Dec 202022
 
 December 20, 2022  Posted by at 9:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Saul Leiter 463 1956

 

Managing the Ukraine Denial Narrative (Crooke)
News From The NATOstan-Imposed Meat Grinder (Escobar)
Why Time Isn’t Ripe For Ukraine Talks (Bhadrakumar)
How To Avoid Another World War (Kissinger)
Ukraine Blasts ‘Appeaser’ Henry Kissinger For Urging Peace Negotiations (ZH)
Moscow: Delivery Of Greece’s S-300s To Ukraine Would Be ‘Very Provocative’ (K.)
How Lobbyists Captured The EU (Fazi)
A Christmas Parable (Kunstler)
Will Musk Step Down After Twitter Poll? (Turley)
TWITTER FILES: How The FBI Moved To Quash Hunter Laptop Story (ZH)
‘Twitter Files’ Make it Clear: We Must Abolish the FBI (Ron Paul)
FBI Agent Elvis Chan Gave Twitter Execs Top Secret Clearance (Senger)
Canada Health Director Who Lead Vaccine Rollout Dies Suddenly at 35 (GP)

 

 

 

 

#StopTheTreaty

 

 

Greatest athletic achievement

 

 

Gonzalo

 

 

 

 

“The ‘writing is on the wall’, in other words. Ukraine cannot win.”

Managing the Ukraine Denial Narrative (Crooke)

Look around: the tectonic plates of geo-politics and geo-finance are shifting – shifting radically away from an increasingly flailing West.The inflection has begun. It has been messaged by the Financial Times (FT) and The Economist – the two media that so faithfully transmit any ‘replacement narrative’ to the globalist sherpas (those who carry the baggage up the mountain, on behalf of the mounted nabobs). The Economist leads with interviews with Zelensky, General Zaluzhny and Ukraine’s military field commander, General Syrsky. All three are interviewed – interviewed in The Economist, no less. Such a thing does not occur by happenstance. It is messaging intended to convey the Ruling Class’ new narrative to the ‘golden billion’ (who will all read and absorb it).

On the surface, it is possible to read The Economist piece as a plea for more money and many more weapons. But the underlying messaging is clear: “Anyone who underestimates Russia is heading for defeat”. The Russian force mobilisation was a success; there is no problem with Russian morale; and Russia is preparing a huge winter offensive that will start soon. Russia has huge reserve forces (of up to 1.2 million men); whereas Ukraine now has 200,000 who are militarily trained for conflict. The ‘writing is on the wall’, in other words. Ukraine cannot win. It is appended with a huge shopping list of sought-after weapons. But the shopping list is ‘pie in the sky’; the West simply does not have them in inventory. Period.

The FT’s ‘Big Read’, by contrast, is a venting of deep western anger at those Russian ‘reformist’ siloviki technocrats who, instead of breaking with Putin over the SMO, instead shamefully enabled the Russian economy to survive western sanctions. The message uttered – through clenched teeth – is that Russia’s economy has successfully survived western sanctions. Leading US military strategist, Col. Douglas Macgregor, here expands on the messaging: Even the provision of seven or eight Patriot missiles is “no escalation”. It will have at best – ‘marginal impact’ on the Ukraine battlescape; it is mere window dressing. Scott Ritter, in discussion with Judge Neapolitano, believes that The Economist interviews reveal the West pushing aside Zelensky – as Zaluzhny administers his large dose of reality (that will be shocking to many sherpa loyalists). The Economist interview emphasis thus was unmistakably on General Zaluzhny, with Zelensky pointedly de-emphasised – which Ritter suggests indicates that Washington wishes to ‘switch leadership horses’. Another ‘message’?

Judge Nap/Scott Ritter

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“..Russia can conveniently defeat the whole of NATO as there is hardly anything “there”..

News From The NATOstan-Imposed Meat Grinder (Escobar)

The non-stop trashy parade of Western military analysts is now “assessing” that the first targets of an incoming, joint Russia-Belarus attack on the 404 black hole formerly known as Ukraine will be Lviv, Lutsk, Rivne, Zhytomyr, and why not throw Kiev in the mix straight out of a second axis. The Russian General Staff is attentively monitoring all the action and may even follow the advice of such “analysts”. And then there’s outright panic, as the Ministry of Defense announced that the Strategic Missile Forces have loaded two Yars ICBMs into their intended silos. Cue to widespread shrieks of horror of the “Russia Readies Nuclear Missile Capable Of Striking Deep Into US” variety. Some facts though never change. Number One is NATO as a figment of the collective West’s – extremely impaired – imagination. If push ever came to shove – as Straussian/neo-con armchair warriors hope and pray – Russia can conveniently defeat the whole of NATO as there is hardly anything “there”.

That, of course, would require a massive Russian mobilization. As it stands, Russia may look feeble in a few quarters as they activated at best 100,000 troops against possibly 1 million Ukrainian troops. It’s as if Moscow was not exactly seduced by the idea of “winning” – which may be the case, in a quite twisted way. Even now, Moscow has not mobilized enough troops to occupy Ukraine – which, in theory, would be imperative to completely “denazify” the Kiev racket. The operative concept though is “in theory”. Moscow in fact is busy demonstrating a completely new theory – irrespective of the fact that a few exalted souls have been peddling that Putin should be replaced by the FSB’s Alexander Bortnikov.

With its array of hypersonic missiles, Russia can knock out all NATO bridges, ports, airports as well as power stations, oil and natural gas storage, Rotterdam oil and natural gas installations, in a matter of a few hours. All energy production equipment across NATOstan would be destroyed. Europe would be shut off from natural resources. A dazed and confused Empire would be unable to move troops, any troops, to Europe. And still provocations run unabated. The recent attack by Tu-141 Ukrainian drones against Engels-2 airbase was blamed by Moscow on Kiev – which predictably denied all responsibility. Yet what really mattered was Moscow’s strategic messaging to US/NATO, with Putin flirting with the notion that sooner or later the response may be up a serious notch in case US/NATO weaponry supplied to Kiev is used to strike deep into sensitive Russian Federation territory.

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Drawn in too deep.

Why Time Isn’t Ripe For Ukraine Talks (Bhadrakumar)

A Russian-American “consensus” is forming that the Ukraine conflict is far from a climactic stage leading to peace talks. Russia’s stance is that any settlement will devolve upon Kiev recognising “realities” — namely, acceptance of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions being integral parts of Russian Federation. But wouldn’t Russia know that no government in Kiev can afford to concede a demand that entails loss of over a quarter of the country’s territory? On the other hand, Kiev wants to vacate the Russian occupation and restore Ukraine’s 1991 borders and the Biden Administration is supportive. Wouldn’t they know that is a pipe dream?

Truly, since four of the erstwhile Ukrainian oblasts (excluding Crimea) are far from under Russia’s total control and the Kremlin intends to fully “liberate” them, the fighting continues in Donbass and further Russian moves to gain full control over Zaporozhye and Kherson regions will depend on its outcome. But the big question remains: How could any government in Kiev surrender vast tracts of Ukrainian territory after such sacrifices by the people? That may leave Russia with no choice but to seek total victory. The attitude of the Biden Administration is crucial. The clearest indication that the US is far from in a hurry to negotiate comes from none other than the White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan whose visit to Kiev last month (just before the US midterms) had triggered a flurry of speculations that Washington was pressuring President Zelensky to negotiate.

Now, Sullivan’s remarks at an appearance at the Carnegie last weekend made it clear that the US is in Ukraine for the long haul. He said: “We don’t know when this is going to end up. What we do know is that it is our job to continue to sustain our military support to Ukraine so that they are in their best possible position on the battlefield, that if and when diplomacy is ripe, they will be in the best possible position at the negotiating table. “That moment is not ripe now, and so, as a result, we’ve gone to Congress and asked for a substantial amount of further resources to be able to continue to ensure that Ukraine has the means to fight this war. We’re confident we will get bipartisan support for that…

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“Auto-nomous weapons already exist, capable of defining, assessing and targeting their own perceived threats and thus in a position to start their own war.”

