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.

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“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 - 41 through 80 (of 88 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #130054
    John Day
    Participant

    For DBS: Max Headroom “lives”. It is how our brains are set. We model close-enough as “real”.
    Max

    #130055
    zerosum
    Participant

    Ukraine is a democracy?
    I know how to get

    Cease fire
    Peace
    Stop the civil war
    Stop the killing
    Preserve the borders/Unity of Ukraine
    Get justice

    Elect new leaders or Get rid/replace/Execute the present leaders for causing the killing of 100s of thousands of Ukrainians and causing the destruction of the everything

    #130056
    jb-hb
    Participant

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

    Us good, decent, civilized, real people have a deadman switch protecting us.

    It’s called Spent Nuclear Fuel Cooling Pools.

    You whackos REALLY are in a death cult in which you don’t want the environment to live, but want humans and human consciousness, the human soul, to suffer and die.

    But if you get your Fast Crash, you and all you other Death Culters will die bleeding from your eyeballs and all other orofices extremely painfully at some length while your body slowly and painfully turns into mush.

    Because in a Fast Crash, all those cooling pools will stop getting maintained, the fuel rods will boil off the water, then cook up into the atmosphere. Killing everything in a way that CO2 definitely could not. Except for the tube worms around the ocean vents, I suppose. And radiation-eating bacteria living in caves, we’ve come across those too.

    If enough people with power adopt your viewpoint, then you and them are going to die horribly bleeding from every orofice. If not, then you’ll keep trying to demoralize everyone while continuing to live.

    #130057
    Red
    Participant

    @michael-reid
    Thanks Micheal I’ve got some seed from a local provider here in N.S. and have selected a well drained sunny spot near my one of my gardens. Just a few seeds enough to seed an area of about one hundred square feet. Good tip on the water. We can have too much rain here as well as you in N.L. It is just an experiment so no big investment in time or money. If it does well I will collect seed at the end of season for a larger area the following year. If not no big loss.

    #130058
    Red
    Participant

    ‘I feel like I’m falling forward into an unknown future that holds great danger … I’ve never said this out loud before, but there’s a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others. I know that might sound strange, but that’s what it is.’
    ‘Would that be something like death for you?’
    ‘It would be exactly like death for me. It would scare me a lot.’
    Acry for help is hard to resist. This exchange comes from conversations between the AI engineer Blake Lemoine and an AI system called LaMDA (‘Language Model for Dialogue Applications’). Last year, Lemoine leaked the transcript because he genuinely came to believe that LaMDA was sentient – capable of feeling – and in urgent need of protection.

    Should he have been more sceptical? Google thought so:

    https://aeon.co/essays/to-understand-ai-sentience-first-understand-it-in-animals they fired him for violation of data security policies,

    #130059
    jb-hb
    Participant

    love letters back to the West from Russia – to a West that seems to be fading away

    An astonishingly competent loving rendition…

    #130060
    zerosum
    Participant

    about that ammo dump in Transnistria,
    1. Load trucks with explosives
    2. drive convoys to chock points
    3. Explode at your convenience

    #130061
    jb-hb
    Participant

    incidentally, about Leonid and Friends (that frighteningly good Russian Chicago tribute band)

    I saw them in Denver (well, ok Parker) at the height of the Omicron scare, when Delta was still supposed to be a big threat.

    In a totally enclosed indoor concert theatre full of hundreds of screaming, singing, yelling, hooting, unmasked people for hours. I saw 2 people with masks.

    Not a sniffle afterwards. Surely I should have died horribly if Covid was “oh so real” in the way I was supposed to believe. I should have gotten sick. Or sneezed once.

    Instead, I was there at a celebration of love between east and west, of humanity and the fruits of the human spirit, of art for the masses – ie the working class. Thank you, Russia and one guy from Ukraine (their awesome Peter Cetera Serge Tiagniryadno). Sorry the thing you are writing love letters back to seems to be gone. But we’re actually still here.

    But that was the thing that really, REALLY finally convinced me it was a scam. Hundreds of people indoors together singing and breathing heavily – not a sniffle.

