Feb 272023
 
 February 27, 2023  Posted by at 10:17 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Édouard Manet Woman with a jug 1858-60

 

White House Distances Itself From Covid ‘Lab-Leak’ Theory
Covid Lab Leak Is A Scandal Of Media And Government Censorship (Turley)
Elon Musk Accuses Fauci Of Funding Gain-Of-Function Research (TP)
Ukraine Has ‘Total Dominance’ Over US – Trump (RT)
Wall Street Has Its Eyes Set On Ukraine (Charles Gasparino)
Much Of Global South Isn’t Automatically Supporting The West In Ukraine (Mehta)
North African Nations Voracious Buyers Of Russian Oil Products – WSJ (RT)
Hungarian FM Explains What Puzzles Him About EU (RT)
Anti-NATO Protests Hit France (RT)
Thousands Rally For Peace In Italy (RT)
UN To Discuss Investigation Into War Crimes In Ukraine (Az.)
GOP Lawmakers Vow To Unmask Hunter Biden’s Anonymous Art Buyers (NYP)

 

 

 

 

2 Zels

 

 

Putin Oliver Stone
https://twitter.com/i/status/1629705190566776832

 

 

Oliver Stone

 

 

 

 

Tucker Macgregor
https://twitter.com/i/status/1629739970184507392

 

 

Maher Woody

 

 

Jimmy Dore
https://twitter.com/i/status/1630038638661861379

 

 

History also demonstrates something else: any collapsed empire buries half the world under its rubble.”
– Dmitry Medvedev, February 2023

 

 

 

 

US Department of Energy says: lab leak. White House says: we have so many departments… We must study for years more.

White House Distances Itself From Covid ‘Lab-Leak’ Theory

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has dissented against a Wall Street Journal report which stated that a US Department of Energy study concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic was likely the result of a failure of safety practices at a laboratory in China, stating that there is “not a definitive answer” as to the true origins of the virus. The WSJ published a report on Sunday which said that the Department of Energy had viewed “new intelligence” which led them to believe that Covid-19 wasn’t naturally produced in the environment, but rather the result of a so-called ‘lab-leak’ – but it added that it has “low confidence” in its findings.

Responding to the WSJ report, Sullivan said that President Joe Biden has ordered a full investigation into the potential origins of Covid-19 but he stressed the various governmental bodies looking into the matter have yet to reach a unanimous verdict. “President Biden has directed, repeatedly, every element of our intelligence community to put effort and resources behind getting to the bottom of this question,” Sullivan told CNN on Sunday. “If we gain any further insight or information, we will share it with Congress, and we will share it with the American people. But right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question.” The virus was first reported to have been discovered in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, an area which also features a prominent virology institute which is an active research center for the study of coronaviruses.

The FBI has also backed the lab-leak theory but four other US agencies have determined that natural transmission was the more likely source of the virus. Two other agencies are currently undecided, according to the WSJ. Last year, extensive studies conducted by the peer-reviewed ‘Science’ journal determined that the initial virus was very likely transmitted to a human from an animal at one of Wuhan’s wet markets. Further studies into the lab-leak theory are expected to take place in the US in the coming weeks and months, after several Republican lawmakers included investigations into the pandemic’s origins among the key pledges on the campaign trail ahead of last November’s midterm elections.

Read more …

Covid, Trump, Ukraine.

Covid Lab Leak Is A Scandal Of Media And Government Censorship (Turley)

In early 2020, with little available evidence, two op-eds in The Lancet in February and Nature Medicine went all-in on the denial front. The Lancet op-ed stated, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.” We were also supposed to forget about massive payments from the Chinese government to American universities and grants of some of these writers to both Chinese interests or even the specific Wuhan lab. No reference to the lab theory was to be tolerated. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) merely mentioned the possibility in 2020, he was set upon by the usual flash media mob. The Washington Post ridiculed him of repeating a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”

In September 2020, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a virologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong, dared to repeat the theory on Fox News, saying, “I can present solid scientific evidence . . . [that] it is a man-made virus created in the lab.” The left-leaning PolitiFact slammed her and gave her a “pants on fire rating.” President Joe Biden accused Trump of fanning racism in his criticism of the Chinese government over the pandemic and his Administration reportedly shutdown the State Department investigation into the possible lab origins of the virus. When Biden later revived an investigation into the origins, he was denounced as “sugar-coating Trump’s racism.” The categorical rejection of the lab theory is only the latest media narrative proven to be false.

The Russian collusion scandal, the Hunter Biden “Russian Disinformation,” the Lafayette Park “Photo Op” conspiracy, the Nick Sandmann controversy, the Jussie Smollett case, the Migrant Whipping scandal. On the lab theory, media like the Washington Post piled on senators like Cruz and Cotton for mentioning the lab theory only later to admit that it could be legitimate. All of those experts and writers who were called racists or suspended by social media were simply forgotten in media coverage. That is why this is really about censorship. The media guaranteed that we did not have a full debate over the origins of the virus and attacked those who had the temerity to state the obvious that there was a plausible basis for suspecting the Wuhan lab. None of this has diminished demands for more censorship. Even after Twitter admitted that it wrongly blocked The New York Post story before the 2020 election, Democratic senators responded by warning the company not to cut back on censorship and even demanded more censorship.

Read more …

“Musk’s fiery accusation came in response to a tweet that aggregated the multiple occurrences where Fauci denied any gain-of-function research..”

Elon Musk Accuses Fauci Of Funding Gain-Of-Function Research (TP)

Elon Musk accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan, China lab where COVID-19 is believed to have originated from. Musk said Fauci funded gain-of-function research “via a pass-through organization (EcoHealth)” on Twitter Sunday. Musk’s fiery accusation came in response to a tweet that aggregated the multiple occurrences where Fauci denied any gain-of-function research and counter-signaled the idea that COVID-19 originated from a 2019 Wuhan lab leak. “Dr. Anthony Fauci funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, lied to Congress about it, and now both the FBI & the Department of Energy have concluded that the coronavirus originated at the Wuhan lab. Does that mean Dr. Anthony Fauci funded the development of COVID-19?” the video’s caption reads.

Hours earlier the Wall Street Journal released a bombshell report which revealed the U.S. Energy Department is now considering it likely COVID originated from a Wuhan, China lab leak. The Energy Department’s update came in a classified intelligence report shared with the WSJ. Previously, the Energy Department was undecided on COVID’s origin and numerous public health officials like Fauci disregarded a lab leak theory. On Feb. 13 House Republicans formally requested Fauci, the former Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden, and the president of EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Peter Daszak, come before Congress for an interview. Fauci and Daszak were cited by thousands of media outlets as truth-sayers when they claimed “the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus” and “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

Musk’s tweet referenced Daszak’s company. Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance is a U.S. National Institutes of Health grantee that “passed taxpayer funds to the Wuhan lab to conduct gain of function research on bat coronaviruses – research that may have started the pandemic,” the House Republicans’ request stated. Throughout the 117th Congress, Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) have “sent numerous letters to the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”

Read more …

“Well, it could have been us, and it could have been Ukraine, and it could have been some third-party country that wants to see trouble. The one group it wasn’t is Russia…”

Ukraine Has ‘Total Dominance’ Over US – Trump (RT)

Ukraine has asserted “total dominance” over the US, former President Donald Trump said Friday during an interview with Glenn Beck. The ex-president also suggested that Kiev might be the real culprit behind the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines last October. Commenting on the recent report by veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh, who suggested the pipelines were targeted by Washington in a clandestine operation ordered directly by President Joe Biden, Trump did not rule out US involvement but rubbished allegations that Moscow destroyed the installation itself.

