May 012023
 
 May 1, 2023  Posted by at 8:31 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


“Flora” (Roman Goddess of Spring), Villa di Arianna 1st Century A.D.

 

Ukraine Isn’t Ready For Its Big Offensive, But It Has No Choice (Sunday Times)
CNN: Russia Not Ready For Counterattack From Ukraine (Az.)
Russian Defenses Will Be Tough Task For Ukrainians – CNN (RT)
Now Is Not The Time For Ukraine To Join NATO – Lithuania (RT)
Hungary Issues NATO Rebuke To Zelensky (RT)
Xi ‘Personally Intervened’ In Saudi-Iran Talks – Diplomat (RT)
Key Nations Resist US Pressure Regarding Russia – WaPo (RT)
Key Nations Sit Out US Standoff With Russia, China, Leaks Show (Az.)
US Air Force Moves Strategic Air Tankers From Germany To Poland (RMX)
Russian Embassy In Warsaw Ready For Any Decisions After School Seizure (TASS)
You Should Read Tucker Carlson’s Last Speech Before Fox Fired Him (Schwarz)
Blinken Lied Under Oath To Senate About Hunter Biden – Sen. Ron Johnson (RT)
Hunter Forced to Appear in Arkansas Over His Child’s Name and Support (Turley)
US Dollar The “Biggest Financial Terrorist In The World” – Indian Banker (TASS)
Fitch Downgrades France’s Credit Rating (RT)

 

 

 

 

RFK Class Action

 

 

 

 

Elon Maher

 

 

Turkey Japan

 

 

Depopulation

 

 

 

 

The bombings last night appear to make sure they’re now a whole lot less ready. Russia hit a train with 200 tons of ammunition, plus at least one large ammo depot.

Ukraine Isn’t Ready For Its Big Offensive, But It Has No Choice (Sunday Times)

President Zelensky has managed the West with great skill, but to maintain its support he has to show what Washington insiders rather tastelessly call a “return on investment”.He must also balance domestic politics. Hawks such as Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, prevent any meaningful talk about negotiations, even though some in the government think now is the time to put out feelers. One western diplomat in Kyiv described a “surreal parallel experience” as his interlocutors “discuss potential formats for negotiations one evening” and then “shout that there can be no talks with Russia” in public the next day.There are also sharp limits to what the West can do. While there are calls for new and more weapons to be provided, from ATACMS (Army Tactile Missile System) long-range missiles to F-16 jets, it is not just caution or parsimony that holds the West back.

One of the key issues is that of ammunition: sending more weapons systems is of little value without the shells, bullets or missiles that they are consuming at a prodigious rate. At present, for example, the Ukrainians expend more 155mm shells in a month than America produces in a year. The West is investing in new production capacity, but this takes months or years. Ammunition cannot be conjured out of the air and Paris is blocking the EU from buying supplies outside the bloc. Kyiv will have to attack regardless, probably aiming at some ambitious target, such as the southern city of Melitopol, a road and rail hub whose liberation would cut the so-called land bridge between Crimea and Russia. Moscow knows this. Beyond the continued grinding assaults on the cities of Bakhmut and Vuhledar, it is already moving into a defensive mode.

Ukrainian estimates, endorsed by the British Ministry of Defence, suggest that the Russian casualty rate has fallen by almost a third as a result. They are digging in, with satellite photos showing a growing array of trenches and fortifications, especially along the likely lines of Ukrainian attack in the south. It is, of course, possible that Kyiv will strike elsewhere, such as at the city of Donetsk, but while this would be symbolically powerful, it would be a tough fight, and of much less practical value.

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They’ve had 6 months to prepare.

CNN: Russia Not Ready For Counterattack From Ukraine (Az.)

Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive appears imminent – and the way each side is preparing speaks volumes about their readiness, Repor informs, citing CNN. “Kyiv’s frontlines are abuzz with vehicle movement and artillery strikes, with regular explosions hitting vital Russian targets in occupied areas. “Its defense minister has said preparations are ‘coming to an end’ and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has assured a counteroffensive ‘will happen,’ while demurring on any exact start date. “It may have already started; it may be weeks away. We don’t know – and that fact is a strong measure of Ukraine’s success as this begins,” CNN said. “That has happened, with vast trench defense networks that can be seen from space. That recognition of their enormity is not necessarily a compliment in 2023. They are big, yes, but they are also something anyone can peruse on Google. That’s not great in an era of precise rockets and speedy armored advances.

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“..CNN described the Russian defenses as “elaborate” and spanning “hundreds of miles.”

Russian Defenses Will Be Tough Task For Ukrainians – CNN (RT)

The Ukrainian military will have a hard time breaching Russian defenses built in Zaporozhye Region over the past six months, CNN has predicted. The media outlet cited satellite imagery apparently showing an extensive system of anti-tank ditches, obstacles, minefields and trenches. In its report on Saturday, CNN described the Russian defenses as “elaborate” and spanning “hundreds of miles.” The media outlet claimed that they would likely “present a huge challenge” to Kiev’s forces during the much-anticipated counteroffensive. According to the report, citing images shared by Maxar Technologies and analysis by Reuters, “Russia’s positions are most concentrated near the front lines in the south-eastern Zaporozhye region, in the east and across the narrow strip of land connecting the Crimean Peninsula to the rest of Ukraine.”

The Russian military has dug some 30 kilometers (19 miles) of anti-tank ditches near the town of Pology, with extra fortifications built around strategically important towns such as Tokmak, CNN noted. The media outlet quoted a Maxar employee as saying that similar defensive structures have appeared over large swathes of Crimea and parts of Donetsk Region. The construction work began last November, soon after Russian troops retreated from the city of Kherson, according to CNN. To succeed in their counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces would have to break through these defenses swiftly, which may prove to be challenging, CNN claimed. Ukrainian officials quoted in the article acknowledged that it would likely be more difficult to take the Russians by surprise this time around.

Another factor which, according to CNN, could impede Kiev’s efforts to regain lost territory is Moscow’s continued air superiority. Earlier this week, The New York Times published a report claiming that Ukrainian troops on the frontline are concerned over the Russians’ advantage in terms of artillery, tanks and aircraft. The servicemen quoted by the newspaper said they needed “heavy equipment on the ground and support in the air” to turn the tide. While claiming that the country’s military is all but ready to strike, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov has lamented a shortage of missiles for Soviet-designed air defense systems. Meanwhile, Mikhail Podoliak, a top aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, has contradicted claims by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the head of US European Command, Christopher Cavoli, that Kiev’s backers had delivered 98% of the weapons pledged to Ukraine.

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No country can join that is in an active armed conflict.

Now Is Not The Time For Ukraine To Join NATO – Lithuania (RT)

Ukraine’s aspirations of NATO membership should not materialize while the country remains locked in a military conflict with Russia, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has said. He noted, however, that a “definite road map” should be developed by mid-summer for Kiev’s eventual accession. In an interview with Italy’s La Repubblica published on Saturday, Nauseda said letting Ukraine join the US-led military bloc right now “would be too difficult.” The leadership in Kiev is also well aware of this fact, he added. Instead, the alliance needs to “define stages and formulae of how to act after” the conflict is over, Nauseda continued. He expressed hope that this could be done during the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11 and 12, 2023.

He acknowledged that the issue of Ukraine’s possible accession “will be the most complicated element to deal with” during the event. According to the Lithuanian head of state, some member states are still reluctant to send “strong signals” to Ukraine. Last week, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius asserted that “this is now not the time to decide” on Ukraine’s possible future within NATO. Echoing the Lithuanian president, he said this issue could be “carefully” considered only after Kiev succeeds in “repelling this attack.” The decision should be made “with a cold head and hot heart, and not the other way round,” he stated.Around the same time, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban tweeted “What?!” in response to an article reporting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s remarks in Kiev last Thursday.

During a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the military bloc’s chief said: “Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.” Stoltenberg added that “over time, our support will help to make this possible.” However, he stopped short of offering any timeframe for Ukraine’s possible accession to the alliance. Commenting on Stoltenberg’s remarks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stressed that preventing Ukraine from joining NATO remains one of the key goals of Russia’s military campaign against its neighbor. Explaining the need for military action against Ukraine last February, President Vladimir Putin cited the country’s possible accession to the alliance as one of the reasons for the move.

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“..Budapest has repeatedly said it will not support Ukraine’s applications to either NATO or the EU..”

Hungary Issues NATO Rebuke To Zelensky (RT)

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has rebuked statements by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who has publicly accused Budapest of behaving “inappropriately” for a NATO member state. It was “fortunately” not for Zelensky to decide on Hungary’s behavior, Szijjarto said in a Facebook post on Sunday, suggesting also that Budapest already provides enough support for Kiev. “Hungarian people have already paid an extremely high price for this war,” Szijjarto wrote, adding that multiple representatives of Ukraine’s Hungarian ethnic minority had persisted in the ongoing hostilities between Kiev and Moscow. “If this statement means ‘I respectfully thank the Hungarians for letting in and taking care of more than a million refugees from Ukraine, and I respectfully thank you for continuously sending aid’ then [the response is] ‘You are welcome and can count on us in the future as well.’”

