Mar 272023
 


René Magritte The seducer 1953

 

Us ‘Shoots Itself In Foot’ By Limiting Use Of Dollar – Putin (TASS)
Russian Economy Will Remain Balanced – Medvedev (RT)
China Could Be ‘Safe Haven’ Amid Banking Turmoil – Citi (RT)
China and Russia Top List Of States With Largest Trade Surplus (RT)
What You Must Know About Russia & China, But Were Afraid To Ask (Lukyanov)
Seizing Russian Assets Is ‘Challenging’ – EU Task Force Head (RT)
Russia To Make Three Times More Ammo Than West Promised Kiev – Putin (RT)
The United States Is 13 Years Behind In Ammunition Production – NYT (Y!)
Berlin Weans Itself Off Russian Gas To Become US LNG Addict – German MP (RT)
UN Security Council To Vote On Nord Stream Sabotage Draft Resolution (TASS)
US Becoming A ‘Banana Republic’ – Trump (RT)
The Donald Trump Problem (Chris Hedges)
Global South Solidarity Is The Key To Lifting Up Central America (Blankenship)
Italians Refuse to ‘Eat Ze Bugs’ (DS)
Agatha Christie Novels Reworked To Remove Potentially Offensive Language (G.)
Eminent Oxford Scientist Says Wind Power “Fails on Every Count” (DS)

 

 

 

 

Putin 23 years
https://twitter.com/i/status/1639900503592120320

 

 

 

 

Putin Mariupol

 

 

Mayor

 

 

 

 

Tucker Thorp

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

Yellen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1639895094471057408

 

 

 

 

“We would use the dollar, but they do not let us..”

Us ‘Shoots Itself In Foot’ By Limiting Use Of Dollar – Putin (TASS)

The United States does damage to itself by limiting the use of the dollar for situational reasons, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on the Rossiya-24 news channel on Saturday. “They saw off the branch they’re sitting on – I’ve been reiterating that – by limiting the use of the dollar based on momentary, situational considerations of political nature. They are harming themselves, and we might even add, they shoot themselves in the foot,” Putin said in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin. According to Putin, the United States’ claims that Russia is encroaching on the dollar are not true. “We would use the dollar, but they do not let us,” he explained. “How can we make payments? In a currency that is acceptable to our partners. The yuan is one of these currencies, especially since it is used by the International Monetary Fund.”


The Russian president emphasized that after the Russian gold and foreign currency reserves were frozen, all the countries in the world have wondered how reliable their US partners are. “And they have come to the conclusion that they are not reliable,” he noted. Putin underlined that Russia’s partners were happy to agree on payments in the yuan. “Do you know that the Middle Eastern oil-producing countries have announced they want to use the yuan for settlements? We will be gradually expanding this and will be expanding [the use] of the reliable currencies,” he said. Putin stated that now the dollar has certain advantages, compared to limitations on other currencies. “However, each country is determined to strengthen its national currency, and all the countries will strive to do so. Therefore, no doubt, it is a big mistake on the part of the US authorities that they restrict settlements in dollars around the world for the countries they do not like for some reason,” the Russian president concluded.

Putin dollar

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“..the EU is increasing its dependence on Beijing much faster than Moscow is..”

Russian Economy Will Remain Balanced – Medvedev (RT)

Russia’s economy will not be reduced to the defense industry alone, despite the ongoing conflict with Ukraine and Western sanctions, former President Dmitry Medvedev told journalists on Sunday. Imbalances in the economy will not be allowed to develop, he said, adding that the country is unlikely to suffer the fate of the Soviet Union. “There is currently no threat of economic militarization in a way, in which it existed [in the USSR] in the 1970s and 1980s,” Medvedev said. The former president argued that the Soviet Union had given too much priority to the defense industry. To avoid such an imbalance, “priorities just need to be set correctly and major macroeconomic indicators monitored,” he added.

Russia does actually need to boost its defense industry, he admitted, adding that it is necessary to “lay the groundwork for the future” even after the Ukraine conflict ends. However, taking such steps will not affect other economic sectors, he believes. The USSR lacked a market system and also the strong consumer goods sector that modern Russia has, Medvedev said, adding that had the West imposed sanctions against the USSR at that time, “we would have had a hard time.” Now, Russia’s “market does not feel any colossal downturns even despite the sanctions,” the former president said. He particularly lauded Russia’s agriculture sector, saying that not only does it allow Russia to meet its own food supply needs but also enables it to “feed others.”

Russia has also managed to keep national inflation rate lower than in many European nations, Medvedev said. “They instigated this campaign, started to fight us and now some nations have an inflation rate of between 15% and 20%,” he said, noting that inflation in Russia is on track to come in at 6% in March and subsequently drop to 4%. Earlier on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin also highlighted that the EU is increasing its dependence on Beijing much faster than Moscow is. RIA Novosti reported in March that Russia and China also topped the list of nations with the biggest trade surpluses last year.

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One year into increasing sactions, Russia is balanced, China is a safe haven.

China Could Be ‘Safe Haven’ Amid Banking Turmoil – Citi (RT)

The unfolding banking crisis in the US and Europe, which has shattered investor confidence in the Western financial system, could highlight China as a “relative safe haven,” economists at Citi said in a note seen by CNBC. The Chinese economy could see accelerated expansion this year, giving the country a “hedge” for growth while economies in the US and Europe face heightened risk of financial disruption, according to the note. “We have long been discussing our view that China can be a major growth hedge this year – if anything, recent global banking stresses perhaps have strengthened this thesis,” a team led by Citi’s Chief China economist Xiangrong Yu reportedly stated.

“China could at least be a relative ‘safe haven’ given its growth premium, financial soundness, policy discipline and the new political economy cycle,” the economists argued. They pointed to the recent decision by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) to cut its reserve requirement ratio (RRR), saying the move showed “reassurance of policy support amid global volatilities.” The regulator reduced the ratio for almost all banks by 25 basis points last week, with the move widely viewed as an attempt of ensuring liquidity in the banking system. “Perhaps taking lessons from what the US has been going through in recent years, the PBoC has been prudent in easing even during the pandemic era and may quickly switch to a wait-and-see mode once growth is back on track,” the analysts wrote.

They also noted the Chinese government’s restructuring earlier this month as part of the effort to ease financial risks. According to CNBC, Citi also expects to see the onshore yuan strengthening against the US dollar as soon as September, which would bring the renminbi to its strongest levels since April last year. “With the unintended and undesirable from aggressive interest rate hikes surfacing abroad, capital inflows into China could resume after they reopen trade if the recovery thesis plays out and political rerating is steadily ongoing,” Citi concluded.

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“Both countries broke their own records in 2022, with China’s trade surplus surging 30% to an all-time high of $877.6 billion..”

China and Russia Top List Of States With Largest Trade Surplus (RT)

China and Russia became the world leaders in trade surplus last year, according to calculations by RIA Novosti based on data from the national statistical services of both countries. A trade surplus is an indicator of a positive balance of trade, where a country’s exports exceed its imports. Traditionally, by showing that local currency and resource inflow exceeds outflow, a surplus serves as an indicator of a healthy economy. Both countries broke their own records in 2022, with China’s trade surplus surging 30% to an all-time high of $877.6 billion. The country exported approximately $3.59 trillion worth of goods, a growth in export value of about 7% compared to the previous year. Imports, meanwhile, grew by only 1.1%, to roughly $2.72 trillion.

Russia increased its surplus 1.7 times over the year to a record $333.4 billion, claiming the second place among major economies. The country’s total exports reached $591.4 billion, up 19.9% from 2021. The surge was driven by the rise in energy sales, which made up the bulk of Russia’s foreign exports and reached $383.73 billion, a 42.8% year-on-year increase. Imports, however, slid 11.7% against the previous year to $259.1 billion. Analysts attribute the drop in imports to Western sanctions on Russia, combined with Moscow’s efforts toward self-sufficiency and import substitution measures. Saudi Arabia, which posted its highest trade surplus since 2012 at $221.3 billion, ranked third, followed by Norway, Australia and Qatar.

Germany saw its figure drop 2.4 times to $85.34 billion, slipping to the seventh spot from the second place a year earlier. Canada, meanwhile, became the absolute leader in terms of growth, with its number jumping 4.8 times throughout the year, to $17.45 billion. According to the data, the only country that was able to move from a deficit to a surplus in trade at the end of last year was Nigeria. Overall, 26 major economies recorded a surplus in 2022, compared to 32 economies a year earlier. The study was conducted by RIA Novosti on the basis of data from the national statistical services of the globe’s 60 largest economies, which had disclosed trade results for January-December 2022 as of mid-March.

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“..when it comes to preparedness for adverse changes and shocks (let’s call it state endurance), Moscow is probably in the lead, but Beijing’s room for maneuver in global politics is now much greater.”

What You Must Know About Russia & China, But Were Afraid To Ask (Lukyanov)

So much has been said about Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia last week, that the descriptive genre has been exhausted. What is needed instead is either details on specific aspects or some sort of in-depth socio-cultural analysis. That will no doubt be done by specialists in those areas, so we will confine ourselves here to brief answers to the most frequently asked questions. Are Russia and China allies? Both countries have limited experience of alliances and are not really inclined towards this form of relationship. Such a declaration implies a commitment and, more importantly, a limitation of one’s own interests and capabilities in favor of the other state. If it is reciprocal, it is fine – and can be mutually beneficial – but the dominant attitude in both Chinese and Russian political logic is freedom of action and maximum sovereignty. As a result, both Moscow and Beijing shy away from describing their relationship as an alliance, preferring more fluid phrases. This has happened again. It should be noted, however, that the expressions used by Xi come perhaps as close to the idea of an alliance (as is possible in Chinese culture) without using the term.

