Jul 192023
 
 July 19, 2023  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Mick Jagger letter to Andy Warhol 1969

 

Gen. Milley: Counteroffensive ‘Far From A Failure’ (RT)
Gen. Milley Explains F-16 Delay For Ukraine (RT)
Failure Of Counteroffensive May Lead To West’s ‘Devastating Defeat’ (TASS)
US Pressuring Ukraine For ‘Decisive Breakthrough’ – WaPo (RT)
A Bonfire of the Vanities (Alastair Crooke)
Zelensky Becoming ‘Toxic’ To The West – Zakharova (RT)
London’s New Sanctions Seen as Display Of Blatant Hypocrisy – Zakharova (TASS)
NATO To Quadruple Presence In Bulgaria (RT)
Kissinger Warns US And China Against Conflict (RT)
Arresting Putin Would Be ‘Declaration Of War’ – South African President (RT)
End Of Grain Deal Won’t Cause Food Crisis Thanks To Russia’s Supplies (TASS)
European Parliament Wants ICC Arrest Warrant For Lukashenko (TASS)
Trump Says He Is About To Be Arrested Again (Az.)
Feds Seize Trump Advisors’ Phones In Jan 6 Investigation (PM)
Pentagon Wanted To Test Unregistered Medicines On Africans – Russia (TASS)

 

 

 

 

J6
https://twitter.com/i/status/1681304499368136704

 

 

 

 

Ritter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..the element that does the best in terms of sustainment will probably have the advantage at the end of the day.”

What does that even mean?

Gen. Milley: Counteroffensive ‘Far From A Failure’ (RT)

America’s top-ranking general isn’t ready to concede failure by Ukrainian forces in their counteroffensive against stiff Russian defenses, saying he has expected all along for the operation to be bloody and drag on for a long time. “They’re in the early stages, and it’s far too early to make any definitive assessments,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told reporters on Tuesday after meeting with European allies in Brussels. “I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go, and I’ll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be bloody,” he added. Kiev launched its long-delayed counteroffensive in the Donbass region last month. Ukrainian forces have failed to breach Russia’s defensive lines.

As of last week, they had lost over 26,000 troops and hundreds of armored vehicles, including Western-supplied tanks, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The New York Times reported on Saturday that after losing up to 20% of the weaponry deployed in the counteroffensive in just two weeks, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had paused the operation to shore up ammunition. Asked whether the counteroffensive had been a defeat so far, Milley said, “It is far from a failure. I think that it’s way too early to make that kind of call.” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin agreed, saying, “This will continue to be a tough fight, as we anticipated, and I believe that the element that does the best in terms of sustainment will probably have the advantage at the end of the day.”

Milley claimed that Ukraine’s military is making “steady progress,” but with hundreds of thousands of Russian troops deployed in defensive positions, “this is a very difficult fight. It is a very violent fight, and it will likely take a considerable amount of time at a high cost.” US President Joe Biden’s administration has vowed to continue providing billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry as long as it takes for Ukraine to defeat Russia. Critics of that policy, including Republican lawmakers, have argued that Washington is waging a proxy war with Russia and prolonging the bloodshed for the Ukrainian people.

Read more …

No troops, no weapons, no ammo … and no planes.

Gen. Milley Explains F-16 Delay For Ukraine (RT)

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley has said Washington is simply unable to provide enough F-16 fighter jets to assist Ukraine’s counteroffensive, citing the time and money needed to supply the weapons. Asked why Ukraine has not received the American fighters during a Tuesday press briefing, Milley said the focus should instead be on artillery and air defenses, as F-16s will not be feasible in the near-term. “Just do a quick math drill here. Ten F-16s are $2 billion,” he said. “The Russians have hundreds of fourth- and fifth-generation airframes, so if they’re going to try to match the Russians one for one – or even, you know, two-to-one – you’re talking about a large number of aircraft.”

The general said it would take “years” to train Ukrainian pilots, “do the maintenance and sustainment” operations required, and “generate that degree of financial support,” adding “You’re talking way more billions of dollars than has already been generated.” While US officials previously said Ukrainian airmen would be instructed to operate the F-16 through an international coalition seeking to help Kiev obtain the jet, Washington has yet to grant formal approval to European countries slated to carry out the training, Politico reported last week. The State Department is supposed to authorize the transfer of instruction manuals, flight simulators and other materials required for the training, but has yet to do so, with Pentagon spokesman Garron Garn noting that the requests are “still being reviewed.”

Kiev has repeatedly urged its Western backers to provide it with additional airpower, demanding the F-16 specifically on several occasions. Though Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said Ukraine could deploy its first F-16s by late March 2024, it is unclear what Milley’s comments could mean for that timetable. Ukraine’s much-awaited counter-offensive kicked off in June, but has slowed in the face of powerful Russian fortifications. According to Politico, some senior US officials believe that future support for Ukraine will depend on the success of the operation, though Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has blamed delays in Western military aid for the lagging campaign.

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“The Kiev government, backed by the West, may be forced to agree to make territorial concessions to Russia, which would mean their “devastating defeat..”

