Apr 012023
 
 April 1, 2023  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,


Willem de Kooning Door to the river 1960

 

The Capital of the Multipolar World: A Moscow Diary (Pepe Escobar)
US Urges Americans To Leave Russia ‘Immediately’ (RT)
Nebenzya: Without Russia the UN Will Lose Its Meaning (TASS)
ICC’s Putin Arrest Warrant Based On US-funded Report That Debunked Itself (GZ)
Europe Needs Russia To Survive – Lukashenko (RT)
China’s Xi Is Right: Changes Not Seen For A Century (Lukyanov)
From Iraq War To Arming Ukraine. Where Will This Lead? (Sushenstov)
Comparing Beijing, Minsk Peace Plans In Ukraine Inappropriate – Kremlin (TASS)
West Can’t Sweep Nord Stream Sabotage Under The Carpet – Diplomat (TASS)
Russian Needs Major Effort In Bakhmut Despite Heavy Kiev Losses – Wagner (TASS)
EU Underestimates Russian Economic Capacity – Orban (RT)
Norway’s Wealth Fund Unable To Withdraw Funds From Russia (RT)
‘Peacekeepers’ Deployed To Ukraine Without Russia’s Consent – Medvedev (TASS)
Did They Light Up a Cigarette Afterward? (Kunstler)
Manhattan Assistant DA Nukes Twitter Account After Anti-Trump Bias Exposed (ZH)
The Trump Indictment: Making History in the Worst Possible Way (Turley)
Stirrings of Euro Eco-rebellion (Higgie)

 

 

 

 

Dowd

 

 

“Gates, the WHO, a ton of these universities: they’re all talking about including mRNA vaccinations as part of the food. They’re gonna modify the genes of these foods to make them mRNA vaccines,” warned attorney @TomRenz. Missouri HB 1169 seeks to counter such an effort. It’s been described as “one of the most controversial bills in history,” but all it is – is a labeling bill. If a food product is a gene therapy product, you have every right to know. So, if this bill gets passed, it’s a major victory not just for our well-being — but also for discovery, too.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1641990297142829056

 

 

 

 

Trump team
https://twitter.com/i/status/1641827495426113536

 

 

Tucker Trump

 

 

Beck
https://twitter.com/i/status/1641603632100524035

 

 

 

 

Ursula

 

 

Kneissl

 

 

 

 

 

 

Western media refuse to report on the major changes happening. How does that serve their audience?

The Capital of the Multipolar World: A Moscow Diary (Pepe Escobar)

How sharp was good ol’ Lenin, prime modernist, when he mused, “there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”. This global nomad now addressing you has enjoyed the privilege of spending four astonishing weeks in Moscow at the heart of an historical crossroads – culminating with the Putin-Xi geopolitical game-changing summit at the Kremlin. [..] The initial gut feeling the day I arrived, after a seven-hour walk under snow flurries, was confirmed: this is the capital of the multipolar world. I saw it among the West Asians at the Valdai. I saw it talking to visiting Iranians, Turks and Chinese. I saw it when over 40 African delegations took over the whole area around the Duma – the day Xi arrived in town. I saw it throughout the reception across the Global South to what Xi and Putin are proposing to the overwhelming majority of the planet.

In Moscow you feel no crisis. No effects of sanctions. No unemployment. No homeless people in the streets. Minimal inflation. Import substitution in all areas, especially agriculture, has been a resounding success. Supermarkets have everything – and more – compared to the West. There’s an abundance of first-rate restaurants. You can buy a Bentley or a Loro Pianna cashmere coat you can’t even find in Italy. We laughed about it chatting with managers at the TSUM department store. At the BiblioGlobus bookstore, one of them told me, “We are the Resistance.”

By the way, I had the honor to deliver a talk on the war in Ukraine at the coolest bookshop in town, Bunker, mediated by my dear friend, immensely knowledgeable Dima Babich. A huge responsibility. Especially because Vladimir L. was in the audience. He’s Ukrainian, and spent 8 years, up to 2022, telling it like it really was to Russian radio, until he managed to leave – after being held at gunpoint – using an internal Ukrainian passport. Later we went to a Czech beer hall where he detailed his extraordinary story. In Moscow, their toxic ghosts are always lurking in the background. Yet one cannot but feel sorry for the psycho Straussian neocons and neoliberal-cons who now barely qualify as Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s puny orphans.

In the late 1990s, Brzezinski pontificated that, “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical center because its very existence as an independent state helps transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.” With or without a demilitarized and denazified Ukraine, Russia has already changed the narrative. This is not about becoming a Eurasian empire again. This is about leading the long, complex process of Eurasia integration – already in effect – in parallel to supporting true, sovereign independence across the Global South.

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This is hilarious. Blinken and Jean-Pierre tell everyone to “depart immediately”, and then “National Security Council spokesperson” Kirby “explained Washington was not actually calling upon all Americans to literally leave Russia and was not encouraging news outlets to withdraw their correspondents from the country.”

Leave, but not literally?! Do note Russia says they caught Gershkovich “red-handed”…

US Urges Americans To Leave Russia ‘Immediately’ (RT)

Washington has called upon Americans who are traveling to or residing in Russia to leave the country “immediately” in the aftermath of the arrest of Wall Street Journal (WSJ) correspondent Evan Gershkovich. While Moscow said he was caught “red-handed” trying to obtain state secrets, the US has condemned the arrest as an assault on “press freedom.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “deeply concerned” about the development, adding that “in the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish journalists and civil society voices.”

“We reiterate our strong warnings about the danger posed to US citizens inside the Russian Federation. US citizens residing or traveling in Russia should depart immediately,” the top diplomat said in a statement. A similar message was conveyed by the White House, with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stating that the “targeting of American citizens by the Russian government is unacceptable.” “We also condemn the Russian government’s continued targeting and repression of journalists and freedom of the press,” she added, urging Americans to “heed the US government’s warning to not travel to Russia” or leave should they happen to already be in the country.

The call was somewhat watered down by US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, who explained Washington was not actually calling upon all Americans to literally leave Russia and was not encouraging news outlets to withdraw their correspondents from the country. Gershkovich, a WSJ correspondent who covers news from Russia, Ukraine, and the former USSR, was detained in the city of Ekaterinburg on suspicion of espionage, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced earlier in the day. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the journalist was caught “red-handed” while trying to obtain Russian state secrets.

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“Apparently, the collective West’s thinking is that children, in particular, orphans, are better left in the war zone.”

Nebenzya: Without Russia the UN Will Lose Its Meaning (TASS)

Will the informal meeting of the UN Security Council on the “Arria formula” on children evacuated from the Ukrainian conflict zone touch upon the issue of their return, as you mentioned at the press conference? The “Arria formula” meeting is designed to bring to the international community first-hand information about evacuated children from the war zone in Donbass and Ukraine and dispel the false narrative spread by the Western media about the alleged “abductions” of children from Ukraine and attempts to “destroy their identity.” I would like to emphasize once again that we are talking about evacuation from the war zone in full compliance with the obligations under International Humanitarian Law, as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Apparently, the collective West’s thinking is that children, in particular, orphans, are better left in the war zone.

From the beginning of the special military operation to the present, millions of people have been evacuated in this way, including children, who in the overwhelming majority of cases arrived on the territory of Russia with their parents, guardians and trustees. Only a small number of evacuated children were in institutions for orphans and children left without parental care. Children who were pupils at institutions located within the administrative boundaries of the DPR and LPR at the time of recognition of their independence by the Russian Federation were transferred under guardianship. Great attention was paid to the placement of minors in the families of blood relatives living in Russia. The Westerners’ use of the term “adoption” in this context is deliberately misleading. In reality, we are talking about temporary preliminary guardianship or temporary guardianship.

The main goal is for children to be in families, not orphanages. This form was chosen specifically taking into account the potential reunification of minors with their blood relatives, if any are found. The Russian side does not prevent children from maintaining contact and communication with their relatives and friends, regardless of their place of residence. To simplify the reunification process, parents can seek help finding their child directly from the office of the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights. To this day, with the participation of the Commissioner for Children’s Rights, 15 children from 8 families have already been reunited with their relatives. We have held a number of meetings with representatives of the Regional Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, who also decided to facilitate the reunification of children with parents outside the Russian Federation and Ukraine (in Poland, Portugal and Norway), within the framework of the organization’s mandate.

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Jeremy Loffredo and Max Blumenthal for the Grayzone.