“Well, it could have been us, and it could have been Ukraine, and it could have been some third-party country that wants to see trouble. The one group it wasn’t is Russia… This is a main source of massive income for them. They didn’t blow it up to make a point. That’s the one thing I can tell you for sure,” Trump stated, adding that “everything gets blamed on Russia” by the “sick” people. The US might have been “working in conjunction” with Ukraine to target the pipelines, the ex-president suggested, since Kiev has already asserted “total dominance” over Washington. “We’ve given them probably $150 billion, and Europe has given them almost nothing,” he added.

Earlier this week, Trump, who is seeking to get elected back into the White House in 2024, already vowed to end the Ukraine conflict within hours should he make it to the office again. “I would literally start calling, not from the day I took over, but from the night I won,” he told a campaign rally in Florida this week. The ex-president has also blamed the “warmongers and ‘America Last’ globalists” entrenched at the State Department, the Pentagon, and the “national security industrial complex” for pushing the hostilities forward. “I was the only president who rejected the catastrophic advice of many of Washington’s generals, bureaucrats and so-called diplomats who only knew how to get us into conflicts,” he said in a campaign video released Tuesday.

Read more …

Most of it Russia territory.

Wall Street Has Its Eyes Set On Ukraine (Charles Gasparino)

Wall Street really wants to invest in Ukraine, and some of the top players are doing more than sniffing around at the prospects. The world’s largest money-management firm BlackRock continues to hold high-level meetings with the government, including President Volodymyr Zelensky. JPMorgan recently had bankers on the ground scoping the situation as they dodged Russian missiles, I am told. The country is ripe for massive private US investment to rebuild infrastructure destroyed in its conflict with Vladimir Putin. Zelensky is a rock star in the American media; the country is valiantly fighting off a foreign invader. The people are educated and resilient, which means returns could be as good there as any place on the planet. Banker talk has a private investment fund at between $20 billion and $100 billion at some point in the future.

So what s stopping the private money from coming in now? A war that shows no signs of ending anytime soon. Plus, for all of Zelensky’s obvious talents as a leader, he still hasn’t demonstrated an understanding or possibly a willingness to fight corruption on the scale necessary to make investors comfortable, bankers tell me. The meetings between some of Wall Street’s top executives (think Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan and Larry Fink of BlackRock) and Ukraine officials over the past month didn’t garner the same attention as President Biden’s surprise visit last week. The discussions have been going down mostly in private and without much fanfare when they conclude.But they are revealing. The perilous nature of our continued engagement with this country doesn’t just involve a possible nuclear war with Russia but also an economic sinkhole if we’re not careful.

For starters, in these meetings, Zelensky seemed unabashed in his request for billions of dollars in private capital to begin rebuilding his economy immediately. Yet he doesn’t seem to fully grasp what will prevent such an investment. First, money won’t flow to Ukraine (or any country) if it seeds the pockets of a Russian-style oligarchy. In Ukraine, that brand of crony capitalism goes by the names “systema” or “oligarkhiya.” It’s an alliance of government and big business that undermines the free-market forces of competition. Payoffs and graft are part of the systema, and that’s always a dead end for significant private capital. Zelensky said he understood the economic stakes of ending corruption. But deeds go further than words, which is why one banker involved in the process told me: “There are no guarantees here.”

Then there’s the war, and Zelensky’s so-far unyielding determination to keep fighting in order to retake all territory occupied by Putin’s forces. It’s a noble effort, to be sure, but it comes at a steep price. Bankers say private investment money won’t really flow until the war is over. They would love Zelensky to compromise on land to make that happen; maybe give up on retaking Crimea or allow Putin to save face and keep a few parts of the Donbas region in the east, which are nominally controlled by Russian separatists anyway. There was some talk on Wall Street about a Ukrainian spring offensive and, if it’s successful in reclaiming some Russian-held territory, then Zelensky offering a possible deal with Putin so the reconstruction can begin. For now at least, that was described as a likely no-go by Ukrainian officials; Zelensky’s approval rating is at 90%, the bankers were told. It sinks to 40% with a land compromise.

Read more …

“It is difficult for them to believe that two-thirds of the world’s population is not siding with the West..”

Much Of Global South Isn’t Automatically Supporting The West In Ukraine (Mehta)

In October 2022, about eight months after the war in Ukraine started, the University of Cambridge in the UK harmonized surveys conducted in 137 countries about their attitudes towards the West and towards Russia and China. The findings in the study, while not free of a margin of error, are robust enough to take seriously. These are: For the 6.3 billion people who live outside of the West, 66 percent feel positively towards Russia and 70 percent feel positively towards China, and, Among the 66 percent who feel positively about Russia the breakdown is 75 percent in South Asia, 68 percent in Francophone Africa, and 62 percent in Southeast Asia. Public opinion of Russia remains positive in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

Sentiments of this nature have caused some ire, surprise, and even anger in the West. It is difficult for them to believe that two-thirds of the world’s population is not siding with the West. What are some of the reasons or causes for this? I believe there are five reasons as explained in this brief essay. 1. The Global South does not believe that the West understands or empathizes with their problems. India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar, summed it up succinctly in a recent interview: “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.” He is referring to the many challenges that developing countries face whether they relate to the aftermath of the pandemic, the high cost of debt service, the climate crisis that is ravaging their lives, the pain of poverty, food shortages, droughts, and high energy prices. The West has barely given lip service to the Global South on many of these problems. Yet the West is insisting that the Global South join it in sanctioning Russia.

The Covid pandemic is a perfect example—despite the Global South’s repeated pleas to share intellectual property on the vaccines, with the goal of saving lives, no Western nation was willing to do so. Africa remains to this day the most unvaccinated continent in the world. Africa had the capability to make the vaccines but without the intellectual property they could not do it. But help did come from Russia, China, and India. Algeria launched a vaccination program in January 2021 after it received its first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines. Egypt started vaccinations after it got China’s Sinopharm vaccine at about the same time. South Africa procured a million doses of AstraZeneca from the Serum Institute of India. In Argentina, Sputnik became the backbone of their vaccine program. All of this was happening while the West was using its financial resources to buy millions of doses in advance, and often destroying them when they became outdated. The message to the Global South was clear—your problems are your problems, they are not our problems.

Read more …

“If a cargo is 51% from Morocco, 49% from Russia, how would you referee that?”

North African Nations Voracious Buyers Of Russian Oil Products – WSJ (RT)

North African nations have sharply increased imports of Russian diesel and other refined oil products, while petrochemical exports from the region have seen a significant uptick, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing trading analysts. Industry experts are reportedly raising concerns that Russian sanctioned cargoes are being blended with other oil products and re-sold. The procedure effectively disguises the ultimate origin of the products, undermining Western states’ efforts to oust Russian fossil fuels from their economies. Imports of Russian diesel by Morocco soared to two million barrels in January compared with some 600,000 barrels recorded during the whole of 2021, according to analysts from commodities market data firm Kpler, who stress that a further 1.2 million barrels will be shipped to the country this month.