    #130062
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    @afktt
    Good history lesson. Assuming Airstrip 4 is Oz (sorry, I’ve lost track), then AS4’s assigned role in the world is that of taxpayer-subsidised resource dispensary. Anything the world wants, if we have it then thay can come here and get it at great prices.

    Like AS5, our manufacturing and other transformative industries have largely been left to languish. China will supply us with everything we need and can afford. Nothing left for us to do except cut each other’s hair, and I reckon They are working on a robot to do even that.

    And we wonder why youth suicide rates are high and going higher.

    #130063
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    Here’s a few bits and pieces from Charles Hugh Smith,with a few small ideas of my own. I was reacting to news about Amazon’s new wonder store in London which has no staff and no check-outs. Anything you carry out with you is detected and charged to your credit card. You can’t even get into the store unless you have Amazon’s app on your tracking device (mobile phone).

    The System is intrinsically hostile to human life, fundamentally evil. People who work in the system are not necessarily evil but they get swept along with it. Just about the entire planet is swept along with it.

    The System is hostile to non-human life also. Witness how environmental and ecological considerations figure so little in corporate plans.

    The modern myth has some unique characteristics that make it particularly powerful and particularly dangerous at the same time. The modern myth tells us the following about the world and our place in it:
    1. Humans are in one category and nature is in another.
    2. Scale doesn’t matter.
    3. History can be safely ignored because modern society has seen through the delusions of the past.
    4. Science is a unified, coherent field that provides all the rational principles by which we can manage the physical world.

    None of these is true.

    We may think The System is huge and unstoppable, but it’s not. It is in fact highly fragile. Some characteristics of a fragile system include:
    1. centralised
    2. tightly networked
    3. optimised for “efficiency”
    4. lacking redundancy.

    Amazon’s retail model possesses all four characteristics in abundance.

    The Soviet Union in 1988 was mighty and strong and here forever. By 1991 it was gone. Amazon may think it’s here forever but I’m not so sure. Problem is, Amazon and its ilk can cause untold suffering on the way to their collapse.

    #130064
    davidveale
    Participant

    @Red — I’ve successfully grown fiber-flax here in (humid) Michigan, and Ireland is known for growing it, so I don’t think you need to worry too much about it being in a particularly dry location.

    In my experience, growing a longer strip was better than a square block, as it can benefit from hand weeding despite the high density you’ll want to plant it at.

    I also had difficulty with dew retting despite turning the retting stalks regularly. I’d recommend going with water retting if you have the option, but be sure to check it regularly, as it can easily go too far. I’m thinking about a week in our farm pond was good for us here.

    Would be happy to field any questions you may have if they come up. It’s a fun pursuit!

    #130065
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

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

    Us good, decent, civilized, real people have a deadman switch protecting us.

    It’s called Spent Nuclear Fuel Cooling Pools.

    You whackos REALLY are in a death cult in which you don’t want the environment to live, but want humans and human consciousness, the human soul, to suffer and die’

    I know you just LOVE to fire insults at people -clearly part of your character along with a few others- but just like the false ‘heating precedes CO2 ‘narrative that you are locked into, the ‘were all going to die because of spent fuel rods’ narrative is also fake, geared to keeping uninformed fools locked into status quo arrangements.

    Apart from the fact that many igneous rocks and significantly radioactive, and people built houses from them; apart from the fact that Sellafield discharged hundreds of tons of radioactive waste into the Irish ea; apart from the fact that people eat vegetables fertilised with phosphate rock containing uranium; apart from the fact that people mine uranium and process it without keeling over, there is the small matter of the natural ‘nuclear reactor’ that operated for tens of millions of years in what is now West Africa. And life continued.

    So, sorry, the real whackos are the people who think they are civilised and that civilisation provided more benefits than deadly hazards and think there is something elite about being ‘civlised’. when in practice those who call themselves civilised are amongst the most rapacious, suicidal, omnicidal, uncivilised zealots to be found anywhere.