How To Avoid Another World War (Kissinger)

As the world’s leaders strive to end the war in which two nuclear powers contest a conventionally armed country, they should also reflect on the impact on this conflict and on long-term strategy of incipient high–technology and artificial intelligence. Auto-nomous weapons already exist, capable of defining, assessing and targeting their own perceived threats and thus in a position to start their own war. Once the line into this realm is crossed and hi-tech becomes standard weaponry – and computers become the principal executors of strategy – the world will find itself in a condition for which as yet it has no established concept. How can leaders exercise control when computers prescribe strategic instructions on a scale and in a manner that inherently limits and threatens human input?


How can civilisation be preserved amid such a maelstrom of conflicting information, perceptions and destructive capabilities? No theory for this encroaching world yet exists, and consultative efforts on this subject have yet to evolve – perhaps because meaningful negotiations might disclose new discoveries, and that disclosure itself constitutes a risk for the future. Overcoming the disjunction between advanced technology and the concept of strategies for controlling it, or even understanding its full implications, is as important an issue today as climate change, and it requires leaders with a command of both technology and history.The quest for peace and order has two components that are sometimes treated as contradictory: the pursuit of elements of security and the requirement for acts of reconciliation. If we cannot achieve both, we will not be able to reach either. The road of diplomacy may appear complicated and frustrating. But progress to it requires both the vision and the courage to undertake the journey.

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“Previously he’s been on record as saying “It was not a wise American policy to attempt to include Ukraine into NATO.”

Ukraine Blasts ‘Appeaser’ Henry Kissinger For Urging Peace Negotiations (ZH)

It didn’t take long for the Ukrainian government to blast and dismiss former US Secretary of State Kissinger’s peace plan proposal as “appeasing the aggressor”. “Mr. Kissinger still has not understood anything… neither the nature of this war, nor its impact on the world order,” Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said in response to the 99-year old influential US statesman’s Saturday op-ed in The Spectator entitled How to Avoid Another World War. “The prescription that the ex-Secretary of State calls for, but is afraid to say out loud, is simple: appease the aggressor by sacrificing parts of Ukraine with guarantees of non-aggression against the other states of Eastern Europe,” Podolyak stated, expressing a firm rejection of what Kissinger outlined in his piece.

The Ukrainian official added that the proposal was simplistic, saying: “All supporters of simple solutions should remember the obvious: any agreement with the devil – a bad peace at the expense of Ukrainian territories – will be a victory for Putin and a recipe for success for autocrats around the world.” In his weekend op-ed, Kissinger had warned that continued attempts to render Russia “impotent” could result in an uncontrollable and unpredictable spiral. He laid out that along with the sought after “dissolution” of Russia would come a massive power vacuum out of which new threats to the whole world would emerge as bigger powers rush in. “The dissolution of Russia or destroying its ability for strategic policy could turn its territory encompassing 11 time zones into a contested vacuum,” Kissinger wrote.

“Its competing societies might decide to settle their disputes by violence. Other countries might seek to expand their claims by force. All these dangers would be compounded by the presence of thousands of nuclear weapons which make Russia one of the world’s two largest nuclear powers.” Among the more controversial aspects of Kissinger’s plan was his suggesting the possibility of referendums for contested territories now occupied by Russia and still being fought over “which have changed hands repeatedly over the centuries” [i.e.: particularly the Donbas] – according to the essay. Kissinger last May also angered Ukrainian officails for daring to propose that Ukraine be willing to recognize Crimea as under Russia, and in return Russian forces would fall back to their lines before the Feb. 24 invasion. Previously he’s been on record as saying “It was not a wise American policy to attempt to include Ukraine into NATO.”

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Erdogan plays this game a lot smarter.

Moscow: Delivery Of Greece’s S-300s To Ukraine Would Be ‘Very Provocative’ (K.)

The spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova stated on Monday that a potential delivery of Greece’s S-300 PMU1 missile defense system to Ukraine would be considered a very provocative move.“We consider plans to supply the Kyiv regime with S-300s or other Russian/Soviet air defense systems that will be used against Russia very provocative,” stated Zakharova. “The Greek authorities recently underlined their readiness to supply Ukraine with the S-300 PMU1 missile defense system, on condition of receiving additionally American Patriot missile defense systems to replace them,” she added. “There is a complete indifference by Greece on the international limitations on arms trading,” she concluded, stating that the Russian armed forces will locate and destroy all military supplies sent to Ukraine.

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“Bribery and corruption are endemic to the Brussels system — and most of it is perfectly legal.”

How Lobbyists Captured The EU (Fazi)

Addressing a recent European Parliament debate on “human rights in the context of the World Cup”, vice-president Eva Kaili had an unexpected message: “Qatar is a frontrunner in labour rights.” So, perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised when, last week, she was among six people arrested by Belgian police amid allegations of Qatari corruption and money laundering . Members of the EU establishment have been quick to spin the issue as a problem limited to a few bad apples. Several European Parliament officials told Politico the allegations were limited to a “few individuals” who had gone astray. Others, however, expect more names to be drawn into the widening dragnet. But whether or not the scandal extends to other people is beside the point.

By focusing on “Qatargate”, we risk losing sight of the fact that the scandal is a symptom of a much deeper and more widespread malaise, involving not just the European Parliament but all EU institutions. Bribery and corruption are endemic to the Brussels system — and most of it is perfectly legal. It is estimated that there are more than 30,000 lobbyists working in Brussels, making it the second capital of lobbying in the world after Washington, DC. Most are in the service of corporations and their lobby groups, with huge sums at their disposal: the combined lobbying budget of the 12,400 companies and organisations on the EU lobby register has grown steadily over the years — especially since the pandemic — and today amounts to €1.8 billion.

Topping the list are Big Tech, Big Pharma and Big Energy giants such as Apple, Google, Meta, Bayer and Shell, as well as industry associations such as the European Chemical Industry Council, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), and BusinessEurope — all of which declare annual lobbying budgets of €4-6 million. The true figure is likely to be significantly higher, given the long history of businesses under-reporting their spending. Big Pharma and Big Tech, in particular, both significantly boosted their lobbying firepower throughout the pandemic. EFPIA alone — which represents Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson — increased its spending by 20% in 2020. A conservative estimate of total annual EU lobby spending by Big Pharma is now close to €40 million per year, with nearly 300 lobbyists officially working in Brussels to push the industry’s interests (though the actual number is probably higher, since disclosure rules do not capture all the spending on law firms, academic partnerships and activities in individual countries).

It’s safe to say the investment was amply repaid: by the end of 2021, the EU had signed €71 billion worth of confidential contracts, securing up to 4.6 billion doses of vaccines (more than ten doses for each European citizen). EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen negotiated its biggest deal yet with Pfizer — for up to 1.8 billion doses, worth up to €35 billion if fully exercised — via a series of text messages with the company’s chief. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into the matter. Such extreme cases, however, mask the true extent of the structural problem that pervades every aspect of the Brussels system. It goes without saying that this army of well-funded lobbyists, which far outnumbers and outspends public interest groups, gives corporations a massive influence over the European decision-making and legislative process.

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“Up rose a social movement, Wokery, that had the earmarks of a histrionic religious mania, with Satanic overtones. Up rose the demons, the Antifa louts, the BLM arsonists, the drag queens.”

A Christmas Parable (Kunstler)

It started when the women of the professional and managerial class watched their avatar, Hillary Clinton, lose the 2016 election against a man who seemed the quintessence of everything they hated about Daddydom. Donald Trump, flawed to perfection, wrecked the chance of the amalgamated successful women of America to run the national household. Out came the pussy-hats, the Wiccans, and the celebrities threatening to “blow up the White House.” Out came a savage animus against men generally, and a campaign to feminize them in retaliation — and then punish them for objecting to it. Up rose a social movement, Wokery, that had the earmarks of a histrionic religious mania, with Satanic overtones. Up rose the demons, the Antifa louts, the BLM arsonists, the drag queens.

Thus unrolled a national psychodrama that continues to spool out as every system, every business, every institution in our country wobbles and flies apart now. The men embedded in the professional and managerial class tried in 2016 to chivalrously protect their womens’ avatar and her steadfast followers and, failing ignobly that grim November day, then turned to actually attack their adversary, Donald Trump, with the explicit intent to destroy him by all means necessary. In the years-long process, they devolved into criminality, and in so doing they entered a vicious cycle of lying about everything they did to escape the consequences of their ostensible exercise in gallantry. In effect, the people running things went from a war against a particular person to a war against reality and its twin sister, truth.