ICC’s Putin Arrest Warrant Based On US-funded Report That Debunked Itself (GZ)

On March 17, the Prosecutor General of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, introduced an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Llova-Belova. The warrant, which accused Putin and Lolva-Belova of conducting the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children to a “network of camps” across the Russian Federation, inspired a wave of incendiary commentary in the West. US Sen. Lindsey Graham, perhaps the most aggressive cheerleader in Congress for war with Russia, proclaimed: “The ICC has an arrest warrant for Putin because he has organized the kidnapping of at least 16,000 Ukrainian children from their families and sent them to Russia. It is exactly what Hitler did in World War II.” CNN’s Fareed Zakaria echoed Graham, declaring the ICC warrant revealed that Putin “is in fact following parts of Hitler’s playbook.”

The ICC prosecutor appeared to have based his arrest warrant on research produced by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL). Yale HRL’s work was funded and guided by the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, an entity the Biden administration established in May 2022 to advance the prosecution of Russian officials. During an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Yale HRL’s executive director, Nathaniel Raymond, claimed his report provided proof that “thousands of children are in a hostage situation.” Invoking the Holocaust, Raymond asserted, “We are dealing with the largest network of children camps seen in the 21st century.”

Yet in an interview with Jeremy Loffredo, the co-author of this report, and in his own paper for Yale HRL, Raymond contradicted many of the bombastic claims he made to the media about child hostages. During a phone conversation with Loffredo, Raymond acknowledged that “a large amount” of the camps his team investigated were “primarily cultural education – like, I would say, teddy bear.” Yale HRL’s report similarly acknowledges that most of the camps it profiled provided free recreational programs for disadvantaged youth whose parents sought “to protect their children from ongoing fighting” and “ensure they had nutritious food of the sort unavailable where they live.” Nearly all of the campers returned home in a timely manner after attending with the consent of their parents, according to the paper. The State Department-funded report further concedes that it found “no documentation of child mistreatment.”

Yale HRL based its research entirely on Maxar satellite data, Telegram postings, and Russian media reports, relying on Google translate to interpret them and at times misrepresented the articles in its citations. The State Department-funded unit conceded that it performed no field research for its paper, stating that it “does not conduct ground-level investigations and therefore did not request access to the camps.” Unlike the Yale investigators who inspired the ICC’s arrest warrant, Loffredo gained unfettered access to a Russian government camp in Moscow that houses youth from the war-torn Donbas region. Though it is precisely the kind of center that Yale HRL – and by extension, the ICC – have portrayed as a “re-education camp” for Ukrainian child hostages, he found a hotel full of happy campers receiving free classical music lessons in their native Russian language from first-class instructors – a “teddy bear,” as Raymond called it.

At The Donbas Express music camp located just outside of Moscow, youth told Loffredo they were grateful to have found refuge from the Ukrainian army’s years-long campaign of shelling and besiegement of their homeland. By fleeing the war in Donbas, these children had escaped a nightmarish military conflict for which Yale HRL and the ICC have demonstrated little to no concern.

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The UN needs Russia, and Europe needs Russia.

Europe Needs Russia To Survive – Lukashenko (RT)

The world is currently witnessing “the destruction of Europe,”Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told the national parliament in an annual address on Friday. The continent is losing its independence because Western nations are turning into US satellites, the Belarusian leader believes. Only uniting with Moscow could stop that, he said. “The policy of the European Union, both foreign and internal, has become totally subordinated to US interests,” Lukashenko said, as he accused European leaders of lacking the political will to make their nations truly independent in international affairs. According to Lukashenko, the US has long been pursuing a policy of economic suppression against the EU. The emergence of Europe’s own competitive currency, the euro, has prompted the US to start “suffocating” its “subjects,” he stated.

Washington is also using the ongoing conflict in Ukraine to “stall” Europe, the Belarusian president added. The only way out for Europe is to join forces with Russia, Lukashenko said. “Europe can survive only together with us, primarily with Russia,” he told the lawmakers. “If Russia and Europe unite, it will be a powerhouse no one can beat.” The statements were made as Russia unveiled its revised foreign policy concept. The document, which outlines the nation’s strategic priorities, called the “anti-Russian policy” of the US a major threat to international peace. At the same time, Moscow maintained that it did not consider Western nations to be adversaries and was ready for dialogue and cooperation on the basis of mutual respect.

The developments came amid the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in which the EU followed the US in supporting Kiev with both military and financial aid while slapping Moscow with unprecedented sanctions. The EU has also tried to get rid of Russian oil and gas imports, which has negatively impacted European nations that were previously heavily dependent on Russian energy imports, like Germany. Although the German government announced in January that the country would narrowly avoid a recession this year, credit ratings agency Fitch predicted earlier this month that the German economy would enter recession by late 2023.

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“We will take our cue from Xi, who sees the changes taking place as a sign of necessary renewal. And we will manage the costs somehow.”

China’s Xi Is Right: Changes Not Seen For A Century (Lukyanov)

The second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first have been very comfortable times for the world as a whole. In terms of the overall geopolitical arrangement, we saw first a rather strong balance based on bipolar confrontation, then a relatively stable hegemony. But there has also been progress in the social and economic senses. Many positive changes took place after the Second World War. The welfare state model spread across most of Europe, and even the United States, with its more modest traditions in this sphere, made great strides. Similar changes also took place on the other side of the Iron Curtain, with a focus on improving living standards and consumer diversity added to the traditional priorities of defence. In the Third World, as colonial possessions were disappearing there was an enthusiasm for freedom and a belief in the future. Even if many of the new states carried little heft.

The end of the Cold War brought with it new expectations. The ‘free world’ enjoyed a ‘peace dividend’ (reduced military spending) and the opportunity to extend its economic expansion into previously closed areas. The former socialist countries took advantage of the opening up in every way they could and – at least for individuals – there were more opportunities than before. This was often to the detriment of state capacity, but it was believed that this was the general trend – the individual was more important. Eventually, the former Third World tried to take advantage of both. Many countries in Asia, for example, have benefited greatly from globalization. Meanwhile, a lot of people from states which have underachieved have chosen to move to wealthier locations.

Both periods had one thing in common – a widespread feeling that tomorrow would be better than yesterday. However, now, just like that, it’s over. At present, it’s commonplace to accuse political elites of unprofessionalism and bad governance. Without making excuses for individual politicians, the current generation – which grew up in these very favourable conditions – has had to deal with shifts of a tectonic nature. The exhaustion of the previous financial model of the capitalist economy, the communications revolution (one of the main results of which is the mental divide between the mature and the young), technological change with inevitable consequences for the labour market, an ageing population in the developed countries, and a rejuvenation in previously troubled states is creating a completely different international environment.

Moreover, the interconnectedness of the planet does not allow anyone to isolate themselves from the general instability, which spills over national borders in various forms. Moreover, as was the case a century ago, the growth of socio-political activism among the masses is leading to the radicalization of political groups. And with traditional parties and ideologies in deep crisis, radicalization can take quite archaic forms. We will take our cue from Xi, who sees the changes taking place as a sign of necessary renewal. And we will manage the costs somehow.

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“America at the Apex.”

From Iraq War To Arming Ukraine. Where Will This Lead? (Sushenstov)

This year’s twentieth anniversary of the illegal Iraq invasion paradoxically coincided with major international events. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, was in Moscow on the day, while a Russia-Africa Parliamentary Forum opened at the same time. In 2003, at the height of its power, the US proclaimed its “unipolar moment” in which it would dominate unchallenged, needing no allies and tolerating no objections from adversaries. History, it was believed, had a single purpose, and they would stop at nothing to achieve it. Indeed, American military, political and economic dominance seemed total at the time, echoing the sentiments of Henry Kissinger, who a few years earlier had written that “America at the Apex.”

Twenty years later, we are witnessing the flowering of multi-polarity: in Moscow, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China talking to the Russian President, two countries contributing to a change the world has not seen in a hundred years. This transience of world history shows how quickly historical cycles change, but it is also important that the US itself, through its actions in different parts of the world, is accelerating its course. One of the most important strategic mistakes made by Washington was the invasion of Iraq. Based on a false pretext and deliberately misleading the international community, it led to a series of serious war crimes, a catastrophic civil war, the shattering of Iraqi statehood and significant repercussions for the entire Middle East.