Is the relationship equal? The question of equality is largely arbitrary – it is not clear how to measure it. There is no formal hierarchy in relations between Russia and China, and in principle there cannot be such a system. It is difficult to compare the weight. China is, of course, much more powerful economically, and now also in many technological respects. However, Russia is a major military and political power in its own right. Indeed, when it comes to preparedness for adverse changes and shocks (let’s call it state endurance), Moscow is probably in the lead, but Beijing’s room for maneuver in global politics is now much greater.

The question could be posed differently: who needs it more, and who should therefore do more to strengthen ties? At first glance, Russia would seem to need it the most – no matter how well you do, an acute conflict with a group of the world’s most successful and influential states significantly limits your options. Thus, they need to be compensated by other partners which are no less important and therefore able to impose conditions. The most powerful of them all is China. This is true, but there is another side to it. Beijing has finally realized that the time of peaceful and comfortable development is over. It is China that the United States sees as its main adversary for decades to come, and the pressure on it will only increase. Beijing has no more solid and reliable partner than Moscow; there is simply no other candidate. And the importance of such a relationship will continue to grow. Traditional Chinese pragmatism works in our favor.

Putin axis
https://twitter.com/i/status/1639999920391311362

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“..the EU’s “freeze and seize task force..”

Seizing Russian Assets Is ‘Challenging’ – EU Task Force Head (RT)

The EU working group that deals with the issue of confiscating frozen Russian assets will have to be “innovative” in approaching the task, Swedish diplomat and head of the EU’s “freeze and seize task force,” Anders Ahnlid, told AFP on Friday. According to Ahnlid, “it is a challenge to find legal means that are acceptable” to expropriate the assets in order to use them for the reconstruction of Ukraine, which is the task force’s plan. He noted that precedents for such actions are rare, one of the few being the seizure of Iraqi assets by the US at the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime. “Hopefully, we can achieve results during Sweden’s EU presidency [which ends in June]… But these are complicated matters. There will be short-term and long-term aspects of what we’re doing,” the diplomat warned, adding that his working group will have “to be a bit innovative in order to move forward.”

He noted that the task force is still trying to determine “which assets are we talking about and where are they.” There are two types of assets – state property that belongs to the Russian government and private assets. The former mostly refers to nearly $300 billion in Russia’s foreign currency reserves, which have been frozen by the West. According to Ahnlid, they are easier to seize legally. The latter, however, are much harder to identify and can be seized only in a few cases, for instance when they can be proven to be the proceeds of a crime. The diplomat says the task force may decide not to confiscate these assets permanently, but only seize income or interest on the capital. sAhnlid is not the first to point out the difficulties surrounding the plan to confiscate Russian assets. The Swiss government, for instance, has been opposed to the move, saying last month that it would violate international agreements and Switzerland’s constitution.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has also been openly skeptical, warning that apart from legal obstacles, such a step could be considered a precedent jeopardizing faith in the Western financial system and the dollar. According to her, countries could become reluctant to keep money in US banks, fearing that their funds could be seized as well. Many analysts also point out that the move could put European and American assets at risk, as they could also be in danger of being confiscated in case of an international dispute. Moscow, meanwhile, has repeatedly called the freezing of its assets “theft,” and warned of countermeasures should Western states attempt to take Russian-owned funds and redirect them to Ukraine.

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And you can’t easily ramp that up..

Russia To Make Three Times More Ammo Than West Promised Kiev – Putin (RT)

Russia is set to drastically increase its munitions production, President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that Western arms shipments to Kiev will only delay the inevitable outcome of the Ukraine conflict. In an interview with Russia 1 TV aired on Saturday, Putin was asked to comment on Western plans to support Ukraine with a million additional artillery shells. While describing the amount as “very considerable,” the president stated that according to Moscow’s data, the US is currently producing 14,000-15,000 artillery shells a month, while the Ukrainian military uses up to 5,000 shells each day. “Next year… [the US plans] to produce as much as 42,000, and 75,000 in 2025.”

However, Putin said that Moscow’s forces have been using far more munitions than Ukraine, and that the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff “even had to introduce certain limitations.” “Russia’s output level and its military-industrial complex are developing at a very fast pace, which was unexpected by many,” he said. While multiple Western countries will provide Ukraine with munitions, “the Russian production sector on its own will produce three times more ammunition for the same period of time,” according to the president. Putin also noted that the Western “instigators” of the conflict plan to send more than 400 tanks to Ukraine.

“The situation here is the same as with the ammunition. During that period, we will produce and modernize over 1,600 [tanks],” he said, adding that the total number will exceed Ukraine’s by more than three times. Putin stated that the arms shipments to Ukraine are of concern to Russia only because they constitute “an attempt to prolong the conflict” and will “only lead to a bigger tragedy and nothing more.” The president’s comments come after former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Security Council, stated this week that Moscow has rapidly boosted military production despite the Western sanctions and claims that Russia is running out of weapons.

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Hmmmm, make more or use less?! Their choice is obvious.

The United States Is 13 Years Behind In Ammunition Production – NYT (Y!)

The United States’ commitment to support Ukraine against the Russian invasion appears to have rattled the stability of the domestic stockpile of missiles and munitions. The Biden administration has promised — as part of $33 billion sent in military aid for the besieged country so far — a US Patriot air-defense system will be sent to Ukraine, along with over 200,000 rounds of artillery, rockets, and tank rounds. In fulfilling those promises, The New York Times reported the US has sent Ukraine so many stockpiled Stinger missiles that it would take 13 years of production at recent capacity levels to replace them. The Times added that Raytheon, the company that helps make Javeline missile systems, said it would take five years at last year’s production rates to replace the number of missiles sent to Ukraine in the last ten months.

Currently, the US produces just over 14,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition every month — and Ukrainian forces have previously fired that many rounds in the span of 48 hours, The Washington Post reported last month. US officials in January proposed a production increase up to 90,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition each month to keep up with demand. “Ammunition availability might be the single most important factor that determines the course of the war in 2023,” US defense experts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee wrote in December for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, adding that Ukraine will depend on international stockpiles and production for access to the ammunition it needs.

The United States has rarely seen production shortages in ammunition and missiles to the degree the country currently faces. While there was a brief precision missile shortage in 2016 following fights in Libya and Iraq, The Times reported, the US has largely been engaged in short-term, high-intensity fights such as the Persian Gulf War, or prolonged, lower-intensity missions like the war in Afghanistan, which allowed for the stockpile to be rebuilt as needed. Now, as tensions rise among global superpowers, production and munition limitations in the US — caused by supply chain shortages, as well as Cold War-era reductions in capacity, The Times reported — have become of grave concern among defense professionals.

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At a much higher cost. Economy driven by ideology. Deadly.

Berlin Weans Itself Off Russian Gas To Become US LNG Addict – German MP (RT)

The sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines has turned Germany’s dependence on Russian natural gas into an addiction to liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US, a member of the German Bundestag, Andrej Hunko, has said. Germany has paid heavily for last year’s explosions on the pipelines, which were built to deliver cheap natural gas from Russia, The Left party politician told China’s Global Times newspaper in an interview on Thursday. He noted that the sabotage left Berlin without an option to “choose which gas is better and cheaper and which is ecologically better.” “Before, it was a decision under political pressure, whether to use gas or not. But now there is no infrastructure to use gas,” and “this is the biggest impact,” Hunko said.

Germany used to meet up to 40% of its demand with gas from Russia. Last year, Berlin managed to reduce its reliance on the fuel from the sanctioned country by replacing it with imports of LNG from the US, “which is by far more expensive and worse from an ecological point of view,” according to Hunko. The politician said the explosions were an act of an “economic war” targeting not only Germany but the entire EU. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which runs under the Baltic Sea and carried natural gas from Russia to Germany, along with the newly built but never used Nord Stream 2, were ruptured by underwater bombs last September, rendering them inoperable. “Who benefits from this? It’s clear. It’s mainly the countries that export the gas to Germany; it is mainly the US,” Hunko said, adding: “this means not only higher prices for gas for the German population, but also a problem for German industry.”

Prior to the conflict in Ukraine, Germany was already experiencing economic difficulties due to a shortage of qualified personnel and muted productivity growth. Skyrocketing energy prices have since dealt a serious blow to the economy which is based on low energy prices and exports, Hunko noted. He warned that the surging cost of energy and raw materials, and the resulting restraints on investment, are forcing some major businesses to leave the country as “it is no longer as interesting for big companies to stay in Germany”. Some businesses have already migrated to the US, the politician said, arguing that this indicates an economic competition between the US, Germany and Europe.

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Provoke US into using its veto power.

UN Security Council To Vote On Nord Stream Sabotage Draft Resolution (TASS)

The UN Security Council will vote on Monday on a Russian-Chinese draft resolution on an international investigation into the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines. Voting is expected to be held after 15:00 (22:00 Moscow time). The text of the draft proposes UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to establish an international independent commission to conduct a comprehensive, transparent, and impartial investigation of all aspects of the act of sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, including identifying the perpetrators, sponsors, organizers, and their accomplices. Guterres is expected to appoint experts to this commission. If the resolution is passed, he must make recommendations for its establishment within 30 days.

The document also encourages countries conducting their own investigations to fully collaborate with the commission and share information with it. The document urges these nations to share information with other interested parties as well. Russia prepared the first version of the Nord Stream resolution at the end of February, but did not immediately bring it to a vote, instead inviting Security Council members to discuss the document. Three sets of consultations have been held since. According to TASS sources within the world organization, there is no general agreement on Russia’s suggested document, which means it will most likely not be adopted. A resolution must be backed by at least nine Security Council members in order to be adopted.