Now they are deeply invested in unreality and untruth to the point where they have forgotten how this whole thing started and all they can do is desperately patch the dike they had to construct against a deluge of information composed of truth and reality coming at them like a tsunami rolling across the sea. The harder they work at this futile task of defense, the more absurd they make themselves, leading to ridicule, humiliation, and, finally condemnation in whatever remains of the legal arena, where their deeds will finally be judged. The first stage of that outcome for them is pretending that none of it is happening. That’s why The New York Times and Washington Post ignore the news that the gallant knights of the FBI and several other tentacles of the Intel octopus mounted a ferocious, long-running psy-op through the new phenomenon of social media — that happened to rise in importance through this whole period of national discord. In effect, the intel agencies seized the transmitters (as Fidel Castro might put it) and used them very effectively to control their hallowed narratives.

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Did he hold the poll just to expose the bots?

Will Musk Step Down After Twitter Poll? (Turley)

Many of us have supported Elon Musk in his fight to restore free speech protections to Twitter despite concerns over decisions like the use of polls to determine if individuals should be allowed back on the social media site. He has now subjected himself to the same poll judgment in asking if he should step down as CEO. After more than 17.5 million users voted, 57 percent said yes. Unless Musk was looking for an exit, it was a mistake. He handed his critics an easy opportunity to remove him. For the left, Musk has been a nightmare because he cannot be bullied like most corporate executives. He is an eccentric billionaire who has refused to yield despite a full mobilization of the political, media, and business establishment. That could now change.

While many on the left spent weeks dismissing Twitter’s polls as unscientific, they are now demanding that Musk follow through and step down. Some 42.5% of users wanted him to stay. On Twitter Sunday, Musk seemed to say that he would follow the results but expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO. He said that the person “must like pain a lot” to run a company that “has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy.” He further noted that “no one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.” That is precisely why the left wants Musk out. As shown in companies like Disney, the left can muscle executives to take actions even against the interests of the company or shareholders. The left has strived to make such campaigns personal for executives, who often yield rather than risk being individually tagged and targeted.

That is why it was essential to remove Musk. The political and media establishments generally are unstoppable forces — but they met their first immovable object in Musk. That immovable object has now taken a step to remove himself from the path of the establishment. One can hardly blame him, but, as Democratic members warned Facebook not to even consider following the path of Twitter, the prospect of Musk’s departure will strengthen the efforts to maintain censorship over social media. It is hard to ask anyone to continue to stand against this alliance of political, media, and business forces. Musk has been made a persona non grata for seeking to reduce censorship on the site. He has put billions on the line for the free speech of others. One can certainly understand why he would want this cup to pass from his lips. However, if he stays the course, his work at Twitter could prove to be his greatest legacy in resisting the trend toward censorship and speech controls in social media.

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Do we understand how crazy this is?

TWITTER FILES: How The FBI Moved To Quash Hunter Laptop Story (ZH)

In the latest episode of ‘THE TWITTER FILES,’ journalist Michael Shellenberger reveals “How the FBI & intelligence community discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings both after and *before* The New York Post revealed the contents of his laptop on October 14, 2020.” The story begins in December 2019 when a Delaware computer store owner named John Paul (J.P.) Mac Isaac contacts the FBI about a laptop that Hunter Biden had left with him On Dec 9, 2019, the FBI issues a subpoena for, and takes, Hunter Biden’s laptop. By Aug 2020, Mac Isaac still had not heard back from the FBI, even though he had discovered evidence of criminal activity. And so he emails Rudy Giuliani, who was under FBI surveillance at the time. In early Oct, Giuliani gives it to @nypost.

Shortly before 7 pm ET on October 13, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, emails JP Mac Isaac. Hunter and Mesires had just learned from the New York Post that its story about the laptop would be published the next day. 7. At 9:22 pm ET (6:22 PT), FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sends 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter. 8. The next day, October 14, 2020, The New York Post runs its explosive story revealing the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Every single fact in it was accurate. 9. And yet, within hours, Twitter and other social media companies censor the NY Post article, preventing it from spreading and, more importantly, undermining its credibility in the minds of many Americans. Why is that? What, exactly, happened?

10. On Dec 2, @mtaibbi described the debate inside Twitter over its decision to censor a wholly accurate article. Since then, we have discovered new info that points to an organized effort by the intel community to influence Twitter & other platforms

Berman

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“This should be a massive scandal and likely it would have been had it occurred under a Trump Administration.”

‘Twitter Files’ Make it Clear: We Must Abolish the FBI (Ron Paul)

As we learn more and more from the “Twitter Files,” it is becoming all too obvious that Federal agencies such as the FBI viewed the First Amendment of our Constitution as an annoyance and an impediment. In Friday’s release from the pre-Musk era, journalist Matt Taibbi makes an astute observation: Twitter was essentially an FBI subsidiary.The FBI, we now know, was obsessed with Twitter. We learned that agents sent Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth some 150 emails between 2020 and 2022. Those emails regularly featured demands from US government officials for the “private” social media company to censor comments and ban commenters they did not like.

The Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), a US government entity that included the FBI as well as other US intelligence agencies expressly forbidden from domestic activities, numbered 80 agents engaged regularly in telling Twitter which Tweets to censor and which accounts to ban. The Department of Homeland Security brought in outside government contractors and (government-funded) non-governmental organizations to separately pressure Twitter to suppress speech the US government did not like. US Federal government agencies literally handed Twitter lists of Americans it wanted to see silenced, and Twitter complied. Let that sink in.

This should be a massive scandal and likely it would have been had it occurred under a Trump Administration. Indeed, Congress would be gearing up for Impeachment 3.0 if Trump-allied officials had engaged in such egregious behavior. But since these US government employees were by-and-large acting to suppress pro-Trump sentiment, all we hear are crickets. What is interesting about these Twitter revelations is how obsessed the FBI and its government partners were with satire and humor. Even minor Twitter accounts with small numbers of followers were constantly flagged by the Feds for censorship and deletion. But knowledge of history helps us understand this obsession: in Soviet times the population was always engaged in joking about the ineptitude, corruption, and idiocy of the political class. Underground publications known as samizdat were rich with satire, humor, and ridicule.

Go home

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More insanity.

FBI Agent Elvis Chan Gave Twitter Execs Top Secret Clearance (Senger)

New internal documents from Twitter, revealed today as part of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” series, show FBI Agent Elvis Chan arranged for Top Secret security clearance—the highest level of US national security clearance—to be granted to Twitter executives for the purpose of facilitating the censorship of suspected misinformation in advance of the 2020 election. Elvis Chan has long been closely involved in working with social media companies to identify and censor suspected misinformation from sources both foreign and domestic, especially with regard to suspected election interference. This has included regularly sending lists of social media posts to social media companies for them to take down, as well as the suspension of the New York Post and others for what was subsequently borne out to be a true story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

In his deposition last month, Chan described how the pressure that he and other FBI agents placed on social media companies to censor information about Hunter Biden’s laptop stemmed from a “thesis” that the incriminating content may have been uploaded onto the laptop as part of a Russian “hack-and-leak” operation. But the basis for this Russian hack-and-leak thesis is disputed, in no small part because the FBI took possession of the laptop in December 2019, nearly a year before the story was censored, and because there did not appear to be any new intelligence to suggest that Russia was interfering in the 2020 election. Elvis Chan’s regular emails and weekly meetings with social media executives raise new questions about the level of coordination taking place between the federal government and social media companies for the purpose of censoring suspected misinformation shared by ordinary citizens.

The level of this coordination is currently the subject of lawsuits including my own, Changizi v. Dept. of Health & Human Services, and Missouri v. Biden, in which a damning round of discovery previously revealed that more than 80 federal officials across a dozen agencies had been involved in the censorship of social media content. Upon hearing the news, one FBI agent expressed disgust at what he described as the “gross subservience” that’s been shown by social media companies to the FBI, noting that the “default position” is for private companies to be “totally adversarial” to inquiries by the FBI about their customers.

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Sad.

