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


Odilon Redon Wild Flowers in a Vase c1910

 

Zelensky Issues Ultimatum To NATO – FT (RT)
Macron Wants ‘Tangible’ Security Guarantees For Ukraine (RT)
West May Change Aid To Ukraine If Conflict Becomes Protracted – Macron (TASS)
Zelensky and Macron Planning ‘Peace Summit’ Without Russia – WSJ (RT)
US Statements On Moscow Drone Attack Encourage Kiev Terrorists – Envoy (TASS)
Britain ‘De Facto’ At War With Russia – Medvedev (RT)
Russian Forces Wipe Out Last Ukrainian Combat Ship In Odessa (TASS)
Annexation Of Kharkov – Ukraine To Shrink Westward (Helmer)
OPEC Snubs Major Western News Outlets (RT)
Xi Jinping Warns Of ‘Worst-Case’ Situation (SCMP)
The Sultan 2.0 Will Heavily Tilt East (Pepe Escobar)
Epstein Pal Jes Staley Throws Jamie Dimon Under The Bus (ZH)
Jamie Dimon Hints At Run For Public Office; Bill Ackman Endorses Him (ZH)
Six Texas Attorney General Aides Take Leave Of Absence To Defend Paxton (JTN)
Judge Breathes New Life Into Clinton Foundation Whistleblower Case (JTN)
FBI Chief Wray Rolls Dice With Congress Over Contempt (JTN)
Fifty Years Later, Free Speech No Longer Exists In The West (Rabkin)
Australian Garlic Kills Covid-19, Says Doherty Institute (AFR)

 

 

 

 

Nap Macgregor

 

 

 

 

Death wish in disguise- Patrick Moore

 

 

 

 

Dan Bishop

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not Zelensky, but the US.

Zelensky Issues Ultimatum To NATO – FT (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky will skip a NATO meeting in Lithuania in July unless the alliance provides Kiev with the security guarantees it wants, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Zelensky has “made clear to NATO leaders that he will not attend the Vilnius summit without concrete security guarantees and a road map for accession,” the newspaper said. Ukraine formally applied to join the US-led bloc in September 2022, arguing that the collective defense it provides to members is necessary for Kiev’s security against Russia. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty stipulates that an armed attack against one NATO member “shall be considered an attack against them all.”

While Ukraine’s bid has been strongly endorsed by the Nordic and Baltic states, as well as Poland, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested on Wednesday that Kiev could be offered “something between the security provided to Israel and full-fledged membership.” FT cited four unnamed officials in April as saying that the US and Germany were against offering Kiev “deeper ties” to the alliance, including a potential roadmap. “We will look for ways to support Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations but right now the immediate needs in Ukraine are practical and so we should be focused on building Ukraine’s defense and deterrence capabilities,” Dereck Hogan, the top State Department official responsible for European affairs, said last month.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, who will host the NATO event on July 11-12, was quoted by Reuters as saying on Friday that it would be “very sad” if anyone could interpret the outcome of the Vilnius summit as “a victory of Russia.” Moscow views NATO’s eastward expansion as a threat to its national security and has cited the bloc’s open-door policy as a reason for the military conflict with Ukraine. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said recently that Ukraine’s neutrality was one of the conditions for a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.

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Macron wants Article 5 without mentioning it.

Macron Wants ‘Tangible’ Security Guarantees For Ukraine (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron has argued that Ukraine is “protecting Europe” and should be provided security guarantees by NATO. “That is why I’m in favor .. to offer tangible and credible security guarantees to Ukraine,” Macron said on Wednesday at a forum in Bratislava, Slovakia. He added that it would be in the interest of NATO members to provide such assurances while Kiev awaits approval to join the Western military alliance. France and other Western powers have provided billions of dollars’ worth of military aid to Ukraine since the conflict with Russia began in February 2022. But they have stopped short of offering the blanket protection afforded to NATO members. Article 5 of the bloc’s founding treaty stipulates that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.


“We have to build something between the security provided to Israel and full-fledged membership,” Macron said. The French president, who once described the Brussels-based alliance as “braindead,” said the Ukraine crisis had “jolted NATO awake.” Macron called on the bloc’s members to “intensify” military aid to Kiev so it would have everything it needs for an effective counter-offensive against the Russian forces. While acknowledging that US contributions have been key in enabling Ukraine to defend itself, Macron argued that Europe must build up its own defense industry rather than relying on Washington for protection. Polish leaders have criticized Macron in the past for negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin and suggesting that the West should avoid “humiliating” Russia. Moscow, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that it views NATO’s expansion eastward as a threat and has named Ukraine’s neutrality as one of the conditions for a lasting peace.

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It will. It can’t afford it.

West May Change Aid To Ukraine If Conflict Becomes Protracted – Macron (TASS)

The West may reconsider its aid for Ukraine, if the conflict turns into a protracted one, French President Emmanuel Macron said during the Globsec international security conference in Bratislava, adding that high hopes are being placed on the potential Ukrainian counter-offensive. “We prepare for this conflict to become protracted, to the consequences of such development of events,” he said. “We must prepare the public opinion for long-term support of Ukraine in a high-and medium-intensity conflict in accordance with the situation. To that extent we must reconsider and analyze the nature of our support together with our partners during this summer, and to realize what we need to achieve the desired result.” Meanwhile, the French leader refrained from publicly discussing the perspectives in case of failure of the expected Ukrainian counter-offensive, expressing his hope that it will be successful.

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Everything about this is certifiably nuts. Take this beauty:

“..Zelensky’s top adviser, Mikhail Podoliak, demanded that China “make a choice” to back Ukraine and the West or “lose its influence” in world affairs..”

Zelensky and Macron Planning ‘Peace Summit’ Without Russia – WSJ (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelennsky and his European patrons are organizing a summit to build support for Kiev’s peace plan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The plan’s demands have been deemed unacceptable by Russia, and the document has been met with indifference by non-Western leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to host the summit in Paris, while the governments of Denmark and Sweden have also put themselves forward as hosts, the newspaper reported. Although no guest list has emerged, European officials have reached out to Brazil, India, China, and other non-Western countries, with one anonymous diplomat stating that “no Russians” would be invited, “but everybody else will be welcomed.”

“We require a unified plan of the responsible civilized world that really wants to live in peace,” Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, told the Wall Street Journal. Russia has already emphatically rejected Ukraine’s so-called pace plan. Published late last year, the plan demands that Russia hand back the territories of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye to Kiev, while also relinquishing control of Crimea, which voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation in 2014. The plan also demands that Russia pay reparations to Ukraine and hand over its officials to face international tribunals. It is highly unlikely that a European summit to which Russia is not invited, organized by countries currently bankrolling the Ukrainian military, will change any minds in the Kremlin. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated last week that the Ukrainian plan essentially involves “the capitulation of Russia.”

European officials are aware of this, and told the Wall Street Journal that they plan on watering down Ukraine’s plan to “make it more acceptable” to non-Western powers such as Brazil, China, India, and Saudi Arabia, if not to Russia itself. Yermak acknowledged that the peace process “is not possible without the whole world, including the leaders of the Global South,” and Zelensky has recently made overtures to the non-Western world, addressing the Arab League in Saudi Arabia this month and speaking to Chinese President Xi Jinping the month before. However, this outreach has come across ham-fisted at times, with Zelensky accusing Arab League members of succumbing to “Russian influence,” before skipping out on a meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the G7 summit in Japan.

Last month, Zelensky’s top adviser, Mikhail Podoliak, demanded that China “make a choice” to back Ukraine and the West or “lose its influence” in world affairs. China has released its own 12-point peace plan, which despite being rejected by the US and its NATO allies, has found favor in much of the world, including Russia. Lula has backed Beijing’s plan, while a coalition of African leaders has urged Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire followed by peace talks, which Kiev has refused to do unless Moscow’s troops withdraw to Russia’s pre-conflict borders.

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“The United States is consciously and irretrievably descending into the abyss of hostilities in Europe. By the way, to generate confrontation between NATO and Russia is an old-cherished dream of Nazi radicals in Kiev.”

US Statements On Moscow Drone Attack Encourage Kiev Terrorists – Envoy (TASS)

Washington’s statements on the terrorist drone attack on Moscow encourage Ukrainian terrorists, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said. “We have taken note of Washington’s statements regarding the terrorist attack in Moscow involving drones. In fact, they sound like an encouragement for Ukrainian terrorists,” the envoy said, “Just consider the US officials’ attempts to hide behind the phrase that they are gathering information about what happened! And then they immediately switch to a media attack against our country.” “So really, doesn’t the administration understand that no one believes their slogans about non-support of Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory?! Especially, when these words are pronounced somehow bashfully and hesitantly,” the ambassador pointed out,

“The United States is consciously and irretrievably descending into the abyss of hostilities in Europe. By the way, to generate confrontation between NATO and Russia is an old-cherished dream of Nazi radicals in Kiev.” According to Antonov, the abovementioned terrorist attack of the Kiev regime “was senseless from a military perspective.” “The assault was inflicted on the residential buildings of ordinary Russian citizens. This onslaught unequivocally and without exaggeration must be considered as an act of terrorism,” the Russian diplomat pointed out. Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow and the Moscow Region on Tuesday morning.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the attack involved eight unmanned aerial vehicles, five of which were shot down by the Pantsir-S missile system and the remaining three were suppressed by electronic warfare. Two people in Moscow sought medical attention for minor injuries. A number of buildings sustained minor damage. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a regular briefing on Tuesday that the American side does not support Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory with the use of US-made weapons. According to the press secretary, Washington publicly and privately communicates this to Kiev. Jean-Pierre also pointed out that the US is allegedly gathering information on the incident.