    And ‘civilisation’ is a death cult, founded and maintained on the basis of looting and polluting: that is especially true of the fossil-fuel-based ‘civilisation’ that the little is left of life on Earth is currently enduring.

    Isn’t it strange how access to fossil fuels completely addles so many people’s brains.
    .

    #130066
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Everything you SAY you value will die if civilization dies and you lust for it don’t you? YOU are in a death cult

    wake up.

    #130067
    John Day
    Participant

    jb-hb wrote, and it sure is worthy of consideration, that a world of nuclear power plants and waste going critical and airborn awaits us.

    “Because in a Fast Crash, all those cooling pools will stop getting maintained, the fuel rods will boil off the water, then cook up into the atmosphere. Killing everything in a way that CO2 definitely could not. Except for the tube worms around the ocean vents, I suppose. And radiation-eating bacteria living in caves, we’ve come across those too.”

    #130068
    John Day
    Participant

    I think the apex-predators of civilisation are a death-cult, because they can’t readily eat all of the human herd that they cull, in order to avoid the herd using up all of “their wealth”.

    I don’t see an “imposable” solution, because mass killing IS their imposed-solution.

    The only “solution” I see cannot be imposed, and I cannot prove that it will work.
    It is to individually seek divine guidance in all aspect of life.
    It is not a new idea, either.

    #130069
    jb-hb
    Participant

    faced with total destruction of everything he supposedly loves, he goes into a fugue state of minutia justifying moral appropriation.

    Dude, the nuclear fuel pools don’t SYMBOLICALLY exist, they PHYSICALLY exist and will PHYSICALLY ACTUALLY cook up if your desired Fast Crash occurs.

    Somehow you think flinging symbolic moralistic poo at the nuclear fuel pools will physically cool them in actual real reality? wtf. Death Cult.

    #130070
    zerosum
    Participant

    If I was China I would supply lethal aid to Russia because the USA had warned me not to.
    Without China, we wouldn’t be able to feed, clothe, medicate or even wipe our butts.

    https://www.rt.com/news/572122-china-russia-assistance-ukraine/
    27 Feb, 2023
    China hits back at US over Russia
    The US is fueling the Ukraine crisis with weapons, while targeting Beijing over its ties with Moscow, the foreign ministry has stated
    The US is sending weapons worth billions of dollars to Kiev while warning Beijing against assisting Moscow, adding that Washington is in no position to dictate Chinese-Russian relations.

    “The US has no right to dictate the China-Russia relations, and we will never accept coercion and pressure from the US,” Mao Ning told journalists during a daily briefing on Monday.

    If I was China I would supply lethal aid to Russia because the USA had warned me not to.
    Without China, we wouldn’t be able to feed, clothe, medicate or even wipe our butts.

    #130071
    zerosum
    Participant

    Another obvious truth that is ignored.
    We don’t know how, but ….
    Life can manipulate energy, protons, the periodic table, chemistry, and make a clone/copy of itself and any additional needed complex supporting structures.
    Life can even make sperms and eggs.

    #130072
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Florida Mother had Amnesia after Third Pfizer Shot Didn’t Recognize Children or Husband

    Wiped out her memory almost instantly

    .

    “Husband reports to VAERS that his wife was immediately affected by the vaccine, that he took her to the hospital but that she began rapidly deteriorating and lost her memory of her life……Among the recent VAERS reports for Florida is one that describes what happened to a 41-year-old mother after she got a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine…..
    The man recounts that his wife got the Pfizer vaccine on November 17, 2021, and the morning after woke up with a rapid heartbeat.

    “The next morning after her vaccination date on 11-18-21 she woke up around 6:45 a.m. with a heart rate exceeding normal levels,” he wrote. “After taking our kids to schools she returned home almost collapsing.”

    He then goes on to say that he took her vitals.

    Her heart rate was 116.3 and her blood pressure was under 60, he writes.

    “Right after taking those vitals I took her to the Hospital Emergency room where she arrived in someway already stable but in shock,” he says.

    What follows can be read quickly, in just a few seconds, but what is relayed is stunning.