Canada Health Director Who Lead Vaccine Rollout Dies Suddenly at 35 (GP)

The Director of Parliamentary Affairs at Health Canada, who oversaw the country’s response to Covid-19 and the rollout of the vaccine, passed away unexpectedly at the age of 35. Adam Exton, a long-time Liberal Party organizer, died suddenly on Friday, December 9th, according to his family.“It is with great sadness that the family of Adam Exton announce his passing on December 9th, 2022 at the age of 35 in Ottawa, Ontario. Much loved son of Wendy Exton, brother of Bradley Exton (Ellen Wessel) and son of Allan Exton. He will also be deeply missed by his loving girlfriend, Reesha, as well as his many cousins, aunts, uncles and grandmother, Bette Readman,” his obituary reads. “As a young person, Adam became actively involved in politics and had a passion for public service and volunteering in the community. In 2012, Adam won the Ontario Young Liberal Volunteer of the Year Award.


He received a degree in political science from the University of Toronto. Adam spent many years working at various levels of government, eventually holding the position of Director of Parliamentary Affairs at Health Canada.” Adam Exton was a part of the group that orchestrated the response to Canada’s totalitarian mandates against its own citizens.His obituary stated, “During the challenging times of the pandemic, Adam was part of the leadership team that led Canada’s health response to COVID-19. He was a talented and respected campaign manager that was instrumental in helping to bring cabinet ministers and members to Queens Park and Ottawa. Adam always did and will continue to make his family extremely proud of who he was and his service to his community and country.”

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Smart dogs

 

 

Larry

 

 

It’s a wonderful life
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Home Forums Debt Rattle December 20 2022

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 80 total)
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  • #123961
    Dora
    Participant

    The ^Big^ Reset is a 2hr film on Oval media about where the covid & new world order started and how it’s going. Long but interesting. This version has english narration.

    https://www.oval.media/en/latest/watch-en/

    #123962
    Dora
    Participant

    Here’s the full link.

    The Big Reset (English version)

    #123963
    John Day
    Participant

    Sorry about the nosebleed, Robin.
    Good telling of tales on the day before winter solstice. I’m in central and south-central Texas.

    There are a few little cherry tomatoes to pick before the 16 degree temps and 25 mph winds hit Wednesday (Odin’s Day) night. I think I’ll harvest all the kale, collards and mustard greens, too, leaving a nub at ground level to rise like a phoenix and stuff. I might put glass bowls over the nubs, too.

    #123964
    Noirette
    Participant

    re. prev. thread.

    As far as I recall from that time, there is NO WAY Bourdain killed himself.

    He had a 13-yr old daughter whom he loved, he was in the middle of filming a series, all going well. He had good relations with her mother, no nasty divorce, etc.

    He had fallen in with a dodgy GF, Asia Argento, how that happened, and who she is, is another story.

    NYT ample description of the ‘official’ version.

    .. which doesn’t give any reasons for his suicide, as there were none to be credibly put forward. (NYT article may not be readable for some ?)

    France generally bows down to, and accepts, directives and the cover-up narratives from the Anglo-World (basically, the US) for *individual* cases. Princess Diana’s Death is a prime example. These are easy concessions, bargaining chips, for F to make, in return for what, idk and won’t speculate about.

    #123965

    Milgram: Those who knew the experiment was fake so it was okay to press on are the ones they were looking for. The parasitic class needs soul-sellers. It’s why they let violent criminals go. It’s why they do psychology tests at corporations. It’s why they test the young’ns in kindergarten.
    I expect there were also a few who said- I know it’s fake, but I’m still not going to do it, because it’s wrong. So, nope.
    The parasitic class keeps their eyes on those folks, as well.

    #123966
    zerosum
    Participant

    Scrap metal heaven
    Translated from Russian FYI. As at Dec202022 AFU losses attributed by RF MOD ((+?) vs yesterday Dec19):

    A total of 347 aircraft have been destroyed since the start of the special military operation:
    – 347(+3) aircraft,
    – 186(+2) helicopters,
    – 2,689(+5) unmanned aerial vehicles,
    – 398 anti-aircraft missile systems,
    – 7168(+9) tanks and other armored combat vehicles,
    – 931 multiple rocket launcher combat vehicles,
    – 3,693(+2) field artillery guns and mortars,
    – 7,674(+10) units of special military motor vehicles.

    #123967
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Further research into the Milgram experiment tells me that the recent ‘debunkings” are more a form of cancel culture pop-sci journalism than a balanced critique. If anything, Milgram’s point is strengthened by those exit surveys.

    Said ‘debunkings’ focus heavily on Milgram’s ‘hidden journals’ featuring post-experiment exit interviews with the subjects. Consider this, pls:

    Milgram debriefed all his participants straight after the experiment and disclosed the true nature of the experiment. Participants were assured that their behavior was common and Milgram also followed the sample up a year later and found that there were no signs of any long-term psychological harm. In fact, the majority of the participants (83.7%) said that they were pleased that they had participated. from this article Unpublished data from Stanley Milgram’s experiments cast doubt on his claims about obedience
    by Eric W. Dolan November 17, 2019in Social Psychology, which cites ultimately from author Gina Perry, a science historian and an associate in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne, who said: “I was surprised to discover an unpublished analysis in Stanley Milgram’s archives of the relationship between the amount of shock subjects gave in the experiment and their belief that the learner was really being hurt when I was researching my book ‘Behind the Shock Machine: the untold story of the notorious Milgram psychology experiments.’”

    amnd compare it to this, pls:

    “The researchers examined data from 656 post-experiment questionnaires, which asked the subjects to report how much they believed the learner was receiving painful shocks.” (from this article with this clearly opbjective, unbioased, and non-sensationalist title — Shocking! Stanley Milgram Faked Results From One of the Most Famous Experiments Ever — above this photo:

    Consider that Milgram didn’t want to get sued for psych damage from something like a ‘live audience participation snuff play’. So he debriefs them immediately, jah? Then “Milgram also followed the sample up a year later and found that there were no signs of any long-term psychological harm. In fact, the majority of the participants (83.7%) said that they were pleased that they had participated.”

    This was a concern to him, for sure. No hurtee people with chronic shame, no hurtee his pocketbook and academic standing.

    How many people who’d pushed the lever up far lied about ‘knowing it was a ruse all along’?

    If anything, it appears (to me) that Milgram’s figures were rather optimistic in their reportage of disobedience.

    This fits my personal experience, and a phenomenon that VP has often spoke on: the incredible, banal, beguiling, self-deluding power of the primal ego, that popular cloaking* device and camouflage* expert in charge of making sure that we always feel okay about ourselves at all times — the Primary Rule of modern society being ‘Do this you get a cookie. Do that you get in trouble.’
    * hiding and lying, respectively: concealment and misrepresentation

    Here’s some stuff driven by egos well-entrained into productive behavior creating beauty, a thing that the ego is soothed and seduced by like nothing else, the sound of the voice of God in a canyon echo or a sudden memory shouting in the back of your mind…

    …kinda music you just stand and deliver. Be still and know that you are not God but something is and you are a part of It.

    Yogi tea tag says: Gratitude is not about what’s received but how it’s received.

    #123968
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘How can civilisation be preserved amid such a maelstrom of conflicting information, perceptions and destructive capabilities?’

    1. The current manifestation of civlisation -Industrial Civilisation- cannot be preserved. Industrial Civilisation is a short-term aberration in the scheme of things, predicated on the conversion of rapidly depleting resources into waste and predicated on the destabilisation (or complete destruction of) the systems that make life on this planet possible for all vertebrate and most invertebrate species.

    2. The is no ‘conflicting information’ There is information and there is disinformation. People are either informed or uninformed/(misinformed. “If you don’t read a newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read a newspaper, you are misinformed.” -Mark Twain

    3. What has characterised human ‘progress’ has been the increased capacity for destruction, commencing with the use of simple weapons and fire, and progressing though the use of gunpowder to nitrocellulose, nitroglycerine, trinitrotoluene, atomic fission and finally atomic fusion. Accompanying the increased capacity to harvest and concentrate chemical energy systems for explosive destruction has been an increased capacity to harvest previously-sequestered ‘ancient sunlight’, and to use that chemical energy to modify both the physical landscape -from sustainable (or semi-sustainable) to completely unsustainable, whilst at the same time destbilising many of the natural systems that previously provided thermal stability to the Earth.

    We are living through the final phase of the brief period known as Industrial Civilisation -which has a total lifespan approximately 1712 to 2032.

    Durning the meltdown phase of IC vast quantities of energy are utilised to prop up (in the very short term) rapidly failing institutions such central banks, financial markets, corporations, huge military-industrial complexes and bloated bureaucracies such as the European Union and NATO, governments, councils etc..

