May 282023
 


Vincent van Gogh The garden of the asylum at Saint-Rémy 1889

 

No Truce With the Heartland (Luongo)
Eurasian Heartland Rises to Challenge the West (Pepe Escobar)
After Bakhmut (Douglas Macgregor)
Counteroffensive Can Start At Any Moment – Ukrainian Official (RT)
Ukraine Demands German Missiles Capable Of Striking Moscow (RT)
Africa Foresees End Of Unipolar World – Russian Envoy (RT)
Credit Rating Agency Downgrades US (RT)
Debt Ceiling Deal Between White House And GOP Reached In Principle (ZH)
EU Sanctions Talks Hit Roadblock – Politico (RT)
China Rebuffing All Contact With US Military: Pentagon (ZH)
John Durham and the Burying of American History (Patrick Lawrence)
Roger Waters Under Criminal Probe Over Anti-Nazi Satire (RT)
Fisher-Price Introduces ‘My First Gender Transition’ Playset (BBee)

 

 


The winner from the Texas Sand Sculpture Festival.

 

 

Eli Crane

 

 

Anthony Bourdain

 

 

Rogan Smith

 

 

 

 

Veritas

 

 

Carrey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps it’s time to see Mackinder from a Chinese perspective. In 1904 that may not have seemed important, but today?!

No Truce With the Heartland (Luongo)

Ukraine has always represented the apotheosis of the Neocon/Neoliberal world order. As Crooke points out, they are facing a very unpleasant choice: “The war is now, in this way, being projected as a binary choice: ‘End the war’ versus ‘Win the war’. Europe is tergiversating –standing at the cross-roads; hesitantly starting down one road, only to reverse, and indecisively take a few cautious steps down the other. The EU will both train Ukrainians to fly F-16s; and yet is coy about providing the planes. It smacks of tokenism; but tokenism is often the father to mission-creep.” Indeed it is. Because of the closed-mindedness of those in power in the West — their biases, racism, and arrogance — they will not stop in Ukraine until they are forced to by circumstances.


Those circumstances will likely be dictated by the revamped Russian military now configured to fight a longer and different kind of war than the one that began in February 2022. Every day we see signs that Russia’s military-industrial capacity is increasing rapidly while the EU languishes. The US is rapidly trying to bring back onshore manufacturing lost to the ZIRP and Greenspan Eras, but this is a slow and painful process especially since it has run out of room on the balance sheet to deficit spend to accelerate things. “Biden” and his merry band of vandals in D.C. are more than happy to burn the place to the ground more thoroughly than the British did in the War of 1812 if they can’t get their way on unlimited taxing and spending.

So, here we are. Bakhmut has fallen. The Ukrainian counter-offensive is non-existent. If anything it was already absorbed by Putin and Prigozhin. Zelenskyy will now get F-16s to attack Crimea and use that as some moral high ground for justifying NATO’s official involvement after Russia’s inevitable counter-attack. Then the air will be thick with the smell of thermobarics in the morning. But, regardless of any of that, there will be no truce in the Heartland. Russia will not back down. China will back them to the end, as will OPEC+ and the rest of Central Asia. But they will not escalate one inch further than they need to. Allowing the West to keep thinking they can win is the ultimate form of grinding out a superior opponent.


[..] While the West fights desperately to stave off defeat of the Heartland, it’s clear the rest of the World Island is making plans to leave them behind. At some point there are simply too many people and too much pressure to keep pushing the world towards a conclusion it doesn’t want to go. And that’s when everything changes, literally overnight. Until then, it will be another day, another escalation, another pointless political knife fight and thousands of people dying needlessly. When he published that paper in 1904 all Mackinder did was formalize British imperial thinking into an easily-digested thesis for morons. Today we are being gaslit by these morons into believing our lives depend on fighting for ‘freedom’ in central Ukraine. It was written as the British empire’s grip on power was beginning to wane. World War I would put the capper on that.

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More heartland. BRICS + Central Asia.

Eurasian Heartland Rises to Challenge the West (Pepe Escobar)

President Xi Jinping telling President Putin at the end of their summit last March in Moscow that we’re now facing “great changes not seen in a century” directly applies to the new spirit reigning across the Heartland. Cue to the China-Central Asia summit last week in Xian, the former imperial capital, where Xi solidified the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from Western China in Xinjiang to its western neighbors and then all the way to Iran, Turkey and Eastern Europe. Xi in Xian particularly stressed the complementing aspects between BRI and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), once again showing that all five Central Asian “stans”, acting together, should counter-act the proverbial external interference via “terrorism, separatism and extremism”.

The message was stark: these hybrid war strategies are all integrated with the attempt by the Hegemon to continue fostering serial color revolutions. The purveyors of the “rules-based international order”, Xi implied, will go no holds barred to prevent ongoing Heartland integration. The usual suspects in fact are already spinning that Central Asia is falling into a potential trap, fully captured by Beijing. Yet this is something Kazakhstan’s “multi-vector diplomacy”, coined way back in the Nazarbayev years, would never allow. What Beijing is developing, instead, is an integrated approach via a C+C5 secretariat with no less than 19 separate channels of communication. The heart of the matter is to turbo-charge Heartland connectivity via the BRI’s Middle Corridor.

And that, crucially, includes technology transfer. As it stands, there are dozens of industrial transfer programs with Kazakhstan, a dozen in Uzbekistan, and several in discussion with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. These are extolled by Beijing as part of “harmonious Silk Roads”. Xi himself, as a post-modern pilgrim, detailed the connectivity in his keynote speech in Xian: “The China-Kyrgystan-Uzbekistan highway that runs across the Tian shan Mountains, the China-Tajikistan expressway that defies the Pamir Plateau, and the China-Kazakhstan crude oil pipeline and the China-Central Asia Gas Pipeline that traverse the vast desert – they are the present-day Silk Road.”

[..] Moscow is very much aware of the high stakes. For instance, for a year and a half virtually every month a Russian delegation arrives in Tajikistan to implement, in practice, the “pivot to the East”, developing projects in agriculture, health care, education, science and tourism. Central Asia should have a leading role in BRICS+ expansion – something supported by both BRICS leaders Russia and China. The idea of a BRICS + Central Asia is being seriously floated from Tashkent to Almaty. That would imply establishing a strategic continuum from Russia and China to Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Africa and Latin America – spanning the logistics of connectivity trade, energy, manufacture production, investment, technological breakthroughs and cultural interaction.

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“Zelensky’s supporters no longer believe in the myth of Ukrainian victory..”

After Bakhmut (Douglas Macgregor)

Until the fighting begins, national military strategy developed in peacetime shapes thinking about warfare and its objectives. Then the fighting creates a new logic of its own. Strategy is adjusted. Objectives change. The battle for Bakhmut illustrates this point very well. When General Sergey Vladimirovich Surovikin, commander of Russian aerospace forces, assumed command of the Russian military in the Ukrainian theater last year, President Vladimir Putin and his senior military advisors concluded that their original assumptions about the war were wrong. Washington had proved incurably hostile to Moscow’s offers to negotiate, and the ground force Moscow had committed to compel Kiev to negotiate had proved too small. Surovikin was given wide latitude to streamline command relationships and reorganize the theater.

Most importantly, Surovikin was also given the freedom of action to implement a defensive strategy that maximized the use of stand-off attack or strike systems while Russian ground forces expanded in size and striking power. The Bakhmut “Meatgrinder” was the result. When it became clear that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government regarded Bakhmut as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to Russian military power, Surovikin turned Bakhmut into the graveyard of Ukrainian military power. From the fall of 2022 onward, Surovikin exploited Zalenskiy’s obsession with Bakhmut to engage in a bloody tug-of-war for control of the city. As a result, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers died in Bakhmut and many more were wounded. Surovkin’s performance is reminiscent of another Russian military officer: General Aleksei Antonov.

As the first deputy chief of the Soviet general staff, Surovikin was, in Western parlance, the director of strategic planning. When Stalin demanded a new summer offensive in a May 1943 meeting, Antonov, the son and grandson of imperial Russian army officers, argued for a defensive strategy. Antonov insisted that Hitler, if allowed, would inevitably attack the Soviet defenses in the Kursk salient and waste German resources doing so. Stalin, like Hitler, believed that wars were won with offensive action, not defensive operations. Stalin was unmoved by Soviet losses. Antonov presented his arguments for the defensive strategy in a climate of fear, knowing that contradicting Stalin could cost him his life. To the surprise of Marshals Aleksandr Vasilevsky and Georgy Zhukov, who were present at the meeting, Stalin relented and approved Antonov’s operational concept. The rest, as historians say, is history.