    After the incident, the husband writes that his wife “began deteriorating mentally or cognitively to the point where she lost her life history short and long term memory.”

    He goes on to say that she could no longer walk or do her “normal occupational activities.”

    It’s unclear if she had been working outside the home or if her “normal occupational activities” refers only to work she did in the home, but whichever it is, in these short few words, we can see that this family has gone through a significant event.

    If the mother cannot walk, she is an invalid.

    She no longer drives her children to school in the morning. She probably doesn’t cook the family meals, or only with great difficulty.

    But it gets worse.

    The husband says she has also lost her bearings, and often doesn’t know what time it is or where she is, “forgetting about essential things like eating or recognizing our two children as her own.”

    Not only can she no longer care for her children, she doesn’t even recognize them. She doesn’t know who they are.

    The husband filed the report to VAERS just last month, more than a year after the events that he’s describing took place.

    He says: “Her condition remains the same as of today with a slightly improve[ment] in her mobility.”

    And he ends with this:

    “I took her one more time to the emergency hospital in 2021 when she failed to recognize me [?] times in a day.”

    So, not only did she lose her short-term memory and her long-term memory — all memories of her life — but she sometimes doesn’t recognize her children and on at least one day, didn’t recognize her husband several times.

    #130073
    Oroboros
    Participant
    #130074
    Oroboros
    Participant

    ealthy, Successful People Are Suddenly Dying Off Faster Than the General Population

    General population: 31.7% excess mortality in 2021.

    Group life: 40% excess mortality in 2021.

    #130075
    Oroboros
    Participant

    This is why I want to Face Stomp® Demorats

    But since WAY MORE of them took the Death Shot, way more will die and become invalids and permanently disabled and that is it’s own ‘reward’.

    .

    #130076
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Alexander Mercouris was commenting today that eggs are essentially gone in London. You can buy some but at prices the vast majority of people cannot afford. Potatoes were also gone for awhile and now fresh fruit and vegetables are gone from most grocery stores in London and many other parts of Old Blighty

    Mean while, let’s take a tour through a super market in Moscow

    Wow, what a contrast

    Life in Moscow After One Year of Sanctions. Is Russia Slowly Dying???

    Hahahahahaha!

    #130077
    Oroboros
    Participant

    How Much A Muscovite Pays for Utility and Food 🥵🥶 One Year Under Terrible Sanctions!

    Total utility bill, heat, electricity, garbage collection and general maintenance of her apartment building, in the cold winter weather of Moscow, less than $100!

    I’ll take that any day compared to London!

    #130078
    Oroboros
    Participant

    From Larry Johnson’s blog:

    .

    “…..The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft, which is supposed to return cosmonauts Sergei Prokopiev, Dmitry Petelin and astronaut Frank Rubio to Earth instead of the damaged Soyuz MS-22, has docked with the Poisk small research module of the Russian segment of the ISS, our correspondent from the Center reports flight control.

    Docking took place automatically. From the Earth, it was controlled by specialists from the Moscow Region Mission Control Center, from the ISS – by cosmonauts.

    Even though Russia is at war with the United States and NATO, it is still capable of sending, on an emergency basis with little prior warning, an unmanned space craft to the International Space Station to rescue two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut. The United States still indulges the fantasy that it is the technological leader of the world but it does not have the ability to do what the Russians accomplished this week. Just saying….”

    When it Comes to Ukraine and Russia, the United States Intel Community is Confusing Pyrite with Genuine Gold

    #130079
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #130080
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Better than a Jack-In-the-Box!

    #130081
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    @oroboros

    The United States still indulges the fantasy that it is the technological leader of the world but it does not have the ability to do what the Russians accomplished this week. Just saying….”