The sarcastic remarks by Hungary’s top diplomat apparently came in response to statements made by Zelensky in an interview with Nordic media outlets on Friday. The Ukrainian president accused Budapest of siding with Russia in the ongoing conflict and of treating NATO as an “adversary” altogether. “It seems to me that confusion reigns among the Hungarian political elite. This is a very strange situation. Can a NATO country simultaneously be with Russia and against NATO?” Zelensky stated, adding that Budapest has been displaying “inappropriate behavior” for a member of the US-led NATO alliance. Hungary has taken a reserved stance on the ongoing hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, which have been raging since February 2022. The country has opposed EU sanctions against Russia, particularly those harming its own interests, such as restrictions in the nuclear and conventional energy fields.

Apart from that, Budapest has repeatedly said it will not support Ukraine’s applications to either NATO or the EU. Hungary has also refrained from providing military aid to Kiev and has refused to allow such shipments from elsewhere to flow through its territory. Hungary and Ukraine have long been at odds over the fate of the ethnic Hungarian minority in Ukraine. Some 150,000 ethnic Hungarians, living primarily in the Transcarpathian region of the country, have been affected by the Ukrainianization efforts undertaken by the authorities of post-Maidan Ukraine. While the crackdown has primarily focused on Russian speakers, it affected other minorities as well. Kiev, for its part, has long accused Budapest of meddling in the country’s domestic affairs, with its practice of issuing Hungarian passports to Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarians resulting in multiple diplomatic incidents.

Kiev pharma

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Huge.

Xi ‘Personally Intervened’ In Saudi-Iran Talks – Diplomat (RT)

President Xi Jinping played a key role in helping to persuade the leaders of regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore ties and end their seven-year diplomatic rift, a senior Chinese diplomat told newspaper People’s Daily on Saturday. Xi “personally persuaded the leaders of the two countries and supported Saudi and Iran to develop a friendly relationship as neighbors,” the director of the Chinese foreign ministry’s Department of West Asian and North African Affairs, Wang Di, told the government-linked newspaper. Wang added that Beijing’s efforts to promote regional stability in the Middle East come amid “some large countries outside the region causing long-term instability” for what he described as their own “self-interest.”

He also indicated that Beijing will be a “fair mediator” and that it will continue to be a “promoter of peace and stability in the Middle East.” The talks between Tehran and Riyadh were notable for the non-involvement of the United States. For around 75 years, Washington was a key diplomatic player in the region. Last month’s Beijing-brokered accord between Saudi Arabia and Iran was heralded as an important foreign-policy win for China. It also led to the kingdom launching peace talks designed to end the eight-year conflict in Yemen. It also signaled that Beijing’s “diplomatic credibility” in the region is gaining foothold with its economic influence, said Oliver John of Washington-based think tank Middle East Influence, according to Saturday’s South China Morning Post.

On Friday both Saudi Arabia and Iran announced they’ll reopen embassies in each other’s capitals “within days” for the first time in seven years. In 2015 relations between Tehran and Riyadh became increasingly strained following the intervention of Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the Yemen War. Previously, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels had seized control of the Yemeni capital Sanaa from the Saudi-aligned government. These tensions subsequently sparked several conflicts in the region and were among the contributing factors for the Syrian civil war – a conflict, Wang added, to which Beijing is keen to seek a diplomatic remedy.

Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Syria in February 2012, joining the US in backing the militants that sought to overthrow President Bashar Assad. With the backing of Russia and Iran, the government in Damascus eventually prevailed over the collection of rebel militias that included terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Beijing has also proposed a two-state solution to Israel and Palestine, Wang said, and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said this month that it could play an “active role” there in mediating peace talks. The country’s efforts to promote stability in the Middle East also serve a dual purpose of anchoring existing energy deals, Oliver John added in SCMP’s report. Saudi Arabia is a key supplier of energy to Beijing, with China accounting for about one-quarter of its oil exports in 2021.

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Two different write-ups over the same leaks.

Key Nations Resist US Pressure Regarding Russia – WaPo (RT)

India, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan and other major emerging economies have rebuffed the Biden administration’s attempts to make them team up with the US against Russia amid the conflict in Ukraine, the Washington Post has reported, citing leaked Pentagon files. According to classified US intelligence documents, which investigators believe were released online by US Air National Guard serviceman Jack Teixeira, India has no intention of taking sides in the standoff over Ukraine, the paper reported on Saturday. One of the documents seen by the Post suggests that during a meeting in February, Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval told the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, that New Delhi was resisting pressure to support a Western-backed UN resolution on Ukraine.

India “would not deviate from the principled position it had taken in the past,” Doval reportedly assured the Russian official. Another leaked file suggested that Brazil was more interested in playing a mediation role in the conflict than supporting Washington and its allies. Russia favours the idea of a “world peace bloc” to resolve the crisis over Ukraine, put forward by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during his visit to China earlier this month. Moscow believes it would counteract the West’s “aggressor-victim” narrative about Kiev, according to the document. In late February, Brazil welcomed two warships from America’s arch foe Iran, with one of the files suggesting that Lula likely allowed the port call “to bolster his reputation as a global mediator and burnish Brazil’s image as a neutral power.”

The leaks also revealed that when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited South Africa last year and raised the Ukraine issue, he was told by local officials that Pretoria would not be “bullied” into making decisions that go against its interests, the Washington Post wrote. An intelligence file from February 17 reportedly described discussions between Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his subordinate about an upcoming UN vote on Ukraine. It said the aide pointed out to the premier that support for the Western-sponsored resolution would signal a shift in Islamabad’s position, after its earlier abstention on a similar draft. Such a move would jeopardize important trade and energy deals with Russia, he warned, as cited by the Post. Pakistan was among 23 abstaining nations when the vote at the UN General assembly took place a week later. As for Central Asian countries, their leaders were “eager to work with whoever offers the most immediate deliverables, which for now is China,” another leaked document, seen by the newspaper, suggested.

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“It’s unclear who will end up in a pole position in 10 years’ time, so they need to diversify their risk and hedge their bets..”

Key Nations Sit Out US Standoff With Russia, China, Leaks Show (Az.)

President Biden’s global agenda faces significant challenges as major developing nations seek to evade the intensifying standoff between the United States, Russia and China and, in some cases, exploit that rivalry for their own gain, classified American intelligence assessments show, Report informs via the Washington Post. The documents, among a trove of US secrets leaked online through the Discord messaging platform, provide a rare glimpse into the private calculations by key emerging powers, including India, Brazil, Pakistan and Egypt, as they attempt to straddle allegiances in an era when America is no longer the world’s unchallenged superpower.

The leaked intelligence findings, which have not been previously disclosed, also offer new insights on the obstacles Biden faces in securing global support for his efforts to reject the spread of authoritarianism, contain Russia’s belligerence beyond its borders and counter China’s growing global reach — as influential regional powers try to remain on the sidelines. Matias Spektor, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said developing nations are recalibrating at a moment when America faces potent new competition, as China projects new economic and military clout and Russia, though weakened by President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, demonstrates its ability to deflect Western pressure. “It’s unclear who will end up in a pole position in 10 years’ time, so they need to diversify their risk and hedge their bets,” Spektor said.

This is apparent in Pakistan, which received billions of dollars in US economic and security aid following 9/11 but now is heavily reliant on Chinese investment and loans. According to one of the leaked documents, Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s minister of state for foreign affairs, argued in March that her country can “no longer try to maintain a middle ground between China and the United States.” In an internal memo she titled “Pakistan’s Difficult Choices,” Khar, who previously served as Pakistan’s foreign minister, cautioned that Islamabad should avoid giving the appearance of appeasing the West, and said the instinct to preserve Pakistan’s partnership with the United States would ultimately sacrifice the full benefits of what she deemed the country’s “real strategic” partnership with China.

Another document, dated Feb. 17, describes Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s deliberations with a subordinate about an upcoming UN vote on the Ukraine conflict, and what the government anticipated would be renewed Western pressure to back a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion. The aide advised Sharif that support for the measure would signal a shift in Pakistan’s position following its earlier abstention on a similar resolution, the intelligence document says. Pakistan had the ability to negotiate trade and energy deals with Russia, and backing the Western-backed resolution could jeopardize those ties, the aide noted.

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Poland role-plays the center of Europe.