Macgregor

If President Putin and his senior military leaders wanted outside evidence for Surovikin’s strategic success in Bakhmut, a Western admission appears to provide it: Washington and her European allies seem to think that a frozen conflict—in which fighting pauses but neither side is victorious, nor does either side agree that the war is officially over—could be the most politically palatable long-term outcome for NATO. In other words, Zelensky’s supporters no longer believe in the myth of Ukrainian victory. The question on everyone’s mind is, what’s next? In Washington, conventional wisdom dictates that Ukrainian forces launch a counteroffensive to retake Southern Ukraine. Of course, conventional wisdom is frequently high on convention and low on wisdom.

On the assumption that Ukraine’s black earth will dry sufficiently to support ground maneuver forces before mid-June, Ukrainian forces will strike Russian defenses on multiple axes and win back control of Southern Ukraine in late May or June. Roughly 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers training in Great Britain, Germany, and other NATO member states are expected to return to Ukraine and provide the foundation for the Ukrainian counterattack force. General Valery Gerasimov, who now commands the Russian forces in the Ukrainian theater, knows what to expect, and he is undoubtedly preparing for the Ukrainian offensive. The partial mobilization of Russian forces means that Russian ground forces are now much larger than they have been since the mid-1980s.

Given the paucity of ammunition available to adequately supply one operational axis, it seems unlikely that a Ukrainian offensive involving two or more axes could succeed in penetrating Russian defenses. Persistent overhead surveillance makes it nearly impossible for Ukrainian forces to move through the twenty- to twenty-five-kilometer security zone and close with Russian forces before Ukrainian formations take significant losses. Once Ukraine’s offensive resources are exhausted Russia will likely take the offense. There is no incentive to delay Russian offensive operations. As Ukrainian forces repeatedly demonstrate, paralysis is always temporary. Infrastructure and equipment are repaired. Manpower is conscripted to rebuild destroyed formations. If Russia is to achieve its aim of demilitarizing Ukraine, Gerasimov surely knows he must still close with and complete the destruction of the Ukrainian ground forces that remain.

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Repeat every day.

Counteroffensive Can Start At Any Moment – Ukrainian Official (RT)

Ukrainian forces are “ready” to launch their much-touted counteroffensive, the head of the National Security and Defense Council told the BBC in an interview on Saturday. Aleksey Danilov said the military top brass are now waiting for the right moment to launch the attack. “It could happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week,” Danilov answered when pressed about a potential start of the counteroffensive, which Kiev has been talking about for months. A major assault was initially expected to start in spring or even late winter, but Kiev repeatedly postponed it, citing adverse weather conditions and the need to obtain all necessary weapons and equipment from western backers. Danilov said it would have been “weird” for him to reveal the exact date, as “that cannot be done.”

He described the planned attack as a “historic opportunity” that his nation “cannot lose” if it wants to become a “big European country.” “We understand that we have no right to make a mistake,” he added. In April, The New York Times reported that Ukraine’s Western supporters might start to pressure Kiev into launching talks with Moscow should the much-anticipated offensive fail to yield any major gains. Kiev has been sending mixed signals on the counteroffensive. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s aide, Mikhail Podoliak, told Italy’s Rai TV channel that it “has been going on for several days”. However, on Thursday, another presidential advisor, Igor Zhovkva, contradicted that statement, saying Ukrainian forces were still preparing for the operation.

Danilov denied the offensive had already begun, claiming that Ukrainian strikes against Russian “control centers” and “military equipment” were just routine operations. Danilov’s remarks came as Russia outlined its conditions for ending the conflict with Ukraine. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told TASS on Saturday that Kiev should abandon the idea of joining NATO and the EU, guarantee the rights of minorities, and declare Russian a state language. Ukraine must also recognize the “new territorial realities,” the high-ranking diplomat said, referring to four former Ukrainian territories that joined Russia following referendums in autumn 2022, as well as Crimea, which reunited with Russia in 2014 following another referendum. However, Danilov stated earlier in May that there could be no peace talks “on Russia’s terms.”

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Does Germany wish to be a target?

Ukraine Demands German Missiles Capable Of Striking Moscow (RT)

Ukraine has asked Berlin to provide it with long-range air-launched missiles that could potentially reach Moscow, a spokesperson for Germany’s Defense Ministry confirmed on Saturday. On Friday, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported, citing two unnamed “insiders” within the German military, that Ukraine “urgently wants” Swedish-German Taurus missiles. These munitions could be allegedly placed on US-made F-16 fighters, which are now being considered for delivery to Kiev by several Western countries. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is said to have asked for the missiles during his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin earlier this month.

For now, it is unclear whether Berlin, which earlier said it did not have any F-16s to send to Kiev, will grant this request. The report said the demand presents Berlin with a dilemma, as some in the German government doubt whether Ukraine would sensibly use such a weapon – which can travel 500km (310 miles) and is armed with a 500kg warhead. As Kiev may use the Taurus to strike Moscow from the border, “some fear that in a situation of dire need, Kiev could allow the war to escalate uncontrollably,” the paper added. According to the outlet, another problem is that the Taurus needs extremely precise and up-to-date information to stage attacks, raising questions as to whether Berlin would be willing to share such data with Kiev.

Earlier this month, the UK decided to supply Ukraine with Storm Shadow missiles with a range of over 250km (155 miles), with Moscow’s Foreign Ministry condemning the move as another step towards a “serious escalation.” Later, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Kiev used the weapon to conduct a strike on civilians in the Donbass city of Lugansk, resulting in six children injured, according to local authorities. Even without long-range missiles, earlier this month Kiev unsuccessfully attempted to conduct a strike on the Kremlin using two drones, which according to Moscow was an attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kiev has denied any involvement, with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claiming that “we fight on our territory” and “we don’t have… enough weapons for this.”

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“..the aggressive imposition of Western ‘new values’ causes growing rejection there and only brings Russia and African countries closer together.”

Africa Foresees End Of Unipolar World – Russian Envoy (RT)

The West’s attempts to pressure Africa to turn on Russia have failed as people on the continent realize the true nature of the conflict in Ukraine and see that the unipolar world order is coming to an end, according to the head of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum. Oleg Ozerov, who is also Russia’s ambassador-at-large, told Newsweek on Friday that the attendance of 40 out of 54 nations of the continent at the Russia-Africa Interparliamentary Conference had “shattered the myth of Russia’s alleged isolation due to the events in Ukraine, persistently promoted in the West.” “People in Africa understand very well that the former Soviet republic has turned into an arena of confrontation between the new and the old world paradigms, between different visions of the future, not just a trivial feud between neighbors,” he said.

According to the diplomat, the well-balanced and neutral approach towards “Russia’s confrontation with the West” by Africa, China, India and Latin American nations “confirms once again that the transition to… multipolar architecture is irreversible.” Those countries clearly understand that the time for “unipolar world-order is running out,” he added. What Africa needs now is promotion of local solutions and national interests, as well as deliverance “from the rigid constraints of globalism promoted by neo-liberalist ideologists,” Ozerov said. “African countries count on Russia’s support” in achieving those goals, he stated. Moscow is backing efforts to complete the decolonization process in a number of African countries, while also working to put together a broad anti-terrorist front on the continent “free from any hidden agenda or double standards,” the diplomat continued.

“The US and EU want Africa to play the role of a mere supplier of raw materials to the ‘civilized world,’” Ozerov said. But Russia has a different approach as its “primary interest is to assist the development of Africa’s domestic energy and electricity markets, where we have considerable expertise, especially as regards nuclear energy,” he explained. Moscow has “no vested interests, such as to preserve its zone of influence or aggressively guard markets from any ‘outsiders,’” and Africans see that, the envoy said. And that’s the reason why “the unprecedented pressure by the West on Russia’s partners in Africa is not that effective in practice.” Ozerov said that, during his trips to the continent, it became obvious to him that “the aggressive imposition of Western ‘new values’ causes growing rejection there and only brings Russia and African countries closer together.” Russia is due to host a high-level Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg in July, with the envoy saying that recent developments indicate that the event is going to be “a success.”