Any of the permanent members may veto it, but only if the necessary number of votes is obtained to pass the document. If the resolution receives eight votes and the United States votes against it, it means that the veto was not used. However, if the document receives nine or more votes, voting against it will result in the use of the veto power. “It’s not about the number of votes; it’s about the way they vote,” according to Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Previously, Western countries claimed that Russia was isolated and did not have the Security Council’s support, because it opposes the UN Security Council’s initiatives on Ukraine, while the rest of the Council’s members either back it or abstain.

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“Justice will only be done once we have thrown this repulsive political class the hell out of office..”

US Becoming A ‘Banana Republic’ – Trump (RT)

Former President Donald Trump told his supporters on Saturday that President Joe Biden is turning the US into a “banana republic,” and promised to throw the “repulsive political class the hell out of office” if re-elected next year. Trump, who is reportedly facing arrest over campaign finance charges in New York, held his first campaign rally ahead of the 2024 election in Waco, Texas, on Saturday. Speaking to a crowd of several thousand people, Trump reiterated his long-held belief that the charges against him – as well as the prosecution of the January 6, 2021, rioters – are a Democrat-orchestrated plot to keep him out of office and criminalize his supporters.

“The Biden regime’s weaponization of law enforcement against their political opponents is something straight out of the Stalinist Russia horror show,” he declared, calling Biden’s America “a third-world banana republic.” “From the beginning it’s been one witch hunt and phony investigation after another,” Trump asserted, adding “it’s no coincidence that the deep state is coming after me even harder since I pledged to swiftly end the war in Ukraine.” Trump has claimed for months that if elected, he would be able to achieve a settlement to the conflict within 24 hours. He has not elaborated further on how he would achieve this, but has blamed the conflict on “all the warmongers and ‘America Last’ globalists” in the Pentagon, State Department, and other organs of the national security establishment and “deep state.”

“Justice will only be done once we have thrown this repulsive political class the hell out of office,” he told the crowd in Waco on Saturday. Trump made a number of campaign promises at the rally, vowing to boost domestic energy production, phase out imports from China, end funding for “critical race theory and transgender insanity” in schools, and use state, federal, and military resources to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” “Eisenhower did it, so we don’t have to feel so bad,” Trump quipped, referring to the removal of more than a million illegal immigrants by Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration in the early 1950s under ‘Operation Wetback.’

Trump is currently leading most polls to take the Republican nomination in 2024, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in second place by between two and 30 points. While DeSantis has not declared his candidacy, Trump devoted a portion of his speech at Waco to attacking his potential opponent. Referring to DeSantis as “DeSanctimonious,” Trump took credit for the governor’s political career, and condemned him for shutting down his state at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Hedges talks about all the court cases vs Trump, but fails to say what weight they have.

The Donald Trump Problem (Chris Hedges)

As was the case with Nixon, the most serious charges Trump may face involve his attack on the foundations of the two-party duopoly, especially undermining the peaceable transfer of power from one branch of the duopoly to the other. In Georgia, Trump could face very serious criminal charges with potentially lengthy sentences if convicted, likewise if the federal special prosecutor indicts Trump for unlawful interference in the 2020 election. We won’t know until any indictments are made public. Yet, the most egregious of Trump’s actions while in office either received minimal media coverage, were downplayed or lauded as acts carried out in defense of democracy and the U.S.-led international order.

Why hasn’t Trump been criminally investigated for the act of war he committed against Iran and Iraq when he assassinated Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani and nine other people with a drone strike in Baghdad airport? Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi condemned the strike and told his parliament that Trump lied in order to get Soleimani exposed in Iraq as part of peace talks between Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution demanding that all foreign troops leave the country, which the U.S. government proceeded to reject. Why not prosecute or impeach Trump for pressuring his secretary of state to lie and say that Iran wasn’t complying with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal? Trump ultimately fired him and resumed unilateral, devastating and illegal sanctions against Iran, in violation of international law and quite possibly domestic U.S. law.

Why wasn’t Trump impeached for his role in the ongoing attempts to engineer a coup and overthrow the democratically elected president of Venezuela? Trump declared a previously unknown right-wing politician — and would-be coup leader — Juan Guaido to be the true Venezuelan president and then illegally handed him control of the Latin American country’s U.S. bank accounts. The illegal U.S. sanctions that have facilitated this coup attempt have blocked food, medicine and other goods from entering the country and prevented the government from exploiting and exporting its own oil, devastating the economy. Over 40,000 people died between 2017 and 2019 due to the sanctions, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. That figure is certainly higher now.

Nixon, like Trump, was not impeached for his worst crimes. He was never charged for directing the CIA to destroy the Chilean economy and back a far-right military coup that overthrew the democratically elected left-wing government of Salvador Allende. Nixon wasn’t brought to justice for his illegal, secret mass bombing campaigns in Cambodia and Laos that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, and his government’s role in the slaughter of Vietnamese people, resulting in at least 3.8 million killed according to a joint report from Harvard University and the University of Washington and even higher casualties according to investigative journalist Nick Turse. Nixon wasn’t held accountable for what then-President Lyndon Johnson privately blasted as “treason” when he discovered that the yet-to-be-elected Republican candidate for president, and his future National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, were deliberately and illegally sabotaging his peace negotiations in Vietnam, ultimately prolonging the war for another four years.

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China has substantially raised its profile in America’s backyard.

Global South Solidarity Is The Key To Lifting Up Central America (Blankenship)

Honduran President Xiomara Castro caused a stir in the media when, on March 14, she remarked that she instructed her foreign minister to re-establish diplomatic ties with China. This was met with strong approval in Beijing while Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina reiterated that his nation is seeking “all the mechanisms that the international relationship serves for the interests of the people” and that his nation must “cooperate with the largest nations in the world.” But, of course, the move was met with disgust in Washington, which, through its dated “Monroe Doctrine” that places the Western Hemisphere firmly in the US sphere of influence, sees itself as the overlord of Latin America. For example, US Senator Bill Cassidy said on Twitter that Honduras was moving closer to China “while the world is moving away” and that “the Honduran people will suffer because of [Castro’s] failed leadership.”

To be fair, the US sure knows a thing or two about the suffering of Hondurans and other Central Americans, locking them and their children in cages as they flee destitution to the US. Washington has also orchestrated numerous coups that have devastated the region. At the same time, China has a record of helping Central American nations, including Nicaragua, which recently re-established ties with Beijing. In February, China and Nicaragua agreed to step up their negotiations on a mutually beneficial free trade agreement and to advance the development of bilateral ties. To get a sense of this importance, I spoke to acclaimed American journalist Benjamin Norton at that time, who lives in Nicaragua and has been extensively covering China-Nicaragua ties. He told me that “the trade negotiations between Nicaragua and China are an important step in the deepening of South-South cooperation and the construction of a multipolar world.”

According to Norton, “historically the United States has treated Latin America in general, and Central America in particular, as its colonial property. The US militarily occupied Nicaragua three times and for decades propped up a brutal right-wing military dictatorship which imposed austerity on its population and sent all exports to the US for pennies on the dollar.” Norton noted that in 2018 the US again “sponsored a violent coup attempt against Nicaragua’s democratically elected Sandinista government. When the putsch failed, Washington responded with economic warfare, imposing several rounds of aggressive unilateral sanctions, such as the devastating NICA Act, while pushing for a financial blockade.” He noted that these sanctions are illegal under international law and “have done significant damage to the Nicaraguan economy, hurting working-class Nicaraguans.”

Honduras

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“It’s fundamental that these flours are not confused with food made in Italy..”

Italians Refuse to ‘Eat Ze Bugs’ (DS)

Our WEF overlords may want us to ‘eat ze bugs’ and be happy, but Italians are having none of it, as their Government has banned the use of insect flour in pizza and pasta. The Times has more: “The growing use in cooking of flour made from crickets, locusts and insect larvae has met fierce opposition in Italy, where the Government is to ban its use in pizza and pasta and segregate it on supermarket shelves. In a sign of fear that insects might be associated with Italian cuisine, three Government ministers called a press conference in Rome to announce four decrees aimed at a crackdown. “It’s fundamental that these flours are not confused with food made in Italy,” Francesco Lollobrigida, the agriculture minister, said.


Packed with vitamins, proteins and minerals, flour made from crickets is increasingly seen as an ecological way to obtain nutrients, and the market is forecast to reach $3.5 billion by 2029. The EU has already authorised foods made from crickets, locusts and the darkling beetle larva. In January mealworm larvae was added to the list. All four insects are cited in the Italian decrees, which will require any products containing them to be labelled with large lettering and displayed separately from other foods. “Whoever wants to eat these products can, but those who don’t, and I imagine that will be most Italians, will be able to choose,” Lollobrigida said.” When historians look back and wonder what thwarted the Great Reset, perhaps the Italian refusal to ruin their beloved pasta and pizza will be seen as the catalyst.

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We need something akin to seed banks, where original literature is stored for future generations.

Agatha Christie Novels Reworked To Remove Potentially Offensive Language (G.)

Several Agatha Christie novels have been edited to remove potentially offensive language, including insults and references to ethnicity. Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries written between 1920 and 1976 have had passages reworked or removed in new editions published by HarperCollins to strip them of language and descriptions that modern audiences find offensive, especially those involving the characters Christie’s protagonists encounter outside the UK. Sensitivity readers had made the edits, which were evident in digital versions of the new editions, including the entire Miss Marple run and selected Poirot novels set to be released or that have been released since 2020, the Telegraph reported.