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“..based on international law, “including the Hague and Geneva Conventions with their additional protocols,” Britain “can also be qualified as being at war.”

Britain ‘De Facto’ At War With Russia – Medvedev (RT)

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has described the UK as waging an “undeclared war” against Russia. The comment came after Britain’s foreign secretary condoned a large-scale drone attack on Moscow earlier this week. In a Twitter post on Wednesday, Medvedev accused London of being Moscow’s “eternal enemy.” The former leader, who currently serves as deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, claimed that based on international law, “including the Hague and Geneva Conventions with their additional protocols,” Britain “can also be qualified as being at war.” The former president argued that by providing Ukraine with weapons and training, the UK “de facto is leading an undeclared war against Russia.” Medvedev hinted that this could have direct ramifications for “public officials” in Britain.

His tweet cited remarks made on Tuesday by UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who said Ukraine has the right to “project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself.” Cleverly further claimed that striking “legitimate military targets” in Russia is an acceptable part of Ukraine’s self-defense. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, eight UAVs were detected in Moscow’s airspace on Tuesday morning, in what officials described as a “terrorist attack” by Kiev. The ministry reported that three drones were suppressed by electronic warfare measures and deviated from their intended course before crashing, while the other five were shot down by Pantsir-S air defense systems outside the city.

Several residential buildings sustained superficial damage and two people suffered minor injuries as a result of the raid. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Kiev of launching the attack in an attempt to avenge a recent series of Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian airfields, ammunition dumps, and “decision-making centers.” Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed on Tuesday that the headquarters of the Ukrainian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) had been among the targets hit in the strikes.

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“The Ukrainian Navy operated about 25 combat ships, including five patrol and six artillery boats before Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine.”

Russian Forces Wipe Out Last Ukrainian Combat Ship In Odessa (TASS)

Russia’s Aerospace Forces destroyed the last Ukrainian combat ship in the Odessa port in the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Wednesday. “On May 29, the Ukrainian Navy’s last combat ship Yury Olefirenko was destroyed as a result of a strike by the Russian Aerospace Forces’ precision weapons against the anchorage of naval ships in the Odessa port,” the spokesman said. The Ukrainian Navy operated about 25 combat ships, including five patrol and six artillery boats before Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine.


In addition, the Ukrainian Navy’s combat assets included the Gola Pristan anti-saboteur boat and the Svatovo assault boat. Upon Kiev’s attempt to storm Snake Island in the Black Sea on May 9 last year, Russian forces sank three Ukrainian Centaur-class armored assault boats and each of them could have carried a marine infantry platoon. The Ukrainian Navy also operated nine armored gunboats, one of which, the Akkerman, was abandoned by the crew in Berdyansk, according to information of the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily. The Vinnitsa corvette and the Yury Olefirenko medium amphibious assault ship were sunk.

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Cato: Carthago delenda est – “Carthage must be destroyed” – was a Roman strategic aim 2,200 years ago. It was regularly repeated in his public speeches by Marcus Porcius Cato in his advocacy of putting an end to the Punic Wars by destroying the Carthaginian adversary entirely, not just militarily, so that it could never rise again to challenge Roman power. The opposition slogan was Carthago servanda est – “Carthage must be saved”. Its author, Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum, meant don’t rule by force if it can be avoided..

Annexation Of Kharkov – Ukraine To Shrink Westward (Helmer)

Because Russia is the only functioning democracy on the two sides of this war, where military tactics and war aims are openly argued in parliament and the media, the debate between the Cato delenda war aim, and the Corculum servanda war aim is an active one. Sworn to destroy President Vladimir Putin, the Russian army and economy, the US, European and western allies misinterpret this debate to be vacillation and vulnerability. Dialectically speaking, this encourages the Cato line faction in Moscow at the expense of the Corculum line faction. In this way the US and NATO axis provokes its own defeat. This process has taken the war well beyond the 300-kilometre range of some of the US, French or British weapons which have been deployed and fired to date. The debate over the 300-km westward defence line was winding up in Russia, not beginning, when winter started last year.

Medvedev made this official last week, following the intensification of artillery, rocket, and drone attacks on Russian cities, including Moscow. This week the governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, went further. Then yesterday President Putin tried to pull Gladkov and Medvedev back in line — that’s the Corculum line, not the Cato line. “We live in a state of de facto war. Whether we like it or not, it’s happening,” Gladkov said on the Rossiya 24 television channel. Asked what can be done to increase public security in the Russian border regions, he said one option is “to attach Kharkov to Belgorod Region. This is the best way to solve the issue of the shelling of Belgorod Region.” That was a public, political challenge to the Kremlin. It was polite compared to those who use other names when they mean to criticize Putin’s conduct of the war.

Governor Gladkov is a southerner by birth, education, and career. Born in the Penza region, he has worked in high administrative posts in Penza, Crimea, Stavropol, and for almost three years now in Belgorod. The first Kremlin reply to Gladkov was Dmitry Peskov’s, the spokesman. He was opposed, he intimated, to annexation of more regions along the front line by repeating the restrictive limits of the war. “This already belongs to the category of issues related to the conduct of Special Military Operation. Therefore, I cannot comment on this in any way.” Peskov said in his piece on Monday morning. On Tuesday afternoon, after Ukrainian drones had landed in Moscow, Putin said more; he also said the same thing. “We all had to respond by launching the special military operation. We are striking at the territory of Ukraine, but with long-range precision weapons, at military infrastructure facilities only, either at ammunition or fuel and lubricants warehouses used for combat operations. We have talked about the possibility of striking at decision-making centres. Of course, the headquarters of Ukrainian military intelligence is one of them, and a strike at this target was carried out two or three days ago.”

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“..Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman was behind the exclusion of prominent news organizations..”

OPEC Snubs Major Western News Outlets (RT)

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has refused to invite reporters from Bloomberg News and Reuters to its event in Austria later this week, both outlets said on Wednesday. Correspondents from the Wall Street Journal were also snubbed, according to Reuters and Bloomberg. Though staff from the three media agencies typically cover major OPEC meetings, Bloomberg said that this time organizers decided to send invitations directly to reporters, as opposed to providing accreditation to any journalist seeking to attend an event. “We are disappointed that Reuters has not been invited,” a spokesperson said, adding that the agency has “reached out to OPEC for clarity on the matter.” “We believe that a free press serves readers, markets and the public interest,” the spokesperson added.

Bloomberg said it had contacted the OPEC secretariat, but received no reply. The agencies are still expected to send reporters to Austria, even if they cannot access the OPEC Secretariat, where ministers meet, according to the Financial Times (FT), which noted that it did receive an invitation. The newspaper added that Dow Jones was also denied an invitation. FT cited people familiar with the matter as saying Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman was behind the exclusion of prominent news organizations. Reporters from other outlets, including CNBC, as well as pricing agencies Argus and Platts, told Reuters that they were invited to the Vienna event.

OPEC – along with its partners in the broader OPEC+ bloc, which includes Russia – have been under pressure to support Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to its military operation in Ukraine. OPEC members have worked with Russia to reach an agreement on coordinated production cuts, which drew criticism from Washington. OPEC members will gather on Saturday and Sunday for a regular biannual meeting to determine next steps after US crude prices dropped below $70 per barrel this week. The decline comes despite an agreement to further slash production in April, expanding output cuts initially set last year.

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“No matter how many dialogues, there will be no fundamental improvement [they have said]. I think it is a very honest assessment.”

Xi Jinping Warns Of ‘Worst-Case’ Situation (SCMP)

China is facing more complex and difficult national security concerns, President Xi Jinping warned on Tuesday, in comments analysts said showed the country harboured no “illusions” about the possible damaging effects of its rivalry with the US and had little hope of a lasting improvement in ties. The remarks from Xi came as he chaired a meeting of the National Security Commission, his first since securing an unprecedented third term as leader of China’s ruling Communist Party at its 20th congress in October. Xi heads both the commission and the Chinese military. He said the country’s security apparatus needed to stay “keenly aware” of the complicated and challenging circumstances facing national security, and correctly grasp major related issues, according to state news agency Xinhua.