Just a few years of American presence in Iraq resulted in huge numbers civilian deaths, indiscriminate use of force, and the destruction of several cities, including Mosul. During the evacuation of the Russian embassy during the 2003 US invasion, a convoy of diplomats came under US fire and several were injured. US private military contractors, who at one point had the same presence in the country as official troops, committed a number of war crimes. The abuse of prisoners by the US military at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad has been well documented. When the International Criminal Court raised the question of the responsibility of American citizens being charged over offenses in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US responded by saying that it would prosecute the judges who raised the issue and that they should withdraw their initiatives immediately. Arguably the greatest crime of the US in Iraq has been to create a civil war that has resulted in a terrible number of casualties with estimates ranging from 600,000 to one million.

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“..a number of provisions of China’s plan were unlikely to materialize right away, as Kiev was unable to disobey the West.”

Comparing Beijing, Minsk Peace Plans In Ukraine Inappropriate – Kremlin (TASS)

It will be inappropriate to compare the two sets of ideas for a peace settlement in Ukraine, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Friday. “We believe it will be hardly appropriate to compare these two sets of ideas, I mean the plan that was voiced by [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] and the one that [Belarusian] President Alexander] Lukashenko has just mentioned,” the Kremlin spokesman said. He also noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin had discussed with Xi the plan proposed by China and some of its individual provisions. At the same time, according to Peskov, a number of provisions of China’s plan were unlikely to materialize right away, as Kiev was unable to disobey the West.

“The plan [peace plan proposed by China] has not been put on hold, but there are certain provisions that, so to say, cannot be implemented for now due to the inability of the Ukrainian side to disobey its patrons, its commanders,” Peskov said. “These commanders, as we know, are not in Kiev. They insist that the war should continue,” he added. On March 20-22, Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Moscow. Among other things he discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin China’s plan for a peace settlement in Ukraine. The Russian leader said afterwards that many of the provisions of that plan were in line with Russia’s own approaches and could be used as the basis for a peace settlement, when the West and Kiev were ready for it.

Earlier on Friday, Lukashenko, in his address to the people and parliament of Belarus, called for declaring truce in Ukraine “without the right to move and regroup troops on both sides and without the right to move weapons and ammunition, manpower and equipment.” Lukashenko explained that in such a situation, “if the West once again tries to use the pause to deceitfully strengthen its positions, Russia will be obliged to use the entire strength of its military-industrial complex and the army to prevent an escalation of the conflict.”

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Nebenzya comes to the front. Yet another erudite spokesman.

West Can’t Sweep Nord Stream Sabotage Under The Carpet – Diplomat (TASS)

The West will not be able to “sweep under the carpet” the topic of sabotage on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said in an exclusive interview with TASS. Russia will take the chair of the UN Security Council in April. According to the diplomat, when voting on March 27 in the UN Security Council on a draft resolution on the establishment of an international commission to investigate the circumstances of sabotage, the United States and its allies “preferred to hide behind the “front” of convenient national investigations in Germany, Denmark and Sweden.” “The tactics of our Western colleagues do not surprise us – after all, as we once again became convinced from the recent investigation of the autoritative American journalist Seymour Hersh, all the evidence points to who is behind the explosions on the Nord Stream,” Nebenzya said.

“The behavior of the United States and Western countries during the discussion of this topic at the Council platform, including the eloquent silence of the American delegates in response to the reminder of the threats against the gas pipeline from the American leadership, only reinforces these suspicions. But unfortunately for their Western colleagues they will not be able to “sweep under the carpet” this topic. We will continue to strive to ensure that the true circumstances of what happened are established, and all those responsible are punished,” the diplomat stressed.

Nebenzya noted that during the discussion of this initiative, Russia’s representatives showed “the most flexible and responsible approach, and a balanced text was put to a vote, taking into account the concerns expressed by states.” “Its adoption was supported by such major players as China and Brazil. However, the United States and its allies, of course, did not come out in favor,” the diplomat stated. He noted that “investigations in Germany, Denmark and Sweden, whose objectivity is questionable” for Russia “given that the authorities of these countries, without any clear reason, refused to cooperate” with the Russian competent authorities.

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The fields are mud. Russia is not in a hurry.

Russian Needs Major Effort In Bakhmut Despite Heavy Kiev Losses – Wagner (TASS)

The Ukrainian military is suffering serious casualties in Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine) but Russian troops still have to take enormous efforts in that area, Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military company, said on Friday. “No, the Ukrainian army is not fleeing anywhere. The Ukrainian army is engaged in bloody battles and is defending Artyomovsk at the expense of serious casualties,” the Wagner press office quoted Prigozhin as saying on its Telegram channel. “Another important aspect that should be mentioned is the need to hold the flanks,” he stressed. “Today we need to concentrate efforts in the city because this is an enormous amount of combat work to do. The flanks should not let us down and allied units should hold them,” Prigozhin said.

Russian forces “are moving forward and taking every building, every building entrance and every garage between buildings,” he said. “In Bakhmut, there are about 800 high-rise buildings. If we tell about each [building] entrance, you will be tired of hearing it. When we take Bakhmut, then we will talk about that,” the Wagner founder said. Artyomovsk is located on the Kiev-controlled part of the Donetsk People’s Republic and is a major transportation hub for the Ukrainian army’s supplies in Donbass. Fierce fighting for the city is underway.

Yan Gagin, military-political expert and adviser to the acting head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said on March 22 that the city had been practically sealed off by Russian forces and all approaches to Artyomovsk were under Russian artillery control. He earlier said that Russian forces controlled about 70% of the city. Acting DPR Head Denis Pushilin has repeatedly said that there is no evidence of the Ukrainian army’s plans to leave Artyomovsk. Meanwhile, Kiev claims that the city’s defense will be bolstered. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky earlier said that Ukrainian troops would not surrender Artyomovsk and would fight for it as long as they could.

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“Russia’s foreign trade grew by more than 8% last year, while inflation is expected at around 4% this year. This comes as “other Europeans” are trying “to convince everyone of the imminent collapse of the Russian economy..”

EU Underestimates Russian Economic Capacity – Orban (RT)

Western countries are making a mistake by underestimating Russia’s ability to adapt to sanctions, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated on Friday. According to Orban, Moscow demonstrated it could adjust its economy to restrictions following the first wave of Western sanctions, introduced after Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine and to reunify with Russia. “I remember well that in 2015 we exported a lot of food products to Russia…In three years, Russia has built its agriculture and food industry to such an extent that if Hungary wanted to export food there today, it would either not work or be much more difficult than before the imposition of sanctions,” the politician told Kossuth Radio.

The Russian economy has shown its resilience to sanctions and “underestimating” the ability of a country as “huge” as Russia to adapt to restrictions is a “fatal mistake,” Orban added. The Hungarian premier is a vocal critic of the bloc’s approach to the conflict in Ukraine, and has repeatedly argued that sanctions are hurting the EU more than they hurt Russia. Earlier, Orban said that the punitive measures “were supposed to hit Russia, but hit Europe.” The anti-Russia measures have had a devastating impact on Budapest, by sending energy prices soaring and raising costs throughout the economy.

According to the prime minister, EU sanctions introduced against Russia over its military operation in Ukraine have cost Hungary’s economy €10 billion but have failed to stop the conflict. Meanwhile, Russia has survived the loss of Western markets and its economy is developing in a new way, with GDP expected to grow as soon as the second quarter of this year, President Vladimir Putin said earlier in March. Russia’s foreign trade grew by more than 8% last year, while inflation is expected at around 4% this year. This comes as “other Europeans” are trying “to convince everyone of the imminent collapse of the Russian economy,” even though EU inflation rates are higher, the Russian president noted.

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“..a wrapped gift to the oligarchs who buy our shares.”

Norway’s Wealth Fund Unable To Withdraw Funds From Russia (RT)

Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund, one of the world’s largest investors, is still unable to divest its holdings in Russia as the custodian bank is under Western sanctions, the Norwegian Finance Ministry said on Friday. The Oslo-based Government Pension Fund is the world’s biggest owner of publicly traded companies with a portfolio of about 9,000 stocks. It has around 0.2% of its assets invested in Russia. “The market for trading in Russian financial instruments is still subject to comprehensive sanctions and has not been normalized as of March 2023,” the ministry said in a statement. The Nordic country’s authorities decided to sell Russian stocks right after the start of the military operation in Ukraine.

The fund held shares in 47 Russian companies and government bonds valued at 25 billion Norwegian crowns ($2.4 billion) at the end of 2021. However, at that time the fund’s management was resisting pressure to shed Russian assets, with CEO Nicolai Tangen saying it would be “a wrapped gift to the oligarchs who buy our shares.” Since then, Western nations have imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia which now prevent the Norwegian pension fund from divesting its assets. “The concrete and practical problem is that the custodian bank that we use is under sanctions, and can’t assist us with settlement of transactions, and neither with voting on shares” in Russian companies, deputy CEO, Trond Grande said in January.