Tunisia boosted purchases of Russian diesel, gas oil, gasoline and naphtha, which is traditionally used to make chemicals and plastics, to 2.8 million barrels in January and is projected to import another 3.1 million barrels in February. Kpler also recorded an uptick in imports by Algeria, Egypt and Libya. The volumes absorbed by North African countries are too much for them to take on their own, according to Viktor Katona, Kpler senior oil analyst, who predicts that some of the Russian products will make their way to Europe. “Trust me, we are not witnessing some renaissance in Maghrebi refining,” Katona told the Wall Street Journal, referring to the region of North Africa

North African ports are seen as convenient for Russian cargoes sailing from the Baltic Sea, as voyages are not much longer than the pre-sanctions trips to European ports. This allows Russia to keep shipping costs low, and prevents its limited fleet of tankers from getting tied up in lengthy voyages to Asia or elsewhere. “Even if you wanted to regulate that, how would you?” Andreas Economou, head of oil research at The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, was quoted by the paper as saying. “If a cargo is 51% from Morocco, 49% from Russia, how would you referee that?” Some of North Africa’s increased diesel imports from Russia have displaced the region’s typical suppliers in the Middle East and North America, suggesting some of the activity was bargain hunting, Jorge Leon, senior vice president at Rystad Energy, told the newspaper.

Earlier this week, EU sanctions envoy David O’Sullivan told the Financial Times that the bloc and its allies had begun investigating a surge in exports to countries in Russia’s neighbourhood. They suspected sanctioned products were entering Russia via the back door. The EU has introduced 10 rounds of anti-Russia sanctions since the beginning of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. Kremlin has repeatedly said that the measures, supported by the US and its allies, are illegitimate and ineffective, and that the restrictions are causing cause more damage to the initiators. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the penalties “crazy and thoughtless,” saying that no country had previously changed its political course due to sanctions pressure.

Read more …

“If you look around in Europe, 98% of media is liberal, and the rest are the others..”

[..] in Hungary, the media is split roughly into two halves, between liberal and conservative outlets, but the West and the liberal media consider that to show a lack of press freedom.”

Hungarian FM Explains What Puzzles Him About EU (RT)

The EU’s declared support for media freedom clashes with its actions in a “confusing” way, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said, commenting on the blacklisting of Russian journalists in the latest round of sanctions. In an interview with RIA Novosti news agency published on Monday, the diplomat also said the Hungarian government is criticized by Brussels for allegedly not protecting the media. “The only reason for this criticism is that unlike in every other part of Europe, in Hungary the media is really colorful. If you look around in Europe, 98% of media is liberal, and the rest are the others,” he claimed, while acknowledging that his words may be “a small exaggeration.” The foreign minister noted that in Hungary, the media is split roughly into two halves, between liberal and conservative outlets, but the West and the liberal media consider that to show a lack of press freedom.


“So those who are judging us for media freedom, those are [the people] putting journalists on a sanctions list. For me it’s a bit confusing,” he concluded. The 10th package of anti-Russian sanctions was adopted by the EU last week. It blacklisted Russian media organizations and individuals, in what the bloc described as targeting “disinformation outlets.” Among other things, Brussels added RT Arabic to the list of channels banned from broadcasting in the EU. In the interview, Szijjarto also reiterated Hungary’s commitment to vetoing any attempts to sanction the Russian nuclear industry, and urged a thorough investigation into last year’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which he called a “terrorist attack” against EU energy infrastructure.

Read more …

We need a lot more of this.

Anti-NATO Protests Hit France (RT)

Multiple mass protests against France’s NATO membership and its continued support of Kiev were held on Sunday in the capital Paris and at other locations across the country. The demonstrations, taking place for the second consecutive weekend, were organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes party, led by Florian Philippot, who personally attended the rally in Paris. The politician claimed the event on Sunday, dubbed National March for Peace, attracted even more participants than last week, when some 10,000 showed up for a rally in the French capital. According to Philippot, smaller-scale anti-NATO protests were held at some 30 other locations across France as well.

Protesters marched through the streets of Paris, carrying a large banner reading “For Peace.” The marchers called for the withdrawal of France from both the US-led NATO and from the EU, and urged a halt to supplying Ukraine with weaponry. The protesters also took jabs at the incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron, chanting “Macron get out!” – a slogan commonly used by assorted anti-government protesters throughout his presidency. Following the march, the protesters held a rally led by Philippot, who was filmed defacing NATO and EU flags alongside his supporters. Footage of the event was shared by the politician himself on social media.

The politician has been actively staging protests against French membership in NATO and the EU since last fall, while arguing against the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Between 2012 and 2017, Philippot was the deputy head of the biggest opposition party in France, the National Rally, led until last year by Marine Le Pen. After leaving the National Rally, the 41-year-old politician established his own right-wing party, Les Patriotes. France has been among the top supporters of Kiev in the ongoing conflict with Russia, which broke out a year ago. While Macron has repeatedly called for a diplomatic settlement of the hostilities, Paris has actively supplied assorted weaponry to Ukraine, including armored vehicles and advanced self-propelled howitzers.

Read more …

Thousands won’t change a thing. Try millions.

Thousands Rally For Peace In Italy (RT)

Several thousand people turned up for peace demonstrations in the Italian cities of Genoa and Milan on Saturday. Union members and left-wing activists claimed, among other things, that authorities in Rome have breached national law by sending weapons to Ukraine. The rally in Genoa drew nearly 4,000 participants from across the country as well as from Switzerland and France, local media reported. Organized by the Collective Autonomous Port Workers (CALP) group with the support of the Italian communist party, the protest took place under the slogan “Lower weapons, raise wages.” CALP’s Riccardo Rudino was cited in the media as saying that the “conflict in Ukraine did not begin last year” but rather “in 2014, with the massacre of the Russian-speaking population in Donbass.

The demonstrators filed through the port of Genoa, demanding an end to the use of the facility for arms shipments destined for Ukraine. CALP spokesperson Jose Nivoi accused the Italian government of violating law 185 of 1990, which “imposed a ban on the import, export and transit of weapons from Italy to states at war.” The group’s representatives also described how they had been networking with like-minded “associations and activists in various European cities.” The procession went off without serious incidents, marred only by a few acts of vandalism at the hands of anarchists, who smeared and damaged several vehicles and broke windows in a bank.

A protest was also held on Saturday in Milan. Ruptly video news agency filmed several hundred people chanting slogans and waving flags, including those of Russia and the Donetsk People’s Republic. The demonstrations in Italy coincided with one in the German capital, Berlin. There, tens of thousands of people heeded the call of prominent Left Party politician Sahra Wagenknecht and author Alice Schwarzer. Named the ‘Uprising for Peace,’ the protest called for peace talks to end hostilities in Ukraine. The participants also urged the German government to stop shipping weapons to Kiev. Addressing her supporters, Wagenknecht criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government for allegedly trying to “ruin Russia,” and described Saturday’s protest as the start of a new peace movement in Germany.