The national security issues facing China were “considerably more complex and much more difficult” to deal with, Xinhua reported Xi as saying, as he urged officials to be ready to deal with “worst-case and most extreme scenarios”, so that they could withstand “high winds and waves and even perilous storms”. Xi’s remarks come as rival powers China and the United States continue to lock horns on many fronts. Both sides have stepped up national security scrutiny, especially in the technology sector, with the US slapping sanctions on a slew of Chinese companies in the past few years citing security concerns. In March, in a rare public comment on the US tech rivalry, Xi directly named Washington for leading the Western suppression of China. China recently prohibited its key infrastructure operators from buying products made by US memory chip maker Micron Technology, citing “relatively serious” cybersecurity risks.

[..] Xi had also sounded a warning then about choppy waters and “dangerous storms” ahead, as he highlighted the challenges and risks facing the country. According to Xie Maosong, senior fellow at Beijing’s Taihe Institute and a senior researcher at Tsinghua University’s National Strategy Institute, Xi’s latest remarks showed China had “no rosy illusions” about the potentially devastating outcome of the US rivalry and was making serious efforts to prepare for it. “The ‘worst-case scenarios’ might include a nuclear war, a devastating war that ruins China’s coastal economic belts [or] Western sanctions on China’s energy, finance and food supply,” Xie said. [..] Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said Xi’s remarks meant Beijing was convinced that recent minor improvements in Sino-US relations would be short-lived.

“Xi has named the US as the culprit behind China’s problems,” Wu said. “Some mainland scholars have also openly expressed pessimism about the Sino-US relationship, saying the deterioration was due to domestic political dynamics in China and the US. No matter how many dialogues, there will be no fundamental improvement [they have said]. I think it is a very honest assessment.”

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On Twitter Escobar calls him the Sultan of Swing.

The Sultan 2.0 Will Heavily Tilt East (Pepe Escobar)

The collective west was dying to bury him – yet another strategic mistake that did not take into account the mood of Turkish voters in deep Anatolia. In the end, Recep Tayyip Erdogan did it – again. Against all his shortcomings, like an aging neo-Ottoman Sinatra, he did it “my way,” comfortably retaining Turkiye’s presidency after naysayers had all but buried him. The first order of geopolitical priority is who will be named Minister of Foreign Affairs. The prime candidate is Ibrahim Kalin – the current all-powerful Erdogan press secretary cum top adviser. Compared to incumbent Cavusoglu, Kalin, in theory, may be qualified as more pro-west. Yet it’s the Sultan who calls the shots. It will be fascinating to watch how Turkiye under Erdogan 2.0 will navigate the strengthening of ties with West Asia and the accelerating process of Eurasia integration.

The first immediate priority, from Erdogan’s point of view, is to get rid of the “terrorist corridor” in Syria. This means, in practice, reigning in the US-backed Kurdish YPG/PYD, who are effectively Syrian affiliates of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – which is also the issue at the heart of a possible normalization of relations with Damascus. Now that Syria has been enthusiastically welcomed back to the Arab League after a 12-year freeze, a Moscow-brokered entente between the Turkish and Syrian presidents, already in progress, may represent the ultimate win-win for Erdogan: allowing control of Kurds in north Syria while facilitating the repatriation of roughly 4 million refugees (tens of thousands will stay, as a source of cheap labor).

The Sultan is at his prime when it comes to hedging his bets between east and west. He knows well how to profit from Turkiye’s status as a key NATO member – complete with one of its largest armies, veto power, and control of the entry to the uber-strategic Black Sea. And all that while exercising real foreign policy independence, from West Asia to the Eastern Mediterranean. So expect Erdogan 2.0 to remain an inextinguishable source of irritation for the neocons and neoliberals in charge of US foreign policy, along with their EU vassals, who will never refrain from trying to subdue Ankara to fight the Russia-China-Iran Eurasia integration entente. The Sultan, though, knows how to play this game beautifully.

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Zero Hedge labels Epstein a “pedophile”??

Epstein Pal Jes Staley Throws Jamie Dimon Under The Bus (ZH)

Former JPMorgan Chase executive Jes Staley has thrown CEO Jamie Dimon under the bus over the bank’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein – claiming in legal documents that he and Dimon communicated about the convicted sex offender. Dimon maintains he had no such conversations, the Wall Street Journal reports, while Staley claims he knew about Epstein’s sex trafficking operation and that he regrets his friendship with Epstein. According to the filing, Staley says that he and Dimon communicated when Epstein was arrested in 2006 and 2008 when Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution, and served 13 months in a work-release program. Staley also claims that Dimon communicated with him several times through 2012 about whether to maintain Epstein as a client.

“There is no evidence that any such communications ever occurred—nothing in the voluminous number of documents reviewed and nothing in the nearly dozen depositions taken, including that of our own CEO,” said a spokeswoman for JPMorgan, adding that Dimon doesn’t believe such conversations with Staley ever happened. “The one person who claims this to be true is currently accused of horrific acts and dishonesty.” “The statements arose as part of a pair of lawsuits against the bank in a federal court in Manhattan. The government of the U.S. Virgin Islands and an unnamed woman, who said she was abused by Epstein, sued JPMorgan last year, claiming that the bank facilitated Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking. The bank has sought to pin the bulk of the relationship on Staley and sued him claiming he misled executives about Epstein. The bank in its lawsuit identified Staley as the “powerful financial executive” accused of sexual assault by the woman who is suing JPMorgan. Staley’s lawyers have said the allegations against him are baseless.”: -WSJ

“Rather than mislead anyone about what was or was not said, why don’t they just agree to release the whole transcript?” said an Epstein accuser’s attorney, Brad Edwards, referring to Dimon’s deposition. [..] The pedophile, who became a JPMorgan client around 1998 – bringing the bank hundreds of millions of dollars, formed a close bond with Staley, who eventually oversaw JPMorgan’s investment bank. In August 2008, a few weeks after Epstein’s guilty plea, a JPMorgan employee sent an email that suggested Dimon would review the Epstein relationship, according to the U.S. Virgin Islands lawsuit. The email states, “I would count Epstein’s assets as a probable outflow for ’08 ($120mm or so?) as I can’t imagine it will stay (pending Dimon review).” The bank has said that there is no record of such a review and that Dimon doesn’t recall one.” -JPMorgan

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“..all that will be needed to avoid long-term “legal complications” will be a check with several zeroes on it… or maybe some political immunity..”

Jamie Dimon Hints At Run For Public Office; Bill Ackman Endorses Him (ZH)

JPMorgan’s CEO may be getting swept up in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, but for a billionaire like Jamie Dimon, whose catch phrase is “that’s why I’m richer than you” and may as well be “that’s why I will always be freer than you”, all that will be needed to avoid long-term “legal complications” will be a check with several zeroes on it… or maybe some political immunity. Which may be why the head of the largest US bank is already hinting that after he is done gobbling up all the small and regional banks and gets tired of running JPM, he is considering running for public office. “I love my country, and maybe one day I’ll serve my country in one capacity or another,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview, when asked if he’s ever considered a public office position.

His comments, made at the bank’s annual Global China Summit in Shanghai on Wednesday, come as the US gears up for its 2024 presidential race. For now, he’s focused on his job running the largest US bank, a role he’s “quite happy” in. “I love what I do,” he said. JPMorgan does “a great job for helping Americans, for helping countries around the world.” Dimon also reiterated his view that “business can be a force for good,” and said he’s an American patriot who would follow the US government: “Everyone knows I am a patriot,” he said. “I am a red-blooded, full-throated, free enterprise capitalist.”

As BBG notes, the billionaire Wall Street banker is among a group of long-tenured Wall Street chiefs that also includes Brian Moynihan, 63, who’s led Bank of America Corp. since 2010, and Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman, 64, who became CEO at the start of 2010 and is stepping down within 12 months. Dimon, 67, who has been head of JPMorgan since 2005, has repeatedly said that he plans to remain atop the biggest US bank for five more years. And while in the past, Dimon has been quick to publicly shut down speculation that he planned a presidential run, shortly after the story about Dimon’s “public run” broke, none other than weepy Bill Ackman, who one year ago sold his NFLX impulse buy locking in losses of $400 million when he would have broken even had he sold it yesterday, endorsed Dimon for president in one of his lengthy, trademark Twitter posts.

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He does a good speech.

Six Texas Attorney General Aides Take Leave Of Absence To Defend Paxton (JTN)

Six staffers from the Office of the Texas Attorney General have taken a leave of absence to defend their former boss, Ken Paxton, who was impeached by the Texas House on Saturday. Their temporary departure was first reported by The Daily Wire and independently confirmed by Hearst Newspapers. Paxton was suspended from office until the outcome of a Senate trial determines if he returns to or is removed from office. In the interim, First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster is the acting head of the agency. Six employees taking leaves of absence include Solicitor General Judd Stone, Assistant Solicitor General Joseph N. Mazzara, Assistant Solicitor General Kateland Jackson, Senior Attorney Allison Collins, Executive Assistant Jordan Eskew, and Division Chief of the General Litigation Division Chris Hilton, who’s been outspoken in Paxton’s defense.