The situation is “deadlocked” he noted, adding that “there is no way we can either sell or buy or vote on these shares.” Details of the fund’s portfolio at the end of 2022 released in January revealed a loss of about $2.8 billion from Russian holdings, compared to their value at the end of 2021. Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly warned that sanctions imposed on the country would backfire. Earlier this month, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Western nations would “suffer from their own restrictions” while being “disappointed” by Russia’s resilience.

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A pretty crazy plan, if you ask me. Do they really think Russia will let armed troops wander around?

‘Peacekeepers’ Deployed To Ukraine Without Russia’s Consent – Medvedev (TASS)

So-called peacekeepers, whose deployment to Ukraine under NATO auspices is currently being mooted in Europe, will be eliminated should any appear at the frontlines without Russia’s consent, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dimity Medvedev said on Friday. “It is obvious that such ‘peacekeepers’ are our unvarnished enemies, wolves in sheep’s clothing. They would be a legitimate target for our armed forces should they be deployed at the frontlines, without Russia’s consent, with weapons in hand and presenting a direct threat to us,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel. According to Medvedev, “those ‘peacekeepers’” must be destroyed mercilessly as they are the “soldiers of the enemy.”

“They will die in the course of combat,” the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council stated with confidence. “Is Europe prepared for a long line of coffins holding its ‘peacekeepers’?” he asked rhetorically. “Their (NATO member countries’ – TASS) true intentions are crystal clear – to impose a peace that is favorable to them on the line of contact from a position of strength and to station their ‘peacekeeping’ troops in Ukraine, who would be armed with assault rifles and riding on tanks, and would be wearing some sort of blue helmets with yellow stars,” the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council said.

Medvedev recalled that the potential results of such actions can be seen in the “history of operations conducted by the United States and its allies in various regions of the world, [including] the tragedies of Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and numerous African countries.” “It is clear that the so-called NATO peacekeepers are simply preparing to enter the conflict on the side of our enemies in order to make hay out of this, bringing the situation to the point of no return, and to unleash that World War III they claim to be so afraid of.”.

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“It’s a little early to assess the knock-on effects of the Left’s ecstatic Trumpgasm..”

Did They Light Up a Cigarette Afterward? (Kunstler)

The New York Times enjoyed its long-delayed tantric Trumpgasm so much today that it rolled out the full-page banner headline format usually reserved for the commencement of world wars. (They took the banner down before seven o’clock this morning.) For many of the cat-ladies employed as “reporters” at the once-august paper, it was the first Trumpgasm they’ve ever experienced in a lifetime of emotional displacement, over-eating, and furious knitting of pink polyester hats for the crusade to root out patriarchal wickedness. This fulfillment of a years-long psychodrama, starring the feared and loathed occult persona of a gold-coiffed “Daddy” figure who once presided in the political household, came at the hands of dragon-slayer Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, archetype of the many long-oppressed victims worked to death in the bilges of our slave ship of state — now turned righteous Woke deliverer of cosmic vengeance!

This, of course, is brought to you by the party of hoaxes, flimflams, and mandated death shots, so it’s amusing here on the sidelines to see The Times’s op-ed writers squirm with post-coital pleasure underneath the full-page Trumpgasmic headline. The lead editorial declares: “Even Donald Trump Should Be Held Accountable”— overlooking the utter absence of accountability that has been the norm in every recent insult to the nation’s dignity from wholesale and repeat election fraud, to six years of lawless depravity in the FBI, to overt support of Antifa and BLM street havoc, to the forced, deceitful administration of deadly “vaccines.” “How a President’s Arrest Can Strengthen a Democracy,” honorary cat-lady Nicholas Kristoff opined, repeating the bad-faith trope that his legions of Wokery have an interest in political rectitude — when, in fact, they are solely preoccupied with coercing, censoring, cancelling, persecuting, punishing, and defenestrating anyone who objects to their grifts and hustles.

“Only love and a leap of faith can break through distrust. That is why a credible form of patriotism is so important right now,” explained The Times’s official Superintendent of Platitudes, David Brooks, to soothe consciences grated by this loutish gambit to shove a political adversary off the game board in advance of an election. “Joe Biden may not be your cup of tea,” Mr. Brooks summed up his civics lesson, “but he’s restored sanity, effectiveness and decency to the White House.” [..] It’s a little early to assess the knock-on effects of the Left’s ecstatic Trumpgasm. A common theme flying across the Web is that Alvin Bragg’s jerry-rigged case will only make a martyr of Mr. Trump, neatly illustrating and personifying the government’s apparent war against its own citizens — making it clear that they will stop at nothing and no one to enforce the corrupt bureaucracy’s will against the public — and that the net result will be to ensure Mr. Trump’s reelection in 2024.

Read more …

There are tons of Trump-haters in positions of power. A new one very day.

Manhattan Assistant DA Nukes Twitter Account After Anti-Trump Bias Exposed (ZH)

Less than 24 hours after the Gateway Pundit exposed Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Meg Reiss’ public hatred of Donald Trump on Twitter, Reiss – who’s been accused of masterminding the case against the former president, locked and then deleted her account. As TGP documented Thursday morning, Reiss ‘liked’ several anti-Trump tweets, exposing her absolute bias against the man her office is about to indict over hush money paid to former adult actress Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford). Of note, Trump’s alleged payment to Daniels through former lawyer Michael Cohen would normally be a misdemeanor which falls outside the statute of limitations. Not for Bragg’s office. Not for Reiss. For comparison, Hillary Clinton was allowed to pay a fine to the FEC for actual election interference with the Steele Dossier hoax her campaign paid for and then boosted throughout the media.


As TGP further notes; The Institute for Innovation in Prosecution (IIP) which is a research center out of the Soros-funded John Jay College has tagged her dozens of times. Reiss served as the Executive Director for the IIP.” DA of Brooklyn Eric Gonzalez also tagged Reiss, who previously served in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office as the Chief of Social Justice, on several occasions too. Most of these tweets Reiss liked were while she served in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office as the Chief of Social Justice and as she served as the director of the IIP. However, her political bias extends into her time at the Manhattan DA’s office as well. Earlier in the year as she was serving as Manhattan’s Chief Assistant District Attorney she retweeted a video of Democrat representative Hakeem Jeffries giving a speech at the State of the Union. At one point during the video Reiss shared, Rep. Jeffries says Democrats will put “Maturity over Mar-a-Lago”.

Read more …

“Bragg ran on his pledge to bag Trump and Pomerantz ramped up the political base to demand an indictment for a crime. It really did not matter what that crime might be.”

The Trump Indictment: Making History in the Worst Possible Way (Turley)

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has finally made history. He has indicted former President Donald Trump as part of an investigation, possibly for hush money payments. We are all waiting to see the text of the indictment to confirm the basis for this unprecedented act. But history in this case — and in this country — is not on Bragg’s side. The only crime that has been discussed in this case is an unprecedented attempt to revive a misdemeanor for falsifying business documents that expired years ago. If that is still the basis of Thursday’s indictment, Bragg could not have raised a weaker basis to prosecute a former president. If reports are accurate, he may attempt to “bootstrap” the misdemeanor into a felony (and longer statute of limitations) by alleging an effort to evade federal election charges.

While Trump will be the first former president indicted, he will not be the last if that is the standard for prosecution. It is still hard to believe that Bragg would primarily proceed on such a basis. There have been no other crimes discussed over months, but we will have to wait to read the indictment to confirm the grounds. What we do know is the checkered history leading to this moment. The Justice Department itself declined to prosecute the federal election claim against Trump. There was ample reason to decline. The Justice Department went down this road before and it did not go well. They tried to prosecute former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on stronger grounds (which I also criticized) and failed. In that case, campaign officials and donors were directly involved in covering up an affair that produced a child.

At the time, Edwards’ wife was suffering from cancer. The prosecution still collapsed. The reason is that you need to show the sole purpose for paying hush money in such a scandal. For any married man, let alone a celebrity, there are various reasons to want to bury a sexual scandal. For Trump, there was an upcoming election but he was also married man allegedly involved in an affair with a porn star. He was also a television celebrity who is subject to the standard “morals clause” that’s triggered by criminal conduct or conduct that brings “public disrepute, scandal, or embarrassment.” These clauses are written broadly to protect the news organizations and their “brand.”