The updates follow edits made to books by Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming to remove offensive references to gender and race in a bid to preserve their relevance to modern readers. The newspaper reported that the edits cut references to ethnicity, such as describing a character as black, Jewish or gypsy or a female character’s torso as “of black marble” and a judge’s “Indian temper”, and remove terms such as “Oriental” and the N-word. The word “natives” has also been replaced with the word “local”.

Among the examples of changes cited by the Telegraph is the 1937 Poirot novel Death on the Nile, in which the character of Mrs Allerton complains that a group of children are pestering her, saying that “they come back and stare, and stare, and their eyes are simply disgusting, and so are their noses, and I don’t believe I really like children”. This has been stripped down in a new edition to state: “They come back and stare, and stare. And I don’t believe I really like children.”

Read more …

“..the infrastructure around wind and solar will not only fail, “but will cost trillions, trash large portions of the environment and be entirely unnecessary..”

Eminent Oxford Scientist Says Wind Power “Fails on Every Count” (DS)

It could be argued that the basic arithmetic showing wind power is an economic and societal disaster in the making should be clear to a bright primary school child. Now the Oxford University mathematician and physicist, researcher at CERN and Fellow of Keble College, Emeritus Professor Wade Allison has done the sums. The U.K. is facing the likelihood of a failure in the electricity supply, he concludes. “Wind power fails on every count,” he says, adding that governments are ignoring “overwhelming evidence” of the inadequacies of wind power, “and resorting to bluster rather than reasoned analysis”. Professor Allison’s dire warnings are contained in a short paper recently published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

He notes that the energy provided by the Sun is “extremely weak”, which is why it was unable to provide the energy to sustain even a small global population before the Industrial Revolution with an acceptable standard of living. A similar point was made recently in more dramatic fashion by the nuclear physicist Dr. Wallace Manheimer. He argued that the infrastructure around wind and solar will not only fail, “but will cost trillions, trash large portions of the environment and be entirely unnecessary”. In his paper, Allison concentrates on working out the numbers that lie behind the natural fluctuations in the wind. The full workings out are not complicated and can be assessed from the link above. He shows that at a wind speed of 20mph, the power produced by a wind turbine is 600 watts per square metre at full efficiency.

To deliver the same power as the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant – 3,200 million watts – it would require 5.5 million square metres of turbine swept area. It is noted that this should be quite unacceptable to those who care about birds and other environmentalists. Of course, this concern does not seem to have materialised to date. Millions of bats and birds are calculated to be slaughtered by onshore wind turbines every year. Meanwhile, off the coast of Massachusetts, work is about to start on a giant wind farm, complete with permits to harass and likely injure almost a tenth of the population of the rare North Atlantic Right whale. When fluctuations in wind speed are taken into account in Allison’s formula, the performance of wind becomes very much worse. If the wind speed drops by half, the power available falls by a factor of eight.

Almost worse, he notes, if the wind speed doubles, the power delivered goes up eight times, and the turbine has to be turned off for its own protection. For eight days at the end of the month, power generation slumped, presumably, says Allison, because the wind speed halved. The 8.8 GW daily loss over the period was noted to be 1,000 times the capacity of the world largest grid storage battery at Moss Landings in California. When it comes to the enormous batteries needed to store renewable power, Allison notes the problems with safety, as well as mineral shortages. Batteries will never make good the failure of offshore wind farms, even for a week, and he points out they can fail for much longer than that.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Led by Donkeys
https://twitter.com/i/status/1639689865238306816

 

 

 

 

Sunak
https://twitter.com/i/status/1639966313417261056

 

 

Cybertruck

 

 

Sleep seal
https://twitter.com/i/status/1639979941608542209

 

 

Baby jaguar

 

 

The Big fight
https://twitter.com/i/status/1639940131762077700

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle March 27 2023

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 51 total)
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  • #132154

    René Magritte The seducer 1953   • Us ‘Shoots Itself In Foot’ By Limiting Use Of Dollar – Putin (TASS) • Russian Economy Will Remain Balanced – M
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle March 27 2023]

    #132155
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    René Magritte The seducer 1953

    The sea; the great seducer…
    Wonderful painting…I went to sea on a 40 foot salmon trawler in the north Pacific out of Coos Bay, Oregon.
    I spent 3-4 months in the late fall/early winter of 1967 trawling for Chinook Salmon; just me and the skipper; Chick Kaiser; knew his shit in heavy weather…thank the gods; I’m here to witness the adventure…
    Great skipper who saved our bacon crossing a breaking bar during a great storm…40′ swells…

    #132156
    Positive Dennis
    Participant

    Another fake quote. Kennedy did not say that there is a plot. “Come on man.” Google is your friend.

    #132157
    EoinW
    Participant

    Love the animal photos and videos…thanks! A great positive to begin ones day. Everything else…oh boy!

    It’s clear why Putin is a moderate. He understand this is a fight for the European market. Therefore you don’t go Total War against the Europeans or even the Americans.

    Nevertheless I am puzzled by this goal. Assuming Russia/China win and get their Eurasian integration, so what! 30 years ago, the European market was a prize worth fighting for. What is it today, drowning in debt and getting poorer each day. The same could be said for the entire West.

    Thus Russia will send its energy and China will send its manufacturing products to Europe. What will the Europeans pay them in return? A worthless Euro? To retie their economies into the Euro/dollar is to reintegrate Russia/China with the collapsing western model. It makes no sense.

    For all their faults, the Globalists fight to hold on to Europe does make sense. Their goal is to enslave as many people as they can. Thus Europe has value to them because there’s always something to plunder. Plus a total collapse appears to suit their fancy too. What value does a collapsed Europe have for China or Russia?

    As I see it, Russia/China proceed cautiously because they don’t want the American Empire to collapse too quickly. Yet Russia cannot defeat NATO this way until the West’s economy does collapse. Sorry there will be nothing in the West worth winning. Why drag it all out?

    #132158
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Putin Impressed with American System of Prosecuting Political Opponents” – BBee.

    We’re #1!

    “Under a new directive, the Federal Security Service (FSS), which parallels America’s FBI, is reportedly looking into the seedy history of many political opponents to see what can be thrust in front of the media to turn public opinion against them before they are thrown into a gulag for the rest of their life.

    “But digging into a man’s life and prosecuting him for crimes that normally would not warrant such dramatic attention? Not only do you ruin their political prospects, but you also make the news all about them. People forget you exist. Genius! Putin said.”

    “Democrats Vow to Arrest as Many Political Opponents as It Takes to Defeat Fascism” — BBee. All of them, of course!

    Among people who must be arrested, punched, shut down, put in their place: all women!
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-shameful-persecution-of-posie-parker-in-new-zealand/

    “Parker organises public events called ‘Let Women Speak’. It’s a genius initiative. She knows these gatherings of women who merely want to give voice to their profane belief that sex can never be changed will draw out crowds of intolerant trans activists and their allies. She knows the ‘Be Kind’ mob will do everything in its power to stop women from speaking. And she knows it will all brilliantly illustrate her core belief: that trans activism is misogyny in disguise, misogyny in drag, if you like, and that it has devoted itself to silencing women who believe in biology.

    Australia and New Zealand played their parts brilliantly in Parker’s clever scheme. From Melbourne to Canberra, Hobart to Auckland, huge crowds of the right-on turned up to drown out the voices of the pesky women who dare to call men ‘men’. ‘Let women speak’, Parker says. ‘No’, says the mob. She incites them to confess their misogyny and intolerance in full public view. And they do.”

    Get back in the Kitchen you XX. Women are to be seen and not heard. You’re not SUPPOSED to be safe anywhere. That’s Love and Tolerance, Progressive-style.

    Basis of the article? This is what a Salem Witch Burning looks like. This is where you march the undesireables to the guillotines. By the same people for the same reasons. “That mob was drunk on sanctimony. This is what happens when we tell people their identity is the most important thing in the world and that anything that so much as grazes their self-esteem is an outrage that must be crushed.”

    Remember: words are violence, but actually attacking people and throwing things is free speech. Burning down black neighborhoods is DEFINITELY free speech. And medically safe. It’s almost Passover, “Let My Felons Go!”

    Speaking of, I don’t know what you mean by the calendar Easter isn’t Easter. The Crucifixion, that is, Easter, was on Passover, thus the last supper. This happens on a changeable day set by the last moon of spring, exactly the same as today.

    MacGregor: Yes, I’ve mentioned how all the present Generals and most staff participated in and supported all the wars from Vietnam to now. I guess otherwise they’d never get above Buck Private. However, that doesn’t endear me, as they were all totally on board, in the broader sense, until Bush completely failed in a smoking crater at taking over the world by capturing – or more specifically, destroying and denying — the oil. (Note $1T in war spending = zero oil. We stole almost none of it and could have bought all of it at ¼ the price.) So the “White Hats”? Don’t really want to shake their hand, would look for a long, very specific explanation of WTF they thought they were doing from 1990 to 2007 or whenever they started being visible again. I’m open to hear it, but not happy. MacGregor is one of those men, as is Scott Ritter.

    Yellen: throwing Powell under the bus. “1,000:1 Debt:GDP ratio is sustainable so long as Powell keeps rates at 0% until the sun burns out.” Uh-huh. Clearly illiterate, unaware of any and all events in financial history, Ms. “We’ll never see another crisis in [your] lifetime.”