Hilton attempted to present evidence to the House General Investigating Committee, which refused to interview Paxton or anyone from his staff as part of its investigation. Hilton told reporters last Thursday that the committee was engaged in an “illegal investigation” and a report it issued was “filled with falsehoods and misrepresentations.” One week ago, the committee held a three-hour hearing at which four attorneys hired by the committee presented the findings of their investigation. The attorneys, some of whom are registered Democrats, had all worked in the offices of the Harris County District Attorney and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas in Houston. They presented no sworn testimony and no documentation; no witnesses were interviewed by the committee.

On Thursday, the committee issued 20 articles of impeachment and within 24 hours the full House voted to impeach Paxton by a vote of 121-23. The Texas GOP, Paxton and others argue the impeachment didn’t follow basic due process, was political, illegal, unethical and unjust. An outside law firm also found that Paxton didn’t break any laws or violate procedure. The House has announced its prosecutorial team and the Senate its committee to establish trial rules. The rules are expected to be announced June 20. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has said the trial will start no later than August 28.

Paxton
https://twitter.com/i/status/1663727925789589504

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“..The foundation “began acting as an agent of foreign governments early in its life and throughout its existence..”

Judge Breathes New Life Into Clinton Foundation Whistleblower Case (JTN)

Just a few weeks after Special Counsel John Durham revealed significant failures to investigate allegations against Hillary Clinton’s family charity, a U.S. Tax Court judge has once again breathed new life into a years-long whistleblower case alleging IRS improprieties involving the controversial Clinton Foundation. U.S. Tax Court Judge David Gustafson has already once before denied an IRS request to dismiss the whistleblower case, first brought in 2017. And three years ago, he ordered the tax agency to reveal whether it criminally investigated the foundation, citing a mysterious “gap” in its records. The IRS filed a new motion to dismiss, and all parties filed arguments over the last year.

But on Monday, Gustafson postponed ruling on those motions, instead asking for new arguments in light of three recent precedent-setting court rulings, once again frustrating IRS efforts to make the case go away. The three recent rulings in other tax cases “may affect the parties’ positions as to the pending motions,” Gustafson wrote. “We will order further filings so that the parties may address those recent opinions.”The judge gave whistleblowers John Moynihan, a former federal agent, and Larry Doyle, a corporate tax compliance expert, until June 30 to update their arguments and the IRS until July 28 to respond. That means the case will almost certainly stretch on for many more months.

The judge also noted the IRS hasn’t responded to a request to update the court record with new evidence. Monday’s ruling adds new intrigue in a case that first surfaced nearly five years ago when Doyle and Moynihan, two respected forensic financial investigators, revealed the existence of their 2017 IRS whistleblower complaint against the foundation during a congressional hearing. Moynihan and Doyle testified to a House committee in December 2018 that they believed the foundation wrongly operated as a foreign lobbyist by accepting overseas donations, then trying to influence U.S. policy. The foundation “began acting as an agent of foreign governments early in its life and throughout its existence,” Moynihan testified at the time. “As such, the foundation should’ve registered under FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act).

Read more …

”..he would allow lawmakers to visit FBI headquarters and look at it in a private room..”

FBI Chief Wray Rolls Dice With Congress Over Contempt (JTN)

Just hours after informing Congress he wouldn’t comply with a subpoena and turn over an informant document on the Biden family investigation, FBI Director Christopher Wray hopped on the bureau’s Gulfstream jet and ferried off to the more friendly confines of Las Vegas. The flight manifest for the FBI’s official jet shows Wray left the Washington suburb of Manassas, Va., at about 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday and landed about four hours later in Nevada’s most famous tourist city. Agency officials said the jaunt was for official business and that Wray would be speaking to a conference of counterterrorism officials, meeting with the FBI’s Las Vegas field office, and attending a law-enforcement memorial ceremony.


[..] The trip allows the FBI boss to escape an increasingly hostile atmosphere for himself in Washington, where congressional Republicans announced Wednesday that they would seek to hold Wray in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over a subpoenaed memo that lays out bribery allegations against President Biden. The memo, known as a FD-1023 form, includes information provided to the bureau in June 2020 by a confidential human source alleging a bribery scheme involving Biden when he was vice president. Lawmakers learned about the existence of the memo from FBI whistleblowers.

Wray tried to defuse the situation earlier Wednesday in a phone call with House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, saying that while he would not comply with the subpoena by turning over the memo to Congress, he would allow lawmakers to visit FBI headquarters and look at it in a private room. The two lawmakers, who have been leading an investigation into the Biden family’s foreign business dealings, said Wray’s offer was unacceptable and that Congress had every right to demand at the memo be turned over under a subpoena. Comer made clear he plans to seek a contempt vote as early as next week in Congress.


“While the FBI has apparently leaked classified information to the news media in recent weeks, jeopardizing its own human sources, it continues to treat Congress like second-class citizens by refusing to provide a specific unclassified record,” Grassley said. Comer said lawmakers scored one victory Wednesday: Wray confirmed the existence of the FD-1023 memo the whistleblowers identified. “Today, FBI Director Wray confirmed the existence of the FD-1023 form alleging then-Vice President Biden engaged in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national,” the powerful House committee chairman said. “However, Director Wray did not commit to producing the documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1663988796600340481

Read more …

” .. I was excited by the opportunity to engage in free political debate and to make my contribution as a citizen and a scholar.”

Fifty Years Later, Free Speech No Longer Exists In The West (Rabkin)

Fifty years ago I left the Soviet Union for one reason: My desire for freedom. I was disgusted by the one-sided world view fostered by the banning of foreign publications and the jamming of Western radio stations. The obedient media, toeing the party line, repulsed me and made me laugh. Fear of the authorities (even if they were far more “vegetarian” than in Stalinist times) restricted open discussion of politics to the “kitchen cabinet,” with a small circle of trusted friends. I left behind my hometown (then Leningrad, now St Petersburg), my friends, my brother and the graves of my parents and grandparents. Applying to emigrate meant taking a risk, because you almost always risked losing your job, many friends and even relatives, with no guarantee that you would even be granted an exit visa.

[..] What struck me most in the newspapers and on television was the diversity of opinion. Letters to the editor offered a wide range of viewpoints, some of which not only criticized Western policies but also offered alternatives. It wasn’t long before I began to express my own views, first in letters to publications and then in articles. I was excited by the opportunity to engage in free political debate and to make my contribution as a citizen and a scholar. After all, society had created the conditions for me to share the results of my research and observations broadly. However, things have changed. Today, when it comes to some important issues of international politics, freedom of discussion is severely restricted.

[..] An even more important issue that has disappeared from rational discussion is policy towards Russia. This issue is all the more important because Moscow has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Long before February 2022, when President Vladimir Putin announced the military campaign in Ukraine, most NATO countries (as well as Kiev itself) had restricted access to Russian media, something that did not happen in the West even during the Cold War. Just as the Soviets justified their jamming of Western radio broadcasts with the need to protect against “ideological sabotage,” many institutions have been created in recent years by NATO and its member states to protect citizens from, so-called, “Russian disinformation.”

[..] Freedom of speech is not just a democratic right. It is also a way of defining and weighing alternatives. When conflict becomes an epic struggle between good and evil, rationality is replaced by moral judgment and noble indignation. This undermines all diplomacy and, in turn, exacerbates the danger of nuclear war, the inevitable consequence of which, as US military strategists recognized as early as 1962, is Mutually Assured Destruction, or ‘MAD’. Unanimity, una voce, one-sided debate – call it what you like. But this is about more than just the denial of free speech. The climate it has created threatens the very survival of humanity.

Read more …

Maybe Pfizer can grow some.

Australian Garlic Kills Covid-19, Says Doherty Institute (AFR)

Garlic might not just be good for keeping vampires away, but also COVID-19 and the common flu, according to new research being released on Wednesday by The Peter Doherty Institute. Scientists at Doherty have been researching garlic properties over the past 18 months and have discovered a certain Australian grown garlic variety demonstrates antiviral properties with up to 99.9 per cent efficacy against the viruses which cause COVID-19 and the common flu. The world-first research, commissioned by the Australian Garlic Producers organisation, involved in-vitro testing against the SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza type A viruses, using garlic ingredients extracted from exclusive Australian grown garlic varieties.