Various presidents from Warren Harding to Bill Clinton have been involved in efforts to hush up affairs. They also had different reasons for burying such scandals, including politics. However, scandals are messy matters with a complex set of motivations. Showing that Trump only acted with the future election in mind — rather than his current marriage or television contracts — is implausible. That was likely the same calculus made by the Justice Department. That is also why the use of the “bootstrapping” theory as the primary charge would be an indictment of the prosecution and its own conduct. The office has already been tarnished by the conduct of the prosecutors who pushed this theory.

When Bragg initially balked at this theory and stopped the investigation, two prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, then resigned from the Manhattan DA’s office. Pomerantz then did something that some of us view as a highly unprofessional and improper act. He published a book on the case against Trump — a person who was still under investigation and not charged, let alone convicted, of any crime. It worked. Bragg ran on his pledge to bag Trump and Pomerantz ramped up the political base to demand an indictment for a crime. It really did not matter what that crime might be.

Read more …

Save the world by destroying society. Sounds like a plan.

Stirrings of Euro Eco-rebellion (Higgie)

It’s not often that a development in north-western Tasmania looms large on the international stage. But a site near Burnie is set to be a key part of Germany’s resistance to Green pressure to abandon internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in favour of electric cars. Porsche is the driving force behind the A$1 billion investment in the HIF (Highly Innovative Fuels) plant now in development – one of three such e-fuel plants globally – as part of a move to mass production by 2026. E-fuel, not yet commercially available, is a combination of hydrogen with carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere which ICE vehicles can run on. While the use of e-fuel produces carbon emissions, these are offset according to producers by the CO2 sucked from the atmosphere to make the fuel. Germany’s car producers are touting ICE vehicles using e-fuel – with the price eventually expected to be around A$2 a litre – as an alternative to battery-powered cars.

Germany’s insistence that ICE vehicles can and must remain into the future has shown that even for its Green-Left government, economics can eventually trump environmental political correctness. The country remains by far Europe’s largest car producer and is the world’s largest car exporter by value, employing 800,000, 5 per cent of the workforce. Car production has in large part powered Germany’s modern economy and more than a little Teutonic pride is inspired by the fact that one of their own, Karl Benz, pioneered the first reliable petrol engine and commercial production of ICE vehicles. Torpedoing the EU plan to ban the sale of new ICE vehicles will allow car producers to continue using their existing products and infrastructure.

Germany’s position has thrown a spanner in the works of what the EU had proclaimed as a landmark step in its climate change activism. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government last year signed off on an EU commitment for all new vehicles sold from 2035 to have zero emissions. In February the European parliament, including representives of Germany’s coalition parties, passed legislation to that effect. To be confirmed as EU law, the measure needs to be approved by the European Council, the EU member-state leaders. But at the eleventh hour, the one non-Green-Left element in Germany’s ruling coalition, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), began echoing through its Porsche-driving transport minister, Volker Wissing, fierce objections of the country’s car producers to an all-electric vehicle future. The FDP has long been a strong backer of the car industry, including through its resistance to efforts by the other main parties to end Germany’s status as Europe’s only country without a general motorway speed limit. Despite objections from the Greens, Scholz has backed the FDP’s objections to the EU’s planned 2035 law.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Latest photo of Julian Assange. Now I want to cry.

 

 


Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, Jimmy Durante and Buster Keaton in 1932.

 

 

Gervais

 

 

Burnt tree
https://twitter.com/i/status/1641750060965715969

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle April 1 2023

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 59 total)
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  • #132505

    Willem de Kooning Door to the river 1960   • The Capital of the Multipolar World: A Moscow Diary (Pepe Escobar) • US Urges Americans To Leave Rus
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 1 2023]

    #132506
    Germ
    Participant

    Happy April Fools Day, Fools –

    Covid booster vaccine to be offered to millions in England next week

    “Millions of people in England will be offered a Covid booster jab next week, health officials have announced, as recent estimates show infections have climbed to their highest level this year.”

    Children under 12 will be offered a child formulation of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/01/covid-booster-vaccine-offered-millions-england-spring-care-home-residents-infections

    TVASF

    #132507
    Germ
    Participant

    Gee? I wonder ….

    Why are Americans dying so young?
    “US life expectancy is in freefall as the young and the poor bear the brunt of struggles for shared prosperity”

    https://www.ft.com/content/653bbb26-8a22-4db3-b43d-c34a0b774303

    TVASF

    #132508
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Not just vaccines are killing Americans. You’d have to come here to find out. Open borders = infinite fentanyl + no economy = complete hardship and despair. And that’s just one attack.

    #132509
    Dr. D
    Participant

    So they started the Bank Run – or the clampdown therein bc they have no money – choosing to sacrifice Australia: no cash withdrawals. That makes sense. If I were the Bankrupt British Empire, I’d dump them first too. Then they can focus on cash flows to the other regions. Cut blood to the extremities first.

    True Democracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=101sKhH-lMQ Ceasar, Marlin Brando, 1953.

    Oh noes! The mob demanded I read the will! I never ever intended that! For Brutus is an honorable man, honest! The whole movie is just lobbing from one thoughtless mob to another, led by who? By the magic blue screen, the unblinking eye that finds you, even on the 3rd train in Switzerland. It knows. It will tell you what to do. Antony is honest and oh-so loving, he would never lead us wrong, never for his own career as future Roman Emperor.

    “At this time, I think Poland will likely try to invade Belarus/western Ukraine—with full NATO support but without NATO participation. In other words, I think that as the Kiev regime collapses in military defeat, Poland will be the next proxy victim of this US war against Russia” — Lira

    I would say not. Problem: I said Russia wouldn’t attack Ukraine either. So I suspect I’ll be wrong. Russia thinks so, because look how they’re playing their pieces: they should know, and THEY think this is next. OBVIOUSLY NATO is going to attack, because they are attackers who always aggressively and illegally invade. That’s who they are, that’s what they do. Oh and murder or dismember children. Can’t forget that. Remove kids from a war zone? That’s a War Crime, mister!

    “It would appear at first glance that she’d(Yellen)nationalized the banks. But really what happened was that the Treasury is now a subgroup of the large banks, [pledging all its credit so that uninsured depositors will not take a loss.]

    The banking system has cannibalized the Treasury and mobilized the whole of Treasury for its banking.

    People had, for a long time, wanted the idea of public banking. They wanted banking to be a public utility. But now the Treasury itself has become privatized as a banking utility…”

    An excellent synopsis. In other words, fascism: the complete merger of corporation and state. However, is it also sensible that the banks—now merged with the state – must also support complete property rights and allocate capital and NOT the government, as Davos wishes? I mean they can’t allocate it unless “it” exists, right? To get out of this mess, don’t they have to re-industrialize? Otherwise they will still collapse. Otherwise, who would they allocate capital TO?

    As I would say, they’ve moved all risk to currency risk, or national risk. Which is really military, violence risk. If that nation can’t project force of obedience – which clearly they cannot to Saudi, Africa, anywhere – then it all actualizes. All markets are one market, the Government, and that market falls. …To reality, I suppose. Isn’t falling back to “Reality” a good thing, not a bad?

    Or as Luongo puts it, “Ponzi schemes don’t have to fail: you can always roll them up to a larger Ponzi scheme.” (The Fed.)

    “So a bank could borrow from the Fed at a low rate of interest, redeposit the money at the Fed and actually make an arbitrage gain.”

    We said this was a nationalization, a bailout over time, of all risk, and it was irreversible. At the time. 2001. 2009. All were true.

    “This was a gigantic $9 trillion subsidy to the banks at the same time that the Democrats said, “We cannot afford to forgive student debt”…

    Uh, no duh. They owe that $9T TO, or rather THROUGH the banks. Erase $9T and we have $9T deflation overnight. What’s the M2 minus $9T? M2 – 9T = Mad Max.

    The Fed was a fatal turn for America, “And all that will be left [with] to relate to the international economy will be military power. “ Yes, that was the plan. Take over the world, “a 100 year war” after 912. The Generals (seemed) to be on that plan…until it failed…then they suddenly! Became nationalists. “They Bravely bravely bravely ran away.”

    “China Outpacing US Military at ‘Disturbing’ Rate: Gen. Milley

    Might have something to do with giving $150B to a losing war, after 2$ Trillion in losing wars the 20 years before that? Maybe the $60B left in F-stan? $23T for the banks since ‘08? Then poisoned both the minds, and bodies, of every young person in America? I detect some opportunity for further “readiness” here.