    Speaking of, Denninger runs down why SVB can and MUST collapse, https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=248367 As Luongo also said, the money-pyramid firehose is that they loan money, not for a car or something, but to NOBODY, for NOTHING. That is, Venture Capital, Vaporware. 10 loans for 10 perpetual motion machines, all of which must fail. Nobody cares because 1) SVB gets paid and makes loans 2) CEOs get paid from the debt and make salaries 3) New stock is issued on yet more debt taken out by stock traders. 4) When it all fails like Home Depot, Mozillo, Cathy Woods, no consequences exist and people hand them a billion dollars again as if they never lost the first billion. 5) They then start a new failure and pay themselves a new salary. Sure beats working! And pays 10,000x better!

    If this were an ACTUAL loan, something would be created. Somewhere. That money would then be re-deposited in the banking system, somewhere. But SVB essentially counterfeits money, loaning it for nothing. At nothing interest. They then take the “wealth” of that loan, call it an asset, and lever against it again.

    This works until, um, ANYTHING happens. In this case, 1% interest means you can borrow $100,000, pay yourself millions, and pay only $1,000 for it. Great! Until rates rise to 5%, where you borrowed $100,000 against vaporware, have no prospects, your employees produce f-all and always will, and you owe $5,000/mo instead of $1,000/mo. You go to the stock market to issue more bovine waste products for them to eat, and the stock market can’t support an issuance (meaning more debt) of $5k, only $1K. Your monthly is $4k in the hole, and in 5 days you collapse.

    Because you’re a d—n pyramid scheme, fools! All pyramid schemes collapse, which is why they are ILLEGAL. “But, but, the Regulators don’t take them out.” THEY JUST DID, you fools. Powell and NY just nuked them bc San Fransisco won’t.

    Denninger outlines this process and why, if you want to NOT collapse the banking, the U.S. and thereby derail the gravy train Wall Street gets by allocating capital, they need to arrange a hit and execute these guys in public. Which they just did.

    “U.S. ‘Shoots Itself In Foot’ By Limiting Use of Dollar – Putin (TASS)

    Yeah, funny ol’ world where every move accidentally stops the Empire and strengthens the nationalists. Must be the biggest string of coincidences in my lifetime. As above, if the ARMY (MacGregor), the BANKS, (Wall Street), and the PEOPLE, (everyone outside D.C.) all want the nation to function because the Empire is going down. Only a few idiot holdouts believe that if we just try HARDER, this will work. Unfortunately they’re locked in the control room. What do I mean?

    Powell himself said he doesn’t want a Petrodollar, the world reserve currency. There is room for many competing currencies, he said.

    Did you get that? POWELL, of the FED, does not want the US$ to be preeminent. Triffin’s Paradox. Whoever has the reserve currency is eaten from within. That includes Bitcoin, which he ALSO has no problem with, only the StableCoins, which are universally frauds like the money-gin counterfeiting of SVB. Powell can’t control money supply or policy if everyone and their brother (Eurodollars) can just print up new money without him.

    Powell wants the US$ to be a NATIONAL currency, not the World Reserve. So how did the US “Shoot itself in the foot” if the U.S. WANTS to limit the use of the Dollar? …At least 2/3rds of the U.S., minus the “crazies in the Basement” as Reagan called them. (the Neocons).

    Now do some math, adjust your worldview when the Fed doesn’t WANT the World dollar. He just said that publicly, again and again. Fed vs Davos. Out loud on camera. Like raising rates, no one believes him. They think he’s lying??? “Don’t Fight the Fed.”

    Nope! The whole market is all out there fighting the Fed. Telling Powell he doesn’t think what he says he thinks. Okay then! I’ll take your money. Don’t all line up at once.

    Again, these painfully sloppy thinkers, “The ‘U.S.” said…” “Europe wants…” WHO??? Who EXACTLY in the U.S.? Who EXACTLY in Europe? Every man, woman, child, and housecat? Or a VERY SPECIFIC group therein? And this isn’t rocket science, isn’t new: there are always competing factions in every nation on every subject, even if we pretend it was only Democrats and Republicans, that’s still two. Now WHO thinks/says/acts that?

    WHO decided to kill every Israeli with the shots but specifically let every non-Jew live? That’s odd. WHO?

    “with China’s trade surplus surging 30% to an all-time high of $877.6 billion..”

    With Who? Is this just inflation?

    “Russia To Make Three Times More Ammo Than West Promised Kiev – Putin (RT) “

    The Duran spoke of 1,000 NEW tanks a year at their massive plant. That’s 100/month. This may or may not be true, but the point was this ONE factory is massive. Like the old U.S. factories used to be in the black-and-white era: 30,000 employees in one building. It’s exceedingly hard to estimate that a place that big is capable of, especially when they have all the raw resources they need. Russian factories were all established on this principle. Massive, overwhelming, to centralize as, why not? There’s nothing but open space out there. Unlike the U.S. which is (was) made of all small towns, why not, like Canada, pour concrete in one place on one railroad with one apartment block, and economize?

    Let’s say Russia “only” has 500 new tanks and only 500 re-fitted last-gen tanks. “Only”? Ukraine has zero. Germany sent 10. 10 tanks per generation, 20+ years, as opposed to 100 tanks per month. Why do I talk? Logic isn’t used in the Western Hemisphere: It just annoys the pig. I’m sure Captain Marvel will fly down from space in the nick of time and we’ll win.

    • The United States Is 13 Years Behind In Ammunition Production – NYT (Y!)

    NY Times: “Learn to Code” I guess. The entire nation of America, minus a few coastal outliers, told you not to do this. 1,000 times. You couldn’t stop laughing and stabbing them. Stabby-stabby, Hahahaha! You bible-clutching neanderthals! Don’t you know we live in VIRTUAL reality now, where we can make infinite virtual guns instantly? Yes! Right here in my imagination!

    That’s okay: I “Imagined” that I dug up your pipes and fixed your backed-up toilet. That’s $2,000 virtual dollars, please.

    ““Eisenhower did it, so we don’t have to feel so bad,”

    Okay, repeat history lesson: Reagan did NOT deport any Mexicans but signed on universal amnesty. That’s why he’s the enemy of the Left, hated forevah and evah! But that was a one-time deal depending on shutting the border and not allowing this to continue. Guess what happened next? As in the very next day? Promises, promises. 2M illegals a year, 10 new U.S. cities because ‘Merica is so terrible and racist n’ stuff.

    If only we could re-elect the President who deported the most illegals ever. Obama.

    “• Italians Refuse to ‘Eat Ze Bugs’ (DS)

    Why? Why on earth would you ever, ever do this? Bugs – which are animals – are not cheaper than grain, which is what you FEED animals. There is no logical premise whatsoever, as with most Green stuff. That makes my only conclusion that it’s bad for your health and murders people widely. Murder is always the answer. Even before you ask the question, I can tell you murder is the answer. Never ask a druggie what the answer is. The answer is more drugs.

    “Costs more, works less.” Yup! All systems go! #OppositeLand. #AntiLogos, on the case! Shut up and steal my money!

    ““but will cost trillions, trash large portions of the environment”

    40 years later, they finally noticed. Man it must be REALLY obvious, practically caving their heads in, if OXFORD can tell. Now if only they could tell about AGW.

    What was that about recycling the 80-foot turbine blades, which wear out rapidly? Oh yeah! You can’t, they are essentially deadly, eternal waste and never rot, can’t burn or decay. Unlike the 6-foot wood rotors of NON-centralized wind power like with Hugh Piggot on Isle of Skye, made from 2x4s and an old Volvo. Wind does not “Fail on every count” then. …Bout only if it’s not centralized and the wrong people get the loans and the money: that is to say: YOU. Like wages, this must never, never happen.

    Sleep without breathing, that’s an interesting idea. Why do they call it “sleep”? Isn’t that leading the question? Why not call it “meditation”? Or something else?

    They’re Scientists. These dum-dums probably can’t define what “sleep” is to begin with. Can you?

    Sleep is an aspect of consciousness. Go ahead and define that for me, you physicists.

    #132159
    Germ
    Participant

    Great interview – CBDCs

    Death vaxx/CBDC/Digital iD – all connected.

    https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/dr-simon-elmer-on-jerm-warfare-with-jeremy-nell-23-march-2023/

    #132160
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    “MacGregor is one of those men, as is Scott Ritter.”

    …because in your mind MacGregor is reformed and Ritter was unjustly prosecuted??

    #132161
    Oroboros
    Participant

    “..the infrastructure around wind and solar will not only fail, “but will cost trillions, trash large portions of the environment and be entirely unnecessary..”

    Years ago in Northern New England a good friend had a phenomenal hail storm hit his area.

    Golf ball to tennis ball hail for 10 minutes, very unusual in size and duration.

    He was fishing in the middle of his lake in an open motor boat and had his baby daughter with him.

    The hail storm came up very quickly and got bad so quickly it shredded the canvas cover on the boat were the baby was sleeping.

    It was so bad he panicked and had to put the baby in the beer cooler and close the lid to protect her and he dove under the boat to protect himself.

    When it was over, the boat had almost a foot of 2-3″ hail balls in it and was riding very low in the water from the weight. Took him half an hour to get most of the hail out of the boat and motor to shore.

    When he got to shore, all the skylights in his house were broken including his patio slider doors where the hail bounced off the deck and smashed them plus some windows where the hail blew sideways into them.

    Thousands of dollars of damage.

    Then he saw his brand new car in the driveway, all the windows were broken and every square inch of the car looked like someone had taken a ball peen hammer to it, it had the texture now that looked like lizard skin. The car still ran fine but was considered a total wreak by the insurance man.

    I bring this up because solar panels don’t ‘do’ hail storms very well and even if you have insurance to cover them, it only takes one big hail storm to raise the insurance rates to unaffordable levels for the whole neighborhood.

    #132162
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The whole venture capital (VC) scene is money laundering and Ponzi-palooza.