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What’s the influence on Treasury purchases?

Credit Rating Agency Downgrades US (RT)

China Chengxin International Credit Rating (CCXI) slashed its sovereign credit score for the US by one notch earlier this week, becoming the first among top rating firms to make the move. The leading Chinese agency, a joint venture between Beijing Zhixiang Information Management Consulting and US ratings giant Moody’s, lowered the US to AAg+ from AAAg, having placed it on review for a further downgrade, according to a statement released on Thursday. “The intensification of political divisions between the two parties in the United States has increased the difficulty of resolving the debt-ceiling issue,” the statement reads.

“Even if a consensus is reached, the brinkmanship would pose uncertainty to the US government’s policy path and dampen economic confidence, which could trigger further volatility in the US politics and economy,” the agency added. According to CCXI, US debt sustainability is currently being seriously challenged, with the highest level of borrowing among the previously AAAg-rated nations, while the issue is being complicated by hawkish policies of the US Federal Reserve. The regulator has hiked the key interest rate several times over the past few months, raising the risk of asset depreciation on the balance sheets of many financial institutions. The credit rating agency Fitch previously put the US on watch for a potential downgrade, having warned that the nation could soon lose its AAA score due to an inability to pay its bills, within a matter of days.

Meanwhile, Moody’s said a mid-June interest payment on Treasuries will be critical for maintaining its top AAA grade. Republicans and Democrats have struggled to reach an agreement to increase the debt ceiling for weeks, prompting warnings from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that the US is “highly likely” to default if Congress does not act soon. The move would be a first in American history, as the government has never defaulted on its debt, which has swelled to more than $31 trillion. Late on Friday, Yellen extended the deadline for a potentially devastating default, saying the government has just a few more days to argue over the debt ceiling before it runs out of cash.

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“The debt ceiling deal “cuts” spending by 0.2% of GDP or about $50 billion. Is that good enough?”

“Of the $80 billion Democrats appropriated to the IRS over ten years, the “deal” rescinds $1.9 billion. You read that right. That’s the kind of “get” that’s so good McCarthy agreed to increase the debt ceiling $4 trillion.”

Debt Ceiling Deal Between White House And GOP Reached In Principle (ZH)

The White House and GOP negotiators have reached an agreement in principle to raise the US debt ceiling, averting a default. The deal raises the debt limit and keeps non-defense spending ‘near flat’ for two years, while cutting and capping various federal programs, the NY Times reports. After 2025, however, there will be no budget caps. It was structured with the aim of enticing votes from both parties, though it would most likely draw the ire not only of conservative Republicans but also Democrats furious at being asked to vote for cuts they oppose with the threat of default looming. If the progressives or the Freedom Caucus don’t blow it up, the plan has a chance of Congressional passage before June 5, the date Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned any deal must be finalized by in order to avoid hitting the “X-date”, when the Treasury can no longer meet its obligations.


“After weeks of negotiations, we have come to an agreement in principle,” said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, adding that there are “historic reductions in spending” and “consequential reforms.” “There are no new taxes, no new government programs,” McCarthy continued, adding that they would be spending tonight writing the agreement. McCarthy expects a vote on Wednesday. In the House, Republicans hold a narrow majority – meaning unhappy right-wing lawmakers who have demanded significantly larger budget cuts in exchange for raising the ceiling may hold it hostage (lookin’ at you Gaetz). That said, McCarthy can at least say he tried – inking in principle a compromise that would effectively freeze federal spending that had been slated to expand.

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“European diplomats are hesitant to openly name and shame those who stall the negotiations, allegedly out of fear that more EU countries suspected of facilitating sanctions-evasion could also rebel.”

EU Sanctions Talks Hit Roadblock – Politico (RT)

The negotiations over the European Union’s 11th package of sanctions against Russia have been stalled amid opposition from Athens and Budapest, who demand their companies be removed from the Kiev-compiled list of “war sponsors,” according to Politico. Two rounds of talks in Brussels this week ended with no deal in sight, as there was “no pressure” to discuss smaller issues until crucial objections by the member states are addressed, the publication reported on Saturday citing multiple anonymous diplomatic sources. The main roadblock is said to be Kiev’s notorious list of “sanctions-evaders” and “international sponsors of war,” which features multiple European companies because they maintained business ties with Russia.

Compiled by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), the list includes such giants as German wholesaler Metro, French retailer Auchan, Italian cement company Buzzi Unicem and Austrian banking group Raiffeisen, among others. Hungary was the only EU state to voice objections during a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, insisting that Kiev’s baseless accusations against its leading financial institution OTP Bank could be formalized with the bloc’s next round of sanctions. On Wednesday, however, Greece stepped into the forefront of the discussion, saying that allegations of sanction circumvention could be “very damaging” to its economy as well.

“Greece reiterated that, should there be concrete evidence of violation of sanctions, these should be brought to the attention of the member states concerned, at the technical level, so that this be adequately investigated and then due action will be taken,” an unnamed EU diplomat told the publication. Politico claimed that the Ukrainian list and the next sanctions package are “not linked” and the duo was simply holding the talks hostage as “political leverage.” However, European diplomats are hesitant to openly name and shame those who stall the negotiations, allegedly out of fear that more EU countries suspected of facilitating sanctions-evasion could also rebel. In the meantime, two sources said that the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, acknowledged the problem and “it is now up to him to work with the Ukrainians on a solution.”

Budapest has taken a neutral stance in the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev, as it refused to provide military aid to Ukraine or allow Western aid to pass through its territory. Although Hungary had largely taken part in the existing EU sanctions against Russia, it has repeatedly criticized the restrictions and opposed those that might affect its own economy, including its conventional and nuclear energy sectors. Athens also defied the bloc’s efforts to cut all economic ties with Moscow, with imports of Russian goods by Greece more than doubling to a record €9.33 billion ($10 billion) last year. The trade balance between the two countries in 2022 was negative, however, with the value of Greek exports to Russia last year decreasing to €156.4 million from €206.6 million in 2021.

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They’re arming Taiwan. So what is there to talk about?

China Rebuffing All Contact With US Military: Pentagon (ZH)

Top Pentagon officials have once again said that China is ignoring and rebuffing the US military’s attempts to establish and open line of communication, which is crucial to avoiding inadvertent conflict in regions such as in the South China Sea where both naval powers operate. “Open communication channels between the US and China are important in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs Ely Ratner said on Thursday,” regional media reports. “The Pentagon’s attempts to reach out to China’s military in recent months have been ignored or rebuffed,” Ratner told an audience at the DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He sought to stress that the Pentagon “believes in the importance of open lines of communication with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and we have sought to build out those open lines of communication. Unfortunately… we’ve had a lot of difficulty when we have proposed phone calls, meetings, dialogues.” “The US and Department of Defense have had an outstretched hand on this question of military to military engagement, but we have yet to have consistently willing partners,” Ratner emphasized further. Earlier this month there was hope that US-China dialogue would be back on track following the meeting between National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese Communist Party Politburo Member and China’s Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi in Vienna on May 10-11.

That meeting was generally reported and regarded as positive, given that before that all such high level diplomatic contacts had been off ever since the ‘spy balloon’ shootdown incident over the American east coast in early February. But even if the rival militaries are struggling to keep open communications, Washington and Beijing are pushing forward with trade talks: “U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo sat down with her Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao in Washington D.C. on Thursday to discuss “concerns” surrounding bilateral trade. Marking the first cabinet-level exchange between the two countries in months, the U.S. talked about American companies operating in China. According to a readout by the Commerce Department, “The two had candid and substantive discussions on issues relating to the U.S.-China commercial relationship, including the overall environment in both countries for trade and investment and areas for potential cooperation.”

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“..part of the effort to bury the Russiagate hoax the way the Warren Commission buried the facts of the Kennedy assassination for many years.”

John Durham and the Burying of American History (Patrick Lawrence)

I appreciate the Durham Report for the chronology of events it indicates. This is now easier to follow than it has been previously. In simple terms, Clinton authorized an operation to frame Trump within days of the leak of emails from Democratic Party servers in July 2016. The FBI’s leadership acted quickly to set this operation in motion. It first considered using the offhand remarks of George Papadopoulos, a minor Trump campaign volunteer, to obtain surveillance warrants against various of Trump’s advisers. When that proved too flimsy, the agency’s top officials turned to the Steele Dossier. The agency knew it was junk, but they punched it up sufficiently to get the warrants needed to proceed against Trump and his people. This was Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s anti–Trump op at the heart of the Russiagate hoax.