The most efficacious garlic varieties and their extracted proprietary garlic ingredient are being commercialised. They will be able to be taken as a soft capsule supplement similar to vitamin C or fish oil and are subject to a recently lodged International Patent. Dr Julie McAuley, manager of the Doherty’s high containment facility COVID-19 research lab, said the results were striking. “We wanted to know if these strains had the possibility of killing COVID-19,” she told The Australian Financial Review. “I thought it might fail miserably. We blindly tested over 20 varieties. We found one of AGP’s products could reduce the infectious titre of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza by 3-log-fold (99.9 per cent). We barely detected any remaining virus genome, indicating nearly complete virucidal activity.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1663504437984505856

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Home Forums Debt Rattle June 1 2023

Viewing 37 posts - 1 through 37 (of 37 total)
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  • #136056

    Odilon Redon Wild Flowers in a Vase c1910   • Zelensky Issues Ultimatum To NATO – FT (RT) • Macron Wants ‘Tangible’ Security Guarantees For Ukrai
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle June 1 2023]

    #136057
    Germ
    Participant

    Place your bets for June …


    TVASSF

    #136058
    Germ
    Participant

    Expect a knock on your door Raul.

    WHO Initiative Would ‘Promote Desired Behaviors’ by Surveilling Social Media

    ” The World Health Organization (WHO) is proposing a set of recommendations for “social listening surveillance systems” designed to address what it describes as a “health threat” posed by online “misinformation.” ”

    WHO Initiative Would ‘Promote Desired Behaviors’ by Surveilling Social Media

    TVASSF ( … this is NOT ‘misinformation’)

    #136059
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “McCarthy Reportedly Gave Democrats Secret Concessions In Exchange For Debt Ceiling Votes”

    “Secret”? He gave them everything openly. So you’re saying he gave them even MORE?

    “Female Athlete Retires After Competing Against Biological Men, Says Girls “No Longer Have A Fair Chance”

    Destroying women wherever they get a chance. Unsafe spaces everywhere is what they believe in, oppression of women everywhere, every way. Know your place. Pretty typical. Men who protect women, in bathrooms or in sports, in marriage or as mothers, are vilified as violent Neanderthals. Who’s doing the doing with this? Who, exactly, is saying each side? Where’s it coming from? I don’t think we had 60% of men say “My childhood dream is to beat women at sports,” or …

    Anyway, people always ache and prostrate to authority: create your own sports league. A new WTA or WPGA can kick men out again as almost the entire society prefers. It will take a few years but you’ll be CEO of the new MLB and make millions doing good. People feel like cycling was something created with the earth, like the sun. They’re just jackasses who’ve been blackmailed and bought off.

    Speaking of, “Project Veritas” following dozens of others, Wikipedia, WayBack, Veritas is suing O’Keefe. For essentially nothing, to keep him busy and captured, as they did Greenwald, etc. JB can confirm with me here:

    Companies run for 100 years making shoes or something, and one DAY after being run by a Lawyer or MBA destroy the company like these guys do. Faster than Target ever dreamed. Faster than a CIA director can say “This Bud’s for you.” Promote the third sales associate from Iowa and it would all go away again, because they know what a company exists for: to give something the public — that is YOU — want. Companies exist for YOU. Target is not a Church. Budweiser is not a political PAC. Companies exist to get you shoes cheaper than you can make them at home. “No one can serve two masters.” — today’s article by Mises.

    This is great though: Veritas is dead dead dead, but they could have hung on for years shilling disinformation, pretending to undo whatever O’Keefe reports. By suing him, it’s obvious as Fox that they are actively, egregiously anti-Truth, and that therefore some force actually exists that constantly buys up Twitters, Intercepts, etc, and destroys their purpose, then the companies themselves going to zero, HuffPo, BuzzFeed. Get Woke, Go Broke. Because they’re a RELIGION. Religions need donations to destroy OTHER people’s money.

    Can’t stop this until the money power collapses. So the “Depression” from yesterday is actually the GOOD thing. The world returning to normal. Just like market “Crashes” are just Price-Discovery returning to a rigged market. (Usually rigged with a bank handing out $500 bills to everyone at a public auction)

    Can’t stop until the money power ends.

    “Chick-fil-A Faces Growing Backlash Over ‘Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion’ Efforts

    They kind of went nuts over this: it’s just a Title. What if their DEI director DID promote Christian values, but deceptively so that it seemed like they had got aboard the Woke Wagon? Not a good sign but you have to see what they DO. I say not a good sign because the job and department is unnecessary waste of valuable attention and resources. Give it a rest though.

    P.S. As psychopathic narcissists, they have to believe they are so clever and above you. Like their other language, DEI is Latin for “God”. Woke is your god. Hail Satan, Worship Moloch today. At least they’re not hiding it.

    Stewart Rhodes: I would like to argue with this, but I can’t see any basis. As above, the important part is that the mask is off. If we know they are Darth Vader, we can know which side we’re on. Compliance is consent.

    “Zelensky has “made clear to NATO leaders that he will not attend the Vilnius summit without concrete security guarantees and a road map for accession,”

    Yay. You don’t get them, go away now.

    The real fact is the Derp State, the transnational parasite government had its money centers cut off like in F-Stan and is using Ukraine to fill the coffers and not collapse. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Why the money, and why none of it arrives.

    They are also slow-escalating the war. Same reason. The Davos Derp State now need $150B a year, plus $4,000 Billion in every budget or it collapses.

    “if the conflict turns into a protracted one,”

    IF? Macron must be a Liberal as he’s bad at math. Can’t count to quinze?

    “Everything about this is certifiably nuts.”

    So many levels. And therefore the people involved are certifiably mentally ill. They should be removed as a danger to themselves and others as is legally required.

    ““…based on international law, “including the Hague and Geneva Conventions with their additional protocols,” Britain “can also be qualified as being at war.”

    I’ve been saying for ages. But they need them so far over the line all humans on the planet agree who is wrong.

    “Xi’s remarks come as rival powers China and the United States continue to lock horns on many fronts.”

    When did we become rival powers? We gave them Most Favored Nation status, shipped 90% of our jobs and manufacturing, all our steel, and handed them fighter jet blueprints and Scandia Labs.

    …But NOW, TODAY, they’re suddenly an intractable enemy we lock horns with? Remember a few years ago? This is racist! Biden, therefore, is a racist. …That’s what I heard – all I heard – in 2016-2020. Now NOT racist. Funny how the correlation of the data sets is 1.0.

    “The Sultan 2.0 Will Heavily Tilt East (Pepe Escobar) “

    Losing everywhere. But as Luongo says, the real battle, the important one that decides, is in Pakistan.

    “claiming in legal documents that he and Dimon communicated about the convicted sex offender.”

    Why Dimon? He has 250,000 minions to do these emails for him. He’s not going to record himself. Back to Luongo, what are they doing? Strangely for us, Dimon and Morgan are KILLING NAZIS. They are stopping Davos and WEF Europe cold. They are going to break Europe and have some sort of actual Capitalism continue to exist, however flawed. So like Strauss-Kahn, they take Dimon out and they don’t care how. He doesn’t look worried.

    To me, I’m like, “Can you refuse to bank somebody just because they committed a crime?” WTF Jebus that’s a bad idea, that’s 100% “Social Credit Score” stuff of dystopian nightmares. I’m no fan of Epstein, but can we just refuse to bank him, refuse to rent him, refuse to sell him pork-n-beans at Costco so we all collectively murder him? How does that work?

    Like free speech, if they can cut him off, they can cut me off. And Sikh truckers in Canada.

    Anyway, 5GW, they are carpet bombing Dimon to save Davos as the money system cracks. Can’t stop this until the money power collapses. Dimon and Powell are collapsing it. The Nazis are defunded.

    There’s lots of bad things in Morgan, all illegal anti-trust and stuff. I’ll be happy to chop them into 200 banks and sue for market rigging when Davos is dead.

    refused to interview Paxton or anyone from his staff as part of its investigation.”

    Interesting investigation. I was wondering what was going on and which side, but they never bother to hide it anymore. However, if they have to do this, they’re losing. 1st level is everyone does without thinking. 2nd is everyone without being asked. 3rd is everyone knows but still does it. 4th is stragglers that get whackd. 5th is when it’s discussed but still happening. 6th is when they have to be obvious, there is no basis, they still have people opposing, AND it’s being reported. 7th is fabricating evidence and ignoring appearances. When I was born, we were level 1.

    “The judge also noted the IRS hasn’t responded to a request to update the court”

    As everywhere, the government refuses to do their job. They refuse to even LOOK like they’re doing their job. They just go before Judges and…refuse. Illegally. Nothing happens. Must be nice.

    P.S. I’m sure now that Wray is in Contempt he’ll serve his 30-60 days? Right? Or is this a “Contempt of Congress” that has no actions, effects, or consequences? So… you exist as a big, well-paid waste of all our time?

    Keeping an ear down, first they erase religion and be “cool” and “Sophisticated” to create a psychological hole, then have a moral vacuum. When the time is right and all is forgotten, they then re-add religion of their own, filling the religion-shaped hole. Walking around, this is what has happened to Woke. It is now moving from a thing on TV into a real, heart-felt, human-integrated religion. The religion of Nazis, including the book burning, racism, and camps.