    Loaning someone half a million to write an “App” that tells you the high tide time and best burrito in your location while selling the ‘rubes’ data use to Google (NSA)

    Useless eaters have nothing on the VC scene.

    The Empire of Lies has an off the chart trade deficit.

    Russia and China have trade surpluses cause they actually have stuff the Real World needs.

    The Empire of Lies is Vaporware

    It’s infrastructure is crumbling, it’s rail system and mass transit are Grade A Shithole quality.

    Maybe it needs a vacation to relax and focus the rodent like attention span of it’s plebs.

    .

    #132163
    zerosum
    Participant

    Inflation/Exaggeration/lying

    Do your leaders tell the truth? Look again.

    Sitting and sawing the branch.

    A trade surplus is an indicator of a positive balance of trade, where a country’s exports exceed its imports.

    China and Russia became the world leaders in trade surplus last year.

    Canada, meanwhile, became the absolute leader in terms of growth, with its number jumping 4.8 times throughout the year, to $17.45 billion.
    ———–
    Democracy, Freedom and liberty, demonstrations. protests
    Farmers, Canada, J6, France, Israel,
    ———
    Expropriate the assets,
    that precedents for such actions are rare, one of the few being the seizure of Iraqi assets by the US at the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
    A precedent jeopardizing faith in the Western financial system and the dollar.

    Yesterday, loans/allocating capital, would create/improve/add, something, somehow, somewhere for someone.
    Today, ….. ?????
    ———–
    What/who/how can remove all/any bugs from any/all grains before making flour?
    ————-

    #132164
    zerosum
    Participant

    Imagine that 2014 had not occurred..
    War makes rubble. Fortified area are demolished
    The production technology is a thing of the past, there are neither specialists nor industrial facilities.
    Imagine, peace.

    #132165
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Attention to detail, don’t sweat the small stuff, it’s all small stuff.

    Like something as basic as changing a tire properly

    The general level of everyday competence in the Empire of Lies is slipping, especially since the Clotshot has disabled a large part of the population’s cognitive functioning.

    Black Swans await around every corner.

    Macgregor is spot on about Ukronaziland’s implosion will take out NATO

    It won’t know what hit it.

    Just cruising down the road whistling it’s favorite tune of Regime Change Inc.

    #132168
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @PositiveDennis

    While agreeing with you in principle I can’t stretch credulity quite far enough to consider that Google is a friend. I look at Google as a dependably predictable mortal enemy that keeps trying to trap me by offering delicious bait that I am happy to steal whenever I can and hope not to be hooked and caught. I’m still not altogether sure whether Google (et al) has got me, or if I’ve been a nice fish that keeps stealing the bait off the hook and getting away.

    Or if, as Forrest Gump described, “maybe it’s both.”

    #132169
    Noirette
    Participant

    Dr. D Rich posted:

    Are Europeans as beguiled by Obama’s “lit state” as Americans ignorant to Biden’s senility?
    Can delirium, alcohol intoxication, alcoholism, and dementia (any subtype) be a continuum the recognition of which rests upon an observer’s position? That in America from my mountain, Obama is abhorred not adored for a degree of self-possession that exceeds general measures of malignant narcissism. Yet, few recognize the public Obama smirk as the result of drugs, albeit the drug alcohol, by which he ties one on to relax any manifestation of social anxiety (stuttering).

    Well …Obama (Nobel Peace Prize as a LUV-U coronation) was adulated by the French as soon as he was elected. Family members of mine flew to California to party with ppl they did not know well, to celebrate. He was a new SAVIOR figure.

    Back in time, say 1920s and on, and particularly after WW2, Paris was a destination for Black ‘artists, intellectuals’ who were adored, as Americans, confident, uppity, and if Black, oppressed, so touting rebel-type ‘cool’ counter-culture, playing music, acting, doing super whatever, writing great books, etc. A touch of ‘exoticism’ played a role….

    Ex. Josephine Baker, show person, even today well known, admired. James Baldwin, author. Looking for a 3rd name, I see wiki actually covers this (ok it is wiki..)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_in_France

    As for Biden as Prez, as a stumbling senile figurehead he is mocked and despised. All over the world.

    Ppl are astonished that the most powerful, belligerent, country in the World is headed by such an incapable puppet, not just a nobody, like a Joe or Debby on the block, waving flags, making silly rah-rah speeches, but a sort of animated corpse-like puppet who can’t even glom the teleprompter…

    As for the Kamala…it appears that even the US MSM can’t publish vids of her..

    And the US is supposed to be the TOPS of propaganda, image, advertising…?? (I heard this 3x today.)

    #132170
    John Day
    Participant

    Consider this in light of the Tom Luongo view of the Swiss National Bank being allied with the Fed/US-retail-banking interests, and having just prevailed over Davos in the C.S. AT1 bond battle.

    “There are two types of assets – state property that belongs to the Russian government and private assets. The former mostly refers to nearly $300 billion in Russia’s foreign currency reserves, which have been frozen by the West. According to Ahnlid, they are easier to seize legally. The latter, however, are much harder to identify and can be seized only in a few cases, for instance when they can be proven to be the proceeds of a crime. The diplomat says the task force may decide not to confiscate these assets permanently, but only seize income or interest on the capital. Ahnlid is not the first to point out the difficulties surrounding the plan to confiscate Russian assets. The Swiss government, for instance, has been opposed to the move, saying last month that it would violate international agreements and Switzerland’s constitution.”

    #132171
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @DrD

    Did you get that? POWELL, of the FED, does not want the US$ to be preeminent. Triffin’s Paradox. Whoever has the reserve currency is eaten from within. ”

    So even the Fairy Tale about King Midas doesn’t simplify the simple truth simply enough for the Money Power People to understand and internalize the lesson.

    There should be a General Exam before graduating adolescence in which people must pass a written and practical exam that tests how well they understood their Fairy Tales. If someone can’t explain the moral of parables like The Emperor’s New Clothes or Henny Penny then they’ve got to go back and re-do childhood as many times as necessary before they get at least the basics right and are allowed to enter society.

    #132172
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Deutsche Bank seems to be the Axis Mundi of the Davos blood drinking Satanic Eyes Wide Shut crowd.

    London is no longer the player they once were. Libor is in the toilet.

    German banking is the linchpin, or should I say Lynch Pin, of the Davos master race plan to totally collapse Eurotardistan and mold it anew to their perverted form.

    Sex is politics

    #132173

    There’s a cart on a mountain being pulled by some guys who are stronger than oxen and perhaps just as wise.
    There’s some folks on the cart- dozens more than in the yokes- and they laugh wielding whips with some condescending pokes:
    “Haul away, grimy workers! Faster still, muscled lumps! We’ll be late to the party! Hurry up, stupid chumps!”
    Well, they looked at each other- all these hard-working men, and approaching a downhill, loosed their ropes with a grin.
    For the road took a turn but the cart- it went straight, and those fine, fancy people missed their fine party date.

    #132174
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Just think! We are in the early stages of a re-enactment of the Permian Mass Extinction Event, when the Earth’s average temperature rose from around 13oC to around 33oC due to volcanic activity (Siberian Trapps) de-sequestering sequestered carbon and putting it into the atmosphere in the form of CO2.

    But whereas the Permian Mass Extinction Event took place over many thousands of years, the Anthropocene Extinction Event is occurring over just a few decades.

    And knowing the extreme danger of converting sequestered carbon [in the form of coal, oil and natural gas] into atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide, we, as a culture, just keep doing it. Indeed, various governments around the world promote the conversion of sequestered carbon into carbon dioxide for purely trivial purposes, and lie to the masses on a continuous basis about the insane schemes those same governments have invested energy and resources into in as components of The Great Ponzi Financialisation Deception Scheme -which is in the process of completely unravelling.

    Without energy, nothing happens.

    And when greedy apes get far too much access to energy, far too much happens far too quickly.

    The good news is, for much of the world, the petroleum energy supply is going away fairly soon.

    The bad news is, far too much damage has already been done.

    It’s going to be a very rough rude -the next five to ten years- especially for the clueless, who have not been paying attention to anything they needed to pay attention to.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPm_0Gmmhbc

    #132175
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    #132176
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Human rights, freedom and democracy blah, blah blah…

    #132177
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Excellent analysis from Brian, as usual.

    #132178
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    EPA guidance from 2022 expressly prohibits open detonation, dump & burn operations
    A June 7, 2022 guidance memo from the EPA declares that open detonation and open burning of chemicals must be an absolute last resort in an incident. EPA violated its own rules by allowing this…

    EPA violated its own rules and committed crimes when it authorized the dumping and open burning of 125,000 gallons of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM). My source is a former official in EPA’s enforcement division.

    Public officials are so shameless that they have tried to pin responsibility for the dump and burn operation on the local fire chief. A proper recovery operation was initiated the night of the derailment, but was called off, according to a source close to the railroad industry.

    https://planetwavesfm.substack.com/p/epa-guidance-from-2022-expressly

    #132179
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Yugoslavia.
    Right after the Tito’s death country was swamped with “individuals” from the US that are suddenly immensely interested
    in just about anything “Balkan” (read, probably, CIA assholes).
    It is a long story, one of those was in our apartment. His interest, and apparent thesis, was Economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina between the two wars. He, “David”,ended up drinking with my father, an retired officer of YU-army. Both of them drunk bullshitting and not understanding the word that each was saying – an alcohol was unifying factor. Not to say that CIA pos ended dead drunk and unmovable for the following day and good part of the night. My father was worried as what was wrong with him..
    True story.

    #132180

    I think I’ll change “some condescending” to “disparaging”.

    #132181
    WES
    Participant

    Doc Robinson:

    EPA. Another 3 letter agency. “I am from the government and I am here to help you!”