“The truth is, we had almost all of the information a long time ago. What we didn’t have was the certification of the information by a government authority, by a legal authority,” Walter Kirn remarks in America This Week. “I think Durham did a job of showing reach to the highest levels of the government. Apparently everyone was briefed on the reality of this thing early on, very early on. All the highest authorities knew it was bullshit.” Perfectly fair comment, an astute summation. Then Kirn continues in a very curious way: “In a way, I guess it became necessary that the system vindicates itself by finding that which could not be found and asserting that which could not be proved, to the point that the moment where it mattered passed away. President Trump’s no longer president. All of the harms that were done by this thing have been done. They changed our history, they changed our media. They changed our sense of information and why it’s important.”

Kirn is right to suggest that “the system” appears to figure that a report such as Durham’s can now be released because it is all water under the bridge—a little in the way the U.S. will acknowledge one or another of its coup operations long after the facts have ceased to matter. Similarly, it looks as if Garland found this an opportune moment to send the Durham Report to Capitol Hill, effectively to remove the entire Russiagate affair from the common American consciousness. With a presidential election 18 months away, Biden’s attorney-general must dispose of Russiagate and Durham’s probe as hastily and as best he can.

But I am not with Kirn when he asserts all the harm has been done. No, it has not. Russiagate changed history all right. And the destruction of this history is to my mind the greatest harm of all. This is the very oddest thing about the Durham Report: It purports to rip off the veil shielding the plot against Donald Trump from view, but it shapes up after a few days’ consideration as part of the effort to bury the Russiagate hoax the way the Warren Commission buried the facts of the Kennedy assassination for many years.

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He’s been doing it for 50 years.

Roger Waters Under Criminal Probe Over Anti-Nazi Satire (RT)

German police have launched a criminal investigation into English rock legend and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters on suspicion of glorifying Nazism during two concerts in Berlin. The musician has insisted the performance was in opposition to fascism. On Friday, in a statement quoted by several media outlets, the Berlin police said that Waters was suspected of inciting hatred, and that the probe was centered on his performances on May 17 and 18 in the German capital. In footage posted on social media, the musician can be seen wearing a leather trench coat resembling a Nazi uniform with two crossed hammers and a red armband. He then proceeds to take a mock gun and shoot into the crowd.

“The context of the clothing worn is deemed capable of approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace,” the police said. Nazi-related symbols are outlawed in Germany, with an exception being made for educational or artistic purposes. Waters’ performance was apparently in reference to the film “the Wall,” an adaptation of the eponymous 1979 Pink Floyd album. The rock star appears as the album’s protagonist who hallucinates being a fascist dictator addressing a Nazi rally. Waters’ concerts also featured a pig-shaped balloon floating in the air, with a logo of the Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems and the Star of David.

The show also involved showing the names of people fading in on the screen, including Anne Frank, a Jewish diarist who died in a Nazi concentration camp, and Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed while covering an Israeli military operation in May 2022. The Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon suggested that Waters wanted to compare Israel to the Nazis, describing the musician as “one of the biggest Jew haters of our time.” On Friday, the musician addressed the controversy, writing on Twitter that he had become a target of “bad faith attacks” from those who disagreed with his political views. “The elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice and bigotry in all its forms”, he said, adding that he had spent his entire life speaking out “against authoritarianism and oppression.”

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“Therapist doll that, when squeezed, whispers, “Don’t tell your parents.”

Fisher-Price Introduces ‘My First Gender Transition’ Playset (BBee)

In a show of solidarity with a vocal minority of gender activists who don’t purchase their products, Fisher-Price introduced the “My First Gender Transition” playset for kids ages 2 to 9. “The My First Gender Transition playset helps your child have a fun time playing pretend while in no way being inculcated with an emotionally destructive ideology,” said Product Manager Murthina Spillwig who may soon be updating her resumé. “Parents in our focus groups were excited to force their kids to pretend to enjoy the playset for Instagram.” The playset is bursting with a plethora of features to confuse your toddler, including:

-My First Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Analogue puberty-blocking toy syringe
-Top Surgery For Tykes toy surgical table
-Barnyard and jungle-themed breast binders and packing underwear
-Therapist doll that, when squeezed, whispers, “Don’t tell your parents.”
-A lifesize poster of inspiring role model Dr. Rachel Levine
In anticipation of the success of the gender-affirming playset, Fisher-Price has announced they will soon be releasing the “My First Detransition” playset.

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Perfect job

 

 

Bukele

 

 

Aweeeee

 

 

Iguana
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662395821977894916

 

 

 

 

Deactivate a cat

 

 

 

 

Sea slug
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Home Forums Debt Rattle May 28 2023

Viewing 33 posts - 1 through 33 (of 33 total)
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  • #135874

    Vincent van Gogh The garden of the asylum at Saint-Rémy 1889   • No Truce With the Heartland (Luongo) • Eurasian Heartland Rises to Challenge the
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 28 2023]

    #135875
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “The Dilbert guy theorized that if there were election interference, it was done perfectly, because there was no particular instance you could point to”

    Are you kidding? I could point to 4 dozen examples. But having someone run the ballots through the machine 3 times on camera in Atlanta is a prime example. PA Supreme Court said the 2020 election was illegal, the rules were illegally altered. Scott Adams is IYI, “Intellegent Yet Idiot” also couldn’t figure out how we knew Covid was s scam and the vax was no good. Just lucky I guess! No. We READ THE NUMBERS. We were BARELY LITERATE. It was that easy, and the election was the same. You can be TOTALLY illiterate and watch it all on camera, nationwide.

    “Target the entire spectrum of the political right and Christians through “media literacy and online critical thinking initiatives” and other so-called training seminars”

    That is, reeducation camps.

    “The seminar also compared former President Donald Trump to Pol Pot and suggested Florida Governor Ron DeSantis might wish to start a second Holocaust.”

    “We Make S—t Up!” That is, the first pro-gay marriage President is Pol Pot. Huh? Really? The Governor who in years has done nothing at all, not even with vaccines, is starting a mass-murder. When? When his bridge tournament is over, or after he wins that trophy for golf? I said stuff in my mind. It is therefore real. Who can tell the difference, really?

    climate change is being caused exclusively by men, specifically white men,”

    Put false premises in the algo, the “AI” of our minds, this is what it automatically spits out. Problem being, they don’t cross-check it with any standard or common sense. “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire. That’s why they only need to inject one lie to derail the entire system. Either the lie grows like a cancer, or the truth pushes it out. Sort of only two directions, good vs evil.

    From the Article https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation yesterday.

    “Since 2016, the federal government has spent billions of dollars on turning the counter-disinformation complex into one of the most powerful forces in the modern world: a sprawling leviathan with tentacles reaching into both the public and private sector, which the government uses to direct a “whole of society” effort that aims to seize total control”

    Yes, a fasces. Binding the whole of society, unifying it to a single goal. Classic, perfect Fascism. By definition.

    “what had been a career ladder by which people stepped up from their government experience to reach private tech-sector jobs turned into an ouroboros that molded the two together. With the D.C.-Silicon Valley fusion, the federal bureaucracies could rely on informal social connections to push their agenda inside the tech companies.”

    Yes, Classic, perfect Fascism. By definition. Which also defends expansionary foreign wars by violence if necessary, a second element of fascism, along with the police and surveillance state we already have.

    “At around the same time, Hamilton 68 blew up. Publicly, Twitter’s algorithms turned the Russian-influence-exposing “dashboard” into a major news story. Behind the scenes, Twitter executives quickly figured out that it was a scam. …[Even] Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, to suggest…that the company take action to expose the hoax and “call this out on the bullshit it is.” That is, people further left than Mao said this is was bald, fabricated, made-up, stupid lie.

    “In the end, neither Roth nor anyone else said a word. Instead, [the disinfomation people each and every] let … disinformation—continue dumping its contents directly into the news stream.”