    This is not pleasing as like Germany, I bet 60% are easily in this category of some form of acceptance, just as Christianity was once, in say 1950. And I cannot abide religious extremists, who permit no questions or discussion and immediately accelerate into “Kill” at any hint of heresy. It’s like living in Puritan New England around here, and they’re building some witch-pyres and breaking out the buckled hats.

    Love and Light, people! Stunning and Brave. It’s always a good time for hate.

    It just feelz, SO. GOOD. The Morningstar. The Rockstar Rebel. Love and fealty to him and all his actions.

    #136060
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    Listening to the RFK Jr. offerings yesterday was disheartening for the trust needed to fully support the candidacy by propagating the lie that Russia illegally acted to stop a military/militia attack by Coup-de-état Kiev on the territory of Donbas and the Russian speaking population there who had voted in 2014 for separation from the état regime supported by the Washington/Wall St./City of London/Tel Aviv axis of evil.
    RFK Jr. may be proud of his sone, that is entirely natural, but when a U.S. citizen serves in an alien military force it puts a cloud over that person’s fidelity to their U.S. citizenship and is a matter of little sustainable pride, particularly to one serving in a force that is inundated in the bloods of war crimes since its establishment in 2014. RFK Jr. your son is a war criminal by his act of machine gunning ‘Russians’. Should I vote, and I will not, RFK Jt’s candidacy will be taken under advisement; one does not correct a lie by offering another. I haven’t an idea what can now be done to rebuild the broken trust in your otherwise admirable efforts.

    Some ten millions of Ukrainians are said to have fled the country; some 3.5 millions to Russia, the rest from western Ukrain to mostly the EU. It would be fair to assume that most of the refugees did not support the Kiev regime after 2014 coup de état and feared the consequences of conflict sufficiently to leave. Those removing to Russia were also taken by fear, that of being the targets of the Kiev regime, altogether different motivation. The OSCE abandoned their posts when Ukrainian shelling of the Donbas had reached forty-fold the established levels some days before the Russian Special Military Operation to protect and defend those living in the Donbas. How often have the collective west heard the phrase ‘to protect and defend’ as authorisation and source of legitimacy by their own government’s actions, with Russia it’s no different. One either accepts double standards or one does not – your choice, your life..

    #136061
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Odilon Redon Wild Flowers in a Vase c1910

    Beautifully rendered painting (IMO); but also ironic; “Wild Flowers” in a “vase”?

    #136062
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    Like birds in a cage.

    #136063
    Red
    Participant

    There is new momentum behind the idea that renewable energy has a higher energy return on investment (EROI) than fossil fuels.

    That contrasts with decades of consensus that the EROI of oil, for example, ranges from 18 to 35 while the range for solar is from 6 to 12.

    Nafeez Ahmed wrote in a recent post that

    “While the EROI values of wind and solar are “at or above 10”, the average EROI estimate for oil is about 4.2. Murphy et. al’s research concludes that many EROI analyses incorrectly compare fossil fuels with renewables by measuring them at the wrong areas. By consistently measuring them both at their ‘point of use’, they are able to develop a far more consistent approach.”

    Similarly, Ugo Bardi wrote a post in January whose title was ” Setting the record straight on the EROI from renewables. It is much better than that of fossil fuels.”

    Both Ahmed and Bardi used a 2022 paper, Energy Return on Investment of Major Energy Carriers: Review and Harmonization as their source.

    Red Flags

    I evaluated the 2022 EROI paper by David J. Murphy and colleagues that Ahmed and Bardi cited as the source of their good news about the superior EROI of renewables.

    This statement from that paper was a huge red flag for me.

    “Even if crude oil were measured to have an EROI of 1000 or more at the point of extraction, the corresponding EROI at the point of use, using global average data for the energy “cost” of the process chain, would still only be a maximum of 8.7.”

    This means that the supply-chain energy costs for refining and product distribution create a permanent penalty that prevents oil from reaching an EROI of more than 8.7. It furthermore implies that refining must be a marginally profitable business at best which it is not.

    It suggests that all previous EROI work over the last two decades was wrong. The reason it was wrong, according to the paper’s authors, is that previous workers failed to account for the full supply chain of energy investments from extraction to point-of-use. That is simply untrue. The approach has been used at least since 2009 by Hall et al.

    By the authors’ own admission, oil is the most important fuel for the global economy. An oil EROI of 4.2, however, would place it below what most researchers consider to be the minimum EROI threshold needed to support society as noted by Euan Mearns.

    “It is assumed that ERoEI >5 to 7 is required for modern society to function. This marks the edge of The Net Energy Cliff.”

    Below this threshold, so much of the world’s resources would have to be dedicated to supplying energy that there would not be enough left to support the rest of society. Civilization should already be in collapse at an oil EROI of 4.2.

    In this renewable energy Hail Mary, the authors reveal their fundamental failure to comprehend the significance of their EROI subject:

    “This means that oil delivers less net energy to society for each unit invested in extraction, refining, and delivery than PV or wind. The transition to electric vehicles, according to these results, will actually increase.”

    Society does not function and survive on the per-unit net energy to society but on the full-system net energy delivered to society. This is like saying that I can solve my personal financial problems by delivering newspapers because the per-unit returns are so high. The net income from the paper route is so small, however, that it wouldn’t even help with the monthly escrow payment on my mortgage.

    The bottom line is that Murphy et al have not presented the data to support their conclusion that renewables in fact have a higher EROI than oil.

    The rest@

    Does Renewable Energy Have a Higher EROI Than Fossil Fuels?

    #136064
    oxymoron
    Participant
    #136066
    zerosum
    Participant

    Even in biblical time, Peace was achieved through war.

    #136067
    Oroboros
    Participant

    As per Douglas MacGregor

    Pedo Joe, Winken Blinken, Cookies Nuland, Austin Powers, all the Neozazicon filth in the Empire of Lies Gangster Nation®, have lead Duh’sheeple® to the edge of Oblivion.

    Ya know, once the Duh’sheeple® are rounded up and put into a Panopticon ‘Warsaw Ghetto’, they’re never coming out of it alive.

    Empire of Lies Gangster Nation® already has trans-formed it’s major urban center into ‘useless eaters of resources’

    Yeh, that’s right, the actual concept of a big city in Duh’merica has now been equated with the slur of ‘useless eater’ as it applies to individuals.

    The Big Shities are resource sinks and have no purpose

    They consume enormous amounts of resources and produce what in return for their keep?

    Cinnamon Lattes?

    Cookie cutter culture?

    Intellectual endeavors?

    Trendy trends?

    Wow, that’s certainly worth the cost of keeping their lights on.

    The FIRE sector of the economy, which is by and large a giant useless parasite, like an oozing pus filled boil on the ass of the nation, they too are getting out of Big Shity Dodge, it’s that bad.

    And it’s Too Late to reinvent Duh’merican cities.

    They are in fourth stage cancer, the Web and the Plandemic sealed their fate.

    They represent less than 2-3% of the landmass of the country and no longer pull their weight in any conceivable sense….. moral, spiritual or literal.

    Duh’merica no longer has an industrial base and still picked a fight with Russia, a country that has an awesome technical industrial based fueled and backed up with twelve time zones of resources.

    Duh’merica’s ‘industrial base’ (cough-gag-cough) is like an old dried up whore living in a cardboard box under a bridge abutment eating cat food from a tin with a dirty plastic spoon.

    Well played Duh’merica!

    I hope the Russians finally go after all the ‘decision making centers’ threatening their country, where ever they are, including in The Empire of Lies Gangster Nation, the cowards hiding behind an ocean.

    The Empire of Lies Gangster Nation® is destroying itself just fine, give it time to hang itself from a lamp post

    Every action has an equal and opposite reaction

    The lying and escalating in Ukronaziland will bring ruin to Duh’merica and Euroturdistan, it can’t happen fast enough

    Duh’merica, the Land of Plenty is a desert of the imagi-nation

    .

    #136068
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Women getting bitch slapped by trans ‘men’ in sports is the fault of 2th, 3rd, 4th wave feminists

    It’s not the fault of straight white men.

    I would say to female athletes who complain about this:

    Blow it out your ass, you built this current edifice of idiocy brick by brick for decades with an ever escalating distortion of ‘feminism’.”

    You made your bed, now sleep in it.

    Quit bitching and fix it all by your ‘I am woman hear me roar’ selves.

    Don’t ask for any help from real men, remember, ya’ll don’t need them.

    It would also be and act of weakness on your parts.

    .

    #136069
    jb-hb
    Participant

    first they erase religion and be “cool” and “Sophisticated” to create a psychological hole, then have a moral vacuum. When the time is right and all is forgotten, they then re-add religion of their own, filling the religion-shaped hole. Walking around, this is what has happened to Woke.


    #136070

    Good points on EROEI. Feels like a former life.

