. For this reason we entreat all governments to immediately sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which came into force on the 22nd of January 2021.

    Nuclear weapons must be decommissioned now, before it is too late.

    We are angered by all those leaders who, despite having considerable economic and technological resources at their disposal, fail to create a fair and truly human society.

    We do not wish to be accessories to such recklessness.

    Let us assume responsibility for our future and invoke our loftiest aspirations, which link the hearts of all human beings, in order to change this destructive course of events.

    We will use all non-violent forms of protest to reach this goal:
    war is a catastrophe, let us bring about peace.

    #120340
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
    Rome: unprecedented rally against the supply of weapons to Ukraine

    Italians took to the streets of the capital under the slogan “Europe for peace”, they demand to stop pumping Ukraine with weapons and stop the war. Among the protesters there are politicians of major rank.

    #120341
    zerosum
    Participant

    Controllers are losing control and panicking
    https://sputniknews.com/20220319/italian-activists-rally-in-rome-pisa-against-weapons-supplies-to-ukraine—video-1094016981.html
    Italian Activists Rally in Rome, Pisa Against Weapons Supplies to Ukraine – VIDEO
    A week ago, the union’s branch in Pisa reported that workers at the airport cargo terminal found crates of weapons and ammunition bound for Ukraine and marked as humanitarian aid. The workers reportedly refused to load weapons into the aircraft. According to a USB statement, lethal weapons are supplied to Ukraine under the guise of humanitarian aid, though the airport administration and the Italian government have denied the claims.
    “First, we protest against sending military materials, against Italy’s participation in the war in Ukraine. Secondly, we oppose the involvement of civilian employees in the loading of weapons. I don’t think the authorities are unaware that civilian aircraft traffic is now being used to carry military supplies,” a USB spokeswoman told Sputnik.

    #120342
    Noirette
    Participant

    On “Amnesty” re. Covid, prev. thread.

    jb-hb, yes, ‘amnesty’ made no sense, as I said, as you wrote.

    re. the article by Emily Oster, https://bit.ly/3WyOzAK,

    is word salad. Imho, the obfuscations are crafted for one purpose only, to keep on board the authoritarian vxx enthusiasts in the public (CDC, Gvmt, is another matter) which = in the US, > a certain class of ppl, middle-class, Dems, other, another topic.

    The article proposes excuses “We didn’t’ know” – “Times of uncertainty” (my words).. the aim is to reassure vxx enthusiasts that they are fundamentally good, correct-thinking, moral people, who did, do, the right ‘thing.’

    Basically sanitary criteria imposed by State orgs. replace ethnic ones, so that is all OK, let the prejudices and hatred and divisions rip, following a new ‘scientific’ rubric.

    As for the future, jb-hb posted (the idea is ‘stopping’ or ‘cancelling’ the previous nefarious policies), yes: Minimum amnesty requirements would be….. Everyone who lost their jobs getting them back. Lifting travel and other restrictions. Canceling the EUA. Stop pushing the shots through every medium. Stop the efforts to inject kids.

    In part, low-key, very tentative, slow, the reversal is going on. many COV19 policies have been, are being cancelled, revised, reversed, etc.

    Release ALL the data. Restore all credentials, unban, unblacklist, undemonetize, undebank, etc all affected peoples. Remove all censorship ..

    In a totally corrupt society, which morevoer is breaking down, there are no legal solid standpoints, principles, avenues, that can lead to ‘just’ settlements. Past treachery, fraud, lies, murder, can’t be admitted, compensated for, victims have no recourse.

    This post from the Naked Emperor details various orgs. / ppl who threatened the non-vxx, e.g. Macron, Ahern. A “Never Forget”..

    https://bit.ly/3WyEUdB

    #120343
    Bishko
    Participant

    I am so glad that I have lived long enough to see that painting. Thank you Raul.

    #120344
    willem
    Participant

    You know the proposed “windfall profits” tax on the oil companies is about more than a money grab. Otherwise, why not put a “windfall profits” tax on the Defense Industry or Big Pharma? They too have benefited financially beyond all reason from these created crises.

    —–

    Nice insight by Dr.D: “But what I don’t understand is after 50 years of this we still don’t 1) Start local first where we have the most leverage and can develop talent and 2) Capture the nomination process and not the election process. That’s what they did to us, because that’s cheaper and what works. But they wander in griping about “the lesser of two evils”. Really? Then why didn’t you start the step before and get a not-evil? It’s essentially the same amount of work, just earlier.

    #120345
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    re: free speech

    My mentor in all things computer once described to me what using a ‘DNA computer’ meant. It’s a talus field method of finding many viable complex answers very quickly. One technique: you assign certain ‘steps’ to syllables in the DNA, these steps being parts of chemical processes, mathematical operations, software design, etc.