    “It was not enough for a few powerful agencies to combat disinformation. The strategy of national mobilization called for “not only the whole-of-government, but also whole-of-society”

    Essentially fascism by definition. They think fascism comes from the top and is installed. It’s “the Right” the “Authority”, one guy. Not exactly. It comes from the SOCIAL MEDIA side, and therefore from Progressives and Collectivists, Socialists. The “Right” as they are defined here value independence, so they are their natural enemy of fascism. It seems the only enemy of fascism. “The Right” don’t want Social Media, popularity, don’t want government and don’t like change. No. PROGRESS is the driver of fascism. Togetherness. Caring. That’s why it’s so successful and deceptive. But no one told you, “Hey how’d otherwise intelligent, caring, skeptical Germans fall for this s—t?” “I dunno Cleetus, I guess it’s a mystery. If only we could read we might find out.” Cleetus is a stand-in here for Harvard and the people who write and force-feed our school textbooks out of Texas. It’s EASY to find out. You open a book and read the first word, then the word that comes after that. Before long, the words are inside your brain-pan, making trouble. The only reason people don’t know this is they don’t look. Last week I re-proved this using only Wikipedia for God’s sake.

    “an audience is meant to learn something from a tragedy. As a nation, America not only has learned nothing, it has been deliberately prevented from learning anything”

    Conclusion? “the authorities can never be labeled as guilty of disinformation. Not when they lied about Hunter Biden’s laptops, not when they claimed that the lab leak was a racist conspiracy, not when they said that vaccines stopped transmission of the novel coronavirus. Disinformation, now and for all time, is whatever they say it is. That is not a sign that the concept is being misused or corrupted; it is the precise functioning of a totalitarian system.

    “disinformation can be expressed in a single claim, it is this: You cannot be trusted with your own mind.”

    Mommy knows best. This is toxic FEMININITY, Kinder, Küche, Kirche, in an astonishingly feminized culture. Hate to say, as the feminine aspect is deeply undervalued and undermined. However, it can still be directed to murderous ends. Sterilizing your children widely, or killing them by the millions, is one of them.

    “the Imperial citizenry has been born, bred, edumakated, engineered, forcibly indoctrinated & bribed”

    My point exactly. Sounds like we agree. Does that sound like a volunteer arrangement where they chose anything?

    #135876
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Bomb Probe Following Whistleblower Disclosures Regarding Suspect — “[i]t just doesn’t add up . . . [t]here’s just too much to work with to not know who this guy is.”

    Took them long enough. There’s so many lies and crimes I forget them all. I’d need a Britannica just to line-item all the ones that are still open.

    Looks like Bourdain and I are on the same page except I didn’t need to go to Cambodia. Most streets here in America are fine enough to deliver the message. Why he’s not next to Milosevic is the very next thing to understand, and that’s not very difficult either.

    Rights: It’s always a crisis. The mentally ill are always in crisis. The crisis is: I need more power, I need more control and you won’t give it to me. I want your stuff but I don’t want to work. And this lie isn’t gonna tell itself.

    Liz Cronkin: That can’t be right. We know there are pedophiles everywhere except D.C. Everyone there is perfectly innocent, except that they have the highest disappearance rate, and that rate peaks at Halloween.

    U.S. Murder rate. It sounds like I’m being terribly partisan, throwing shade just to the OTHER guy, and I am, but that stat speaks for itself. Since the rest of the country minus the 12 cities is normal, then we are normal and we know how to do these things. That means that the astonishing murder rate in those cities is ON PURPOSE. And they are largely the black population being killed, it must be ON PURPOSE. And every one of these cities is Bright Blue. For decades, a century even. You tell me how to draw a different conclusion.

    As an example and contrast, NYC, a former financial center and now non-entity abandoned for Miami, has flipped back and forth between parties for centuries. In the modern era, every Democratic Mayor led to disaster, every Republican Mayor led to order. That co-dependence has maintained NY as a viable city until now. You can’t co-dependent evil as it is a parasite, you’re only helping it.

    Yes: Pretty sick of MacKinder who was wrong from the beginning. He’s probably killed more people than cancer at this point. THEIR behaviour has CREATED MacKinder, out of their own warped psychology.

    “The usual suspects in fact are already spinning that Central Asia is falling into a potential trap, fully captured by Beijing.”

    The dullard, dottering dinosaurs think it’s 1963 and they can split Russia and China who are suspicious of each other. …While saying and printing that openly that it’s their plan. You go girl. You do you, I’ll watch.

    ““The China-Kyrgystan-Uzbekistan highway that runs across the Tian shan Mountains, the China-Tajikistan expressway that defies the Pamir Plateau, and the China-Kazakhstan crude oil pipeline and the China-Central Asia Gas Pipeline that traverse the vast desert – they are the present-day Silk Road.”

    The 300 Million men that walk out of the East into Iraq, they take what highway?

    There’s a movie-placement metaphor called “Babylon A.D.” that covers some of this. I can’t really decipher it but perhaps somebody else can. It is highlighted on the roads and railways of Central Russia, with a Russia vs West long-term “wall”, and places where the Western-Russian War bombed and nuked areas of central Asia like Georgia. As sort of a different movie, more European action, it’s interesting. “Diverse” here in the ‘States means “exactly the same” in movies, media, just like Soviet Art. All political, all the time. And all boring, useless, and forgotten.

    “Surovikin” Wagner can non-stop criticize Surovikin, and by proxy Putin, yet has no trouble about it? Sounds like they have more free speech and free press than we do. Surovikin and Shoigu don’t mind a bit? While Wagner also salts in what are most assuredly wrong numbers? Yes, they’re up to something. As said, they want the West to think there is division to exploit, now that they’ve gone around the bribery and blackmail of the Russian Staff. Will the West believe it? Who cares? They are desperate, they are going to escalate, their job and purpose here is to lead them in, feed them hope, so you can smash the s—t out of them if they send their 50-year old F16s. Remember the F35s? They’re going to use those for real to send the F16 pilots to certain death? Yeah, remember they shut off and melted down an entire warship, the Cook? Then shut off our airplanes in the skies then at the end of runways in L.A.? Then made the point on the anniversary by shutting down a warship in the Baltic but not cooking it? Then “bent” or shut off our GPS satellites that we use for everything but especially our missiles?

    Tell me again about our F35s which can’t fly, and the missiles they shoot which have the same digital control boards. I wouldn’t want to get shot at either, but sounds like they have everything there is to put it down completely.

    Russia knows the West MUST escalate or die. Wagner just keeps their hope, and points their focus on it. If he didn’t the West might actually do something sensible and workable for a change and we don’t want that. When you’ve got Hitler and not Rommel calling the war, definitely keep Hitler going pushing around invisible tanks on the whiteboard.

    “On the assumption that Ukraine’s black earth will dry … Ukrainian forces will strike Russian defenses on multiple axes and win back control”

    You’re kidding right? With what men? They are sending the F16s because Ukraine has an army that can and will blow Russia out of the sky? A: No. If Ukraine had any army left, we’d kill them instead. That’s how Anglos work. That’s Joe Biden, top genocide of the 21st century so far. This army we can know for a fact has no ammunition since we can estimate how much must have been blown up from the size of the two explosions.

    …That’s not to say that cowardly, self-serving pinheads like Ze don’t have 100,000 men protecting Kiev so they can coke gay nightclub all year. Or that they don’t have 150,000 holding the rest of the country. But I bet they have no trucks and Russia has 500,000 in one go, only a teeeeeeny mobilization of former vets. I’m saying I don’t want to hear “well I thought you said they had no men.” I mean relatively. Remember their +1,000 man assault last week? Yeah, but over 1,000km front it doesn’t mean much does it? Same thing.

    “• Counteroffensive Can Start At Any Moment – Ukrainian Official (RT)”

    No. It can’t. We saw the ammunition blow up. On TV. From around the world under my bridge I could see it.

    ““..the aggressive imposition of Western ‘new values’ causes growing rejection there”

    And everywhere in America.

    ““Of the $80 billion Democrats appropriated to the IRS over ten years, the “deal” rescinds $1.9 billion. You read that right.”

    Like other living creatures, government only moves one direction: larger. It doesn’t matter if it’s become a monstrous blob daily proving incapable of accomplishing any of its tasks at this scale, or even works contrary to their own goals for decades. (War on Poverty, Drugs, Terror) Like all living things, it only wants MOAR, to expand to its borders. The problem with government is, there are no natural limitations constraining it, unlike, say, a shoe company. (“Government is FIRE”) It can always think of more to do and always extract more money from a prostrate, ruined populace to do it with. Then they, as the good people, can have 5-star dinners without a masks at jet-setting world-wide conferences to discuss “what we gonna do” instead of shoveling the walk like actually needs to be done. You know, we could be planting trees and permaculturing the Southwest in a new Hoover Dam project for a fraction of the cost.