US Air Force Moves Strategic Air Tankers From Germany To Poland (RMX)

Nineteen American in-flight refueling aircraft will be stationed at the Powidz Air Base in western Poland. According to the U.S. magazine Stars and Stripes, this is the latest sign that U.S. Armed Forces are shifting combat resources to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank. The U.S. Air Force command in Europe confirmed that on March 10 of this year “American air tankers began working in their new main location in Poland.” This was done as part of operation “Copper Arrow,” which demonstrated the efforts of the U.S. military command in Europe to “strengthen security on NATO’s eastern flank through forward deployed and stationed forces.” “The cooperation of American air tankers with our NATO allies clearly shows how much we value our partnerships and how important it is to increase our interoperability,” said Colonel Timothy Foery, advisor to the U.S. Air Force Reserve Commander.

Foery noted that interoperability is evident when looking “at any photo of a KC-135 refueling a Polish F-16 or a KC-46 refueling a Finnish F/A-18.” American air tankers KC-135 Stratotanker, KC-10 Extender and the newest in the U.S. Air Force fleet, KC-46 Pegasus, could all be sent to the Powidz Air Base. The aircraft currently stationed at the Spangdahlem base in Germany, will be transferred to the Powidz air base as Unit 1. As emphasized by the U.S. Air Force leadership, this relocation also demonstrates “the ability of U.S. command to quickly deploy large, credible combat forces and equipment throughout Europe.” The tankers stationed in Powidz can be used for refueling combat aircraft, including the world’s most advanced fighter jet, the F-35A Lightning II, which extends the range of NATO air missions.

Stars and Stripes notes that eight F-35 aircraft of the Dutch Air Force have been stationed in the Malbork air base in Poland for several months. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the presence of U.S. forces in Europe has increased, with the number of U.S. military personnel on the continent growing from 80,000 to 100,000. U.S. Ambassador to Warsaw Mark Brzezinski recently stated that over 10,000 American soldiers are in Poland. “The U.S. military’s shift to the east is another example of the United States’ efforts to create a permanent presence in the former Warsaw Pact country, an important member of NATO, which has over 300 miles of border with Ukraine,” said reporter Jennifer Svan in Stars and Stripes.

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This story’s not finished.

Russian Embassy In Warsaw Ready For Any Decisions After School Seizure (TASS)

Russia’s embassy in Warsaw is ready for any decisions made by Moscow after the seizure of the building of the Russian school by Polish authorities, Russia’s Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreyev told TASS on Sunday. “The center takes the decisions. Let it be so as our leadership decides,” he said when asked about possible severance of diplomatic relations. “Today the staff of the school and support personnel are involved in moving equipment out. <…> We will officially submit the note after the weekend ends on Tuesday. Today and tomorrow are days off,” Andreyev pointed out. The teaching and learning activities will resume after the May holidays in one of diplomatic buildings, the diplomat said. “I think starting May 10 classes will be held as usual,” he noted.


On Saturday morning, Polish authorities began seizing the building of the Russian embassy school in Warsaw by force. The teaching staff were told to vacate the building by 07:00 p.m. Moscow time of the same day. Russia’s embassy to Poland described the Polish authorities’ steps as illegal. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow deemed the Polish authorities’ intrusion into the Russian embassy school in Warsaw as a blatant violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention and another encroachment on Russian diplomatic property in Poland. The ministry pledged that Warsaw’s steps would not remain without Moscow’s firm response and consequences for Poland.

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“..Carlson is now going to seize an incredible opportunity to be the 1 man in 10 with the courage to defy the herd to their faces!”

You Should Read Tucker Carlson’s Last Speech Before Fox Fired Him (Schwarz)

I’ve found it difficult to choose snippets of Carlson’s words to quote. It’s like trying to explain the perfection of Michelangelo’s David to someone, but being only able to show them its fingers, nipples, and wrinkly foreskin. You need the whole experience, to see how the parts fit together to express a larger truth, to genuinely understand its magnificence. So if you possibly can, I urge you to read the entire transcript. Even better, watch the whole thing. Then we can reconvene below for an in-depth discussion. As you see, Carlson’s speech is about the “two conclusions” to which he’s come during the past, dark decades. The first is that he perceives a dangerous phenomenon in which Americans are “going along with a new, new thing, which is clearly a poisonous thing, a silly thing, saying things they don’t believe because they want to keep their jobs.”

This is because “the herd instinct is maybe the strongest instinct … not to be cast out of the group, not to be shunned. … It’s harnessed, in fact, by bad people in moments like this to produce uniformity.” Huge swaths of Americans, then, have “become quislings, you see them revealed as cowards.” Because of this, says Carlson, America’s institutions are “all run by weak people.” And “weak leaders cause an angry country.” His second conclusion is better news: For every 10 cowards, there is one shining individual who has, in Carlson’s words, stood up to say, “No, I’m not doing that. … It’s a betrayal of what I think is true. It’s a betrayal of my conscience, of my faith, of my sense of myself, of my dignity as a human being, of my autonomy. I am not a slave. I am a free citizen, and I’m not doing that. And there’s nothing you can do to me to make me do it.”

Moreover, Carlson proclaims, “The truth is contagious. Lying is, but the truth is as well. And the second you decide to tell the truth about something, you are filled with this — I don’t want to get supernatural on you — but you are filled with this power from somewhere else.” Here’s what you might assume Carlson would say next, if you’re the kind of dreamer who’s filled with an irrepressible hope that words can have meaning: Carlson would have confessed that he himself is one of these shameful cowards. As everyone in the room surely knew, Carlson collected huge checks from Fox even as it encouraged its audience to believe what Carlson and everyone there knew was false: that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Carlson would have explained that he’d been a quisling to the truth and gone along with a new, new poisonous thing because he wanted to keep his job.

He’d have apologized for being part of the herd trying to punish heretics, since he wanted Fox to fire a reporter who was reporting on the topic accurately. In other words, he is one of the weak leaders creating an angry country. He knows these things because he was personally tested — and failed. And that would have been merely the start of Carlson’s electrifying, manly truth-telling. He was speaking to all the potentates of the Heritage Foundation, one of the most powerful forces in U.S. politics supporting the capitalist depredations and hawkish foreign policy that we know Carlson hates with such passionate sincerity. Scarred by his moral collapse after the 2020 election, Carlson is now going to seize an incredible opportunity to be the 1 man in 10 with the courage to defy the herd to their faces!

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“There’s a lot of truth that has to be uncovered here yet that’s being covered up by the Deep State..”

Blinken Lied Under Oath To Senate About Hunter Biden – Sen. Ron Johnson (RT)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “lied bold-faced” in congressional testimony about his contacts with President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has claimed. Then a campaign aide to President-elect Biden, Blinken agreed to testify voluntarily to a Senate committee investigating the Biden family’s business dealings in December 2020, Johnson said on Sunday in a Fox News interview. At the time, Joe Biden had picked Blinken to become America’s top diplomat, an appointment that would require Senate confirmation. “He wanted to be secretary of state,” said Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican. “And now, because of more information that’s come out, we know that he lied bold-faced to Congress about never emailing Hunter Biden. My guess is he told a bunch of other lies that hopefully we’ll be able to bring him and his wife back in.”

Johnson suggested that Blinken and his wife should preserve their records for legal reasons. “You cannot trust Joe Biden. You cannot trust Hunter Biden. You can’t trust the Biden family. You can’t trust so many of the people that they have surrounded themselves with.” At the time of Blinken’s voluntary testimony, Joe Biden had just won the 2020 presidential election despite controversy surrounding his family’s business dealings in Ukraine and China. The scandal surfaced just three weeks before the election, when the New York Post reported on the contents of a laptop that Hunter Biden had allegedly abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. Former CIA director Mike Morell testified to Congress earlier this month that shortly after the laptop bombshell came out, Blinken nudged him to organize an open letter claiming that the story was the product of a Russian “disinformation campaign.” Morell, who was among more than 50 former US intelligence officials who signed the letter, admitted to Congress that he was motivated by a desire to help Biden win the election.

Asked by Fox host Maria Bartiromo to clarify whether Blinken lied under oath, perjuring himself, Johnson said, “Yes, he did. He said he did not email Hunter Biden, and now we have those emails. We also know that his wife, using her private email address when she was an employee of the State Department, was basically a conduit between her husband and Hunter Biden as well.” Johnson called for further investigation of the matter, including issuing a subpoena to force Blinken to testify again. However, Biden’s Democratic Party controls the Senate and its subpoena power. “There’s a lot of truth that has to be uncovered here yet that’s being covered up by the Deep State,” Johnson said. “Let’s face it: The Deep State knows what it did. These co-conspirators inside the agency know exactly what they did. They don’t give up their secrets very easily. They know how to hide things, they know how to slow-roll everybody.”