Read more …

Not the UN but the west.

UN To Discuss Investigation Into War Crimes In Ukraine (Az.)

Days after the United Nations General Assembly in New York voted overwhelmingly to demand Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine, Moscow’s war is expected to dominate the opening of the top UN rights body’s main annual session in Geneva. “We’re looking for this session to show, as the UN General Assembly showed… that the world stands side-by-side with Ukraine,” British ambassador Simon Manley said at an event Friday marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The meeting, which is due to last a record six weeks, will be the first presided over by new UN rights chief Volker Turk, who kicks the session off early Monday.


UN chief Antonio Guterres will also address the council on the first day, while nearly 150 ministers and heads of state and government will speak, virtually or in person, during the four-day high-level segment. Moscow will send Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov to address the council in person on Thursday. Despite calls from NGOs, observers said it was unlikely there would be a walkout like the one many diplomats took part in when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s video played in the council last year.

Read more …

“We’re investigating the Biden crime-family operations. They’ve moved a lot of very suspicious money,” Higgins said. “‘Selling’ Hunter Biden art is just a method they’ve employed.”

GOP Lawmakers Vow To Unmask Hunter Biden’s Anonymous Art Buyers (NYP)

Republican members of the House Oversight Committee have vowed to reveal the identities of the mysterious buyers of Hunter Biden’s art one day after the first son missed a deadline to provide the panel records about his overseas business interests. Biden’s failure to meet the committee’s Wednesday 11:59 p.m. deadline to produce financial documents and other records dating back to January 2009 mirrors his art dealer’s refusal to provide the panel with the names of his clients. In response to a January request by the committee, William Pittard, a lawyer for Biden’s art dealer Georges Berges, wrote a letter to Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) earlier this month raising “concerns” about complying with the committee’s demands to see records about clients who have purchased Biden’s work.

In the Feb. 6 letter, seen by The Post, Pittard argues that complying with the Committee’s request to release the names of the art buyers “would defeat the efforts of Mr. Biden and the White House to avoid the ‘serious ethics concerns’ that you raise.” “If the White House was not aware of those buyers, it would seem impossible for the administration to grant the buyers any favors based on the purchases,” Pittard notes. GOP Oversight Committee members say Berges’ refusal to comply is only adding “fuel to the fire” of the probe. “Hunter Biden’s artwork isn’t worthy of hanging on the walls of a foreclosed motel, so why would anyone buy it?” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) told Fox News Digital. “The answer is simple, to curry favor with the corrupt son of the president.”

“We need to know who purchased Hunter’s so-called ‘art’, and Georges Berges refusing to provide that information to Congress only adds fuel to the fire for our investigation,” she added. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) echoed McClain, telling the outlet that all “Hunter’s attorney is doing is delaying the inevitable.” “We will receive this evidence, one way or another,” Boebert said. [..] Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), another member of the Oversight Committee, told Fox News Digital that the scope of the panel’s investigation goes beyond Hunter Biden, and that nobody “cares specifically about Hunter.” “We’re investigating the Biden crime-family operations. They’ve moved a lot of very suspicious money,” Higgins said. “‘Selling’ Hunter Biden art is just a method they’ve employed.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Assange

 

 


In 2009, Nidhal Selmi combined the Sierpinski triangle with the Penrose triangle to create the M.C. Escher-like Selmi triangle

 

 


Clouded leopards live in forests at elevations of up to 3,000 meters and spend much of their lives in trees. Their strong tails help them to balance while perched on tree branches

 

 


Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, also known as Golden Rock, is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in Mon State, Burma, famous for its balancing rock which seems to defy gravity, as it perpetually appears to be on the verge of rolling down the hill

 

 


The roots of this tree in Hong Kong, photohraphed by Clément Bucco-Lechat in 2010, have grown over the paving stones and seem to follow the patterns that the pavers were laid in

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle February 27 2023

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 88 total)
  • Author
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  • #130014

    Édouard Manet Woman with a jug 1858-60   • White House Distances Itself From Covid ‘Lab-Leak’ Theory • Covid Lab Leak Is A Scandal Of Media And G
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 27 2023]

    #130015
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Practically every problem we are engulfed in is due to the fact that Oceania is governed (managed) by totalitarian fascists who are put into position by the international money-lenders and are beholden to them or are afraid of them.

    1932: “There are people’s whose names are never spoken above a whisper….”

    2023: There are people who have managed to distance themselves from their numerous wide-ranging crimes and have convinced large swathes of the populations of NATOstan nations that black is white, that night is day and that war is peace (as well as convincing them that sickness is health and slavery is freedom).

    When a society is founded on fraud and deceit it is bound to collapse.

    We are in the midst of such a collapse. It is bound to accelerate.

    What little is left of the natural world remaining semi-intact is dependent on a fast crash occurring.

    Nobody wants a fast crash. ‘Everyone’ wants ‘Ponzi schemes forever’.

    All Ponzi schemes collapse.

    The next storm systems to pummel the northern sectors of Airstrip Five are forming over the superheated waters to the northwest.

    It’s going to get gruesome very soon.

    Nobody is fully prepared.

    I am prepared more than most.

    Pity the children born in the collapsing concentration camps, where food will be rationed via the orice mechaism. nd then by unavailability.

    The woman next door is pregnant.

    In the past such a state was cause for celebration.

    Soon it will be a misfortune.

    #130016
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Pity the children born in the collapsing concentration camps, where food will be rationed via the price mechanism. And then by unavailability.

    #130017
    Germ
    Participant

    TVASF

    #130018
    tboc
    Participant

    “The American way of life is not negotiable.” George H.W. Bush
    How much clarification is needed to place this thought into current context?

    #130019
    aspnaz
    Participant

    “It is difficult for them to believe that two-thirds of the world’s population is not siding with the West..”

    What proportion of the people in the west supports them? The governments do, but the people don’t, this is western democracy after all, there is no correlation between what the people want and what happens.

    #130020
    aspnaz
    Participant

    North African nations have sharply increased imports of Russian diesel and other refined oil products, while petrochemical exports from the region have seen a significant uptick, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing trading analysts.

    War is profitable.

    #130021
    Germ
    Participant

    Big rise in Emergency Blood Transfusions from April 2021 onwards.

    Apr 2017-2018 = 11,859
    Apr 2018-2019 = 12,073
    Apr 2019-2020 = 12,583
    Arp 2020-2021 = 12,655
    Apr 2021-2022 = 14,819

    2017-18

    2018-19

    2019-20

    2020-21

    2021-22

    TVASF

    #130022
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Despite calls from NGOs, observers said it was unlikely there would be a walkout like the one many diplomats took part in when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s video played in the council last year.

    A walkout that showed the world that the UN is run by a bunch of children and will never fix anything. The Russians only go to offer to negotiate while the children demand Russian surrender and a white flag. The failure of their last “Greta spaz” has convinced the older children not to do it again.