    #136071
    jb-hb
    Participant

    ah yeah. EROEI and scalability

    dear god the number of times a newb would come onto LATOC with the solution to all our problems and we’d politely spend days bringing them back to reality.

    I still vividly remember one person who showed up saying that because aluminum can conduct electricity, we could build out an entirely new electricity grid and transportation (running on light rail/trolleys/monorails using aluminum electricity conducting rails)

    1.) Not scalable
    2.) A transmission method is not a source of energy
    3.) Not enough readily available aluminum
    4.) Huge energy inputs to make aluminum
    5.) Miniature projects on these lines are enabled BY the current oil and coal economy and could not exist without it.

    #136072
    Autonomous Unit
    Participant

    “To me, I’m like, “Can you refuse to bank somebody just because they committed a crime?” WTF Jebus that’s a bad idea, that’s 100% “Social Credit Score” stuff of dystopian nightmares. I’m no fan of Epstein, but can we just refuse to bank him, refuse to rent him, refuse to sell him pork-n-beans at Costco so we all collectively murder him? How does that work?”

    I see your point if he committed a crime in the past, and then stopped his illegal actions. We know that Epstein continued to commit crimes after his initial trial, and slap on the wrist punishment.
    Perhaps that is why it may not be prudent for a bank to continue to accept ill-gotten money from Epstein.
    Of course, that would not be following the tradition of banks willingly accepting deposits from dirty sources, like drug cartels,etc.

    #136073
    Germ
    Participant

    @ WES & John Day & My Parents Said …

    Yes, it was an amazing cycle trip.

    Great company, great canal path, great food, wonderful scenery, fantastic accommodation, amazing architecture in beautiful villages.

    One of the benefits of the German occupation of France during WW2 was that the country was not flattened by bombing – unlike here in the UK, where so much was destroyed.

    I highly recommend cycling Le Canal des Deux Mers in May!
    https://en.canaldes2mersavelo.com/

    #136074
    Germ
    Participant

    @ T Bear – listen to JFK here with Stockman.

    A more serious discussion of the Ukraine crisis with David Stockman, where he’s not pandering to potential voters.
    I think he gets it:

    #136075
    Germ
    Participant

    Excess mortality in Germany: the 2022 data is in.

    ” …this is a very long and dense paper, but have a look at the age breakdown of excess mortality tables. The increases are insane. Also have a look at the standard deviation tables. This is scary.”

    https://docbrown77.substack.com/p/excess-mortality-in-germany-the-2022

    ☠️☠️☠️

    TVASSF (Sie sind wirklich!)

    #136076
    jb-hb
    Participant

    What’s the deal with Chic-fil-a? Why are we suddenly mad at God’s Own Chicken?

    The Bud Lite thing came from a bunch of different events occurring at the same time. The key elements were the Mulvaney vid PLUS the Bud Marketing VP wokeist ranting about having a CLEAR MANDATE for wokeist stuff while denigrating existing customers. That one-two punch PLUS the trans shooting and dudes in dresses punching and kidnapping a female athlete.

    So why chick-a-fil? Was it JUST appointing a DIE czar?

    chik fil a owner: white people should kneel down and shine the shoes of black people – with a deep sense of shame

    Jesus washing his disciples’ feet retrofitted by critical theory marxism into white folks kneeling before black folks in a struggle session.

    All races did shoe shining… FOR PAY. Sure, I’ll shine your shoes. Let me know when you want your shoes shined and I’ll let you know my rates.

    I’ll be charging extra:

    1.) To wokeist marxists – for the land and property you stole from my family and my family members you beat to death – you believe in group guilt, right? Simple pacifist Mennonite farmers, not aristocrats. never posed any danger to you, but you did it anyway. (“you” wokeists as defined by wokeists)

    2.) Surcharge for the Dutch side of my family, whose members lost limbs, their sanity, and their lives fighting to end slavery. US Civil War wasn’t about ending slavery, sure, in a fantasy land – but they sang anti-slavery songs while knowingly marching to their deaths – so fu pay me.

    #136077
    Germ
    Participant

    Always “Rare” – LOL


    TVASSF

    #136078
    Germ
    Participant


    TVASSF

    #136079
    TAE Summary
    Participant

    * Flowers Gone Wild

    * Pfizer: We had to destroy your immune system in order to save it; TVASSSSSSSSSSSSSF

    * Social Surveillance: Founded by Hitler in April 1925 the WHO in 2023 as a small protection team, the SS grew with the success of the Nazi the WHO movement and became virtually a state within a state, gathering immense police and military powers.

    * A woman’s glass ceiling is a man’s glass floor

    * War and Peace
    – I have not come to bring peace, but a sword – The Prince of Peace
    – Make casseroles, not war
    -Those with kids in the military are biased and should shut up. Those with no kids in the military have no skin in the game and should shut up.

    * EROEI in 2050:
    1.) Oil is no longer scalable
    2.) A drilling technology is not a source of energy
    3.) Not enough readily available oil
    4.) Huge energy inputs to extract oil
    5.) Petroleum projects are enabled by the current solar and wind economy and could not exist without it

    * I just set them up, I don’t bring them down – Jamie Dimon

    * Divergency, Enmity, Intrusion

    #136080
    jb-hb
    Participant

    EROEI in 2050?

    The end of readily available oil will make buildout of a whole new infrastructure inexpensive or free, increasingly as oil becomes less available. Because that would make it fair. And fairness is, like, a RULE.

    Drilling and bringing up stored energy isn’t a source of energy. Only massive investment of existing oil and coal energy in mining and consuming massive quantities of minerals to build a parallel logistics chain/infrastructure produces energy is a source of energy. Anything else would be unfair

    If we build a whole new infrastructure, then the new energy sources we intend to transmit over this infrastructure will have to show up, because otherwise it would be unfair – and fairness is a RULE.

    There’s no such thing as mining, nor rare earth metals, nor 10,000 mile logistical chains, because that wouldn’t be fair when we are being so virtuous. The new infrastructure won’t require resource inputs because that isn’t fair. Just 5 large freighters don’t create as much CO2 as the entire auto fleet of the world. Because polluting more than the entire auto fleet of the world to be virtuous to replace oil wouldn’t be fair.

    Off to Caine’s Chicken Fingers for a tasty snack.

    #136081
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    Germ at #136074
    First of all: Welcome back, the bike sojourn sounds fantastic and with canals, few mountains are found. Tall cotton bicycling. (smiley thing)

    David Stockman is one of those who are eminently forgettable and it took me nearly the time of the presentation to recall him being Ronnie Raygun’s budget director. Now for some brain wash to remove the memory. The economics discussed were shallow and gravitated into bits and pieces of what is generally considered ‘libertarian economic theology’,; sounding good but of little substance but politically gratifying. At the time I considered David Stockman having the same value as what one found on the bottom of one’s shoes after a stroll through the park, that still holds. It was Ronnie Raygun’s budget policy that ended the New Deal and has produced the economic conditions and consequences you experience today. YMMV

    #136082
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Dave Chappelle hits one out of the park

    Hahahaha

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1663953845188165658

    #136083
    Germ
    Participant
    #136084
    Germ
    Participant

    They are certifiably insane and want you dead or disabled.

    What could possibly go wrong?

    Needle-free Covid-19 vaccine enters clinical trials

    ” …the new vaccine was developed using computers to predict changes in the virus. It uses synthetic gene technology.”

    Needle-free Covid-19 vaccine enters clinical trials

    TVASSF

    #136085
    John Day
    Participant

    @Oxymoron: Thanks for that Walter M. Chesnut spike protein in blood vessels and brain paper.

    @Germ
    :There is nice bike youring in Germany, too, despite the war. Glad you did well and returned to us.
    I am studying up on pathophysiology and treatment of post vaccine syndrome, so the vaccinated can be less f**ked, the ones that live…
    @TAESummary:Yay!

    #136087
    John Day
    Participant

    Symbolic? Biden Speech Hailing NATO Strength Overshadowed By Serious Fall On Stage
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-speech-hailing-nato-strength-overshadowed-serious-fall-stage

    #136088
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    Once the money dies, a hellofalot of people are going to wake up to who is pulling the puppet strings. Pearle Harbor, JFK, moon landings, Vietnam, Oklahoma City,, 911, covid, the mandated death shot for covid…brought to you by the chosen people using a Trojan Horse…the television.. Everyone alive, today has been fed constant bullshit and lies…their whole life.. The old ways, honor and integrity…are the true way, a zogulag is no place for righteous people.

    #136089
    Oroboros
    Participant

    It will sort itself out one way or another

    People who need people are the luckiest people in the world

    Kentucky Man Allegedly Shot Roommate in Buttocks After He Ate Last Hot Pocket

    A 64-year-old Kentucky man allegedly shot his roommate in the butt because he had eaten their last Hot Pocket.

    Clifton Williams became enraged after learning the frozen snack was gone, and began throwing tiles at the man in their Louisville home, police told WLKY-TV.