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It’s as much Joe as it is Hunter. Both are shameless,

Hunter Forced to Appear in Arkansas Over His Child’s Name and Support (Turley)

On Monday, Hunter Biden will finally make it to Arkansas. The Natural State is not a Biden family favorite but there is one thing that would ordinarily be an attraction: Biden’s daughter Navy Joan. In the Biden family, the four-year-old girl remains “she who must not be named” literally. Not only has President Biden refused to refer to her as a grandchild or even include a Christmas stocking with the other children, her father Hunter is fighting to prevent her from using the Biden name. Indeed, the only reason that Hunter is coming to the same state with his daughter is to seek to limit his child support. The viciousness of the Biden family in dealing with this little girl is only matched by that of the media. Reporters who profess to support women and denounce deadbeat dads have either ignored this story or belittled her mother, Lunden Roberts.

Roberts is widely dismissed as a “former stripper.” That appears how she met Hunter, but it is often used to paint her in the same way that the media gleefully reported Hillary Clinton denouncing women involved with her husband as mere “bimbo eruptions.” The media ignores Roberts because it wants to ignore what the Bidens have done collectively. This is one single mother’s story that is not considered fit to print. Yes, Roberts was an exotic dancer. She used that job to go to one of the most expensive colleges in the country, George Washington University where I teach. When she became pregnant, she decided to have her child and raise her on her own. She has raised this child without a father and fought one of the most powerful families in the world. When Navy Joan is older, there is every reason for her to be proud of the struggle that her mother went through in seeking a college education and raising her against all odds.

Despite Joe Biden long campaigning against deadbeat dads, his son refused to acknowledge that he was the father of Navy Joan and, after a court forced him to confirm his paternity through DNA testing, he continued to fight support for his child. Hunter’s delay and evasion of filings and depositions led a court to repeatedly threaten sanctions. However, the effort to bar this child from using the Biden name has moved this scandal from the realm of hypocrisy to monstrosity. It is hard to imagine the pain that this child will experience upon learning of how the Bidens erased any reference to her and fought even her ability to claim to be a member of their family. (Even the Biden’s dogs and cats got stockings at Christmas but not their granddaughter who they have never asked to even see, let alone support).

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“..it is high time for India to make the rupee a reserve currency for the whole world..”

US Dollar The “Biggest Financial Terrorist In The World” – Indian Banker (TASS)

Asia’s richest banker and chief executive of Kotak Mahindra Bank Uday Kotak said on Sunday that the US dollar as a reserve currency has disproportionate power. “In a recent discussion on US dollar I inadvertently used words “financial terrorist” which I would like to correct. What I meant was that a reserve currency has disproportionate power, whether it is nostro account, 500 bps rate increase, or emerging countries holding dollars for liquidity,” he wrote on his Twitter page. Uday Kotak who believes that the Indian rupee may become a world reserve currency, named the dollar the “biggest financial terrorist in the world” while speaking at the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence on Friday. The billionaire suggests that the world is searching for an alternative reserve currency now, noting that such changes occur once in a century, and that it is high time for India to make the rupee a reserve currency for the whole world.

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““Political deadlock and (sometimes violent) social movements pose a risk to Macron’s reform agenda..”

Fitch Downgrades France’s Credit Rating (RT)

Rating agency Fitch has downgraded France’s sovereign credit rating, warning that public resistance to a recent pension reform could take a toll on the economy. The agency lowered the rating from “AA” to “AA-,” with a stable outlook. The downgrade means France is considered a more risky venture for investors, which could lead to higher borrowing costs. “Fitch believes that social and political pressures illustrated by the protests against the pension reform will complicate fiscal consolidation,” the agency wrote. It added that the government’s decision to bypass a parliamentary vote to push through the pension reform will “likely further strengthen radical and anti-establishment forces.” “Political deadlock and (sometimes violent) social movements pose a risk to Macron’s reform agenda and could create pressures for a more expansionary fiscal policy or a reversal of previous reforms,” Fitch warned.


French President Emmanuel Macron signed the unpopular pension reform into law in mid-April, despite months of nationwide protests and resistance in parliament. The measure raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. Following its enactment, the political opposition and unions vowed to continue contesting the move. Analysts have warned that as the president’s party does not have a parliamentary majority, it may be difficult for it to deliver on other reforms due to the public unrest. French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, however, pledged that Paris will continue structural reforms despite Fitch’s warnings. “I believe that the facts invalidate the assessment by the Fitch agency… We are able to implement structural reforms and we will continue to implement structural reforms for the country,” Le Maire told AFP on Saturday. The official vowed to accelerate the country’s debt reduction, to restore the public finances, reduce deficits and make faster cuts to public expenditure.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Patrick Moore

 

 

Codo

 

 


The 3 smallest bones in the human body–malleus, incus, and stapes–are located in the middle ear. At 3 x 5 mm in size, the stapes is the smallest bone in the human body. All 3 bones are essential for hearing

 

 

Sand tiger shark

 

 

Red wolf

 

 

Orca
https://twitter.com/i/status/1652813056400060416

 

 

 

 

Gibbon

 

 

Kiwi

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle May 1 2023

Viewing 38 posts - 1 through 38 (of 38 total)
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  • #134433

    “Flora” (Roman Goddess of Spring), Villa di Arianna 1st Century A.D.   • Ukraine Isn’t Ready For Its Big Offensive, But It Has No Choice (Sunday
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 1 2023]

    #134434
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    #134435
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Ukraine Isn’t Ready For Its Big Offensive, But It Has No Choice (Sunday Times) “

    Bonfire of the Vanities. There’s NO reason, none, to make an offensive that won’t win. That’s only Ego. What you’d do is change tactics, which they should have done by June 2022. Fall back and be more insurgent, for example.

    Now none of these would have worked, which is why they didn’t use them. Why? Russia’s 1st run was merely to stop the Russian genocide in the places clearly siding with Russia. That’s the four Oblasts they have now, because the next ones over who could have, who voted Russian since Ukraine was a country, didn’t push hard that way. The only way for Ukraine to keep those four would be to uphold Russian language, culture, trade, and give a fair and equal deal to all citizens, which was the Minsk agreement. So Ukraine can ONLY hold Donbas+ with murder and raw force, enslaving those Russians to extract them for the service of Kiev and the West Ukr like Lviv.

    But you can’t do that, can you? because they do not have the consent of the governed and never will. So an insurgency there would never work, the “insurgents” would join Russia, turn around and shoot Kiev. That’s what a “Referendum” is.

    Now Ukraine could probably let them go and still join NATO, God knows what would happen, but the Ukr areas could before Russia could prevent it. But you see, they don’t WANT that. They WANT human slavery. The Eastern Russians, 20% of the population, 50% of the GDP, have the wealth, which not only do they need to steal but have the slaves do the work of stealing for them. Get in those coal mines, pay your taxes, be dirt poor, have your kids daily abused at school. Like here.

    So the tactics are a consequence, radiate upward from their root problem of violence, slavery, oppression, and therefore they cannot win in those Oblasts. Nor perhaps the next ones over. Suppose the 4 become Russia, more years pass. They are peaceful and prosper being less corrupt than the most corrupt nation in Europe. Ukraine has 50% less GDP and is even poorer. Now Poltava and Mykolaiv want to join Russia to become at least as stable and uncorrupt as Kharkov. Same issue plays out all over again: they agitate, are repressed, have a referendum during some crisis and request to be Russia. Before too long, Ukraine is Kiev to Lviv, and the size and power of Moldova.

    I can’t solve their internal grass-roots problem for them. But if they’re not actually a country – and they’re not – then any stress will merely demonstrate the existing reality. At the same time, you can’t just go oppress the people of your own nation, as that causes expensive and counterproductive blowback. Like here. They’re not fighting Russia, they’re fighting #Reality.

    Anyway, that’s why they “Have” to have a “big” offensive that will fail. Because they are a failed state run by failed, oppressive leaders. Or they could align with the Tao and #Logos and let my people go, not have to have an offensive at all, and become the nation they actually are without lies and violence.

    “..CNN described the Russian defenses as “elaborate” and spanning “hundreds of miles.”

    The important part is that CNN, who has never reported the truth in their life, now reports this.

    ““Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family.”

    Sure. Because they’re so close to the Atlantic. Like Taiwan is.

    Tucker: Hero or Quisling? Both. Like we all are. Somewhere between the perfect Good and Bad. He had to play a strategy and played it. Would it have been better to be fired first day in 2002 like so many others were? Have no fame, no audience, no influence, and no fortune to apply to today? Then he could be a poor, honest, unknown blogger washing dishes at IHOP and not have his name floated for VP. Is that what you want?

    “Blinken Lied Under Oath To Senate About Hunter Biden – Sen. Ron Johnson (RT) “

    No one’s been reprimanded, much less arrested for that felony since the last Steroids in Baseball distraction 20 years ago. Why start now? They’re Republicans, so you have nothing to fear. They will never uphold the law if they can avoid it.

    “Hunter Forced to Appear in Arkansas Over His Child’s Name and Support (Turley)

    Agree totally. On paternity, I can see the point in resisting before it’s proven, but afterwards it’s just a harm and liability, for some useless money they clearly have. Yet they continue to grind women and children. Specifically. Personally. Is it just because they’re Democrats? I don’t want to say that, but what is this? Some fixation of mind that requires you to do what is strategically harmful? Merely because you’re fundamentally anti-family and anti-life? The problem is I can’t understand it.