    EPA is not your friend! Just like the CIA, FBI, DoJ, DHS, NSA, SEC, etc.

    #132182
    John Day
    Participant

    “Alternative Analysis” https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/alternative-analysis

    Thanks for this, Eleni. I had suspected that Russian diplomacy lay quietly beneath the surface.
    The Middle East Frees Itself From the West
    ​ ​The reconciliation between Saudi Arabia, leader of the Sunni Muslim world, and Iran, leader of the Shiite Muslim world, finally makes possible an era of peace in the Middle East. It was made possible by Russia, ally of the two enemy brothers, and negotiated first in Iraq and Oman before being concluded by China, Iran’s millennial ally, acting impartially. This agreement closes eleven years of wars and Western influence.​..​
    ..For 7 years, the Middle East has been paralyzed. No conflict can evolve because it always opposes the two sides of Islam. This is exactly what the West wanted and what Israel has maintained. It is not surprising, therefore, that the only people who have been outraged by the Saudi-Iranian peace are Israelis.
    The agreement just signed was negotiated by China on the basis of non-interference in internal affairs. The Iranians might have feared that the Saudi Shiites would pay the price, as they did six years ago with Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. But Tehran has understood that times have changed. Riyadh will respect its Shiite minority, because it too has an interest in peace.
    https://www.voltairenet.org/article218999.html

    ​ This military assessment of global finance and economics by the lead general of the Chinese military college, published in Italian in 2017, reflects a major theme in long term Chinese strategic assessment of global economy and finance. It looks at the $US taking over the imperial currency baton from the British Empire after Bretton Woods, then leveraging that to the Petrodollar regime in 1973, after having to default on the gold standard because of expensive wars in Korea and especially Vietnam.
    Tying the dollar-dominance to the flow of oil, the most critical economic resource in the world, without having to “own” the oil, facilitated the rapid growth of an imperial regime of resource extraction, part of it through cycling 10 years of cheap/easy dollars to fund industrial expansion, such as in Mexico and Thailand, then following with a crisis, and 6 years of expensive, high interest dollars, to crash the businesses and buy up their assets for pennies on the dollar.
    China played along, while carefully guarding against victimhood. Meanwhile, the productive economy of the US hollowed out, which happens with any global reserve currency over time, due to “Triffin’s Paradox”.​
    ​ The $US financial regime has made financial attacks on the Euro, Iraq, Libya, and has limited Chinese regional trade potential by creating crises in the islands of the South China Sea​. Crises are used by the empire to deprive rivals of the ability to take $US financial hegemony. Having global trade currency hegemony allows users of the currency to be forced into losing positions. The wars of choice the US has engaged in have not been for oil or specific resources. The general makes the case that all of the wars have served the currency hegemony, which is the wealth-extraction tool.
    China has long maintained that it did not want the Yuan/Renminbi to be a global reserve currency, a wise position, in order to avoid attack. This paper makes clear that General Liang sees the global reserve currency status as the prize for having the biggest, most dynamic economic engine, and that the Chinese Yuan/Renminbi should logically have that status, when Chinese and linked economies achieve critical mass.
    The contest between the US and China was already seen as inevitable in 2017, and that was not new. The US military had seen it approaching, expected around 2024 – 2025, which is what the US military has recently said again. Thanks Noirette. Google translate works.
    ​One Belt,One Road , General Qiao Liang​
    https://www.limesonline.com/en/one-belt-one-road

    Christine sends this recent piece by Michael Hudson, an outline of his recent book, The Collapse of Antiquity: Greece and Rome as Civilization’s Oligarchic Turning Point, about the history of debt and war in the west over the past few thousand years, beginning with the rise of financial oligarchs, more interested in power gains, than in societal stability and cohesion. (Michael Hudson is highly regarded in Washington for his book “Super Imperialism”, which provided the analytical framework for the Nixon-Kissinger “petrodollar” deal in 1973. He is highly regarded in China for this same and subsequent analysis of global capital movements. General Liang drew liberally on Hudson’s work in the analysis above.)
    The aim is to make governments borrow from bankers and bondholders, giving them interest as well as control over what gets funded.
    ​ ​The ideological umbrella for this power grab is to accuse governments of interfering with “free markets,” that is, with the financial sector’s ability to act as society’s central planner in allocating credit. Debt creation is seen only as helping economies grow, not as inflating asset prices for housing, stocks and bonds, obliging homebuyers and retirees to run further into debt to afford access to housing and retirement income. Society’s economic ideology is transformed to accept the concentration of wealth in creditor hands as a natural phenomenon, not a predatory power grab at the expense of society’s overall prosperity.
    ​ ​Automatic stabilizers are said to make government regulation unnecessary, and credit (that is, debt creation) is depicted as productive, not corrosive. What really is at issue is not whether governments are strong or weak as such, but whether they act in the broad public interest to limit creditor claims on the increasingly indebted economy, or protect creditor privileges as “rights” over those of debtors. It is as if business “cycles” do not recur in the context of steadily rising debt/income and debt/asset ratios.
    ​ ​Credit can finance economic growth best when organized as a public utility. But private creditors and bankers seek financial gains for themselves, maximizing claims on debtors without limit. A jockeying for dominance ensues as the magnitude of debt grows to exceed the ability of debtors to pay. Private creditors translate their economic gains into political power, polarizing the distribution of wealth and income by deregulating and untaxing financial gains. These laws of motion produce an oscillation between financial drives gaining dominance over society and a reaction by society as it realizes that the “cleanup costs” of debt are much like those of physical environmental pollution, pushing the overall social balance into deficit.
    ​ ​The interaction between financial dynamics and the economy at large has changed the character of government throughout history. Mesopotamian rulers annulled grain debts, but classical antiquity’s oligarchies used state power to prevent debt cancellation. Christianity took the side of debtors, but the medieval papacy supported English kings, excommunicating advocates of parliamentary checks and balances. Subsequent creditors pressed for parliamentary reform to make entire nations responsible for paying debts, but pressure is rising today to restore public control to subordinate debts – and hence their counterpart creditor claims on debtors – to social needs.

    How Debt Dynamics Polarize Economic and Political Power

    ​ But when, Charles, WHEN? (Is the Powell Fed raising interest rates until something breaks, then patching what it wants, to impose losses on non-allies?)
    ​ The Everything Bubble and Global Bankruptcy
    ​ ​Sorry, but global bankruptcy is already baked in. Too much debt has been piled on phantom-collateral and income streams derived from bubble assets rising (for example, capital gains, development taxes, etc.). The asymmetry is now so extreme that even a modest decline in asset valuations/collateral due to a garden-variety business-cycle recession of tightening financial conditions will trigger the collapse of The Everything Bubble and the mountain of global debt resting on the wind-blown sands of phantom collateral.
    ​ ​There are persuasive reasons to suspect global debt far exceeds the official level around $300 trillion, most saliently, the largely opaque shadow banking system. When assets roughly double in a few years, bubble symmetry suggests that valuations will decline back to the starting point of the bubble in roughly the same time span.
    ​ ​The resulting erosion of collateral will collapse the global credit bubble, a repricing/reset that will bankrupt the global economy and financial system.
    http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-everything-bubble-and-global.html

    #132183
    John Day
    Participant

    ​The secretive Israeli think tank behind Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul​ Thanks Christine. Lots of details of Israeli domestic politics are elucidated here.​
    ​ ​The Kohelet Policy Forum, founded by an American Israeli and funded by a U.S. libertarian billionaire, quietly authored and helped introduce the far-reaching package of judicial changes that has sparked a national crisis and driven hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets.
    ​ ​Likud member Keti Shitrit, in a recent interview with Israel’s Channel 13, said Netanyahu’s party never internally discussed the judicial overhaul bills supplied by Kohelet before fast-tracking them through the parliament.
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-secretive-israeli-think-tank-behind-netanyahu-s-judicial-overhaul/ar-AA190ZfR

    ​ ​Netanyahu Pauses Judicial Overhaul To “Avoid Civil War” As Rival Protest Groups Clash
    ​ ​[Who comprises the “extremist minority”, “tearing Israel apart”, ​Mr. Prime Minister​?​ Your enforcers are deserting now. That has gotten your attention.​]
    ​ ​In a much anticipated 8pm (local) speech, at a moment hundreds of thousands of protesters are in the streets, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed in a televised speech that he will pause his ultra-controversial judicial overhaul plans which many say would destroy Israeli democracy and court independence.
    ​ ​He emphasized that he is aware of the deepening divide and tensions in society as a result of the legislation, but called the anger in the streets the product of an “extremist minority” that is “tearing Israel apart.” The crisis not only resulted in massive national strikes on Monday, but escalated to the point of growing numbers of refusals of recruits and soldiers to serve in the Israeli Defense Force’s reserve units, putting the country’s security in peril.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/netanyahu-imminently-suspend-israeli-judicial-overhaul-plan-after-protest-chaos-strikes