    4. We are lied to on a continuous basis by so-called leaders everywhere. Everything so-called leaders say is either a direct and utterly blatant lie or is founded in a lie.

    Almost everything that is discussed at length and pondered over is background noise. As humans, we were addicted to stiving. Some still stive. But a large portion of humanity has given up striving and has become a mere shadow of what we would call truly human (as per Brave New World or The Matix). A large portion of the populations of highly-industrialised nations are addicted to hope. The less stupid amongst the population of ‘developed’ nations seek intellectual stimulation to help them remain sane in the concentration camp.

    Information: If anyone survives the financial-economic-energetic-environmental-political-social meltdown that has commenced, they will have less energy and less access to food than people had prior to the commencement of mass-scale industrialism.

    Disinformation: Humanity is on the cusp of breakthroughs in nuclear fusion technology/hydrogen technology/solar technology/medical technology/’free energy’ technology/’wonder weapons’/’safe and effective vaccines”/geoengineering technology blah, blah, blah.

    It seems that we can do is at this late stage in the game is to record the failures and deceits as they occur, along with the political and economic corruption and lies.

    Some people are in favour of stonings or lynchings for the criminals who have mislead entire societies for their own short-term gains. I would quite like to see treason trials or betrayal trials; however, I begin to doubt they will eventuate.

    Please prove me wrong on any of the above. Don’t just say I am wrong.

    #123969
    jb-hb
    Participant

    perhaps the subplot of Agent Smith wanting to convert everything into himself, to look out into the universe and see only himself, is instructive as well.

    constituting 25%+ of total post by post-count at times for instance.

    Subtracting out embedded or cut&pasted videos & news articles, as of right now, one individual has posted 3,800 words today

    EVERYONE ELSE taken together has posted a total of approximately 6,250 words as of my count (factoring out pasted news, quotes, etc)

    3,800/10,050 words – about 38% of all conversation

    Cool stuff to say, sure, yes, yes. All the more reason, then, to give the bang per buck ratio a bit of thought. Especially when one’s abilities are more than sufficient to improve that ratio. …the point of posting being that others will want to, will willingly, read what one has said rather than scrolling past.

    ——-

    Re: the people saying AFTER the Milgram experiment, that they went ahead with the shocks because they knew it was fake.

    Remember that 90’s comedian who did a hilarious bit about the Alanis Morisssette song “Ironic”? …about how the only thing ironic about the song is this woman singing about irony while not understanding it?

    Alanis began publicly claiming this was INTENTIONAL, that yes, I was being purposely ironic in exactly that way. Sure, Morissette, sure.

    #123970
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    There is information and there is disinformation. People are either informed or uninformed/misinformed.

    #123971

    All you Tulsi fans out there: I am watching a film (via ZH) called “Enjoy the Show” by a “former CIA” person called “Tore Says”. You will be interested in the segment at 49:16, I think.

    #123972
    jb-hb
    Participant

    “What has characterised human ‘progress’ has been the increased capacity for destruction”

    That is perhaps disputable. I’ll play devil’s advocate here for a sec

    Primitive peoples had and have wars, torture, human sacrifice, genocide, murder, destruction, slavery, and creepy uncles. Their advantage, I suppose, was that PER SQUARE ACRE, there was less evil/destruction? But is that a meaningful unit of measurement?

    You look at a city like New York and you see IMMENSE tolerance, compassion, fairness, peacefulness, and plenty, far more on a per CAPITA basis than than ever before achieved.

    I remember we had an influx of new people at the ol defunct LATOC forum who began incessantly arguing that civilization – or literally simply the practice of agriculture – was the cause of every human evil. Since agriculture leads to specialization and then writing, they seemed to suppose that so long as nobody wrote it down, nothing bad happened — and if someone showed up who COULD write and documented it, then it was only because those people who could write showed up.

    capacity for destruction, sure, but for instance, with the use of mechanized combined arms warfare in WW2, greater victories were won in less time with far less casualties for both sides than in the battles of WW1.

    To conclude playing Devil’s Advocate, there’s been an increased capacity for EVERYTHING.

    A really interesting essay about increased capacity – for destruction amongst other things, one of my favorite things on the internet:

    The Return of the Krell Machine – Nanotechnology, the Singularity, and the Empty Planet Syndrome:

    https://grg.org/charter/Krell2.htm

    #123973
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    “The total opposite from one day to another.”

    “When all else fails, they take you to war.”

    #123974
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘capacity for destruction, sure, but for instance, with the use of mechanized combined arms warfare in WW2, greater victories were won in less time with far less casualties for both sides than in the battles of WW1.’

    Please explain how 1939 to 1945 (1937 to 1945 if you count the real commencement year) = 6/8 years is less time than 1914 to 1918 = 4 years.

    Please explain how ‘Civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million. Military deaths from all causes totaled 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war’ = up to 85 million killed in WW2

    is less than ‘The total number of deaths includes from 9 to 11 million military personnel. The civilian death toll was about 6 to 13 million’ = up to 24 million is less than up to 25 million in WW1.

    Could it be that the world is full of uninformed fuckwits and liars and that some post idiotic statements on TAE?

    #123975
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Battle of France WW1
    Casualties: 13,000,000

    Battle of France WW2
    Casualties: 689,587

    #123976
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Afewknowthetruth, you are arguing on the basis that ALL of WW2 was fought as mechanized combined arms warfare, which we know to not be true.

    Go ahead and construct an argument proving it, though.

    #123977
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Additionally, did you start by calculating the total combatant countries’ populations involved in WW1 vs WW2?

    Was the practice, by the USSR, of throwing their people in foolishly as cannon fodder, a modern development, a result of progress? Or an ancient, even prehistoric practice? And it cost tens of millions.

    Was the decision by the major Axis combatants – Germany and Japan – to fight well past the time it was clear they were defeated, a result of progress, or could we see similar things happening in the Ancient world and presume that they happened prehistorically as well? The Cimbri and Teutones choosing destruction upon defeat, for example?

    By comparison, WW1 Germany laid down its king, admitted defeat, at an appropriate time.

    On a per capita basis, was WW2 really more destructive? After factoring out non progress elements recognizable as going back to ancient times?

    I for one would consider dropping the atomic bombs on Japan to be immoral, but you’re probably aware of the arguments that it saved lives. Maybe the US would not have invaded Japan, but the USSR would have. A Battle of Berlin occurring over the entire Japanese island chain. The atomic bomb would epitomize progress in destructive capacity while arguments have certainly been fielded that its real world application saved lives.

    (and I want to stress here, I’m more playing devil’s advocate than anything – Return of the Krell Machine is closer to my own opinion on the matter – I’m mainly saying, by playing devil’s advocate, it isn’t so simple.)

    The Mongols killed 80 million with weapons systems from prehistoric times. Bows, axes, swords, spears. For single-entity perpetrators of destruction, they still hold the record.

    #123978
    John Day
    Participant

    More today, same theme “Back To Church” with picture of “your humble narrator” rising up from below
    https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/back-to-church

    ​ ​The NSA: “The Abyss From Which There Is No Return“​ ​ 8/25/2013
    ​“The National Security Agency’s capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A. could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.”—Senator Frank Church (1975).
    ​ ​Senator Frank Church (D-Ida.), who served as the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence that investigated the National Security Agency in the 1970s, understood only too well the dangers inherent in allowing the government to overstep its authority in the name of national security..​.
    ​..However, because agencies such as the NSA operate with “black ops” (or secret) budgets, they are not accountable to Congress.
    In his book Body of Secrets, the second installment of the most extensively researched inquiry into the NSA, author James Bamford describes the NSA as “a strange and invisible city unlike any on earth” that lies beyond a specially constructed and perpetually guarded exit ramp off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. “It contains what is probably the largest body of secrets ever created.”​ …
    ..The NSA’s website provides its own benchmarks:
    Neither the number of employees nor the size of the Agency’s budget can be publicly disclosed. However, if the NSA/CSS were considered a corporation in terms of dollars spent, floor space occupied, and personnel employed, it would rank in the top 10 percent of the Fortune 500 companies.
    ​https://truthout.org/articles/the-nsa-the-abyss-from-which-there-is-no-return/

    ​ Why don’t we have Senators like Frank Church any more? It seems that they are unelectable, doesn’t it?
    A few days ago I posted an interview of Tucker Carlson by Tulsi Gabbard, which lasted a little over an hour. Tucker related being told by a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee that the NSA monitored his emails, so they could not communicate like that.