    The roommate then tried to flee the home — but not before Williams allegedly went inside, got a gun, and shot him in the buttocks before he could escape, the report said.

    Humanity is so noble, so spell binding, so full of Hope and Hot Pockets

    .

    #136090
    John Day
    Participant

    Damage Done looks at treating post vaccine syndrome https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/damage-done

    I have been studying-up on Post COVID-19 Vaccine Syndrome, which Pierre Kory MD discusses here with Jimmy Dore, who has a form of it.
    https://covid19criticalcare.com/the-vaccine-injured-have-been-abandoned/

    What is going on with Post COVID-19 Vaccine Syndrome?
    There are acute anaphylactic responses right after injection, which account foremost of the same day and next day fatalities.
    There are sudden cardiac deaths within the first week or two following an injection which are likely due to fatal arrhythmias, brought on by induced-inflammation within the heart muscle,and triggered by exercise stress and adrenaline,which would normally be well tolerated.
    There are the people who “die suddenly” within half a year of the last injection. There is widespread governmental denial of the existence of this syndrome,soit is not funded for study. Production of spike-protein, induced by mRNA gene-therapy-products, may often persist for 6 months or more, since the mRNA is chemically-modified to prevent normal enzymatic breakdown in the cells. These spike-protein fragments are caustic to blood vessel linings, predisposing to clot formation, the root cause of heart attacks and strokes.
    The people who most often see doctors for Post-Vaccine Syndrome are not in these high-fatality groups, but are typically deeply fatigued, brain-fogged, and may get very tired and hurt all over from normal exercise. They may have a broad range of autoimmune and allergic responses, neurological disorders and re-activation of viruses such as Herpes-family, including shingles, Epstein Barr Virus and Cytomegalovirus. These viruses are typically kept suppressed by a normally functioning immune system.
    Is there free-circulating spike-protein? Is there autoimmune disease brought on by the similarity of parts of the spike protein to normal proteins in the body?
    Is there suppression of normal immune system function, including cancer-surveillance?
    Pick one or more.
    Here is 39 pages of Post COVID-19 Vaccine Syndrome information from FLCCC, which is contributed to by Dr.Kory, Dr.Marik and others.
    https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/I-RECOVER-Post-Vaccine-2023-03-11.pdf

    Most doctors in the US will not engage COVID-Vaccine-Injury as a possibility. They don’t know.
    At this point, they are choosing to keep not knowing. It’s easier and they don’t have to admit wrongdoing.
    This diagnosis-group is complicated, perplexing, goes against the business model of treating one problem per visit with 5-10 minutes of face-time.
    These diagnoses are frowned upon by payers. Taking care of vaccine-injured patients is bad for business.
    Dr. Kory and Dr. Marik have been expelled from their hospital and teaching positions for treating patients with COVID-19 with ivermectin and other effective therapies not approved by the government. They have accepted their rejection by the hierarchy-of-payment, in favor of following their consciences.
    This is what you are looking for in a doctor if you have post vaccine syndrome.
    You can look here: https://covid19criticalcare.com/providers/ You can enter your zip code and search.
    There are a lot more providers than there were in 2021 when I was still treating patients for COVID.

    Walter M.Chesnut explains how spike-protein infiltrating the blood vessel lining in the brain leads to inflammation of neuronal structures in the brain.
    A Lethal Beacon: Spike Protein Endothelial Disease is also Spike Protein Neuron Disease
    The Spike Protein acts as a “Flare” causing infiltration of leukocytes via complement activation to attack infected tissue.
    I am now able to present a hypothesis which unites the Spike Protein’s attack on the endothelium (which I have called Spike Protein Endothelial Disease) with its neurodegenerative effects. I will show how they are one and the same…
    ..I will research this further, but I believe this is a significant breakthrough.
    Is what we are observing just Autoimmune? Or, is it the Spike telling the body to attack itself? Or, is it both?https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/a-lethal-beacon-spike-protein-endothelial?

    #136092
    John Day
    Participant

    Jessica Rose Ph.D. “IgG4 Antibodies Induced by Repeated Vaccination May Generate Immune Tolerance to the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein”
    Please refer to the newly published paper entitled: “IgG4 Antibodies Induced by Repeated Vaccination May Generate Immune Tolerance to the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein” https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/11/5/991 published in Vaccines on May 17, 2023.
    The paper has remarkable findings and concludes that:
    Increased IgG4 synthesis due to repeated mRNA vaccination with high antigen concentrations may also cause autoimmune diseases, and promote cancer growth and autoimmune myocarditis in susceptible individuals.
    Promote cancer growth eh? Hmm. Didn’t someone write this up recently and get a lot a flack for it? …
    Oh yeah! That was Unacceptable Jessica.
    This newest paper provides even more evidence to support the claim that the shift to the IgG4 subtype seen in the context of the COVID mRNA shots promotes cancer by immune evasion techniques.
    https://jessicar.substack.com/p/igg4-antibodies-induced-by-repeated

    Kiev Rocked as New Satellite Photos Prove Patriot Destruction
    Russia launched a massive drone attack on all regions of Ukraine. It has been called by at least one source as the single largest drone attack of the entire SMO thus far, causing many people to speculate that Russia must now be producing Geran-2 drones at exponential rates as they have been using them at tremendous volumes of late. Every region has been hit and something very anomalous occurred in the capital city of Kiev.
    A huge explosion shook homes in the region, that at least one source says registered as a magnitude 3.4 on the Richter scale, and some experts estimated to be equivalent to at least a 100 ton ammo explosion…
    https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-52923-kiev-rocked-as-new-satellite

    Moon of Alabama has more, including this, another deep underground command center destroyed by hypersonic Kinzhal missile:
    President Putin seemed to confirm that today’s attack on a ‘central decision-making points’ hit the headquarter of military intelligence in Kiev:
    Mark Sleboda @MarkSleboda1 – 13:28 UTC · May 30, 2023
    Putin confirms recent Russian missile strike on Kiev regime military intelligence, under Budanov, which had claimed credit for several recent assassinations & terrorist bombings of civilians in Russia.
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/05/drones-strikes-in-moscow-missile-strikes-in-ukraine-.html#more

    The next global pandemic?
    Russia Claims They Collected Evidence of Avian Flu Pathogens with Lethality Rate up to 40% in Humans at US Biolab in Ukraine

    Russia Claims They Collected Evidence of Avian Flu Pathogens with Lethality Rate up to 40% in Humans at US Biolab in Ukraine

    #136093
    John Day
    Participant

    “Obstructionist And Unacceptable”: House GOP To Hold FBI Director In Contempt Of Congress
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/obstructionist-and-unacceptable-house-gop-hold-fbi-director-contempt-congress

    The EU’s Ministry of Truth Threatens Google, Twitter, and Facebook , Mish Shedlock
    The EU’s Thierry Breton tells US Big Tech corporations that he’s “The Enforcer” against disinformation.
    “It’s a voluntary basis, so we don’t force anyone” to join the code of practice on disinformation, Breton said. “I just reminded (Musk and Twitter) that by August 25, it will become a legal obligation to fight disinformation.”
    https://mishtalk.com/economics/the-eus-ministry-of-truth-threatens-google-twitter-and-facebook

    Meryl Nass MD, EU Issues Warning After Elon Musk Pulls Twitter Out of Anti-‘Disinformation’ Agreement
    What is disinformation? It used to be true information that the DHS claimed was misleading. Now it has been redefined to encompass misinformation (false information) too. But it is a slippery concept, because we have a First Amendment right to free speech: we can say whatever we want to say. It does not have to be 100% accurate. And if that speech is occurring in Washington, DC you can be sure it is never 100% accurate.
    Because of that First Amendment, the DHS’ Disinformation Governance Board headed by Mary Poppins-wannabe Nina Jankowicz was shut down last year.
    It turned out that the USG was helming a massive censorship operation on the US (and world) involving at least 12 federal agencies and dozens of nonprofits, universities, for-profit companies, for many billions a year.
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/eu-issues-warning-after-elon-musk

    WTF Happened in 1971? Thanks Christine. 76 graphs pivot around 1971 in various ways. Worker’s wages suddenly stagnated, never to rise in synch with productivity again. US (conventional) oil production peaked (as predicted). Nixon was forced to default on gold-backing of the $US, and soon after, in 1973, he and Kissinger negotiated the Petro-Dollar arrangement with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia.
    I remember 1971 as the year that everything started getting worse.

    WTF Happened in 1971?

    #136095
    Alexander Carpenter
    Participant

    OK, wtf did happen in 1971?
    In 25 words or less, and then as many as you need…

    #136109
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ Alexander Carpenter
    OK, wtf did happen in 1971?
    In 25 words or less, and then as many as you need…

    Same as now.
    Didn’t read, didn’t see, didn’t understand, and ignored the signs/trends that change was happening

    I already said :
    “The beginning of my “make more money or spend less”, if you wanted a middle class lifestyle.”

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