    ​It was established forensically that the rapid downloads of the emails had to be from a memory device attached to a computer, not a “hack”​, but a leak.
    Seth Rich was working for the DNC, and was murdered on his way home from a work party at a bar, leaving his smartphone and credit cards on him.
    The analysis has been that Seth Rich, deeply offended at the disenfranchisement of Sanders voters in 2016, sent the Clinton-Podesta emails to wikileaks.
    Seth was Jewish, and might have also provided the information to the Mossad. The Mossad seems to have had it, and used it to influence the 2016 election.
    (Is this why Biden won’t invite Netanyahu for a state-visit?) The FBI still has a couple of Seth Rich’s computers. Can we see the contents, please?
    Moon of Alabama has the story.
    ​ ​There was no ‘Russian intervention’ in the 2016 election but an Israeli intervention that was all over the place. As usual the deep state covered that up:
    ​ ​Throughout this chain of events—including the trial, the Mueller Report, and the nearly 1,000-page Senate Intelligence Committee Report—no hint of the involvement of Israel was made public. Despite the clear violations of US law and months of clandestine, high-level attempted interference in the presidential election, no details were released, and no congressional hearings or investigations took place. Nor was there ever a hint in the press, which remained transfixed by Russia.
    ​ ​The evidence, however, suggests that throughout the summer and into the fall of 2016, Israel illegally interfered in the US presidential election. A top agent of Netanyahu was secretly offering intelligence and other covert assistance to Trump to get him elected—all with virtually no oversight or scrutiny by the FBI or the US media, though both had numerous personnel in Israel at the time.
    ​ ​Finally, nearly 8 years after it happened, we have for the first time a reasonable explanation for the ‘hacks’ and releases of the Clinton, DNC and Podesta emails. Natanyahoo’s agents did that in exchange for political concessions to Israel by Trump.
    ​ ​Those Israeli agents will have had a great time laughing about the ‘Russian intervention’ nonsense the U.S. public has fallen for.
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/03/israel-not-russia-hacked-the-2016-election.html#more

    ​Thanks Eleni in Athens: Poll shows several NATO members would feel safer under Russian military alliance
    ​ ​A new poll reveals that NATO’s controversial eastward expansion hasn’t really gone according to plan. Former Warsaw Pact member Bulgaria and former Yugoslav Republic Slovenia, which both joined NATO in 2004, say that they would feel safer being defended by the Russian military in the event of war than they would by NATO.
    ​ ​Perhaps more worryingly for NATO top brass are Turkey and Greece. Both joined the alliance in 1952 and have a history of being at odds with each other (to put it mildly) say that they too would feel safer being defended by Russia in the event of war.
    https://www.sott.net/article/343152-Poll-shows-several-NATO-members-would-feel-safer-under-Russian-military-alliance

    #132184
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ The mud might be dry in May, but if there are not enough men and equipment, there can be no spring offensive. The west cannot send what it does not have, so is this a prelude to capitulation?​ Who will get blamed, if so?
    President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine’s counter-offensive against Russia cannot start until Western allies send more military support.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65075952

    ​ ​Seymour Hersh Accuses US of ‘Cover Up’ Over Nord Stream Sabotage​ (Blaming Biden w​ould be easy. Then what?)
    ​ ​The veteran investigative journalist alleged that Biden administration officials have been “feeding” the press false stories to “protect a president who made an unwise decision and is now lying about it.”
    https://www.commondreams.org/news/hersh-nord-stream-cover-up

    ​ Things like this are usually whitewashes, like the 9/11 Commission, and the Warren Commission, but young athletes keep “dying suddenly”.​ Limited hang-out?
    ​ ​The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has appointed a committee to review evidence on the relationship between the vaccines and specific adverse events that have occurred after vaccination, including infertility and sudden death.
    The committee’s process includes establishing methods, reviewing literature, drawing conclusions, and preparing a report.
    “The committee will make conclusions about the causal association between vaccines and specific adverse events,” the NASEM website states.
    ​ ​While their work is funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the sponsors will not be able to examine the report before it is published to the public, Kathleen Stratton, a NASEM official, said during a recent meeting.
    ​ ​“What that means is that if a sponsor doesn’t like what the committee has to say—the conclusions of the committee—… the sponsor can’t prevent the report from being made public,” Stratton said. “This is a very powerful tool that we have.”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/us-expert-panel-meet-determine-which-adverse-events-covid-19-vaccines-cause

    #132185
    WES
    Participant

    Interesting little spontaneous color revolution going on in Israel. Maybe a little pay back from the US Deep State for a little Israeli election interference in 2016? Do you think the deep state might still be a little sore about being suckered in 2016?

    The US succeeded in a color revolution in Pakistan but has hit a brick wall with all the other “stans” in central Asia. It seems that Russia has de-colored the other 4 “stans”. The 4 “stans” have also taken note how quickly the US “cut and ran” from Afghanistan. Meanwhile Russia is still there.

    Yes, the French are protesting in their usual flamboyant manner but nothing will change. Just like nothing ever changed after all of the other previous protests. It is the French way of protesting after a change has been made, to ensure the change isn’t changed! Vive la change!

    #132186
    John Day
    Participant

    @WES: The deep fissure in Israeli politics has opened up.
    Netanyahu, still going through criminal trial process, has to align with far-right ultra-orthodox religious Jews, who mostly go to religious school, are exempt from the draft, and are state supported. The largely-immigrant secular Jews who do work and join the IDF have very different views, and do not want Israeli courts to be neutered by elected politicians, since Israeli politicians like the current Netanyahu coalition are a particularly vicious tribe, lacking in insight and self reflection.

    #132187

    Wow- twice in one day! Simon Elmer (thanks, Germ) saying DUMP THE SMART PHONE! And Ed Curtin (well, almost two weeks ago) saying DUMP THE SMART PHONE.
    If you find the future as terrifying as it wants to be, dump your phone. And don’t replace it with a “smart watch” no matter how Dick Tracy it makes you feel.
    Seriously, people. They can’t pull off the their dystopia or CBDCs without this.
    Chips under the skin? Anyone can do minor surgery.

    #132188
    WES
    Participant

    Dr. John Day:

    Yes, the fact that there was no discussion beforehand of the introduced legislation tabled is proof of the the politicians wanting control over the courts. I am sure the US Deep State is in there being as helpful as only they can be, still sore for being cheated out of their broom flying witch Hillary.

    But this is no different than Biden wanting direct control over the auditing department of the US Fed.

    Politicians always want more control over more things and people. So they nibble away everywhere. In Canada the politicians have already succeeded in gaining total control of the central bank and the courts, so it is already way too late for us in the land of igloos.

    #132189
    Oroboros
    Participant

    It’s hard to take the Israelis seriously for rioting on an obscure judicial reform issue Bibi was pushing when being one of the most vaccinated countries on Planet Earth, they don’t seem that concerned about a massive up tick in Myocarditis, strokes, blood clots, sudden excess death rate, miscarriages, still borns, etc.

    No problem, nothing to be concerned about, certainly nothing to take to the streets for.

    What a god damn joke of a country Israel is.

    So much for the myth of the Chosen People.

    So much for being smarty pants

    Please, may we have a 9th booster master, please!

    A massive drop in birth rates among Israelis will not be matched by the Palestinians living there who were not offered the Clotshot as much and didn’t trust it and refused at a far greater number.

    This is an intelligence test and a Darwin Award contest.

    The Israelis look like Losers by a country mile.

    And the Middle East just massively shifted East and left them with the Empire of Lies to snuggle with and no other friends in the area.

    Well Played!

    Here’s a salute to you Israel

    .

    #132190
    Alexander Carpenter
    Participant

    So AFKTT is still twitching in his neurotic CAGW onanism, despite the fact that it is not only just flat wrong as science, but is stupid as a religion, suicidal as policy, and hypocritical as environmentalism.
    What’s it gonna take to get him off this foolish fetish of farcical fallacy? If it truly represents his ground of being and his relating to the world, then everything derived from that premise is crippled by that error, along with his overall credibility in every other domain.
    How differently would we regard Michael Hudson or Colonel MacGregor were we to learn that on the side they espoused the Q-Anon beliefs, practiced secret rituals in a genital-mutilation cult, or (horrors) could actually define “woman”?
    The Carbon Cult is yet another fear-mongering manipulation of the divide-and-conquer debilitation powers, and that should be obvious to any adult observer (however rare those might be anymore). It is, simply, a willful lie, and all who repeat it are dupes, and self-deluding liars as well.
    Enough!

    #132191
    Oroboros
    Participant

    As a side note, I guess being the focus of medical experiments 80 years ago didn’t make enough of an impression on Israelis to avoid signing up for another round of inhuman mRNA experiments this time.

    With a 96%+ rate of vaccination, they are the leaders

    An Israeli pharmacy…………

    .

    #132192
    WES
    Participant

    Concerning the covid scam, it is hard to believe the Israelis were amoung the first to fall for the covid scam and then they ensured that they were amoung the first in line to receive the deadly covid vax. They drank the kool aid more deeply and frequently than anyone else.

    It certainly shows the Israelis elites must have been on one of the losing sides of the multi sided ruthlessly sick WEF/Davos/Globalist/CIA/Deep State power elites, who claim to control us.

    Since the covid death scam was the brainchild of the US DoD, I can’t help but conclude that this Israeli vax outcome somehow is connected to Israeli 2016 election interference and the US Deep State’s desire to punish the Israelis as payback.

    #132193
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    “I want to begin by sharing with you some exciting news which has great economic significance,” [Jerusalem] Mayor Lion told the conference. “The entire world faced the coronavirus pandemic which took so many of our loved ones and impacted all our lives. It damaged our health and caused great harm to our economies. One of the miracles that led us out of this dark time was the work of BioNTech, a German company which developed the mRNA-based vaccine for Pfizer. I can now share with you that from here, I will be traveling to Germany to visit the company’s headquarters, because we have just signed an agreement with the Israeli government and BioNTech to build and establish a development, research, and production center for mRNA-based vaccines in Jerusalem.

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/369031

    #132194
    WES
    Participant

    Doc Robinson:

    Amoung your many talents, are you a mind reader?!

    #132195
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Alastair CROOKE‘S latest:

    “[T]he West fell into its own ‘Certainty Trap’.”

    L’Entente Is a Bitter Pill for the West

    F.S.

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