    Tulsi Gabbard interviews Tucker Carlson


    Tucker related being told by Congressman Mike McCaul, “well, you’re a Russian asset”. When Tucker indignantly asked where McCaul got that impression, he was told that his “intelligence-briefer”​ had informed him of that. Carlson had quietly talked to some friends with connections (2017 or so) about seeing if it would be possible to interview Vladimir Putin. Fox News didn’t know about this curiosity, but the NSA did, and interpreted it to Congressman McCaul as above.
    We Americans are now living in the “abyss” which Senator Church described as a possibility, which we should strictly defend against. Former CIA head George H.W.Bush (who always said he did not recall where he was on November 22, 1963, but was reportedly in Dallas, Texas) was Vice President and President of the US for a total of 16 years after the Church Committee hearings. In 1975 Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were already hard at work on “continuity of government” planning under “president” Gerald Ford.
    The CIA was chastened by the Church Committee, but the lesson “the agency” learned was to prevent that from happening again.
    Elon Musk has just presented a possible avenue for regime-change within the United States, while conforming to Constitutional Law, and not necessarily revealing how deeply captured, corrupted and traitorous “our” government has become since the assassination of John Kennedy (which would be nice to reveal).

    ​ ​In the wake of the most recent ‘Twitter Files’ release – which showed that the FBI infiltrated the social media giant, then primed its ‘Trust & Safety’ head to interpret things like the Hunter Biden release as foreign influence – CEO Elon Musk asked Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) whether he approved ‘hidden state censorship in direct violation of the Constitution.”
    ​ ​”As (outgoing) Chair of House Intelligence, did you approve hidden state censorship in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States
    @RepAdamSchiff​​?​”​ …
    ​..​Some have speculated that the speed at which Twitter reacted to the NY Post’s Hunter Biden bombshell was the result of a “powerful Dem” reaching out to the FBI’s operative, Elvis Chan.​.. [Records to Matt Taibbi were screened by former FBI employee James Baker, before he was fired. Musk should have it all now.]
    ​..​Musk also advocated for a modern-day Church Commission, responding to a suggestion promoted by investor David Sacks.
    “Hear, hear!!” Musk replied.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/musk-asks-schiff-if-he-approved-state-censorship-advocates-modern-church-commission

    ​ Henry Kissinger has always been a reliable representative for powerful American imperial interests, particularly Rockefeller interests. His interview last Friday was released as this article Saturday, and is available without a paywall. He seems to call for urgent negotiation, not waiting half a year, if the historical analogy is to be taken just as he presents it.
    We have seen that elected representatives are pressured by the deep-state, and thwarted from any actions against deep-state interests, but where do the interests of the wealthy and powerful “owners” stand in this? Are they subordinated to the NSA, CIA and FBI, or is it the other way around? ​Everybody is employed somewhere and gets a paycheck from there, and nobody can expect to have secrets, even/especially if they work for the NSA, CIA or FBI, right?
    ​ ​Henry Kissinger​ ,​How to avoid another world war​
    ​The nations of Europe, insufficiently familiar with how technology had enhanced their respective military forces, proceeded to inflict unprecedented devastation on one another. In August 1916, after two years of war and millions in casualties, the principal combatants in the West (Britain, France and Germany) began to explore prospects for ending the carnage. In the East, rivals Austria and Russia had extended comparable feelers. Because no conceivable compromise could justify the sacrifices already incurred and because no one wanted to convey an impression of weakness, the various leaders hesitated to initiate a formal peace process. Hence they sought American mediation. Explorations by Colonel Edward House, President Woodrow Wilson’s personal emissary, revealed that a peace based on the modified status quo ante was within reach. However, Wilson, while willing and eventually eager to undertake mediation, delayed until after the presidential election in November. By then the British Somme offensive and the German Verdun offensive had added another two million casualties.​ [3 months time cost 2 million men and removed the opportunity for negotiated peace]​
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-push-for-peace/

    #123979
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ High tech American and NATO weapons are being used to attack inside Russia, and also the newly added oblasts.​ The US must be allowing this targeting.
    ​ ​Four US-made AGM-88 HARM aircraft-fired anti-radar missiles have been shot down over Russia’s Belgorod Region, which shares a border with Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Monday.
    ​ ​It added that Russian air defenses in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and the Zaporozhye Region also intercepted six rockets fired by US-made HIMARS launchers​.
    ​https://www.rt.com/russia/568518-harm-missiles-intercepted-belgorod/

    ​ ​One Killed in Ukrainian Shelling of Russia’s Belgorod Region
    The region’s governor said eight more people were wounded and a poultry farm was damaged

    One Killed in Ukrainian Shelling of Russia’s Belgorod Region

    DONETSK, December 19. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops shelled the city of Donetsk on December 18 with the use of JROF-M rockets supplied to Ukraine from NATO countries, the mission of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) to the Joint Control and Coordination Center for issues related to Ukraine’s war crimes said on Monday…
    ​..​A massive rocket strike was delivered by Ukrainian troops on Donetsk on Sunday evening. Several rockets hit the Kalinin Hospital in Donetsk, Donbass’ largest clinic, damaging two of its buildings, including a children’s neurosurgery department. One of the rockets hit a hospital ward, killing one patient and wounding another one.
    ​ ​The JROF-M is a Slovak-made 122.4mm rocket that can be fired from any multiple rocket launcher of this caliber. It has a heavier warhead and a longer range than Soviet RS 9M22 and 9M28 rockets.
    https://tass.com/politics/1552723

    ​ Veterans For Peace:
    ​ As soldiers who have resisted wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, we support war resisters on all sides, including conscientious objectors, draft resisters, deserters and all who refuse to participate in killing. We especially encourage U.S. military personnel to refuse to participate in training, arming, advising or otherwise engaging in this and other wars of empire. We furthermore call on the U.S. government to end all its wars and withdraw our troops from multiple countries around the world.
    It is time to reverse course now. Drop the weapons. Embrace diplomacy and peace. For the sake of Ukraine. For the sake of Russia, Europe and the United States. For the sake of the all the peoples of the world. A holiday truce could be the first step toward peace.
    https://peaceandplanetnews.org/holiday-truce/

    ​ ​Over 900 Faith Leaders in the US Demand Christmas Truce in Ukraine
    Faith leaders invoke the legacy of the 1914 Christmas Truce during WWI, calling for peace and negotiations in Ukraine

    Over 900 Faith Leaders in the US Demand Christmas Truce in Ukraine

    #123980
    John Day
    Participant

    Russia EU envoy conflict in Ukraine is part of West’s hybrid war on Russia
    ​ ​The envoy said Brussels now is trying “to take away from European capitals part of the sovereign powers in areas that don’t fall within the competence of the European Union.”
    ​ ​He highlighted the fact that essentially, the EU institutions are trying to make the most important decisions by themselves, pushing aside national governments. That’s how Brussels is trying to exclude any unpredictability associated with the need to ensure consensus in the development of key decisions by the bloc’s states, in particular, trade and political ones.
    ​ ​”During the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU supranational organizations have significantly expanded their powers in the field of healthcare, now the European Commission seeks to be at the forefront of efforts to overcome the energy crisis, seeking to be a coordinator for joint purchases of gas by member states from the spring of 2023,” he said. “For us, the fundamental point is that the redistribution of powers is carried out not so much against the background of numerous crises, but under the pretext of the ‘Russian threat’.”
    The Russian diplomat said he believes that the question of how significant a role the European Union will play in the future world system will ultimately be decided by the regional community itself.
    “Today, the entire system of international relations is undoubtedly undergoing a tectonic shift. And at some stage, when stabilization begins (and this will inevitably happen), we – and I am talking now not only about Russia, but about all sensible representatives of the international community, which is by no means limited to Europe or the West – will have a real chance to lay the foundations for a new, fairer world order based not on the ‘rules’ invented by one side, which can be rewritten in the course of the ‘game,’ but on the principles of genuine mutual respect and equality,” Logvinov said.
    https://tass.com/politics/1552711

    ​ Excerpted from an article about the Pakistani deep-state attempt to assassinate Imran Khan, which has important new details. Lots of history here.
    ​ The revelation doesn’t come as a surprise, though, because more than two decades before the declassification of the State Department documents, in the 1998 interview to The Counter Punch Magazine, former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, confessed that the president signed the directive to provide secret aid to the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan six months later in December 1979.
    Here is a poignant excerpt from the interview. The interviewer puts the question: “And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic jihadists, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?” Brzezinski replies: “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet Empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”

    Why Pakistan’s Deep State Tried to Assassinate Imran Khan?