    He doesn’t have to live with her. Thanks to the total lack of morality and accountability, he takes no harm for being a remote father, providing only modest support. She doesn’t have to written in on Biden family mafia deals. Navy doesn’t have to become a family Capo. You write a check the size of your travel expense account and have a nice day. Yet they can’t do that. For a child. BECAUSE she’s a child? Theories: I have none.

    How about: if I were blackmailing and controlling the Bidens, I’d order them to do this for the bad public P.R. But even that seems a bridge too far.

    If I were Hunter, I’d marry her and stay with my daughter. She’s a hottie and they’re like peas in a pod; it might help stabilize and reform him which he seems to realize he needs.

    “Fitch Downgrades France’s Credit Rating (RT) “

    Since Fitch hasn’t been honest since long before ‘08 (See “The Big Short”), this is the U.S. attacking France for not being adequately compliant.

    “The measure raised the retirement age from 62 to 64.”

    There we go again. Lies by misdirection and omission. No. They just transferred the French Pension wealth to bailout BlackRock from bankruptcy, and did it by erasing all government process and representation, openly pissing on the people.

    That’s like saying the U.S. Civil War was because the South didn’t like the Post Office.

    “”If we ban fossil fuels, agricultural production would collapse. People will begin to starve, and half the population will die in a very short period of time.”

    I mean, okay. That’s a statement. But now that he’s said it, THEY KNOW. And now that they know, and we know they know, THEY WANT TO DO IT ANYWAY. That’s the part that’s disturbing and revealing. We must kill half the population to save them? From what? Save them from being alive anymore?

    The description yesterday is just a thought experiment. I can’t really prove such a hidden agenda and program. However, what we are told makes no sense, and therefore need to move up a level to attempt to explain it.

    “Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

    #134436
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Event in Chicago celebrated by the Entire World. For uppity American worker, “soon-to-be-millionaire”, is way too “red” to even acknowledge 8 hour work day won and enjoyed, let alone celebrated.
    Talking about good splash of Ajax self-.rinse through the skull.

    #134437
    Red
    Participant

    We are witnessing epochal changes in the global economy with the independent states, centred around the BRIC’s nations, now trading oil in their own currencies.
    This development represents an existential threat not ‘just’ for US Dollar hegemony but for US military and industrial hegemony in what has rapidly become a multi-polar world.
    China and to a lesser extent Russia are masters of “Soft Power”. The controlled demolition of US dollar hegemony is clearly underway.

    Let’s take a field trip to the frontlines. Batton down the hatches, it’s going to be one hell of a transition, let’s hope we survive it!

    World War Three Chronicles, Part 2

    #134438
    Red
    Participant

    Although most people, who got used to receiving a stable supply of power from the magic wall socket, don’t realize this as an immediate danger, the stability of the grid depends on the availability of fossil fuel (mainly natural gas) power plants ready to fill in the gaps during peak consumption hours. Contrary to the magical thinking pouring in on all channels, we are lacking the infrastructure to switch to a grid powered by ‘renewable’ electricity alone. As ecologist William E. Rees has pointed out:

    The U.S. consumes about 4000 terawatt-hours of electricity every year, or 563 times the existing battery storage capacity…

    An entire year of battery production from the multi-billion Gigafactory could only store a mere three minutes’ worth of annual U.S. electric demand…

    Storing only 24 hours’ worth of U.S. electricity generation in lithium batteries would thus cost $11.9 trillion, take up 345 square miles and weigh 74 million tonnes…

    …and would take 10 years for 48 Nevada sized Gigafactories to produce the battery cells… For storing one, single day worth of electricity. One day, not months needed to cover the supply and demand gap in the winter. All this would come at an enormous ecological as well as resource cost (lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper and their resulting toxic waste streams). Not to mention the fact that we simply neither have these resources at hand nor the mining capacity to get them (if would find them).

    Now, factor in things like: seasonality (the Sun shines much weaker during the winter, and the sky is covered by clouds much more often than in the summer), battery drain (which is much faster during the colder months),

    https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/stable-electricity-a-long-slow-goodbye-b06041a2a1dc

    #134439
    Michael Reid
    Participant


    Jacob Nordangård discusses how he got into researching the global elite and their diabolical plans for us all. It’s a billionaires club which has greatly expanded through foundations and now Silicon Valley elites are taking over from the earlier industrialists. Their principle goal has always been world government, the UN’s “Common Agenda” today openly describes these goals. He describes how the EU is the blueprint for world government. He comments on the absolute insanity of the “Al-Gore-Rithm Ghetto” and how people don’t want to grasp it because it’s so scary. He also gets into the occult and esoteric nature of the globalists. All countries are on board with the program, multipolarity is what globalism is all about, the Ukraine War is about re-structuring.

    Jacob Nordangård: Elites Seek Tyrannical World Government, We’re Living In A Bond Movie

    #134440
    poppie
    Participant

    Happy May Day

    #134441
    Michael Reid
    Participant


    Mary Harrington discusses how the sexual revolution was not the beginning of feminism but the end of it. She traces the history of feminism which was women’s aggregate response to the Industrial Revolution. We’ve been living under an order that calls itself feminist but is really transhumanist or bio-libertarian, the cyborg era, underwritten by tech, which valorizes freedom above all else. The birth control pill was really the first transhumanist technology, followed by gender ideology. The whole world will at some point have to grapple with the cyborg theocracy because it is spreading. She wonders why it is so often women who are the advocates for abolishing biological sex and blames the “laptop class”. She also believes social media cucked everybody.

    Mary Harrington: The Battle vs Feminist Transhumanism, Cyborg Theocracy & Meat Lego Gnosticism!

    #134442
    Michael Reid
    Participant


    Iain Davis discusses the global governance policies that are set regardless of who occupies any office and how we are steadily moving forward on their trajectory. Accelerationists like Peter Thiel are leading the way in building the new utopia/dystopia. The U.S. financial system is insolvent and they’re keeping it on life support until they bring CBDCs online. The key to CBDCs is their interoperability and instant international settlement. Everything (e.g. pandemic, war) is leading up to this transition of the international monetary system. We have never faced a control system as all-pervasive and totalitarian in scope as what is coming. We also discuss multipolarity.

    Iain Davis: They’re Keeping the System on Life Support Until They Can Bring in CBDCs

    #134443
    Michael Reid
    Participant


    When I shared that three-year-old outcry and song this morning, I kind of assumed that it’s obvious that we are not meat bags, and that we exist in many places besides the visible, three-dimensional world. What I meant by saying that the physical world is the only one we have is that life is lived in person, face to face, skin to skin. It’s not a screen affair, that life of ours.

    With that out of the way…

    Venom, COVID, and Neanderthal Genes: Conversation with Dr. Tau Braun
    A delightful conversation and a non-sensationalist take.
    TESSA LENA
    MAY 1

    First, a clarification about the article I sent this morning. That article was written on this day three years ago. It was my first “COVID dissident” post— and my step into the unknown. When I was clicking “Publish” three years ago, I had no idea what would happen once I go public with my views. But I had to go public because a coward, I am not. I am not a coward. I am many things but a coward, I am not.

    And also, that article talks about the physical world because it was the very beginning of the war on touch, the very beginning of the military-grade psychological operation to make as many people as possible love and trust Our Dear Leaders more than those in their lives who remained unaffected by the propaganda and unhypnotized.

    When I shared that three-year-old outcry and song this morning, I kind of assumed that it’s obvious that we are not meat bags, and that we exist in many places besides the visible, three-dimensional world. What I meant by saying that the physical world is the only one we have is that life is lived in person, face to face, skin to skin. It’s not a screen affair, that life of ours.

    With that out of the way…

    This story is a conversation with Dr. Tau Braun, and you just have to watch it since it’s impossible to pin our conversation down to any one talking point. Dr. Braun’s brain goes at fifteen hundred thousand miles an hour, which I greatly enjoyed because my mind kind of works the same way. So to me, it was just intellectual delight.

    Venom, COVID, and Neanderthal Genes: Conversation with Dr. Tau Braun
    A delightful conversation and a non-sensationalist take.

    https://tessa.substack.com/p/dr-tau-braun

    #134444
    Oroboros
    Participant

    • Blinken Lied Under Oath To Senate About Hunter Biden

    So where’s the ‘judicial’ system

    Judges and prosecutors are flat out whores.

    Lying to Congress is not even a misDUHmeanor unless you’re Steve Bannon

    The Congress of Cowards

    Check this out

    Bannon’s indictment for contempt of Congress swims against the historical tide

    WASHINGTON —

    “Stephen K. Bannon’s indictment on contempt of Congress charges is the nation’s first since 1983, and his appearance in federal court Monday provided a rare glimpse of one of U.S. lawmakers’ politically messiest and least-used powers.