    #130023
    tboc
    Participant

    phoenix for your daughter:
    the job of boys at your age is to ask to ask for carnal knowlege
    the job of young ladies is to say “No!”

    point out that her friend is seen as the one in the cat bird seat and all of the others know they have no chance. Your daughter holds the gem in her hand and the value will only increase as she matures into the woman she will be. You cannot harass someone who is above reproach. Tell her there is someone she has never met who loves her and knows her value as a human being because she is my sister.

    #130024
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    “Golden Rock … seems to defy gravity …”

    Not sure I’d spend much time on the downside of that.

    “Moscow’s war is expected to dominate the opening of the top UN rights body’s main annual session in Geneva. […] The meeting, which is due to last a record six weeks …”

    Not much surprises me anymore, with one possible exception: that the people in these global alphabet organizations (UN, WHO, WEF, NATO, et al) actually believe what they have to say is important to anyone but their own little bubble. Talk about living in a state of denial.

    Great line up today, RIM. Thank you!

    #130025
    Red
    Participant

    AFKTT it certainly looks as though collapse is accelerating, the exponential thingy. So too is the rhetoric rallying against such an outlandish concept. You’re right to worry for the young as well as the yet to be birthed. It will overwhelm a person if allowed. It breaks my heart as well, when I look at todays youth and expectant mothers not understanding the shit storm that is swirling around them. It’s unfolding at some crazy speed around us and there has been no attempt to educate about it. On the contrary it has been obfuscated out of the sight of the masses. Having spent most of my working life in the construction trades I have a bit of knowledge in how to for a number of practical experience applications. As such I’ve got my two of my three grandsons, one is too young yet, excited about building a long bow from scratch without using electricity. I’ve suggested the bow to get them excited for the idea, building a table or chairs from scratch without electricity, or even with, doesn’t get the same attention. If this exercise with a splitting wedge, hammer, ash log, draw knife and coping saw, (one should learn how to cope, pun intended), goes well, I’m thinking of moving on to a Trebuchet that would launch a 25-30kg object 500+/- meters. I’m even going to plant a small area of flax to make the bow string out of. No idea if this will work or not? I don’t see any worth in the effort required trying to explain the complex problem of the global financial ponzi scheme that is going to crash at some unknown point. I figure the reality of that will work its own magic as it unravels. The practicality of learning how to follow a simple set of plans and build with hand tools is more likely to carry them further.

    #130026
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    What proportion of the people in the west supports them? The governments do, but the people don’t, this is western democracy after all, there is no correlation between what the people want and what happens.

    Quite obviously, the people in the west *DO NOT* have the interest, nor the ability, to analyze the *BONA FIDE* datasets necessary to arrive at *REALISTIC* insights and/or draw conclusions about what the actual H3LL their western governments are have planned, executed, nor have any clue to what *interests* are actually being represented and/or in *CONTROL*.

    If Americans, for instance, actually comprehended a small fraction of the last 50 years of data available, the freakish demoRAT/GOPher monstrosity would have been extinct 20+ years ago…

    There are innumerous reasons the people in the west (specifically the *electorate*) have failed to leverage & absorb almost any *DATA* easily available, but in the end there’s only one solution that solves their quantitative & qualitative *FAILURE*:

    Spiritual Awakening.

    Without an underlying connection/access to Wisdom from the Loving, Healing, Creative Power of the Infinite, especially among a remnant thereof within *LEADERSHIP*, the result is always the same:

    Collective EG0ic Madness aka Mass Formation Psychosis

    What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

    EOT

    #130027
    Positive Dennis
    Participant

    Why do you keep posting photos that a simple google search would show it is fake? No Zelensky was not at a 1999 gay pride parade in New York.

    #130028
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Jimmy Dore, like short and sweet.

    So very, very much has gone on, with hundreds of players, hundreds of events, I’m jealous of being able to limit the response to just the focus and the short time he has available. But, he does speak for a living, and has for 30 years.

    “White House Distances Itself From Covid ‘Lab-Leak’ Theory “

    Who keeps leaking the leaking? White Hats are in there, popping up their heads. They know they can’t break through torture conditioning, so they erode it away over time. That’s why all conspiracy theories turn out to be true, and why it takes on average 6 weeks, although big ones like these take longer.

    So since it’s a lab leak can we arrest Fauci and Daszak from NIAID yet? It’s okay: they can present their case in court, a courtesy they wouldn’t provide me.

    “multiple occurrences where Fauci denied any gain-of-function research..”

    The exchange with him and Rand Paul is illuminating. Fauci says, “although I paid labs worldwide, in dangerous places, with substandard facilities, to have diseases intentionally be developed to increase in danger, severity, and transmissibility, and do not pay to find equal cures at the same time, that’s not gain of function research, although that is the exact legal definition of gain of function I myself use and you just read to me.”

    It’s not murder when I do it! Equally, your honor, you could argue that according to Einstein and Newton, his body equally attacked my knife! Who’s the real victim here, sir? Well I say! If you can’t believe The Science, who can you believe?

    That I understand. Why people actually believe it is what I don’t understand.

    “Kiev might be the real culprit behind the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines”

    Since it was a Deep State that considers Ukraine their ancestral homeland and new base of operations, that’s not as far from the truth as it sounds.

    Wall Street really wants to invest in Ukraine, …The world’s largest money-management firm BlackRock”

    They are the financial arm of the same operation. Ultimately, way back, they were funded by the Nazi gold escaping the country in 1944. Wasn’t it more effective to use corporations to do the same thing?

    Zelensky seemed unabashed in his request for billions of dollars in private capital”

    “unabashed”? This guy has been non-stop haranguing and insulting the American people for not giving MORE than $150B in 12 months. While he knows they just killed 10M in Ohio (eventually). The self-absorbed tone-deafness of these people is astounding. You can still do the same thing: “I understand the many challenges and the big ask, but the existence of my country and democracy, expansive attacks, yada.” Pete says, “Yes, I didn’t go to Ohio because I was working just so hard on fixing it, and I can do that better in my office…blah blah.” Just lie. But they don’t have SHAME, they can’t distinguish right from wrong even in theory, so they no longer realize they even SHOULD lie.

    This is what distinguishes them as epic, irredeemable villains.

    ““I was the only president who rejected the catastrophic advice of many of Washington’s generals, bureaucrats and so-called diplomats who only knew how to get us into conflicts,”

    But this means nothing to anyone because: Orange Man Bad. Killing ethnic people good. Villains stop wars; heroes start them. That’s just common sense.

    “• Much of Global South Isn’t Automatically Supporting the West”

    Have they ever, or were they always just paid off and murdered?

    “1. The Global South does not believe that the West understands or empathizes with their problems.”

    What an astonishing belief! Where would they ever get such an idea?

    Africa remains to this day the most unvaccinated continent in the world.”

    And the safest. Apparently they like Black people because by refusing their IP and vaccines, they saved tens of millions. (Africa is a big place, 1B ppl)

    North African nations America have sharply increased imports of Russian diesel and other refined oil products,”

    Fixed it. There’s nothing Joe like better than paying Putin big money for Russian oil. That’ll larn him.

    “Brussels added RT Arabic to the list of channels banned from broadcasting in the EU.”

    Blacklisting those Brownies. And Slavs. And any other ethnic minority we can think of! After telling the Black African reporters in the press conference to know their place and get to the back of the bus! Hey, who’s The Garden around here and who’s The Jungle?