    ​ ​Modi ignores West’s sanctions on Russia
    ​ ​For India, the reorientation of Russian economic diplomacy toward the Asian region presents huge business opportunities. Who would have thought nine months ago that Russia was going to be the largest supplier of oil to India, leapfrogging Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the US? According to Reuters, India purchased about 40% of all export volumes of Russian Urals grade oil transported by sea in November, when European countries accounted for 25%, Turkey 15% and China 5%.

    Modi ignores West’s sanctions on Russia

    #123983
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Meryl Nass MD and Jane Orient MD, ​In Germany, putative vaccine-induced causes of sudden death tripled after vaccine rollout
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/in-germany-putative-vaccine-induced-d6a

    ​ ​A German panel debates the C19 response and 19% excess mortality​ Thanks Luc.
    The injuries from the injections are permanent. It is shocking to see the complete lack of outrage on the focus on the number that 19% excess deaths means.
    For 94 million Germans, around 1 million die every year. 19% excess means 190,000 more Germans died than expected. These were not C19 deaths.
    https://peterhalligan.substack.com/p/a-german-panel-debates-the-c19-response

    ​ Meryl Nass MD, ​Let’s look at how COVID and the Flu compare to each other right now, and compare to past years
    Hint: It’s a mild flu year so far, yet there are more flu than COVID hospitalizations in the UK.
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/lets-look-at-how-covid-and-the-flu

    Jessica Rose Ph.D. Dr. Sanjay Verma: backed up by VAERS
    Myocarditis -> scar tissue -> lower chamber ventricular arrhythmia, fibrillation and tachycardia
    https://jessicar.substack.com/p/dr-sanjay-verma-backed-up-by-vaers

    Jessica Rose Ph.D. gives the best explanation of all of the effects of lipid nanoparticles used to carry mRNA into human cells in Pfizer and Moderna “vaccine products” Effect of LNPs on RBCs to render them dysfunctional – is obvious
    https://jessicar.substack.com/p/effect-of-lnps-on-rbcs-to-render

    #123984
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Sure, you can pick out one WW1 battle and say more people were killed in that battle in WW1 than is some other battle in WW2 in which one side was so disorganised they hardly did any fighting . It’s called cherry-picking data. People with devious agendas or trying to avoid truth do it frequently!

    ‘Battle of Stalingrad one of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, with an estimated 2 million total casualties’

    Or: ‘The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict so far.’

    Details are difficult to determine because around 200,000 people got vaporised in a couple of instants.

    And , of course, the ‘good guys’ completely flattened several cities of Germany and turned them into smoldering piles of rubble in air raids that lasted several days. Pure guesses as to how many women, children, old folk and rescue workers got in the way of bullets and rockets when the ‘good guys’ went back with ground attack aircraft to prevent salvaging and to terrorise and perhaps kill anyone who had survived high explosives and incendiaries.

    I’ve got better things to do that argue with a cherry-picker…like tend to real cherry trees.

    #123985
    John Day
    Participant

    @MPSK: Thanks for the Tulsi snippet you linked to above.
    She done right by Bernie and “got the hammer dropped” on her.

    #123986
    Dr. D
    Participant

    I guess you’d have to figure out what metric you’d like to use. Is it deaths outright? That seems unfair. Deaths per capita? Is that really measure “progress”? There could be now info wars where they don’t kill you. Like the Robin Williams joke, a war run by women would never do that — just a bomb that makes you feel guilty for a while.

    Early people were pretty vicious, not the “noble savage” at all — Europe or N.A. Celts, Teutonics, Francs, Mohawks, whoever. Much less war, a mere raid by our terms, but constantly, hidden, unexpected, maybe with killing anyone, man woman children, in terrible ways, or slavery. Or not, actually. Prisoners of war might be killed in ways more cruel than the Inquisition could dream of: tying you over a fire and wrapping your own entrails around you? Ha. Nice try. A real man doesn’t make a sound.

    Better there, where almost always no war, always peaceful…until it isn’t? Or here where they terrify you with a war almost no one experiences? I actually don’t know. I actually think humans are maturing and being less bad, but it’s extreeeeemely slow. Like centuries. But it does happen and is happening again now.

    #123987
    zerosum
    Participant

    Zelensky visit Bakhmut? Now he going to USA.
    Zelensky going to Washington to open a bank account for the $ 45 billion to Kiev,

    #123988
    zerosum
    Participant

    Did you see the scary headlines
    COVID cases skyrocket in China following easing of zero-COVID policy

    Hospitals and crematoriums are overwhelmed throughout China as COVID …
    China Covid scare casts shadow on Christmas, New Year’s celebrations
    ‘VARIANT FACTORY’ Urgent warning China’s ‘thermonuclear’ Covid outbreak could spawn new mutation as expert says pandemic NOT over
    unvaccinated people were Covid “variant factories” who could prolong the pandemic.
    ————
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/
    Latest News
    December 20 (GMT)
    Updates
    2,722 new cases and 5 new deaths in China [source]

    ——–
    I could not find the name/study of the Omicron variant that is causing the headlines

    #123989
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Much of what people talk about here is the transition between generations; grumpy old men wishing the world would not change. People seem to have forgotten that every generation has its rebelion, the “sexual revolution” was one for the boomers and this continues to this day. Every generation changes something significant held as truth by their parents. The fact that generations change is how cycles in civilisational history occur. For example, in Japan the young no longer spend their nights drinking with their colleagues, they see that activity as being associated with their parents and their natural behaviour is to reject something significant persued by their parents. For foreigners that know Japan, this will change a major element of their culture.

    The other day I posted the discussion between internet personalities about the duty of men to protect women, another non-negotiable for the boomer generation. Similar issues arise in China, between the newer generations and their elders, in this case the casualty appears to be their respect for their elders.

    The one thing that does not change are the instincts provided by nature to ensure your survival, including the persuit of things (money), power etc and the use of violence to achieve those ends. It is everywhere in society, from the petty criminals, to Christians believing (hoping) that bad people (yes, they say non-believers, but we know the truth) will suffer forever in hell, to the internet journalists doxxing some person in the (unspoken) hope that they are atacked.

    #123990
    WES
    Participant

    AFKTT: Please prove me right on any of the above. Don’t just say I am right.
    Sorry, I am tired of proving you right!

    Everybody thinks in WW2 the German army was 100% mechanized as in Panzers. Not so. For 2 basic reasons.

    First, Germany didn’t have the domestic industrial capacity to produce enough vehicles, like trucks. (Canada produced more trucks than Germany.) In the lead up to WW2 Germany had trouble finding soldiers who knew how to drive, as most Germans took public transportation.

    Second, Germany didn’t have access to enough oil to fuel a 100% mechanized army which also limited the number of it’s army’s Panzer Divisions. During Normandy, one captured German soldier asked the Allies where their horses where? German generals had assumed that they held the advantage in France because they had adequate food for their horses, while the Allies would have to bring feed to support their horses.

    The Toronto Star is reporting that the number of prisoners dying in custody in Ontario, nearly doubled, from 2020 to 2021 despite less people being incarcerated. No mention of the vax, of course.

    To end on a funny note. During WW2, women in Canada would hold sewing bees to make single serving packages of tea, which they would send to England. While very grateful to receive these small sown bags of tea, one relative said the tea bags were so well sown, that they had trouble opening them! (On the subject of tea, Canadians used tea bags, while the English used loose tea leaves!)

    #123991
    WES
    Participant

    On the Allies so called phantom army of air blow up rubber Sherman tanks and trucks in Southern England. The Germans went along with the Schrade, by dropping wooden bombs on them!

    In the early days of radar, the British accounted for their success in the air, due to their fighter pilots eating their carrots! You were being misinformed even back then!

    #123992
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘Everybody thinks in WW2 the German army was 100% mechanized as in Panzers. Not so. For 2 basic reasons.’