    The last successful prosecution on contempt charges reaches all the way back to Watergate and its aftermath, when G. Gordon Liddy was convicted of and Richard Kleindienst pleaded guilty to refusing to answer congressional questions.”

    “The last indictment (for contempt of Congress) three decades ago was less historic: Rita M. Lavelle, a federal environmental official under President Reagan, failed to heed a House subpoena.

    Lavelle, who headed the Superfund, would go on to be acquitted of the contempt charge but later was convicted of lying to Congress. She was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $10,000.

    Prior to that case, the majority of contempt of Congress cases were in connection with the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was formed in 1938 to investigate individuals and organizations for subversive activities, particularly those related to the Communist Party.

    A number of contempt cases from HUAC were eventually overturned because of procedural failures. But its widely publicized hearings beginning in 1947, focusing on the film industry, led to prison sentences for several screenwriters and directors, the so-called Hollywood Ten. They refused to answer questions about their political activities or identify like-minded colleagues, and were jailed for up to a year as well as blacklisted in the industry.

    Blinken and Garland should be dancing on the end of a rope for Treason, not just lying and contempt of Congress.

    #134445

    Navy Joan doesn’t know it, but she has $250,000,000 in a secret Ukrainian bank account. /s

    #134446
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Congress could impeach Pedo Joe’s cabinet officers Blinken and Garland

    But being the Uni-party, only Trump gets impeached twice

    And only Trump officials get Contempt of Congress charges

    That dickless twat Kevin McCarthy would rather act as a War Whore provoking China by going to Taiwan than charging Blinken with contempt.

    The Mommy and Daddy Parties in Congress make a perfect couple for crime

    .

    #134447
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Reach for the Sky Children

    Cause this is a stick up

    #134448
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Bret speaks with Mary Harrington in the leadup to the launch of her new book, Feminism Against Progress.

    Find Mary on Substack: https://reactionaryfeminist.substack.com/

    Find Mary on Twitter: https://twitter.com/moveincircles

    #134449
    zerosum
    Participant

    Russia has a secret
    “Pretending that it cannot see you when you are good or bad.”.

    • Ukraine Isn’t Ready For Its Big Offensive, But It Has No Choice (Sunday Times)
    • CNN: Russia Not Ready For Counterattack From Ukraine (Az.)
    • Russian Defenses Will Be Tough Task For Ukrainians – CNN (RT)

    ———–
    Changes, are happening that are not in your control
    ——-
    Its too late, Somebody on the web knows the truth and is telling the truth

    ————-
    At 80 years old, dementia simplifies complexity and makes you believe that you found the truth/right answer.
    Unfortunately, nobody is listening to you.

    #134450
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Certainly CBDCs are The Plan. I think The Plan’s going nowhere though. Maybe Western Europe and Israel exclusively and not for long.

    They can’t if no Russia, no China, therefore no 3rd world, therefore no America because we can leak out. The End. But they’ll sure smash a lot of things and kill a lot of people trying.

    #134451
    Polemos
    Participant

    On killing them to save them:

    My girlfriend told me how a coworker started asking her about her vegetarian decision, grounded in an ethical rejection of factory farming, exploitation of the animals, cruel and abusive treatment of livestock. The coworker pulled out this statistical argument: “Did you know that if we stopped eating cows, their population would drop 90%? So by you not eating meat, you’re contributing to the extinction of cows!”

    From the coworker’s perspective, it is better to live as a species doomed to each individual becoming ground up than for the collective to go freely into the abyss, never to return.

    Maybe some people really do think that killing 90% of a species one by one under exploitative circumstances is better for the whole species, especially when those people from the exploiting species are the ones doing the calculations.

    Shal’kek nem’ron.

    #134452
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Hunter Biden daughter in Arkansas

    I suspect that the reason for Hunter & family denying the existence of this little girl is because for decades they have broken social rules and gotten away with it, all the while increasing their wealth and social status. They have reached a point where, to them, no lie is too extreme. They believe their own lies, in a sense, they believe that they have the power to form the world the way that they say it is, with little regard of actuality.

    The little girl is caught in the crossfire. I hope that her mother raises her well. The money will help. It takes a tremendous amount of care and attention to raise a child well, and it is very difficult for a single parent to provide *double* the care and attention AND the money needed for all of the physical things (shelter, food, clothing, etc.). If the money is in place to put a floor under them both, then the mother can shower the girl with the needed parental care and attention, and can give “making a living” second-place priority. For me, an inheritance from my grandmother, and when that was gone, assistance from my parents, as well as SNAP, put that “floor” under our feet until I was able to stabilize my income and had my extreme frugality habits in place.

    #134453
    Germ
    Participant

    Ladies and Gentlemen – you shall be “Germ Free” for a while.

    I’m cycling Le Canals des Deux Mets with friends for 17 days.
    So no posting.

    Vive la France!

    https://en.canaldes2mersavelo.com/

    Stay well all!

    #134456

    Lucky YOU!
    I wish you good weather, Germ!

    #134458
    WES
    Participant

    Germ:

    Happy cycling Germ! May your tires never go flat!

    #134460
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Filed under: It’s worse than you think:

    https://reduxx.info/category/news/

    I kind of assumed that it’s obvious that we are not meat bags, and that we exist in many places besides the visible, three-dimensional world.

    Apparently, as recently illustrated by many appeals for a Call To Spiritual Sanity that were met with silence and/or white noise, *that* is an assumption that is *not* obvious to the current crop of humanity…

    All blessings upon widows, orphans, mothers & children in these perilous, dark times.

    EOT.

    #134461
    DarkMatter
    Participant

    @Polemos
    Your comment needs to be read with coworker pronounced cow-orker

    #134462
    John Day
    Participant

    Protect your hands, face, neck and ears from bad sunburns, Germ.

    Tally Ho!

    🙂

    #134464
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Polemos said

    Maybe some people really do think that killing 90% of a species one by one under exploitative circumstances is better for the whole species, especially when those people from the exploiting species are the ones doing the calculations.

    I wonder what percentage of grass feeding animals on the Serengeti get to live to a ripe old age and live in retirement. From what I saw, living in Kenya as a child, the predators would pick off the weak and slow before they had a chance to retire. Should those grass feeding animals be denied life to satisfy your “feelings” about their deaths?

    Your “feelings” are anti-nature. You are wanting to change the way that nature works, as anti-nature as sex changes and all the woke shite. Sometimes you have to just accept that it is not your choice, it is not your world, you should work with nature and not against it.

    Where does this leave us when it comes to chickens in barns? Well, all gardeners know that ants farm aphids, so are the ants bad people too in your eyes? Anti-nature, not a clever position, it is bad education.

    #134465
    John Day
    Participant

    Empires Of Mortals https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/empires-of-mortals

    ​ ​All empires are mortal, the “American Empire” too​ , ​by Thierry Meyssan​ Thanks Eleni.​
    The USSR collapsed in on itself, not from the war in Afghanistan (1979-89), but from the Chernobyl disaster (April 26, 1989). The Soviets suddenly realized that the state was no longer in control. The members of the Warsaw Pact, whom Leonid Brezhnev had made vassals, revolted. The churches, the Communist Youth and the gays of East Germany brought down the Berlin Wall [1]. Not only did the USSR not react, but also it abandoned its allies outside Europe, especially Cuba. The First Secretary of the party, Mikhail Gorbachev, turned from a reformer into a liquidator. The USSR broke up, creating many new independent states. Then it was a descent into hell.​..
    ​​..Even before the dissolution of the USSR, the United States had become the hyperpower that no one contests [2]. The Straussian Paul Wolfowitz elaborated a doctrine aimed at preventing the emergence of a new competitor, which would take the place of the Soviet Union. He unhesitatingly designated the political project of François Mitterrand and Helmut Köhl, the European Union, as the enemy to be destroyed…
    ..Although no one threatens the supremacy of the US, it feels that its internal balance is fragile. Their jobs have been relocated and their economy is based more on the internationalization of their currency, the dollar, than on the wealth they produce.
    ​ ​In 2001, the Straussians organized the September 11 attacks [3] and adopted the Rusmfeld/Cebrowski doctrine [4]. They suspended fundamental freedoms at home with the USA Patriot Act and wage an “endless war” that ravaged the “wider Middle East”…
    ..In a speech given on February 11, 2007 at the Munich Security Conference [5], President Vladimir Putin denounced the Bush New World Order as “unipolar”. According to him, it would be more accurate to describe it as “monopolistic”. He notes that far from bringing peace, it sowed misfortune…
    ​ ​In the 15 years since the Munich speech, Russia’s priority has been to rebuild its power.​..
    ​..​In the 35 years since the collapse of the USSR, the United States has wrongly convinced itself that it has defeated its rival. In reality, it was the Soviets themselves who overthrew it. They believed that the Russians would need a century to recover from their mistakes. In fact, they have become the world’s leading military power. The United States has succeeded in subjugating Western and Central Europe, but today it must confront all the states it has bullied, led by Russia and China.
    ​ ​During this period, the Republicans and Democrats have given way to two new currents of thought: the Jacksonians around Donald Trump and the Wokists, puritans without God…​ [I’d like to try what’s behind Door # 3, please.]
    ​..​Moving companies report that their clients are leaving large cities for smaller ones where life is cheaper and more pleasant. However, they all note that their customers increasingly cite a new motive: they are moving to join family members. This explanation is consistent with what Colin Woodard observed a decade ago [8]: U.S. citizens are clustering by community of origin…Their clients are grouping together with people like themselves, having inherited the same culture and belonging to the same social class. They often worry about the rise of insecurity and talk about a possible civil war.
    https://www.voltairenet.org/article219196.html