    Applause all around! That’s telling The Help who’s boss! There’s no love and caring quite like white European oppressing all other races love and caring, now excuse me, I have to go look for all those White Supremacists I’ve been hearing about somewhere…

    Should we just mail every media person in Europe a mirror? Should we add a fourth slogan to Orwell:

    Sameness = Diversity.

    “were organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes party”

    Does anyone know if they’re really right-wing, or only to the Right of Mao? Because “Right-wing” now means, “anyone I don’t agree with, but especially the anti-war to the far left of Bernie.” Plus moms at school board meetings. Definitely them.

    Anyway: The Right for Peace, the Left for War. Where have you gone wrong? This is your civil rights legacy? “Bomb all brown people worldwide”? “Genocide all Slavs”? Catchy! Vote DNC today!

    “tens of thousands of people heeded the call of prominent Left Party politician Sahra Wagenknecht and author Alice Schwarzer. Named the ‘Uprising for Peace,’”

    There you go. That wasn’t so hard, was it? You’re supposed to support the Workers AGAINST the Corporations, not the other way around! (Head slap)

    UN to Discuss Investigation into War Crimes in Ukraine (Az.) “

    They’re holding a meeting about having a meeting. For 6 weeks. While people die. Sounds about right. So did they import some sex slaves and pay to fabricate chemical evidence to promote an invasion? Or is that only after the second meeting?

    • GOP Lawmakers Vow to Unmask Hunter Biden’s Anonymous Art Buyers (NYP) “

    They already have the evidence and they already know the buyers. So what is this puppet show for?

    “it perpetually appears to be on the verge of rolling down the hill”

    And one day it will, so that will be interesting…

    When a society is founded on fraud and deceit it is bound to collapse.”

    Yes but when? There’s a phrase about being rational and solvent. The predictions are off by a whole generation. A generation has died unable to capitalize on the investments they made predicting the collapse. That’s where “A miss is as good as a mile.”

    “All Ponzi schemes collapse.”

    Yes, but they can go on a long time. And as Buffet said, even if you’re in a chain letter, that doesn’t mean you don’t get paid if you’re in early enough. You do. Luongo had a further observation: you can ‘fix’ or roll-up all the little pyramid schemes into one big pyramid scheme if you’re the biggest. That’s the Federal reserve can eat all the smaller frauds, like Europe or FTX for quite a long time and be the last man standing before the end. We’re not even at that point yet. Inexplicably.

    The children are always good. Never think otherwise. “And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!”

    18Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. 19And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 20But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: 21For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. 23Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. 24For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” Matt 24

    The seal is “Pestilence”, and the Death Rides on the horse of Green. If mothers, newborns, and children are having a hard time, help them!

    #130029
    riesterm
    Participant

    I’m trying to square this sudden interest in “lab leak” with the excellent work that Sasha Latypova has done lately about DOD involvement:

    https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/reviewing-the-dod-contracts-for-covid

    #130030
    Red
    Participant

    I’m beginning to believe Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge is using AI, on Sunday afternoon alone from ZH:
    “Climate Change Cult At It Again”: Apple Users Frustrated With ‘Green Charging’
    Tyler Durden’s Photo
    BY TYLER DURDEN
    SUNDAY, FEB 26, 2023 – 09:30 PM

    “We’re Dying Slowly”: East Palestine Residents Report Bizarre Health Issues After Toxic Train Derailment
    Tyler Durden’s Photo
    BY TYLER DURDEN
    SUNDAY, FEB 26, 2023 – 07:30 PM

    Power-Grid Attacks Up 71% And Biden Acolytes Tell Us It’s All Those White Supremacists
    Tyler Durden’s Photo
    BY TYLER DURDEN
    SUNDAY, FEB 26, 2023 – 01:00 PM

    So after doing a search of his name the following showed up:
    https://muckrack.com/daniel-ivandjiiski/articles
    Scrolling back over the last 24 hours it would seem his name is attached to literally dozens of articles? How can this be anything other than signing off on stuff. I’m sure someone here can straighten me out on this?

    #130031
    tboc
    Participant

    aspnaz – “What proportion of the people in the west supports them? The governments do, but the people don’t, this is western democracy after all, there is no correlation between what the people want and what happens.”

    “there is no correlation between what the people want and what happens.” bovine pasture enrichment, the candidate of the status quo has been supported and elected in the west without reserve. Let anyone gain a public platform and suggest even a “belt tightening” and see how the people in the west respond. “Do what has to be done, just don’t tell me and we can continue the nobility charade together”. I am amazed there are not more shoulder injuries from people patting themselves on the back. Tell the people of the west, “we must bankrupt ourselves,(increase our military budget), to preserve the current order” and see how the people of the west respond. Have a nation drain their strategic petroleum reserve to gain a fleeting political advantage and find the voices objecting on any grounds not political in nature. Murder children for profit, find the outrage. ‘We Think the Price Is Worth It’.

    People can believe anything they want to and for the most part that is exactly what is done. People believe what they want, what is desired, is real. Perhaps Dr. John will remind us of the Eight Fold Path.

    #130032
    Oroboros
    Participant

    In an Empire of Lies®, someone eventually has to drag the Truth ashore.

    The DOD, a subclade of the Military Industrial Mafia, ran the whole Covid scam.

    Just another racket by hoodlums in uniforms.

    Are there actually any White Hats left in the rotting sewer of the DOD?

    Probably not, the Empire of Lies® military matrix seems to be the very last place even an iota of courage exists.

    Maybe the White Dresses will deliver the goods

    However, the Truth will be undoubtedly dead on arrival and of little value.

    .

    #130033
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    “The American way of life is not negotiable.” George H.W. Bush

    And yet, yesterday while helping my son with his US history assignment he was required to define consumerism. It was noted in the packet that it was the idea of purchasing things for the pleasure and enjoyment of possessing them, and that it expanded from the wealthy to the middle classes in the 1920s. Advertising took off in the same decade.

    Is consumerism the way of life that was seen as non-negotiable?

    #130034

    There’s a pretty interesting sales pitch (?) for AI on Rense‘s top of the site video. About 15 minutes. You’ll get introduced to Sam Altman- the future new darling of the Really Important Assholes League.

    #130035

    I want to pet those paws on that clouded leopard!

    The future is face-to-face. Anything else might (worse than will) be fake.
    Trust in the machine. Uh hunh. I’ve got a smoke detector for sale…

    #130036
    zerosum
    Participant

    Does it matter to you?
    Accept and adapt,
    Time to read TAE

    Who really started the Ukraine war?
    Who started the covid 19 pandemic?

    What about truth, lies, opioids, pain free life/health, immigrants, poverty, dedollarizing, inflation, politics, demonstrationns, sanctions, freedom, liberty, wages, earthquakes, weather, Russian fossil fuels, rule of law/justice,
    TAE COMMENTS/OPINIONS,

    “Ivermectin got made into a horse tranquilizer.
    Hydroxychloroquine got made ridiculous, and
    there was only one thing that could work, and that’s the vaccine, and ultimately,
    because of that, billions of dollars were made.”