    “Yellen Warns Next Crisis Could Come from ‘Shadow Banks’ and Regulators Must Act

    “We’ll never have another crisis in our lifetimes” –Yellen (or at least not while I’m in office having to hear about it) “Act” like Gensler did with the now-missing FTX? “Act” like they did for the 10 years leading up to Madoff when Markopolis wrote a letter to the SEC weekly? “Act” like when for 20 years they said there was no market precious metals rigging, until they paid a tiny fine for the rigging that was going on all along? That kind of regulatory “help” and “Acting”?

    “California Man Arrested 10 Times In 31 Days, Faces 33 Charges Chastain, 38, faces 18 felonies and 15 misdemeanors…

    Love and tolerance. For him. For his dozens and dozens of victims: not so much. In #Oppositeland, we love and free the Criminal and hate and attack the victim.

    In the same vein, new NYC mayor has 30% increase in auto theft. Blames TikTok. “NYC Mayor Eric Adams Blames Tik Tok For 32% Surge In Car Thefts” But not Facebook and Twitter, which he, the government, run as a full joint venture. No no. Only TikTok because…cat videos?

    “Small European Countries “Morally & Financially Exhausted” by Ukraine War Effort

    Hahahahahaha! Exhausted? They ain’t seen nothing yet! Wait til Holland Davos shuts off all food.

    “Dowd: Deaths 5 Million.”

    No, look in that other category: injuries. If it’s true myo and percarditis are not curable, all those people will die soon, perhaps within 5 years. That’s not including the cancer rates.

    “Gates, the WHO, a ton of these universities: they’re all talking about including mRNA vaccinations as part of the food.”

    Doctors present, can you please explain in baby terms the reason we don’t put drugs into the food supply. I’m in need of a little digitalis today.

    “Western media refuse to report on the major changes happening. How does that serve their audience?”

    They don’t serve their audience, they serve their owners. Who lose money every minute because of it. Now all bad ideas are financed when money is free, but when money costs something again, the bad ideas go away. Pin chart of U.S. Bonds since 1979 to 2020 and back. 500% in a year.

    How sharp was good ol’ Lenin, prime modernist, when he mused,”

    “the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.

    Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become “profiteers,” who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.”

    Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.” –Keynes

    “• ICC’s Putin Arrest Warrant Based On US-funded Report That Debunked Itself (GZ)

    Actually the ICC arrest warrant was based on springing pedophiles from prison to wander free to act again, and that act was performed on the basis of bribery. That’s like a Win-Win.

    “By fleeing the war in Donbas, these children had escaped a nightmarish military conflict for which Yale HRL and the ICC have demonstrated little to no concern.”

    Their heartlessness towards children is simply breathtaking. But of course the same thing is happening here. Rather than wander halfway around the world, they might look to similar violence, crime, and desperation in the Connecticut valley, one of the most beaten up, washed out, ex-industrial areas I can think of. Like much of the U.S., I wouldn’t dare get out of my car in some areas, and they are food and retail deserts, akin to Omegaman, where you could see the end of the world in some fallen factories and overgrown lots. You could get there in a cab. Yale Scoreboard reads? F’s = Zero

    Helping people within eyesight of your tower wouldn’t allow you to be busybody and tell everyone what to do as an “expert”. Because they intuitively know that if they lifted a finger to help the desperate rust belt, raising rabbits in the Connecticut Valley, it would get complicated and messy, be hard, go nowhere, and mostly fail. Like Calvinists, they don’t talk to God’s Losers. It might rub off.

    The policy of the European Union, both foreign and internal, has become totally subordinated to US interests,”

    True. Except the U.S. is totally subordinate to European interests. It’s almost like there’s a third party called “Globalists” running around. But if there were, surely they’d publish papers, make statements, and hold meetings in in the Alps or something, right?

    If Russia and Europe unite, it will be a powerhouse no one can beat.”

    Not any more. Would you WANT to unite with blue-haired, PC, self-immolating retards like Europe? Why?

    The Trump Indictment: Making History in the Worst Possible Way (Turley) “

    Are you kidding? This is great! They have broken the veil that says we can arrest politicians. (He KILLED the Butler. He Killed the BUTLER?) THEY have broken the veil that says we can now arrest politicians. They did. And also the one that says we can look at all their tax returns. They did that, approved that, passed that, fought for that.

    It’s required in this environment to get buy in from the lost 30%. They do that by arranging for that 30% to demand this be done to Trump. Sort of the reverse of the “Well we can’t allow the KKK to march/speak” and ending up with speach being outlawed for YOU and everyone. In this case they MAKE LEGAL the punishment of the Bad Man, the one nobody will defend, and the precedent then – just as above – slowly includes THEM. They are under surveillance. They are under exposure.

    We already tried all the other ways. We already warned you for 75 years. Nobody cared. They cried foul and called the Whaaaaaaaamublance. 50 years trying it the way honest, logical people would. So here we are. Had to try something that works instead.

    Arrest all you want. We’ll make more.

    Having set the precedent, how is Paul Pelosi’s income and Hunter Biden now off-limits? Just as Congress is investigating them, Twitter, and abuse of government from stem to stern?

    E-fuel, not yet commercially available, is a combination of hydrogen with carbon dioxide”

    Huh. Hydrogens on Carbon chains. Gosh but that sounds an awful lot like “Hydrocarbons”, aka “Gasoline.” However did you come up with it? And you say this is a safe, stable energy source, one of the most highly concentrated and least volatile on earth? We should look into this.

    “Torpedoing the EU plan to ban the sale of new ICE vehicles will allow car producers to continue using their existing products and infrastructure.”

    It wasn’t about that. It was about “15 Minute Cities” Or better known as “Gaza Strip Open-Air Concentration Camps.” Electric cars can be shut off outside of prison grounds. Their power source is fully centralized and cannot be stored. “The Resistance” is Futile.

    #132510
    Germ
    Participant

    @ Dr. D

    California police union executive charged with attempting to import opioids

    “At least one package of drugs, in 2021, was sent using the UPS account of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/30/california-police-union-executive-charged-importing-opioids

    What a hoot!

    #132511
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “CNN Publishes Real News Story for April Fools’ Day” –BBee

    I looked on CNN, but I didn’t see it…

    #132512
    Dr. D
    Participant

    T

    #132514
    Germ
    Participant

    Malhotra (the Grifter) discussing the South African High Court case to stop all the Covid death shots.

    TVASF

    #132515
    zerosum
    Participant

    Lighter side of life
    US citizens residing or traveling in Russia should depart immediately. – . Blinken and Jean-Pierre
    Hahahahahaha
    😊😊 April fool – Said US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby 😊😊
    ———–
    April Fool
    “abductions” of children from Ukraine and attempts to “destroy their identity.”
    😊😊 Hahahaha 😊😊
    Evacuated children from the war zone in Donbass
    Deliberately misleading. In reality, we are talking about temporary preliminary guardianship or temporary guardianship.
    ————-

    Peace Plans

    Real or Illusion
    😊😊 Hahahahah 😊😊

    Minsk III Peace Plan ….
    Chinese President Xi 12 point Plan
    Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Cease Fire Plan
    • ‘Peacekeepers’ Deployed To Ukraine Without Russia’s Consent – Medvedev (TASS)

    😊😊

    —————-
    😊😊 ecstatic Trumpgasm 😊😊
    ——
    😊😊 indictment circus 😊😊
    ——–
    😊😊😊😊Evacuate starving children from Haiti 😊😊😊😊
    ———————–
    😊😊😊😊TVASF😊😊😊😊
    ————————

    #132516
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Christine Lagarde, blood drinking Satanist has a message for the Sheeple of Eurotardistan,

    Bend over and touch your toes

    Digital Euro to have built-in limitations, as Central Bank President says it will never be as private as cash

    Digital Euro to have built-in limitations, as Central Bank President says it will never be as private as cash

    .

    “The EU financial industry and policymakers are rallying around the push to introduce a digital euro….

    Lagarde told a panel at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) event that cards and apps that people use these days in Europe are “not necessarily European” – and to “sell” the digital euro, she praised the possible future centralized digital currency as not only “safe and cheap” but also, “sovereign.”

    The European Banking Federation would like to see control exerted over what Europeans are allowed to do with their digital wallets…..

    and speaks in favor of “a low fixed cap on individual holdings…..

    designed reflecting the average daily payment needs of European citizen.

    There should also be “a limit on the transaction amount,” the trade association said.

    Lagarde is a dirty little cuck.