    So they ASK for $100B, then when “Slashing” reduce it by $1B. The size increases by $99B decade after decade. Nobody knows what they do, and when government shuts down, nobody can tell. Except the FBI railroads fewer innocent people for a while.

    “EU Sanctions Talks Hit Roadblock – Politico (RT)”

    I thought we settled this with the Steven Seagal sanctions. That was clearly the Apex, the Le Plus Maximum. Note this is WHILE they are buying and paying for Russian Gas via Ukraine.

    “Top Pentagon officials have once again said that China is ignoring and rebuffing the US military”

    Not the military, ALL U.S. government, including the President and Sec of State. Hobo Dangbat or somebody, people with so little talent it’s impossible to remember their names.

    “All the highest authorities knew it was bullshit.” Just like Hamilton 68, above. Everyone is a spineless coward and a liar, and did nothing. You expect that but the extra LEVEL of nothing was really something. You can say “Why didn’t they come forward? THe country is gone, the people don’t want it.” They did. They are now dead. Like some of the missing Biden whistleblowers this week.

    “Roger Waters Under Criminal Probe Over Satire (RT)”

    And they wonder why we make fun of the Germans and their legendary lack of humor.

    “the Berlin police said that Waters was suspected of inciting hatred,”

    Translated: so he had FEELINGS? When we say tyranny can never go far enough, they only want and need it to control your MIND, your very SOUL, and make you FEEL the same as Great Leader. “Diversity” and “Inclusion” means “All must be one with his ego.” NO exceptions. Not even in silence. Not even if you pray to yourself, eyes closed, in a public street. Literally arrested and put in jail. They literally have and must imitate GOD HIMSELF in their mental illness. They must and can not rest until they own your SOUL. Wish I were kidding.

    ““one of the biggest Jew haters of our time.” if you criticize “journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed while covering an Israeli military operation” ALL actions of Great Leader are good. ALL. EVERY. ONE. Great Leader is without fault of any kind, and if he killed journalists by the thousands over the years, they must have deserved it. The only reason anyone would criticize Great Leader or ever tell the truth about him is pure, unmitigated HATE.

    Little Ice Age:

    Still cold here. One problem on that chart: the overall heat keeps dropping steadily on a VERY long trend. That would mean that if this is cold, if it’s 20% colder than 1600AD as that chart suggests, it will indeed cut population and topple governments without question. And the only solution is to kill 4-6 billion people so I can keep my beach house.

    NY Times, reaching the le plus horizon of dumb: “Beaches will disappear”

    Um, NY Times? I have a hunch you live near the ocean and have seen one. Maybe at Riverside Park. So what will be between the Ocean and the Mainland if not a beach? It will be a nega-zone of suspended energy, an empty void of nothingness? That would be creepy, the ocean lapping on the void like a glass wall, visible for 1,000 miles. The Shore, cut off from the water, like a giant iron dome, unable to build ships and receive commerce. ALL BECAUSE BEACHES NO LONGER EXIST.

    …And they wonder why people can’t take them seriously. You have to do a lot of years of college, of reading the NY Times to get this dumb. Only NPR can get you this mentally retarded.

    Okay, suppose, like I have, that the seas DO rise. Any amount: I’ll cede you anything. WE MERELY MOVE THE DOCKS BACK A MILE AND CARRY ON. Ask Venice. They’re an unabating silt-swamp and have been sinking for centuries, since the first wood-posted roundhouse, and they’re still there. Shipping is fine. In fact most developed areas WERE or ARE swamps, like Boston Harbor. We filled them in like the Harlem River. No one even remembers. Then they say, “Hey how come this area keeps sinking? Must be Global Warming.” No. You idiots. Miami, Boston, Wilmington, THEY WERE ALL BUILT ON SAND. And, if you didn’t guess, THAT WAS STUPID, but it wasn’t warming.

    NYC is one of the sole exceptions which is probably why the water hasn’t “risen” an inch in the 40 years they’ve been predicting it would, and there are no adjustments to Battery Park and zero water in Wall Street, a block away. And the Polar Bears have tripled. California is flooding, then blooming green with flowers. There was snow in Ciudad Juárez and Saudi Arabia.

    Filling reservoirs and greening deserts means WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE. But not from warming. From #Helping. Leave Nature alone and leave People alone. As the Tao te Ching would say. “As the laws multiply” Or Wu Wei: “Do without doing and everything gets done.”

    #135877
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    There are no “rights” nor “duties”, only “needs” – “rights”, “duties” and all that jazz are nothing but abstractions devised by some clever dudes way back when in order to i.) ensure the existence of structured societies, capable of exerting power and influence over large territories, beyond the possibilities of the original organization, the clan; and, most importantly, ii.) to allow the leaders to remain alive after a good night’s sleep.

    #135878
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    Have a wonderful sunday.

    #135879
    zerosum
    Participant

    Disinformation
    Increasing Excess death # vs vaccinated # not decreasing
    ———–
    Wake up!
    Zelensky is a Nazi and is scamming everyone
    ———–
    China and USA should agree on 12 mile and 200 mile definition of border.
    (Every coastal country has exclusive rights to the oil, gas, and other natural resources in the seabed up to 200 nautical miles from shore.)
    ———–
    There are two definitions of political and election interference. (USA and everyone else.)
    ———-

    #135880
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Dr D said

    Scott Adams is IYI, “Intellegent Yet Idiot” also couldn’t figure out how we knew Covid was s scam and the vax was no good.

    Thereby proving that “talents” are real. Here we have a person, capable of drawing very good catoons, yet completely ignorant and dumb in other areas. Covid vaccine was a simple test, he tried to excuse his ignorance by accusing everybody else of guessing – not a good defence – so maybe he is just a bit thick at risk, in the same way that some people are not good with numbers.

    #135881
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Blood Drinking Satanists

    You thought I was kidding

    .

    .

    #135882
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #135883
    zerosum
    Participant


    Massive Drone Attack. Frontline Updates. Military Summary For 2023.05.28

    #135884
    zerosum
    Participant

    What goes up comes down
    copy and paste

    Ukraine news . . . destruction from falling fragments. . .
    Destruction Recorded In 3 Districts Of Kyiv Due To Fall Of Drone Fragments, Killed And Wounded Reported . .The Kyiv City Military Administration reported that more than 40 enemy kamikaze drones were shot down over Kyiv. In the Holosiyivskyi, Pecherskyi and Darnytskyi districts of the capital, destruction due to the fall of debris from downed drones was recorded. . . .the “fall of debris” resulted in a direct hit of a building photo here. . .and in an updated report “In the early hours of May 28, 2023, the enemy attacked Ukraine with Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 attack drones from the Bryansk and Krasnodar regions, launching a record number of UAVs – 54.. . .Some 52 Shaheds were shot down as a result of successful combat work.”. . .in other news, “In continuation of his accusations and anti-Iranian actions, the President of Ukraine has proposed imposing 50-year sanctions against Iran to the Kyiv Parliament.” . . .because they have to sweep up all those “fragments.”

    Posted by: Don Bacon | May 28 2023 14:30 utc

    #135885
    The Markster
    Participant

    Thanks for the Dave Martin and Patrick Lawrence pieces. Calling Covid an act of biological warfare that was perpetrated on the human race is the best way to describe things to the normies when the subject comes up. And then immediately pivot to music, nature or beauty, without trying to have a pointless debate with cult members still inside the matrix. In fact the best method for me lately has been dropping one simple truth bomb but then refusing to debate further, and instead immediately jumping to a heartfelt rendering at full volume of the refrain from the Youngbloods hit Get Together and just singing it over and over. Good way to neutralize the acidic, defensive, vindictive hatred that oozes from every pore of the establishment normies. Sing it like three or four times and then add the two upward-lilting right nows at the end:

    C’mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try and love one another right now.

    C’mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try and love one another right now.

    C’mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try and love one another right now.

    Right Now. Right Now!