    • Covid Lab Leak Is A Scandal Of Media And Government Censorship (Turley)

    • Elon Musk Accuses Fauci Of Funding Gain-Of-Function Research (TP)

    • Much Of Global South Isn’t Automatically Supporting The West In Ukraine (Mehta)

    • Thousands Rally For Peace In Italy (RT)

    • GOP Lawmakers Vow To Unmask Hunter Biden’s Anonymous Art Buyers (NYP)

    ———————-

    #130037
    Just Some Randomer
    Participant

    @Red #130030

    “Scrolling back over the last 24 hours it would seem his name is attached to literally dozens of articles? How can this be anything other than signing off on stuff. I’m sure someone here can straighten me out on this?”

    ‘Tyler Durden’ is a nom de plume used by the ZH writing staff. It isn’t an individual.

    #130038
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    @ afktt Unlike electric jugs, there are no supplies of second-hand smartphones. Not true — at least not here. My last 4 smartphones were second-hand; I get them from eBay or Amazon.

    To all who responded to my comment yesterday – thank you. 🙂

    Unbeknownst to me until years later, my daughter was befriended by the lgbtqi crowd when she switched schools in 2nd grade. She identifies as “queer” or “lesbian.” I am glad that is the only result, a good female friend of hers from a solid family identifies as male, and I have seen strain in their family relationships subsequently. So far, my daughter has eschewed any sort of romantic entanglements.

    @ tboc— she essentially does this already. When she is chatting in person with her male friend and male peers make annoying comments she tells me that she flips them off, yells, “F*** you!” and/or, “I’m a lesbian!” She finds that the third often causes the perps to have very puzzled expressions, which she enjoys.

    @ oroboros — The Woketards are experts at public shaming, maybe hire them as consultants<em/> Like that one. I note that your comment essentially is to use non-authoritarian means to stop the verbal harassment. I like that.

    And yet I recognize that, in life, sometimes authoritarian means are all that is available — and, that authoritarian means often cut both ways. I was verbally/emotionally abused by my ex for more than a decade. Once I had decided that the relationship was non-salvageable, I wanted him out, but could think of no way to budge him. I could pack the kids in the car and find an apartment, but then what about the hens? The piano? The business paraphernalia? The garden? If I left, there was a good chance that I would never be able to return, and it really made no sense that 4 people should leave and get crammed into a tiny apartment for the bad deeds of one. Then I figured out how “orders of protection” work, realized that his misdeeds had crossed into that territory, especially with regards to the children, and utilized that authoritarian means, including the police, to get him out of the house. Considering how the victims of abuse are often isolated from other supports, authoritarian means are often all that is left to turn to. Of course, the family court is also an authoritarian means, and he turned it on me, upending my life for 18 months a few years ago; I’m still dealing with the financial repercussions.

    My daughter and her friend resolved the problem structurally. At her urging, he disabled the ability of others to post to his Snapchat story anonymously. Apparently, he liked the feature because the activity also caused attention to his own posts.

    Of course, none of this addresses the question about censorship: at what point is free speech censored? At what point are victims protected from bullying? Speech disassociated with the speaker is often more inflammatory — accountability often results in responsibility. And yet, enforced accountability also results in a lessening of freedom.

    We traditionally endeavor to protect children from severely adverse events — and rightly so, their minds are still forming, and deeply disturbing adverse events may cause long-lasting deleterious repercussions. (Who decides what a “deeply disturbing adverse event” is for a child?). My daughter did not want to go to school authorities in this case — apparently schools can obtain access to information about Snapchat accounts of minors who attend the school — she did so in 7th grade when she was sexually harassed by a popular male peer. The entire grade soon knew that she had tattled on the popular boy to the school administration, but did not know about his inappropriate behavior, and she suffered social repercussions for the rest of 7th grade and all of 8th. (Going through proper authorities often “cuts both ways.”)

    #130039

    #130040
    zerosum
    Participant

    Circle of truth

    covid-19 …. China …. Covid Lab Leak …. Funding Gain-Of-Function Research …. Fauci …. USA

    #130041
    Red
    Participant

    @just-some-randomer
    Thank you makes more sense for me now.

    #130042
    boilingfrog
    Participant

    Apropos of nothing, I suppose, but it seems FedEx pilots are looking for a bump in pay and pension, using inflation as a partial explanation.

    It’ll be interesting to see how the white house handles THIS transportation issue if a strike actually does threaten. (From a very recent union message):

    “The central issue is the Company’s belief that FedEx pilot pay rates do not need to be competitive within the airline industry. In fact, the Company negotiators insist that we should look no further than the pay rate at UPS, ignoring the obvious flaw of comparing the UPS single pay rate to our narrow body pay. The other flaws in the Company narrative are too many to list, but we can share a few of our unambiguous responses:

    The pension improvement was long overdue and should not be at the expense of our pay.

    Through extensive surveys, pilots have been consistent with three priorities. Pay is only second to retirement on that list.

    We have experienced record-setting inflation during the past two years that impacts pay rate expectations.

    Our pay rates have trailed the airline industry and the UPS rate dating back to 2016.

    The current Company proposal exceeds the UPS rate only intermittently (3 months out of every 12) until July 2026, at which point our widebody pay rate would pass the UPS rate.

    The week concluded with each party providing a term sheet proposal. In general, the week was frustrating due to the Company’s refusal to make a defining move despite our repeated cautions that the latest Company proposal would not be ratified by our pilots under any condition, let alone approved by the MEC.”

    #130043
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    West Point Paper

    “The US-led Rules-Based Order (RBO) is changing in an increasingly multipolar world. Nevertheless, US officials continually restate that the RBO must be defended.”

    https://urbankaoboy.substack.com/p/west-point-paper-part-14

    F.S.

    #130044
    zerosum
    Participant

    A different point of view – Russian loses


    Day 369: Ukraïnian Map

    #130045
    zerosum
    Participant

    Its not all gains

    Ukraine. Military Summary And Analysis 2023.02.27

    #130046
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ RED

    Flax seems to need an area which gets very little water I think. The flax I planted first time last year drowned from rain. This year flax will be planted in the greenhouse so water may be controlled.

    #130047
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The big news about the Woody Harrelson anti-vax joke on Saturday Night Live isn’t about the specific contents of his anti-vax message (even though that was, indeed, just wonderful).

    The big news is that the Bad Guys’ powers of censorship have now decreased so drastically that even though SNL is a stronghold of Wokedom, the bastards COULD NOT STOP HERRELSON’S JOKE FROM BEING BROADCAST.

    I other words, they are very significantly and very rapidly losing their ability to to stop the truth from being spoken to their heretofore captured LARGE and previously insulated target audience. As that sort of thing happens the share of power will continue to shift at ever-increasing rates for both sides. Exponential shrinkage versus exponential growth. Censorship weakening as truth revelation strengthens is a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

    Kaboom.

    #130048
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I can only imagine the kind of threat it took to get those Sinaloan , MS-13, tatooed crime-gang maniacs to propitiate as submissively as they did. What I saw was 100% compliance to totally humiliating commands. I’ve seen slaves and POW’s and even armed robbery victims staring into the barrels of guns show more reluctance to do as they were told.