    #132517
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Note the secret hand sign an invert pentagram on her

    Hahahaha!

    Just kidding

    April Fools

    .

    #132518
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The Empire of Lies and it’s Ukronazi Project

    Lookin Good chief!

    .

    #132519
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Presidementia Biden’s 75 car armored motorcade to global warming conference in Canuckistan

    Pissing on ya and sayin’ it rain!

    #132520
    Germ
    Participant

    Has to be repeated.
    And after forcing it on millions.
    Un-fuckin’-believable.

    TVASF

    #132521
    The Markster
    Participant

    Wow that Trump Team “Outsider” video on Benny Johnson’s Twitter packed a punch, I was totally balling like a schoolgirl. Great advertising from a clown, but a powerful message nonetheless.

    Yay on encouraging news from South Africa and elsewhere as cracks in the ‘safe and effective ‘ lies grow and grow. Now we need criminal investigations, speedy trials with convictions, and jail time.

    Thanks and Many Blessings to Ilargi, Germ and all the regulars. 🙏

    ☠️
    TVASF
    ☠️

    #132522
    Oroboros
    Participant

    From Club Orlov:

    “83% of all the US dollars that now exist in the world have been summoned into existence during just the past 22 months; since May 2021

    Four out of every five dollars in existence has been conjured up pretty much yesterday in historical terms.

    The dollar is on the glide path to Non-existence

    As inflation is going to Infinity and Beyond

    .

    #132523
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Clown World

    Thief tries to steal jewelry, can’t break case with a rock

    Duhmerica can’t even do that!

    Hahahahahaha!

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1641642343156834305

    #132524
    zerosum
    Participant

    NATO, deployment of “peacekeeping” forces without Russia’s Consent
    reworded
    NATO “invasion force”, of Ukraine.
    NATO “Booths on the ground” in Ukraine.
    NATO “Fourth mercenary army” in Ukraine.

    #132525
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Life is a series of pop quizzes

    Some pass, some don’t

    So it goes
    ~Kurt Vonnegut

    .

    .

    #132526
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.ibtimes.com/50000-north-koreans-join-russia-invading-ukraine-kremlin-offers-food-weapons-3682018
    50,000 North Koreans To Join Russia In Invading Ukraine; Kremlin Offers Food For Weapons
    By Danielle Ong
    03/30/23 AT 10:51 PM EDT

    #132527
    Red
    Participant

    A more down to earth explanation of Baudrillard uses a tale about strawberries. Sometime back in the 1950s, a grandfather takes his grandson to pick strawberries from the garden. The grandfather leans down and selects the biggest, juiciest strawberry and hands it to the grandson. The grandson bites into it and is delighted by the combination of sweetness with just a hint of bitterness.

    Fast forward to the late 1960s, and the strawberry patch has been replaced by a massive hydroponic strawberry farm. And the strawberries are no longer the original organic ones but are the product of intensive gene selection designed to enhance the sweet flavour. Moreover, the flavour itself has been captured in strawberry jam and strawberry juice. Later still, confectionery companies begin to use sugar and sweeteners to enhance the strawberry flavour in candy. And then a soda company begins to produce strawberry flavoured soda. But because the sugar is too expensive, they have used even sweeter corn syrup as a key ingredient. Finally, another company takes the strawberry soda and freezes it, marketing it as a strawberry slurpee… a product which not only bears no resemblance to a real strawberry at all, but which has been crafted to taste better than the real thing.

    Sometime later, the original grandson – now a grandfather in his own right – takes his grandson to the old strawberry patch. He leans over an picks the ripest, juiciest strawberry he can find, and hands it to his grandson. The grandson is amazed to see a real fruit which looks just like the logo on the slurpee. He bites into it, and then spits it out. “Yuk!” It tastes nothing like strawberry… “Strawberry” has become a simulacrum, bearing no resemblance to reality at all.

    Counterfeit World – Part One – Fake News

    #132528
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.rt.com/russia/573967-ukraine-offensive-crimea-klimenko/
    Ukraine’s offensive force fully manned – Kiev
    Eight new brigades have been assembled, Interior Minister Igor Klimenko claims
    01 April 2023
    ———–

    #132529
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Body Blow To Activists: Whopping 82% Of Berlin’s Voters Refused To Support Net Zero 2030 As Referendum Fails
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/body-blow-activists-whopping-82-berlins-voters-refused-support-net-zero-2030-referendum

    How can I explain this in a way a Climate Extinction / Planetary Meltdown / Jensenite can understand?

    Imagine a stadium. Imagine the empty volume of this stadium represents the general goodwill of society. Forebearance, tolerance, patience, niceness. Notice that it is FINITE, not INFINITE in nature.

    Imagine this stadium is filling up with water. The water symbolizes Planetary Meltdowners’ continual threats of immanent doom, vocal wishes that everyone was dead and everyone that ever lived could be retroactively killed, the continual hisses of Climate Extinctionists into the ears of CHILDREN that it would be better if they were dead, better yet if they had never existed. The continual pushing for actions and policies that appear intended to kill millions – no, billions, while making billions miserable WHILE lording over them as if they were morally superior.

    The thing is, Planetary Meltdowners, Climate Extinctionists, etc don’t understand the compound function, which is a real problem, spells doom for them, as we are already seeing signs of – signs they foolishly ignore of course. They assumed that civility and forbearance was an INFINITE resource. That by simply making more demands, more civility would come from… somewhere. That from somewhere, the civil commons would provide.

    So you’ve got this stadium symbolizing the average working joe’s civility vs water symbolizing the increasing irrationality and increasing demands of the Planet Meltdowners

    Let’s say it starts with just one drop of water – just some fringe hippies and “scientists” that don’t stick to the scientific method – ignore vast quantities of available scientific data, insist on calling a hypothesis a theory, keep manipulating their own data and models to give the results they want to see. This is fine right? The world can accommodate a few fringe whackos. There’s PLENTY of room left in the stadium. Plenty of goodwill and tolerance left in the public. They’re willing to put up with a LOT of absurdity, rudeness, even some cruelty to preserve the civil society they value so highly.

    But here’s the thing, imagine that drop doubles every minute. So that means 2 drops in two minutes; 4 drops in three minutes, 8 in four minutes, etc. How long would it take to fill the stadium?

    The stadium will be filled to the very top with water in approximately 47 minutes. The Planetary Meltdowner may look at the total patience left in society and compare it to the rate at which they are CURRENTLY using it up and say “No problem! We can keep going like this for 100 years!” But of course, they forget the exponential function. They cannot grasp it.

    At what count is the stadium out of space for more water – ie at what point are Climate Extinctionists and Planetary Meltdowners about to exhaust the last resources of public forbearance, basic goodwill, niceness in the face of hissing at their children that they’d be better dead and ought to never have been born, of continual policies meant to make everyone miserable and kill them?

    When has the general public about to lose all patience with them? At the 46 minute mark. With just one minute left to go.

    But Climate Extinctionists and Planetery Meltdowners can’t grasp that they are functioning as if they had an infinite resources in a finite world. Sad.

    #132530
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    “Straussian” must be pretty awful, because you won’t find many reputable sources even willing to discuss the sordid psychosis, much less define it. This evasiveness seems to include its originating source, Leo Strauss himself, who always demurred from laying the cards on the table or calling a spade a spade. The closest thing to a definition that I’ve been able to come up with, by cobbling together a patchwork of explanations from multiple sources is that it means lying, cheating, stealing, killing, prevaricating, self-serving, cold-blooded psychopathy under cover of a happy face and appeals to vanity, but that’s probably too bland to really get the concept across fully . As for a geopolitical synonym, well, “evil” comes to mind, but that too lacks proper impact because the magnitudes of the two words are not really comparable, because geopolitics is to Straus as evil is to the devil himself.

    Oh, hey! That’s the synonym I was looking for. Straussian means Satanic.

    #132535
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    @Dr D re: “…They have broken the veil that says we can arrest politicians…”

    That’s not all they’ve broken. The concept of a ‘nondisclosure agreement’ is now a flattened cow patty on the ranch driveway. A new form of covenant must now be devised to secure ‘trade secrets’ and such.

    #132536
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    “Don’t look where they want you to look. Look somewhere else…Divide and conquer.”

    #132537
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Little Rock looks a bit like parts of Ukraine.

    Were screwed if we continue to use fossil fuels. And we’re screwed if we stop using fossil fuels.

    The Progress Trap!

    #132538
    jb-hb
    Participant

    And we would be screwed due to using fossil fuels WHY?

    CO2?