    One goal was to do optimization. You had to do a certain chain of steps to produce a chemical you want. Certain of these steps can be done out-of-order, by-products can be precursors, etc. To find out which processes could be parallelized, or what level of parallel, is a part of this optimization. It is a brutal task (one I’ve only done for software opt).

    To do this with a DNA computer, you mix up some goo that has a high rate of forced mutations. You dump the goo into a ‘sluice’ that is looking for certain steps that cannot be parallelized. This gives you a reduction in results to only those that can actually function. Now the sluice gets finer, ordering for shortest chain of processes, most parallel, least wasteful of time/ingredients/energy.

    The solutions you want literally fall into place. It is a very limited tech, but applicable to realms beyond optimization of process and other mundane things.

    This is how I view freedom of speech. It is the basis of science, no? Without it, the charnel house cannot function.

    —————————————————————–

    re: child labor

    Yes…but…

    Given our energy levels as children, and our pliable minds, it is often best to set up as an apprentice of some kind. I was constantly searching for something to which I could apply algebra/geometry, language skills, etc. I’d have killed to learn how to run a lathe, build fine furniture, set type (thanks, Benji). Forcing kids into factory labor is shitty, no argument. But I was very glad to have bicycles and well-behaved computers in my childhood. I think that any apprenticeship like this has a great deal of art involved, which is extremely important for the development of new ideas (see re: free speech).

    ———————————————————————

    Thanks, all! These have been very rich threads these past few weeks.

    #120346
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    It’s interesting … whenever I see headlines and articles about the WHO’s “global pandemic treaty” and various NATO treaties, and other similar global agreements … I think … “no thanks.” Didn’t vote for those individuals to have power over my Constitutional Republic and don’t feel the need to comply. I think Dr D wore off on me about 2 1/2 years ago. Pretty soon I’ll probably be wearing a MAGA hat or something like it.

    Anecdotal: voted early in-person yesterday at the only *genuinely* rural early polling site in my county. Wore my “I will not comply” hat. A poll worker complimented me on the hat. 😉 Said she was the same type of person. Probably isn’t allowed from poll workers?

    We have a voting system here where we fill out the bubbles on a paper ballot and feed it into a machine. I’m not sure where that falls in the “corruptible” election results scale.

    We have to sign a screen for ID verification. I always purposely sign in a way that doesn’t resemble my signature on file in any way, shape or form. In the past, voting at my local site, I would torment the poll worker and offer a photo ID. They’d get flustered and say, “no, that’s not necessary.” At the rural site yesterday, they said, “we can’t ask for that.” I replied, “I’m volunteering it.” They verified my voter ID with my license. Proud of them

    All of NY state is not insane, trust me. It’s the blue enclaves and we haven’t quite figured out how to overcome those areas yet. I’ve got my fingers crossed in this year’s midterm.

    On the way out of the polling site, a man walking in complimented me on my hat. I responded, “Go Zeldin!!” and he nodded and smiled in agreement.

    No sane person in NY likes what’s going on here. None. We’ll see how this shakes out in the next few days.

    #120347
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    People living in dilapidated RVs, living in tents, living on the streets, unable to buy food, dependent on government hand-outs, with infrastructure decaying and not being repaired, with house prices falling, with interest rates being pushed up, with shortages and broken supply chains in the ‘richest country in the world’, and all about to get (be made) a lot worse.

    (NZ is not quite there yet, but the Scorpion and its team of psychopaths are working on it.)

    #120348
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    The frog and the scorpion are on a riverbank. The scorpion wants to get to the other side. It asks the frog to carry it across the river. The frog declines, saying the scorpion will sting it if it carries the scorpion. The scorpion declares it would never do that. After much haggling, the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the river.

    Halfway across the river, the frog feels a stab and then a shocking pain.

    “Why did you do that?!!! You promised not to!”

    “Because I am a scorpion.”

    #120349
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Right. I forgot. I shouldn’t vote. There’s no point to it. My bad. Again.

    #120350
    John Day
    Participant

    AFKTT wrote:
    “Halfway across the river, the frog feels a stab and then a shocking pain.
    “Why did you do that?!!! You promised not to!”
    “Because I am a scorpion.”’

    #120351
    zerosum
    Participant

    Why we must “help” Ukrainians

    “People living in dilapidated RVs, living in tents, living on the streets, unable to buy food, dependent on government hand-outs, with infrastructure decaying and not being repaired, with house prices falling, with interest rates being pushed up, with shortages and broken supply chains in the ‘richest country in the world’, and all about to get (be made) a lot worse”.

    #120352
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    #120353
    Dora
    Participant

    Amnesty? Naomi Wolf doesn’t think so.

    A Lost Small Town
    https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/a-lost-small-town

    #120354
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    The main problem with daylight saving is that it fades the curtains.

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