    Cheesey as hell, but if you mean it as you’re singing it totally works! ☮️

    #135886
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Duh’merica’s Brain Trust plumbing the depths of human knowledge

    With the right gear and mental drive anything possible.

    We’re saved!

    .

    #135887
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #135888
    jb-hb
    Participant

    “The Dilbert guy theorized that if there were election interference, it was done perfectly, because there was no particular instance you could point to”

    Are you kidding? I could point to 4 dozen examples.

    That’s where the next part of what I said kicked in. Ah yes, I see with my own two eyes what is happening on camera HOWEVER, despite it being observably real, it was not enough to swing an election. Therefore immaterial.

    There are no specific instances of observable fraud that caused a fraudulent election because each one taken individually could not have had such an effect. And you bring cases with specific instances. If you have no specific instances, you DEFINITELY have no standing.

    And in each individual observable case, this will be true.

    Or here’s a hypothetical. What if you had a weird religious ideology. A whacko, tireless, unreasonable gnostic hermetic mystery religion thing that likes to have concealed layers requiring initiation to see and wants to be secret in any case.

    What if such a thing wanted to take over academia? What if it put a list together of every conceivable reason for people it did not like to leave academia? Debilitating health issues, scandals, nightmare divorce, mental health issues, every conceivable type of death, job offers in the private sector, etc etc etc.

    If it were to smear such activity across the entire spectrum of causes that an actuary might look at, would it be essentially invisible? And if the motive for doing so was so stupid and crazy that no one would imagine it or believe in it if they did?

    And anytime you look at any specific instance, there’s nothing there to notice?

    #135889
    jb-hb
    Participant

    State Farm Halts Home Insurance Sales In California

    Problems in places like Florida as well.

    Cosmic Coincidence that, having gone to war against CO2, but that not being good enough, we- well, “we” – went to war against nitrogen.

    That not being enough, we’re at war with grass-eating animals. Triceratops was the least hunted creature for over a hundred million years. Only a couple of creatures such as Rex would tackle them at all. They coated the planet in maximal population grazing animals for 150 MILLION years. Therefore the earth turned into Venus millions and millions of years ago. So sad we’re so dead we were never born.

    Or Diplodocus, a SINGLE herd of which we found in Montana that was 10,000 individuals strong. Clearly, grazing animals will overheat and Melt Down the Planet.

    But even a war against grazing animals is not enough, we need to go to war against Concrete! Concrete is the enemy!

    If you want an earth bermed home, a passive solar home, a barrel vaulted home, a monolithic dome home – you know, houses that will last over 100 years, be invulnerable to most disasters, not require energy inputs, minimal maintenance requirements?

    Yes, block new concrete structures! End Concrete Now!

    Instead, keep building stick frame housing so it can get blown down in hurricanes, burnt up in fires, knocked down by tornados, eaten by insects and other vermin, require continual energy inputs and repairs.”

    And you’ll have 15 minute cities – dense urban areas – without concrete. Sounds about right. We’ll make them all out of cardboard I suppose.

    I’m reading through Against The Gods and it’s really interesting how modern methods for addressing risk really DO appear to be the source of all modern progress. I keep seeing – usually tangentially – danger signs having to do with the insurance industry. As a civilizational threat, I’m starting to think an insurance breakdown will do more damage than a banking breakdown.

    #135890
    jb-hb
    Participant

    PS – A week or two ago, Colorodo almost passed state-wide zoning prohibiting the construction of new single family homes.

    The Denver Post article about it was titled with the explanation, that we are not ready for this…. YET.

    #135891
    zerosum
    Participant

    Ukrainian forces are “ready” to launch their much-touted counteroffensive before their remaining snowballs melt.

    #135892
    Dora
    Participant

    Matt Taibbi.

    #135893
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The lying Nazi scumbags that have screamed for months that Russia is ‘running out of missiles’

    Well yesterday saw the largest missile strike of the entire SMO

    And this was done when Linazisey Graham visited Kiev, in his honor.

    Something so big blew up it registered as an Earthquake


    Russia Hit Kiev With Something So Big Last Night A 3.4 Richter Earthquake Was Measured

    “During last night’s massive Russian drone attack on Kiev, which has been called the largest of the entire war so far, there were 4 distinct explosions acknowledged by seismologists as not ‘naturally occurring’. Kiev residents uploaded videos of their homes shaking. Something massive was blown up last night but Zelensky’s regime is being quiet. No one knows if it was some major ammo depots exploded or if Russia used some “new” and experimental weaponry.”

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/Ny14EZ4pXRfs/

    #135894
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #135895
    Oroboros
    Participant

    #135896
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #135897

    A useful foe should always be invisible.
    If seen, it could be verified by all.
    But faith in it or not keeps us divisible,
    And stoking that divide keeps us in thrall.

    #135898
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Chris Hedges’ synopsis, from article above:

    A discredited ruling class, which has disemboweled the nation for its corporate masters and whose primary mission is the perpetuation of permanent war, has no intention of carrying out reform. It will not permit an exchange of ideas or allow its critics a platform. It knows it is hated. It fears the rise of the neofascists its dysfunction and corruption have spawned. It seeks to perpetuate itself only through fear —— fear of what will replace it. That is all it has to offer a demoralized citizenry. Constitutional guarantees of free speech and the right to privacy are noisome impediments to its tenuous grip on power. These constitutional rights have been effectively abolished. What the Twitter Files revealed is massive government blacklists and the craven acquiescence of media platforms to marginalize and ban individuals and groups on these blacklists. Taibbi, not surprisingly, is being targeted by the totalitarian machinery he exposed.

    This is why America, by extension The West, is doomed…

    So-called “experts” are drunk on the legacy propaganda of Emergency Powers, where they are filled with fever dreams of Conservative Americans rising up in some sort of Nazi-esque revolt 🙄

    When in reality, the UniParty GlobalCap Empire is the only fascist totalitarian CULTure extant, & their little child EG0s have been twisted not to understand (cognitive dissonance), along with anti-Truth academia’s socialist > fascist bent to further the rebellion against The Loving, Healing, Creative Spirit of Infinity & all related Spiritual Sanity

    Herr Hodges, along with most of his generation, are indoctrinated to worship EG0/brain-based *individuals*, & without Spiritual Sanity/Wisdom can’t see the arsonists from the conflagration 🙄

    Most of Trump’s MAGA movement, only partially cognizant that catastrophe has befallen The West, instinctively crave rollback of the ruling class/corporate masters led warfare state (State + Socialism = Fascism), & would happily settle for re-installment of the tyrannical iron fist back in the velvet glove ~ Even MAGA worships the Empire, deathly fearing they would starve without the crumbs that GlobalCap sends their way…

    The only solution to the malignancy created by the UniParty is restoration of the U.S. Democratic Republic under Natural Law (Sovereign Rights + Private Property).

    But this is utterly impossible for We The People who understand The UniParty Empire under Equity (Corporate) & Admiralty (State) legal *reality* (Fascist Totalitarian Empire)…

    So, no easy fixes, only two steps forward, mostly no steps back 🙄

    Constitutional guarantees of free speech and the right to privacy are noisome impediments to its tenuous grip on power. These constitutional rights have been effectively abolished.

    Hedges is so thoroughly indoctrinated, so utterly lost, he doesn’t even realize We The People’s “rights” were not drawn forth by The Constitution, they were only enshrined there, nor does he realize that is nothing more, under *reality* of Equity/Admiralty Empire, than a goddamned piece of paper 🙄

    What’s more it is apparent that, along with outlawing protests from The Deplorables, the “electorate” voice has been nullified & silenced, so even if a *significant* portion of the CULTure was red pilled, there is no *peaceful* recourse left…

    It’s also too late to even effectively boycott the Ministry Of Truth’s propaganda, there is only The Two Minutes Of Hate 🙄

    The only avenue possible for reigning in The UniParty Empire is *total* destruction, which is what they wanted all along, & who wants to live a scorched earth existence?