    ​ Russia massively attacked Ukrainian munitions, military industry, munitions train, and the preparations for the spring offensive. Massive weapons depot explosion at night is shown in video. Further loss of remaining Ukrainian antiaircraft missiles is apparent.
    ​https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/russia-retaliates-for-attack-on-sevastopol-massive-russian-attacks

    ​ ​Michael Hudson: Debt and the Collapse of Antiquity – Part 2
    ​ ​Hudson: I think the character of early Christianity is what is in the Lord’s Prayer. “Forgive them their debts as we forgive the debtors.” Christianity, especially Roman Christianity, made a travesty of this. They used the word sins. “Forgive us our sins as we forget the sins of the debtors.” What they meant was every kind of sin except economic.​..
    ..Colin Anthes: Something I didn’t know that was in this book was that Brutus was a money lender charging 48% interest.​..
    ..Hudson: ​Yes. Let me talk about Caesar first. He was very brilliant as a political manoeuvrer as well as as a General. He borrowed a lot of money to run for office and ​re​paid the money. He was able to play the political game as a very, very intelligent manoeuvrer. What people were really frightened about with Caesar was that he was independent, and they didn’t want independent people. Just like in American democracy, the last thing you want is a president who’s independent and who’s a leader. You want a president who’s working for his campaign contributors… But here was Caesar being independent and trying to retain solvency for the economy as a whole. They didn’t want an independent head of Rome any more than you would have modern democracies wanting an independent president.
    ​ ​Caesar was accused of kingship. What did the kings do? The kings cancelled the debts and redistributed the land; that was the invective that was used against Caesar.​..
    ​..Well, when Jesus gave his first big sermon reported in Luke, he unrolled the scroll of Isaiah to the point where Isaiah was calling for the year of the Lord, meaning the Jubilee year. Jesus said that was what his destiny was, what he had come to proclaim. There was apparently wide support among the Jewish population advocating the restoration of the Jubilee year against the Rabbinical school that opposed it and repres​sed it. Luke said that the Pharisees loved money, and their leading Rabbis had their debtors sign documents. They would borrow money and waive their rights under the Jubilee year. That’s what Jesus wanted to change. So after Jesus gave his sermon, a lot of the population got very upset because they didn’t think it was fair to cancel the debts. The leading Jewish leaders went to the Roman pro-consul and said, “Well, we can’t put him to death, but you can because he’s seeking kingship.” They knew the magic word of invective that the Romans didn’t like– kingship. It was the Romans who agreed to put Jesus to death. The movement was way beyond Christianity. It was beyond Jesus. We know from the scrolls, the Dead Sea Scrolls…
    ​..​Finally, you had Constantine, who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.
    ​ ​Well, there’s obviously one problem. What do you do if you’re making Christianity the official religion? The origins of Christianity were centered on the Jubilee. You cancel the debts, you liberate the debt bondage, you restore the lands to them, redistribute the land, make people independent, and you protect the poor instead of enslaving them. Well, you had to change the whole character of this…
    ​..​Under St. Augustine, it was largely sexual. All of a sudden, the focus of Augustinian Christianity became sexual egotism, not the wealth addiction of the creditors. After all, if the leaders of the Christian Church, the archbishops and the bishops, were all going to be taken from the wealthy families, you’d hardly have them criticize their own wealth. You stripped away from Roman Christianity the economic and social context that had guided early Christianity.​..The one thing that the Roman Christians hated was people who could read. If you could read, you’d read the Bible. If you read the Bible, you’d know that there was a clash. So I think the most famous person that Cyril killed was Hypatia, a woman who was a mathematician.​.. ..Cyril had a consul at Ephesus calling on the Roman military to kill all of his opponents. You had Christianity hijacked by Cyril. The wealthiest part of the Roman Empire by this time, the fourth and fifth centuries, was North Africa– Egypt and Hippo. The old Carthaginian area was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire; that’s where the grain was made. The Christians there opposed the creditors. They opposed the Romans. They said, “No, what the Romans are doing is not Christianity.” Rome wanted them to turn over all of their sacred books so that they could be destroyed.​..The North African Christians, many of them refused to turn over the sacred books, and they were killed.
    ​ ​Finally, Augustine came to power, and he sponsored the pro-Romans. There was a civil war that went on decade after decade, preventing the local Roman landowners from indebting the population, from enserfing them. Augustine called on the Romans to take away their churches and to give him their churches. So essentially, Augustine expropriated the Christian churches and made them his own deviant Christianity– I hate to even call it Christianity, it’s really Augustinianism– in a wave of violence.​.. .​.​What survived the Roman Empire was the Byzantine Empire and its church, which was Orthodox Christianity. Orthodox Christianity maintained many of the qualities of original Christianity, including debt cancellations when there was a crop failure through freezing or a frost that killed the crops and caused a loss of land and indebtedness. You had Constantinople as the main bishopric, with Antioch and Jerusalem.​.. ..​The kings of England, the kings of Sicily and southern Italy pledged fealty to the Pope, who organized armies to have new crusades with new inquisitions under the Dominicans against Christians who didn’t agree with Roman leadership, whether it was the French Cathars or ultimately the Crusades that looted Constantinople and destroyed its ability to resist what became the Ottoman takeover at the time.​ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/04/michael-hudson-debt-and-the-collapse-of-antiquity-part-2.html

    ​ Over half a million protesters took to the streets of France this Mayday, protesting “pension reforms”, which handed their government pensions over to BlackRock and also make them wait until age 64 to collect, instead of the long agreed age of 62. ​ “Macron is trying to move forward no matter what, but people are standing still,” said Antoine Bristielle, the head of the polling department at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès research institute. He said, “About 60 percent of the population say they don’t want to move on from the pension reform.”​ “There will be no return to normal unless the reform is withdrawn,” Sophie Binet, the head of the General Confederation of Labor, France’s second-largest labor union, told local media outlet RTL.​ ​https://www.zerohedge.com/political/may-day-protests-france-unions-fume-over-macrons-pension-reform

    #134466
    John Day
    Participant

    ​​ ​Türkiye facing the American Empire​ , by Thierry Meyssan​ Thanks Eleni. ​ ​ With three weeks to go before the Turkish presidential election, the debate is changing. From being for or against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamism, it is becoming for or against the alliance with the United States. The outgoing president is regaining points in the polls that predicted him to lose. He has gone from being an Islamist to a nationalist. Whether this will be enough to allow him to win is not yet known, but if he does win, it is to be expected that he will withdraw Türkiye from NATO.​..​Until now, he appeared to be halfway between the United States on one side and Russia and China on the other. Now, his political party presents him as the saviour of Turkish independence in the face of Washington’s darker side. In contrast, he portrays his competitor as a Yankee henchman, which he probably is not. ​The United States is thus paying the price for the assassination attempts on the Turkish president, especially the one that led to the failed coup of July 15, 2016, after Ankara decided to build a gas pipeline with Moscow and even bought weapons from it. In addition, Washington is blamed, rightly or wrongly, no one knows, for causing the recent earthquake that cost the lives of tens of thousands of Turks.​ ​https://www.voltairenet.org/article219222.html

    Moscow entitled to sever ties with Warsaw, but that would harm Russians — diplomat
    However, she noted that, in this case, “very many aspects of the work will become blocked”
    https://tass.com/politics/1611753