    But you know very well that CO2 has been much, MUCH higher than you like to “warn” us of and that temperature has been much, MUCH higher than you like to ‘warn” us of WHILE the earth was chock full of way more life than it is NOW

    The stadium is half full. You have one minute left to go. But you keep DOUBLING down on Climate Meltdown. Because you don’t understand the doubling effect. Sad.

    #132539
    jb-hb
    Participant

    You guys were claiming warm winters were fossil fuel based global warming until we got some really cold winters, then you claimed cold winters were fossil fuel based global warming.

    You claimed drought in California was fossil fuel based Global Warming, until they got tons of precipitation, at which point you claimed fossil fuel based Global Warming was causing THAT.

    Now you are claiming fossil fuels are causing so much tornadoes that we are screwed if we keep using it!

    I suppose if you stopped doubling down on Planetary Meltdown, some other Planetary Meltdowner would see the available resources left unused – the public space, the attention – and use it themselves. A sad PARADOX of some type.

    Truly, doubling down over and over with “arguments” that look increasingly (doublingly) absurd uses up the remaining patience the general public has left.

    But Planetary Meltdowners don’t believe that civil society comes from people living in cultures that choose to live by a mutually beneficial social contract – no. Planetary Meltdowners believe that it is created by non-organic geological processes of the earth, that the sweetness of civility comes bubbling up naturally, inexaustibly, from the earth’s molten chocolate center

    #132540
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    ‘POTUS is intended for entertainment purposes only, and not for commercial applications:

    #132541
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Fuckwits don’t understand destabilisation of Jets Steams. Nor do fuckwits understand high pressure blocking. And fuckwits surely do not understand the relationship between sea surface temperature and vapour pressure.

    Fuckwits like to deny the well-established relationship between the absorbance and reradiation of energy in the IR that was first characterised by Tyndall in 1859 and which was accurately forecast to cause overheating of the Earth by Arrhenius in 1896.

    Fuckwits declare that the presence of snow in one location indicates planet-wide cooling.

    Fuckwits cannot distinguish the difference between weather and climate.

    Fuckwits carefully avoid all discussion of the record-high (and rapidly increasing) ocean heat content.

    Fuckwits do not understand that record low ice cover recorded in recent years in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions are canaries in the coal mine for even faster overheating than has already witnessed.

    Fuckwits do not even know about the potential for eruption of methane clathrates from the shallow seas around the North Pole, and certainly do not understand the humungous overheating potential that methane has -being up to 300 times the potential of carbon dioxide.

    Fuckwits do not recognise that atmospheric methane is currently almost three times the pre-industrial level and is rising at the fastest rate ever recorded, particularly over the Arctic Sea and permafrost regions of Siberia.

    Fuckwits do not ever consider the effect of depression of pH by carbon dioxide has on the formation of shell of numerous shellfish species and corals -the messing up of the bicarbonate-carbonate.

    Fuckwits do not recognise the potential for oceans to become sources rather than sinks for carbon dioxide, as the temperature of the oceans rise.

    Fuckwits couldn’t give a shit about the welfare of future generations are purely concerned with the now.

    Fuckwits refuse to look at evidence:

    SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 2023
    Sea surface temperature at record high

    https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/

    The world is full of fuckwits. And one of them, jb-hb, persists, indeed absolutely insists, on repeatedly making a fool of himself on TAE.

    #132542
    davidveale
    Participant

    @jb-hb — Yes, that’s correct. Global warming leads to both warmer/colder, drier and wetter weather, depending upon location. Most temperate weather is determined by the location of the jet stream. North of it, the air tends to be cool and dry. South of the jet stream, it tends to be warmer and wetter.

    When there’s a large temperature differential between the poles and tropics (which is largely what drives the jet stream), the flow is relatively stable. Like a river travelling down a steep gradient, it will be relatively straight and stable in it’s banks.

    When you decrease that temperature gradient by warming the earth (which occurs mostly at the poles),, the jet stream starts to meander, and form large ox-bows. Places like like Mexico City — which were formerly well away from the normal jet stream flow — suddenly find themselves experiencing freezing temperatures as the meanders grow in amplitude. That’s why they had 150 year old citrus trees die in a freezing event a few years ago.

    As a farmer, I find that the normal cycle during our growing season here in Michigan starts to vary wildly. Whereas we would normally be oscillating between cooler/drier and warmer/wetter weather every week or two, it’s now often every month or two as the meanders in the jet stream stall out.

    The same effect is the reason that Washington’s forests are now burning at rates much greater than they historically did (the phase shift occurred around 2016 if my memory serves). I grew up there and once worked as a commercial forester there as well, so I pay attention to these things.

    #132543
    jb-hb
    Participant

    Yes, I get that Climate Extictionists like to screech that whatever weather is happening proves Global Warming and when the opposite weather happens, they screech that that proves it too.

    The fact that you padded your essay out doesn’t change it

    While meanwhile, actual real science shows, for millions of years, higher temperatures and higher CO2 with the earth being chock full of life rather than turning into Venus as threatened.

    The mere feat that you used more words to go fu-nu-mu-nu with the same simplistic endpoint that STILL flies in the face of actual real science just goes to show that you cannot grasp the concept of overshoot

    You see, Climate Extinctionist / Planet Meltdownists have made more and more of themselves – through abuse and misuse of the educational system and media. They’ve also multiplied the space occupied in the cultural space via increasing activism and use of technology.

    Sadly, they just can’t see that having repeatedly doubled down, they are reaching a point of overshoot, where the resources to maintain tolerance for their message will be exhausted. Overshoot always leads to a collapse, a crash.

    It is sad that you Climate Extinctionists cannot heed the increasing danger signs. If you act now, you may perhaps be able to prevent it. Or it may be too late.

    #132544
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    Great rant from Celente:

    #132545
    citizenx
    Participant

    Ursula von der Albrecht- you left out babies being thrown from incubators at bio-lab sites ?

    It’s Gendercide !

    Biological Women declare War on Biological Man… the shortest and least profitable War to end all Wars and Humanity.

    Mad Max Clown World coming soon.

    WHO now recommends healthy, young people NOT get the Covid Vaccines.

    Billy Boy Gates getting nervous?

    (un) safe and (in) effective …

    50,000 North Koreans To Join Russia In Invading Ukraine

    Rock On ! War at home, War abroad… What a lovely Nation.

    #132546
    Germ
    Participant

    TVASF

    #132547
    Afewknowthetruth
    Participant

    It is most certainly too late because we have had fuckwits and liars in charge for decades. And those fuckwits and liars have implemented non-solutions to vast array of predicaments we have been faced with for decades -non-solutions (such as Carbon Trading and Quantitative Easing and electric cars etc.) that suited the short-term interests of banks and corporations but made all the predicaments worse!

    What is more, the fuckwits and liars and saboteurs in charge systematically lied to the ignorant masses in Oceania/NATOstan over many decades to ensure that only fuckwits and liars and saboteurs ever got elected or installed as CEOs in the vast bureaucracy of fuckwits and liars.

    Celente puts it, it’s a Crime Syndicate.

    And now it’s all unravelling as a direct consequence of all the systematic fraud, deceit and criminality that characterise the ‘governments’ of UK, US, Canada, Australia, NZ. -Airstrips One, Two, Three Four and Five.

    Yesterday I took some time away from various urgent projects to rewatch the 1984 version of ‘1984’. It’s all there, other than the environmental meltdown (which was a lot less noticeable when Eric Blair wrote the book over 1947-8).

    #132548

    I think you can die of confusion.
    I think you can die of despair.
    But now that they act in collusion
    There won’t be a soul left to care.

    The photo of Julian Assange…

    On “climate change”: it could be worse. They could decide it is the sun’s fault, and plot something they could do to tame it. We’re coming close with darkening the skies.

    I recently read a $.99 book referred by Rense (I paid too much for it), and it told of a universe populated by species so far advanced it boggles the mind. They have their sights set on earth for depopulation and restructuring. The foundations are being laid. It meshed with a storybook site of an interview with someone called “Hidden Hand” which I would link but it was not secure and had to be obliterated for doing dodgy things to the desktop. They both imply that Lucifer (Lucifera- a female! in one) isn’t such a bad guy, after all. Just another cog in the the realm of universal domination, poor thing.

    What circle of hell captures those who would tell all their children they rue that they had them?

    I just got my copy of “There is no Antimimetics Division”.

    #132549

    The April fool’s joke here in the heartland was six inches of wet snow. Oh, how we laughed!

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