    Too bad, sooo sad, all of this could have been stopped 25+ years back, but alas the levers of power have been hidden somewhere in Area 51 & even Resident Biden doesn’t know where 😐

    Spiritual Sanity& Wisdom = Peace, Love, Charity…

    Totalitarian Fascism = Rape, Pillage, Plunder & War

    Non pluribus verbis est perditio tempus

    #135899
    zerosum
    Participant

    Looking for a recent picture

    https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/26/politics/liz-cheney-president-independent-2024/index.html
    Liz Cheney just gave us a hint about her future political plans
    Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
    Updated 12:54 PM EDT, Mon September 26, 2022

    https://www.axios.com/2023/05/28/liz-cheney-republicans-trump-election-claims
    1 hour ago – Politics & Policy
    Liz Cheney says Republicans “wanted me to lie” about Trump
    Rebecca Falconer

    #135900
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    This is exactly what mind control looks like = Associated Proglodytes (AP) talking points issued to ALL “news* outlets, *daily*, as authoritative/legitimate journalism.

    It’s not a grand conspiracy, it’s just the reality of journalism CULTure, transmogrified over the last century, with journalism skool academia gate keepers…

    On air “talent” just reads whatever their teleprompters regurgitate, mostly *official* propaganda generated by UniParty authenticated & approved word monkeys, who *NEVER* bite the hand of their masters…

    C’est la vie.

    #135901
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Nuff’ said, Bob’s latest…

    .

    #135902
    Leon Blanc-Sec
    Participant

    Regarding the murder rate in the US image, every single data on it is wrong.

    The US does not have the 3rd highest murder rate, it has about the 60th (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate) Shockingly high for a rich country, but nowhere near the top..

    Then I looked up the number of murders in Chicago, Detroit, Washington, St-Louis and Philadelphia in 2021, and it comes out as 2048 murders. There were 26,031 homicides in 2021 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm
    Remove those 2000-odd homicides (well less than 10% of the total) and the US rank in murder rate barely changes.

    Why post things that are blatantly false?

    #135903
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Canadada leading the way into the Brave New World

    Canadian Funeral Home Expands Services to Include Room Rental for Assisted Suicide

    .

    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/canadian-funeral-home-expands-services-to-include-room-rental-for-assisted-suicide/

    Killing has now become a ‘business’ at a Quebec funeral home offering space to carry out euthanasia for a minimum fee of $700.

    The head of a prominent anti-euthanasia group said “killing” has now become a “business” in Canada after blasting a recent report about a Quebec funeral home charging $700 for patients to partake in government-sanctioned, doctor-led suicide in a private “room.”

    Complexe funeraire Haut-Richelieu owner Mathieu Baker, as per a CBC report, said his service, which includes the use of his facilities for a doctor to perform euthanasia or Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), is a “first in Quebec.” He added that it is a “very personal act that should be respected and done properly.”

    The funeral home rents a private room for a minimum of $700 in which medical personnel can take the life of a person’s loved one via euthanasia. The rooms, Baker said, are for those looking to have the procedure done outside of a hospital setting.

    #135904
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://askeptic.substack.com/p/lindsey-graham-the-russians-are-dying

    Lindsey Graham: “The Russians are dying… it’s the best money we’ve ever spent.”

    #135915
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Armenio Pereira There are no “rights” nor “duties”

    You wouldn’t have survived 10 days in a Tribe then. Or a family. If you feel you have no duties, I’d chuck you out myself. And if you get no rights or privileges for it, everyone can just run you over, treat you like a slave and a sap, well, I’m guessing you don’t live like that’s true in your day life.

    Which is to say, if that were true, you’d have to not be human and live outside human society. Humans cannot do that and quickly die outside of community and clan, therefore rights and duties are an essential element of being “human” no less than your fingers or your lungs.

    “There are no specific instances of observable fraud that caused a fraudulent election because each one taken individually could not have had such an effect. And you bring cases with specific instances. If you have no specific instances, you DEFINITELY have no standing.”

    I understand that the COURTS said this, but the courts are cowards and nearly always wrong. They will always rule in any way that prevents them from having to say anything, stick their necks out. And so they did. And I understand the COURTS swung the election, because Biden is sitting there. So in that sense it didn’t matter. They find themselves very clever. But how can fraud that changes outcomes “not matter”?

    Here’s the problem: THEY DIDN’T LOOK. How do you KNOW it didn’t, wouldn’t have, swung the election, if you DIDN’T LOOK? They dismiss them summarily. And if they swung the election and there were 5 frauds involved, OBVIOUSLY the very first thing to do is to include the other cases, as they do in Class Action were they combine 5 existing Class Action suits into one. They CAN do it if they feel like it. They didn’t FEEL like it. They didn’t WANT to find out. They already know what the truth is ahead of time and very specifically rule to AVOID it. Using the most astonishing and vaporous premises. How can they avoid “it” if they don’t’ already know what “it” is? They DO know what “it” is and that the election is fraudulent, and support it.

    Don’t tell me in 1855 if this had happened (and it did), or in 1955 (and it did) that the courts couldn’t get to the bottom of this if they wanted. They make up stuff all the time, invent powers, summarily override juries if they want, summarily dismiss evidence if they want. You couldn’t swing a cat in the casebooks without finding this weekly.

    Yes, in order to win they used EVERY avenue of cheating. They had to. But if I have one guy case the bank, then walk off. Then another guy drop a bag in the bank, and walk off. Then another guy leave explosives in the vault, and walk off, then claim they weren’t involved in the robbery, you’d tell me “Whaddya stupid? You think I’m an idiot? Put them on the stand, investigate them til their hair bleeds and PROVE if he HAPPENED to drop a money sack on the bank floor that day that he was NOT involved.” ONLY A JUDGE IS DUMB ENOUGH, CORRUPT ENOUGH, to accept that as even theoretically plausible. No normal, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing American would.

    They did the opposite. It’s amazingly implausible. The reason it stands is because the Courts are crooked and WANT it to stand. Besides, that argument was also ENTIRELY UNTRUE in like 100 places. Pennsylvania openly ruled the election rules were illegal, and therefore the entire election was illegal and invalid. Just this month, AZ ruled that although 300,000 signatures were no doubt not checked as a matter of system, 20x the needed amount, they pretend that could not have thrown the election. Same thing in Wisconsin, Michigan, or elsewhere. They had a 20k vote margin, people find 4-5 pathways that could each add to 20k, and the Judge still says, “No it couldn’t. We won’t look.”

    Go check it out, it’s amazing. And that’s ABOVE the addition of 5-10 routes that each add up to a 20k. Those exist too. It’s a good story to apologize for what happened, and if you include only the “above margin” cases you’d cut them by 99%, but that would still easily call for an overturn or re-election on the many that were, and were also on camera. The courts don’t care.

    Can’t you see that clicking the button “approve” as fast as humanly possible, such that you could barely click it, much less use your eyes on signatures, is completely normal and not averting all election process altogether, along with not locking boxes, not sealing and tracking them to counting facilities, and finding, e.g. semi-trucks full of pre-filled ballots out of Long Island as basis for your suspicions to proceed with a case?

    Back in the real world, you follow up with allegations, you are forced to discard whole truckloads of tainted, unsecure ballots, you arrest people who tamper with and destroy evidence that is specifically written by law for preservation, and you call a re-election if you have to, however embarrassing. It’s all been done before. But then, how could we have a collapse of government and a Civil War?

    I understand where we are, but I’m not going to apologize for them. Tim Pool does this all the time he says “There was no election tampering, only rule changes”, WHILE pointing out ballots 3x on camera and that the rule changes were themselves illegal. How do you do this? I can use YOUR concessions to prove evidence enough for a trial. He doesn’t WANT to, because it’s unpopular, and he thinks, unstrategic. But we’re going to have elections that the Courts will support nationwide fraud of every sort, forever and ever now? How’s THAT going to work? Methinks people will stop voting and start shooting instead, by design, and me no want that.

    “Hedges is so thoroughly indoctrinated, so utterly lost, he doesn’t even realize We The People’s “rights” were not drawn forth by The Constitution, they were only enshrined there”

    That is an amazing statement and probably true. Amazing because among the first 10 facts you’d read about the “Rights of Man” that they are innate and come from “Our Creator”, a basic premise of 100 years of “Enlightenment” thinking. This is not a trick question, it’s right in the text.

    “Regarding the murder rate in the US image, every single data on it is wrong.”

    I appreciate you bringing this up, and will work to check things more carefully, although it takes a lot of valuable time. I don’t need to use fake numbers when the real ones are just as damning.

    #135925
    zerosum
    Participant

    Dr. D

    Conclusion:
    THEY didn’t look because THEY got the election results that THEY wanted.
    (Except for Hillary, Liz and etc.)

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