    M. K. BHADRAKUMAR​ ,​ Sudan: Alignment of forces, players
    ​ ​President Biden lent credence to the alarmist perception by confirming that on his orders, the US military conducted an operation “to extract government personnel from Khartoum.”
    ​ ​According to the US Department of State, about 16,000 American nationals are currently in Sudan. The US embassy in Khartoum had an excessive staff strength — on par with its Mission in Kiev — which was unwarranted by the scale and volume of US-Sudanese bilateral ties, leading to speculation that it was a key intelligence outpost…​
    ​ ..In Sudan, Saudi and Emirati efforts to shape the political transition after Omar al-Bashir’s ousting in April 2019 led to partial successes but also significant difficulties, as they came at severe reputational cost under scrutiny from both the Sudanese population and the international community.
    ​ ​The US and the EU saw GCC countries as useful partners in the Horn in terms of their surplus capital to invest that Western powers lacked, as well as their good personal networks. The Faustian deal between the Trump administration, Israel and the Gulf states to lure the Sudanese military leadership into the Abraham Accord in 2020 was a defining moment.
    ​ ​However, this dalliance proved short-lived an​d​ the Western powers’ game plan to ride on the wings of the Gulf states to counter the growing influence of Russia and China in the Red Sea met a sudden death too, as the ground beneath the feet of the US-Saudi alliance shifted dramatically under the Biden presidency and Riyadh began strengthening its ties with Moscow and Beijing.​..
    ​..In a nutshell, the crux of the matter is that the Western understanding of stability and sustainable development in Sudan through the prism of the neocon ideology that permeates the Biden administration lies at the core of the aggravation of the sluggish internal political crisis in Sudan that has been brewing since 2019 between the army led by the de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and armed formations led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo…
    ​..The immature, unrealistic political settlements promoted by the Western liberal democracies significantly fuelled the military’s infighting.​..
    ​..Lest it be forgotten, Sudan is a vast country of great ethnic and regional diversity — inhabited by something like 400-500 tribes. The country’s stability depends critically on an optimal model of interaction between the elites and clans.
    ​ ​Basically, what drives the special forces in the current conflict is their expectation to increase their importance in the domestic political process of the country. It must be understood that the current strife is not about access to some military resource, but about control over the economy and the distribution of power.​..
    ​..The countries of the region can help resolve the conflict. A comprehensive settlement may not happen soon, since the internal contradictions that accumulated over time require compromises, and so far at least, the parties are not ready for this…
    ​..​In addition, other external partners, especially Russia and China, will make efforts to prevent a prolonged open conflict. By the way, Sudan has an external debt under $ 60 billion, and most of it falls on China —​ ​Russia, on the other hand, is well-placed to foster rapprochement between al-Burhan and Dagalo.
    ​ ​Russia takes a balanced position. During his visit to Sudan in February, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with the leaders of both opposing sides. Russia is a stakeholder in Sudan’s stability.​..
    ​..However, the Anglo-American agenda remains dubious. Their focus is on internationalising the crisis, injecting big power rivalries into the Sudanese situation and willy-nilly create pretexts for western intervention.

    Sudan: Alignment of forces, players

    ​ Professor Anthony Hall, ​ Making the Shift from Fighting “Muslim Terrorists” to Fighting “Domestic Terrorists”
    Tracing the Growing Corruption of Society Away from the Rule of Law Towards the Rule of Unbridled Savagery at the Top
    https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/making-the-shift-from-fighting-muslim

    Lawyer Testifies That Canadian Military Doctors Were Told Not to Report Vaccine Injuries
    “They were told to diagnose them as other things, such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome [GBS], when young men were collapsing in the shower after injections. … They were vaccine injured.”
    https://lionessofjudah.substack.com/p/lawyer-testifies-that-canadian-military

    #134467
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Sasha Latypova has more on the Moderna contracts with the co-owning DoD, for the R&D and production of vaccine-products​. Profit sharing and liability protection were assured, but all routine pharmaceutical quality controls were made optional.
    Part 2 Moderna Contracts​ ​https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/part-2-moderna-contracts

    #134468
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    Everyone knows who prints the money, everyone knows who calls the shots. Everyone knows who pimps the media. Try to speak of it, you get beat down like a bag dog. I should know, happens everywhere I go., Truth is a bitch, it can only be ignored for so long before it busts open like a broken dam.

    #134469
    Polemos
    Participant

    aspnaz, who are you arguing with? You quote me, but you are engaged in a debate with someone else.

    If you feel exploitation is natural, are you okay with being coerced into gene-therapeutic participation? If you are right about one’s feelings, you can’t invoke feelings against the sound policy that might makes right, especially when the mighty need you to comply for them to stay mighty and you to be one with the herd, whose collective strength matters. Only the weak and the sick die from the participation, and as you pointed out, this is natural predatory behavior.

    You are going to die anyway, so why not let your death bring happiness to the mighty exploiters, prosperity to the world they invent and sustain, and space and increased quality of life to those who outlive you? Choosing the terms of your own demise is self-centered and egotistical, not at all rational in light of who benefits, and deprives the sadist and the bureaucrats their joy in believing that you succumbed to their power, which is unbecoming of a modern citizen of the world. How could anyone think otherwise, when it is only natural to exploit or be cruel to the weaker?

    Only the foolish think they know what’s best for themselves; only fools dream of living beyond life and death. And you won’t be caught playing the fool, will you, aspnaz?

    #134473
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Polemos said

    aspnaz, who are you arguing with? You quote me, but you are engaged in a debate with someone else.

    Incorrect. You stated your position in the summary to your comment – I quoted your summary – and I countered your comment with my view of your position.

    If you feel exploitation is natural

    I gave you an example of natural exploitation: ants farming aphids. Yes, exploitation it completely natural, in animals as in humans, as is evidenced by the history of mankind.

    are you okay with being coerced into gene-therapeutic participation

    If I am being exploited then my view on whether it is okay is somewhat irrelavant, in fact totally irrelevant. That is what exploitation is. Do the ants worry about the view of the aphids?

    You are going to die anyway, so why not let your death bring happiness to the mighty exploiters, prosperity to the world they invent and sustain, and space and increased quality of life to those who outlive you?

    That is your choice and many people take that path. It is not a path that I choose to take, but as with everything in nature, you aim to stay free and have your own way, but that does not always pan out and some will be caught and have to serve the slave masters.

    Choosing the terms of your own demise is self-centered and egotistical, not at all rational in light of who benefits, and deprives the sadist and the bureaucrats their joy in believing that you succumbed to their power, which is unbecoming of a modern citizen of the world.

    No it isn’t. Why do I have to serve the others in the world? The only reason I would serve others is to either benefit myself or because I have been caught by something more powerful and forced to tail to benefit someone else rather than myself. Your argument makes no sense in nature as nature is about survival, not about sacrifice. The ones that are sacrificed do not do it to save the strongest, they are sacrificed because they are the weaker ones – yes, I know all about weird religious bollocks that people participate in, like Mayan sacrificing their fittest men to the sun, but crazy is part of what makes you weak. Mayan civilization died.

    How could anyone think otherwise, when it is only natural to exploit or be cruel to the weaker?

    Because thinking like that is natural, but holding such thoughts as the rules against which you will live your life wil just make you weaker as you will be fighting against the far more powerful force that is nature.

    Only the foolish think they know what’s best for themselves; only fools dream of living beyond life and death. And you won’t be caught playing the fool, will you, aspnaz?

    Really? Only the foolish rejected the Covid vaccine? How many examples do you need? … Your emotional ending makes you look weak Polemos.

    #134474
    Dora
    Participant

    @ Germ

    Sounds wonderful. Fair weather and tail winds to carry you along.

    #134475
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant
    #134476
    Alexander Carpenter
    Participant

    Am I the only one who interpreted polemos’ response to aspenaz as being, in some devious and perhaps overly subtle way, a humorous and satyrical or mocking-imitative reductio ad absurdam parody? In other words, “pulling his leg”?
    With aspenaz returning the perfect literal-minded “straight-man” response? Maybe aspenaz was caught “playing the fool.”
    One of those two is taking himself way too seriously.

    #134488
    aspnaz
    Participant

    @Alexander Carpenter I have great respect for Polemos, he is someone who’s comments I will always read as they are great value and make you think in different directions. He is not the only challenging commenter on this site, but one of the best, hence it is always worth my time coming here first thing in the morning to see what peoples’ brains have been cooking up overnight.

    #134494
    Polemos
    Participant

    You stated your position in the summary to your comment – I quoted your summary – and I countered your comment with my view of your position.

    —aspnaz

    What is my position?

    “If I am being exploited then my view on whether it is okay is somewhat irrelavant, in fact totally irrelevant. That is what exploitation is.”
    “Because thinking like that is natural, but holding such thoughts as the rules against which you will live your life wil just make you weaker as you will be fighting against the far more powerful force that is nature.”

    Do you think coercing people to become participants in gene therapies was natural? You chose otherwise, right? Yet clearly the mass compliance and subsequent lack of punishment on the coercing show they are powerful and dominant in the world. Thus, you are choosing the weaker path, and apparently choosing to embrace weakness is contrary to either survival or accepting nature.

    How could you rationally choose to be unnatural, aspnaz? Why do you resist the powerful and mock those who support and defend the powerful’s fully natural and world-historical programs?

    It must be you are not thinking clearly. You need to submit yourself to testing and compliance procedures immediately, or else you will no longer be one of the natural people. Don’t be like Afewknowthetruth, who resists the powerful and successful.

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