    My guess is that the cops shot as many as they arrested, just to convince the living that anything other than instantaneous total compliance would have instantaneously fatal consequences, with zero hesitation and no exceptions.

    #130049
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Some food for thought about the Woody Harrelson moment, from Mathew Crawford:

    While Woody Harrelson did not say “Pharmafia”, he said “drug cartels”, by which we know that he means Big Pharma. We’re on the same page. And…he was…allowed to say it.

    Allowed…why, exactly?

    You’ve just been given an ounce of social approbation. Is this the thin gruel that keeps you alive?

    Most people in the Medical Freedom Movement—the millions who woke up due to harsh mandates and other authoritarian government actions—are happy to simply sit behind their screens and pump their fists. These are the same throngs following Chaos Agents through social media and Substack. These are mostly the intuitives who are not well enough educated to track down all the important information on their own, but know that the mainstream media and governments were lying to them. They are at risk of falling into the trap of the mass formation of the movement—and at risk of finding themselves steered by a false prophet.

    Why would powerful corporate interests want to keep you alive as you study their crimes and threaten to do something about them?

    I have multiple hypotheses that are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and I’m not sure the list is exhaustive in a realistic sense. I may add suggestions from the peanut gallery this time.

    Part of the corporate power base (possibly military, too) was always against Plandemonium, but could not stop it. Instead, they waited to build momentum on the other side.

    Perhaps like FTX/Alameida, the Pharmafia’s plan was one of several attempts at global domination (the “vax tax”) that failed, and this is a necessary step toward recall.

    This is part of an elaborate trap, much like Mao’s Hundred Flowers campaign that saw his opponents out themselves—compiled into an easy list, complete with street addresses so that his communist troops could rip them from their homes one-by-one and imprison, enslave, or murder those who could not be otherwise turned.

    Woody Harrelson may be the perfect man to deliver the message such that we cannot easily discern the meaning. He is not a man from a powerful family. He is the son of a heinous hitman who worked his own way up from poverty and obscurity in a career with notable downturns. You won’t find him in Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book. He is a man that I quite frankly want to root for, given what I know about him.

    And yet the fact remains: he was allowed to say what he said.

    Unless there is a James O’Keefe moment yet to come where Woody Harrelson finds himself on the outside?

    https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/woody-harrelson-said-the-quiet-part

    #130050
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    I offer a short history for those too young to know or living in very different places.

    When the looting-by-force agents of The City of London money-lender empire realised there was a prospect of the French establishing colonies on the distant Dutch-discovered land masses of the southwest Pacific Ocean they quickly got into action to plant their flag on the landmasses and claim them -Captain Cook’s secret instructions after recording the transit of Venus from Tahiti, 1767-1769. (At the time the Dutch were more interested in looting the Spice Islands and forcing China and Japan to trade with them than attempting to take over the seemingly empty and useless lands to the south.) Hence Cook Strait and so many Cook streets.

    Throughout the nineteenth century the prime business plan involved removing every resource that could be removed and destroying the natural land cover so that sheep stations -to supply the woolen mills of Yorkshire- could be established. Obviously the indigenous population had to be conned, defeated and crushed, which was largely completed by 1870. So many sheep farms and so much wool to be exported meant shiploads of poor people had to be transported to the land masses and dumped on the beaches to largely fend for themselves whilst being indoctrinated in the ways of empire, including much flag-waving and support for ‘Mother England’s invasions of other parts of the world.

    Almost everything except food, timber and wool had to be imported. In the early days not only were window frames imported but on occasion entire houses were imported from the senior colony to the west, the semi-autonomous governing body governing the ‘shaky isles’ (which departed from the ‘big island’ around 140 million years ago).

    From the beginning right through to the mid-80s the game was to increase the industrial output of the shaky isles, after which the switch was flipped by the fake Labour government and the game was to reduce the industrial output of the ‘shaky isles’ and return it to being a source of raw materials, whilst establishing an international holiday camp for the ultra-wealthy. Hence the huge push for the Americas Cup and the incessant promotion of tourism by the managers of Airstrip Five, despite international tourism being one of the most futile and destructive activities engaged in by homo colossus.

    Hence, all the factories turning wood into furniture were closed down. All the factories turning wool into clothing were closed down. All the factories converting animal skins into shoes and jackets were shut down. The railway repair facilities were shut down. The steel works were shut down. Vehicle assembly plants were closed. The aluminium fabricators were largely shut down (other than those making house fittings, housing being an important component of Ponzi economics). Most of the plastics moulders were shut down…

    Manufacturers of cardboard boxes remained because cardboard boxes were (are) needed to export fruit and vegetables and Airstrip Five is proficient at pulping trees. However, many timber processing plants were closed down, resulting in full longs being exported and coming back as lenghts of timber.

    The little oil extracted from under the land and sea (commencing around 1880) is exported because it is ‘too good’ to be used domestically. And the oil refinery has been closed down anyway.

    What is left is a toxic shitfest of suburbia in the main centres (being made worse by the day by the managers), a populace largely composed of pleasant, mind-controlled, of dumbarses, the worst trade deficits ever and circling the drain in an ever-faster swirl.

    These shaky isles were ‘blessed’ and could have continued to have one of the highest qualities of life in the world, but for the activities of the money-lender-installed saboteurs in charge over many decades.

    Many people are keen to get here because it’s a lot worse elsewhere in the world in the race to the bottom.

    It still perplexes me, this self-annihilation meme which runs through Oceania and other NATOstan countries.

    #130051
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Everybody is missing the point on public AI like chatGPT or it’s sinister cousin over at Bing.

    The Cabal doesn’t give the slightest shit about whether the “chat-buddies” are trusted, or liked, or even vehemently condemned as EVIL. The fucking POINT is that the AI is ACCEPTED AS REAL

    Once folks start thinking about a talking AI as though it was actually a “somebody of some sort”, it is game over for people.

    If a digital entity on the internet Cloud is an AI simulation of Grandma or any other dearly departed real person (like a beloved spouse, sibling or child) then it’s only a matter of time until that electronic entity will being protected from being ignored or erased or abused in any way that a real human would object to being treated. Hell, a medium decent simulated human can already “argue its case” for being a true consciousness. A few more years of data collected from people “talking” to (and even arguing with) chatbots will make it impossible to distinguish the difference without tangible “Habeous Corpus” evidence.

    So does dear dead Granny in the Cloud lose the right to vote? How about getting paid for the “work” she and other bots are doing? Or the right to a fair trial?

    If someone’s “consciousness” is uploaded to a computer could you then prove that it wasn’t?

    Apparently the sky is no longer the limit on the amount of horseshit the foolish can be made to believe and accept.

    #130052
    John Day
    Participant

    Meryl Nass MD is putting together a food-(in)security symposium this coming Saturday 3/4/23, and I’ll be doing the vegetable gardening. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/a-teaser-notice-i-am-producing-a
    To that end, I have put together 3 posts, the hard copy and references for my 15 minute talk.

    Deciding Where To Grow Vegetabes https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/deciding-where-to-grow-vegetables

    Preparing Your Kitchen Garden https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/preparing-your-kitchen-garden

    Growing Food https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/growing-food

    #130053
    John Day
    Participant

    Garden demonstration

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