    Not everybody, WES

    But you are quite right in some respects. At the commencement of fighting on the western front Germany had fewer tanks, and tanks that were inferior to British and French tanks. What enabled the Germans to win so quickly once they actually started their spring offensive was the superb combination of air attacks -dive bombers and ground attack fighter aircraft- well trained tank commanders, superb communications and an extensive rail system that transported men and materials to where they were required. The French were geared up for a repeat of WW1. And that was the last thing on the mind of German commanders. Lightning war, based in fast-moving tanks and aircraft. And superb logistics.

    Don’t forget that Germans used a combination of railways [running on coal] and millions of horses in the early stages of WW2 to move items like field guns, ammunition and food supplies until the factories -such as In Czechoslovakia, France and Poland- they had captured to be set to producing more motor vehicles.

    It was essential to the German war effort to capture either the British-held oilfields of the Middle East or the Russian oilfields south of the Caucuses. Both campaigns failed, partly due to lack of petroleum-based fuels.

    Although German converted coal into liquid fuels, it was never enough to meet demand.

    Contrast that with the Americans, who had access to so much liquid hydrocarbon energy they literally threw it at the Japanese and ignited it.

    #123993
    Bill7
    Participant

    I watched a little bit of the video for the Gabbard content. High grade- albeit manipulative- production values. I have no further comment on Gabbard at this time.

    Who shall one trust?

    #123994
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Hmmm… I wonder what we can argue angrily about next?

    All I can say is, Leave Britney Alone!

    btw, TAE isn’t a college course or such. There isn’t a test at the end of each week on what was posted over the past 7 days. Feel free to skip over my words.

    I’n I’r I’n I feel fine…

    (from the video comments): “Reminds me of an Oscar Wilde quote, “I have to be me. Everyone else is taken.”

    #123995
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “On the Allies so called phantom army of air blow up rubber Sherman tanks and trucks in Southern England. The Germans went along with the Schrade, by dropping wooden bombs on them!”

    LOL. Cargo cult warfare.

    #123996
    Bill7
    Participant

    A comment at another site: “..Digital assets make civil asset forfeiture actions a matter of trivial effort for police in any jurisdiction that allows this questionably legal practice.”

    I think that commenter is right, and what they said is really the least of it.. some here claim CBDCs are a pipe-dream; I think they’re mistaken (or worse). We’ll see how it goes soon enough.

    #123997
    Bill7
    Participant

    Who shall one trust? For myself. I trust nothing on this here opaque, one-way window darpaNet.

    #123998
    WES
    Participant

    Ever since the Russians decided to call up 300,000 more troops, everybody has assumed that the Russians are planning a winter offensive. I am not so sure this is actually the case.

    When the Russians started their special military operation (SMO) back in February they started and stayed small. Whatever plans they had, lasted only until they got punched in the face. In the early days, the Russians took quite a few casualties. Russian commanders then quickly change tactics to minimize casualties as they knew they would not be getting any replacements, especially infantry.

    Late this summer a new Russian commander was appointed. Based upon what he saw, he requested the mobilization of more troops. He then set about centralizing the 3 separate army command structures (Russian and 2 break-a-way republics) into just one. This a big operational change.

    He also began replacing exhausted frontline troops, fighting since February, with new troops as quickly as possible (despite many costly mishaps) because he could see these tired troops were no longer effective fighting forces. They badly needed rest and maintenance. Thus we saw the unpopular Russian troops pullbacks to more defendable positions like rivers (Russia losing territory and the war.).

    The new general has also set about revising the Russian main battle groups, consisting of about 4,000 men. One hard lesson learned is that these battle groups did not have enough infantry support which meant these highly mobile units often took heavy losses especially on the flanks from ambushes, something the Ukrainians were good at.

    Another thing this general noticed was the uneven training of different Russian army groups. Russian army groups operating in northern Ukraine for example didn’t adhere as closely to military doctrine as did army groups in the south of Ukraine. These regular Russian army groups also did not have any experienced infantry support from the 2 break-a-way republics, only their limited numbers of regular Russian infantry.

    For example, in the north, Russian army groups often lead with their tanks not their infantry in armored infantry carriers. Often tanks operated individually without other tanks nearby to support them. Camouflage was conspicuously missing. Or armored infantry carriers without tanks. This allowed the Ukrainian army to pick them off, one by one.

    Russian army groups operating in southern Ukraine did somewhat better in operating as cohesive units. (Some speculate that these southern Russian army groups had learned their lesson in Georgia.) It is also possible that the regular Russian army groups operating in the south, had much more infantry support with experienced soldiers from the break-a-way republics who would have had little in the way of mobile armor forces. More infantry by default.

    I think the new Russian general mobilized more troops so that he can reinforce and hold a rather long front line where the Ukrainians have switched tactics to attacking everywhere with just infantry (since they have little mobile armor left). He also wants to be able to rest 1/3 of his army at any given time so that his frontline troops remain a constantly effective fighting force every day.

    The increased number of Russian troops now available simply isn’t enough to conquer and occupy all of the Ukraine. It should be enough to conquer the rest of Donbas currently held by the Ukraine. I think the new Russian general has simply readjusted the SMO for 2023. The meat grinder will continue until the Ukraine and US/NATO can no longer feed it.

    After that who knows what will happen. I seriously doubt the Russians will find anybody left to negotiate with. I don’t think they are planning on negotiating with anyone. That might be their plan.

    #123999
    WES
    Participant

    AFKTT;

    Yes, early German success in France was due to the use of radios to communicate.
    But there were a few other reasons too.

    The need for radios became rather clear from early disastrous army armor maneuvers. The Germans began practicing mobile army maneuvers well before they had any tanks. They would take ordinary cars and trucks and dress them up to look like tanks, etc. with cardboard and plywood. They even had wooden guns!

    In one such early maneuver, they were practicing moving from one side of a town to the other side. The entire maneuvers ended up creating a grid locked traffic jam in town where nobody made it to the other side of town! There were honking horns and fist fights galore over who had right of way first such that nobody moved!

    But there was another strange Germany army regulation that played a crucial role in France’s downfall that had nothing to do with the French. This Germany army regulation (slipped in) stated that if the Panzer units were within radio contact with their infantry army division, then the Panzer commanders were under the direct command of their respective infantry army generals. (This was supposedly done to (not) make the army generals happy. The writer of the rule surely knew exactly what would happen!)

    Ever wonder why Guedarian and Rommel accidently lost radio contact, for days on end, with their respective army infantry generals? If they stopped and waited, they would catch shit immediately! If they kept going, they wouldn’t catch shit until much later! Both were briefly court marshalled as a result!

    As to why German officiers were so free to change plans, is a whole different story which goes way back to the end of WW1.

    #124000
    Dora
    Participant

    odd my above oval media links are suddenly ‘not found’.
    Here’s a new link to the same story (I hope). Click on the ‘English’ version, or whatever version you prefer.

    https://www.oval.media/en/the-big-reset-3/

    #124001
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Back to the topic that interests many:

    I had reason to visit the local timber yard today and learned via conversation with an employee that he will soon terminate his employment there because he has found it necessary to sell up and move to another district. reason: his wife, aged 53 has recently had a stroke.

    I did not ask the obvious question. But putting 2 and 2 together I am making 4, not 3 or 5.

    Last week some I knew quite well died. He had definitely been double jabbed. Maybe triple jabbed. He was in his eighties, so not his death was not unexpected.

    On Tuesday’s shopping trip I visited a charity shop. The topic of conversation amongst the assistants was who currently had covid and how bad it was.

    I pointed out I was unjabbed and did not wear masks, and remained healthy, and that covid was a disease of the jabbed. I don’t think they understood a word I said. Or maybe they just didn’t hear. I know that many people do not hear anything in conversations and are merely waiting for an opportunity to verbalise what they have been thinking about while the other person is speaking.

    #124002
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Semi-local shit (1,000km away), just in time for the holiday period.

    ‘Do not swim’: Popular North Shore and eastern beaches hit with sewage spills, faecal bacteria
    While the sun has come out in Auckland today, beachgoers hoping to go for a dip are being warned to avoid swimming in some popular Auckland beaches after an overflow of sewage.’

    International shit:

    Very local shit: the cans of baked bean that were 80c at the start of this year are now $1.30 in the nearest supermarket. 50/80 = 63% increase.

    I have known for decades that cans of baked beans are a better investment than gold.

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