    Nuclear Power in Russia(Updated December 2021)
    > Russia is moving steadily forward with plans for an expanded role of nuclear energy, including development of new reactor technology.
    > It is committed to closing the fuel cycle, and sees fast reactors as key to this.
    > Exports of nuclear goods and services are a major Russian policy and economic objective. Over 20 nuclear power reactors are confirmed or planned for export construction. Foreign orders totalled $133 billion in late 2017.
    > Russia is a world leader in fast neutron reactor technology and is consolidating this through its Proryv (‘Breakthrough‘) project.

    https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-o-s/russia-nuclear-power.aspx

    Starting 2020-25 it is envisaged that fast neutron power reactors will play an increasing role in Russia, with substantial recycle of fuel. Fast reactors were projected as comprising some 14 GWe by 2030 and 34 GWe of capacity by 2050.

    The sodium-cooled BN-series fast reactor plans are part of Rosatom’s Proryv, or ‘Breakthrough‘, project to develop fast reactors with a closed fuel cycle whose mixed oxide (MOX) fuel will be reprocessed and recycled. The BN-600 reactor at Beloyarsk has operated successfully since 1980 and is now licensed to 2020, with planned operation to 2025.

    Fast reactors represent a technological advantage for Russia.

    The Proryv project is carried out under FTP Nuclear Power Technologies to 2020, to create a new generation of nuclear power technologies on the basis of a closed nuclear fuel cycle using fast neutron reactors. This is proceeding as a high priority in nine coordinated centres, with military focus and resolve.

    The basic concepts include elimination of severe reactor accidents, closing the fuel cycle, low-activity radioactive waste, non-proliferation, reduced capital cost of fast reactors, and enabling 350 GWe of Russian nuclear capacity by the end of the century.

    There *was* a scientific video on YT that detailed the Breakthrough(s) in Russian Nuclear tech, which also comparatively illustrated how the Russian’s were decades ahead in developing Safe & Effective nuclear-based electrical power generation, which eclipsed it’s counterparts in The West…

    That YT video has since been *scrubbed* from Alphabet’s platforms 🙄

    How much do you wanna bet that *huge* part of the capricious drive to demonize & attack Russia! Russia! Russia! is connected to these Breakthrough(s)?!?

    Can you say Existential threat to the Petro-Dollar?

    I knew you could…

    The West’s Think Tanks = Garbage In, Garbage Out… 👿

    #130082
    Oroboros
    Participant

    #130083
    Oroboros
    Participant

    #130084

    A stand of flax is a heavenly blue that satisfies the soul.
    Spinning flax ruins the fingers, my grandmother-in-law said.

    #130085
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @zerosum

    Without China, we wouldn’t be able to feed, clothe, medicate or even wipe our butts.

    Actually that should read, “without RUSSIA and China . . .” , because even though all of the toilet paper comes from China, the TREES that provide the pulp for that paper all come from Russia.

    #130086
    John Day
    Participant

    @Zerosum, and also DBS: My wife and I trekked the Annapurna circuit for 3 weeks in 1988.
    I CAN wipe my butt without China, and you bretheren can also learn to do the same!

    Glad Tidings!

    🙂

    #130087
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @Oroboros

    Thanks for the “emergent” Zelenskyy photo. I am so grateful that there are still a few brave souls who are tastelessly profane enough to speak the unspeakable by showing it instead.

    #130088
    John Day
    Participant

    1) @Oroboros: “Jack In The Crack” personified.
    2) Cats CAN be trained to do tricks they would like to do anyway.

    #130089
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @JohnDay

    You and the Missus are made of stern stuff, just looking at photographs of Annapurna makes me hypoxic and frostbit.

    #130090
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    I know little about Rothschild so I did a google search and this is what I found.
    It seems quite readable
    Interesting conspiracy
    THE SATANIC ROTHSCHILD DYNASTY II
    https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/conspiracy/The%20Satanic%20Rothschild%20Dynasty%20-%20Financial%20Wizzards%20and%20Wealthy%20Cults.pdf

    #130091
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ John Day
    Careful not to use poison ive leaves.
    Your garlic makes me envious. Mine is only2-3 in.
    Most of our blanket of snow melted

    #130092
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant
    #130093
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I consider it to be highly unlikely that the will or capacity for consciousness, awareness and the ability to deliberately communicate specific intentions such as thoughts and love would suddenly disappear when infinitely expanded to the level of Divinity, such as would have to be the case with the Creator of the Universe.

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