Failure Of Counteroffensive May Lead To West’s ‘Devastating Defeat’ (TASS)

The Kiev government, backed by the West, may be forced to agree to make territorial concessions to Russia, which would mean their “devastating defeat,” an expert of the London-based Civitas think tank, Robert Clark, wrote in an opinion piece for The Daily Telegraph. “If Kiev fails in its battlefield endeavors to split that land bridge, and retake much of its own territory by winter, then vocal calls of territorial concessions for marginal political outcomes will likely become far more prevalent – not just in Ukraine but likely from western capitals, as so-called “war-fatigue” begins to bite, international stockpiles of equipment and ammunition wither and politicians begin to worry about domestic budgets ahead of national elections,” Clark said, adding that “governments across the west must be prepared for the grim prospect of territorial concessions.”

In his opinion, the “long-planned counter-offensive, now in its second month, has run into several problems – not least that Kiev is still waiting for approximately half of the western military equipment promised earlier in the year.” “It is incredibly tough going for the Ukrainians,” the expert continued. “This grueling endeavor was always going to take longer than the occasionally impatient international audience was prepared to wait for.” The analyst added that “the variable that isn’t on their [Ukrainian] side is time.”

“The fighting will begin to grind to a cold halt as the freezing winter saps troops’ ability to conduct high-intensity warfare. This will only give Russia more time to further build up its defences, as it did last winter,” Clark wrote. “By this point in the West, meanwhile, all eyes will be on the upcoming US election, with more political attention diverted by the UK’s general election. Kiev knows it has a shortened window of opportunity to capitalize on its battlefield initiative and take back as much ground as it can.”

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Not going to happen.

US Pressuring Ukraine For ‘Decisive Breakthrough’ – WaPo (RT)

US officials are reportedly concerned that Ukraine is not making enough progress in its much-lauded counteroffensive, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday citing anonymous sources. According to the outlet, Washington is urging Kiev to commit to a decisive breakthrough as Ukrainian commanders have yet to employ the large-scale offensive tactics they were taught by Western instructors. An unnamed US official explained to the Washington Post that the West had trained Ukrainian forces in integrated offensive maneuvers, as well as provided mine-clearing equipment, and stressed that it was “paramount” that Kiev’s troops quickly apply those capabilities to breach Russia’s defenses.

Western officials have reportedly criticized Ukraine’s military for embracing an attrition-based approach aimed at firing artillery and missiles at command, transport and logistics sites at the rear of Russian positions instead of using Western-style “combined arms” operations that involve large-scale maneuvers featuring tanks, armored vehicles, infantry, artillery, and air power, the outlet said. Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War have pointed out that Ukrainian commanders have chosen to embrace more low-profile advances involving groups of 15 to 50 soldiers in order to preserve manpower. The Washington Post also noted that Kiev has so far only fielded “four of a dozen trained brigades in the current campaign.”

Kiev’s attempts to breach Russian defenses have so far been met with “overwhelming artillery, anti tank missiles, loitering munitions and helicopter fire” which have caused significant losses. Russia’s extensive use of drones has also presented a challenge that “not even American forces – for all their combat experience in recent decades – have faced on this scale,” the Post said. Experts have said that while advances on foot would likely reduce the attrition sustained by the Ukrainian army, such tactics would be much slower and be much less likely to provide an opportunity for a rapid breakthrough.

Ukrainian officials, in turn, have rebuked demands from their Western counterparts to speed up the operation and have instead stressed the need to avoid unnecessary losses and complained about the lack of air support. Kiev has repeatedly pleaded with its Western backers provide its forces with US-designed F-16 fighter jets, arguing that they would play a key role in countering Russian air power. Western officials, however, have reportedly insisted that the jets would not be a “game changer,” while Russia has responded by saying the aircraft would be destroyed like any other foreign military equipment in Ukraine.

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“..Moscow wants the present Kiev collective gone, and NATO’s weapons off the battle field..”

A Bonfire of the Vanities (Alastair Crooke)

Ukraine: How do you win an unwinnable war? Well, the élite answer has been through narrative. By insisting against reality that Ukraine is winning, and Russia is ‘cracking’. But such hubris eventually is busted by facts on the ground. Even the western ruling classes can see their demand for a successful Ukrainian offensive has flopped. At the end, military facts are more powerful than political waffle: One side is destroyed, its many dead become the tragic ‘agency’ to upending dogma. “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met … [however] unless Ukraine wins this war, there’s no membership issue to be discussed at all” – Jens Stoltenberg’s statement at Vilnius.

Thus, after urging Kiev to throw more (hundreds of thousands) of its men into the jaws of death to justify NATO membership, the latter turns its back on its protégé. It was, after all, an unwinnable war from the beginning. The hubris, at one level, lay in NATO’s pitting of its alleged ‘superior’ military doctrine and weapons versus that of a deprecated, Soviet-style, hide-bound, Russian military rigidity – and ‘incompetence’. But military facts on the ground have exposed the western doctrine as hubris – with Ukrainian forces decimated, and its NATO weaponry lying in smoking ruins. It was NATO that insisted on re-enacting the Battle of 73 Easting (from the Iraqi desert, but now translated into Ukraine).

In Iraq, the ‘armoured fist’ punched easily into Iraqi tank formations: It was indeed a thrusting ‘fist’ that knocked the Iraqi opposition ‘for six’. But, as the U.S. commander at that tank battle (Colonel Macgregor), frankly admits, its outcome against a de-motivated opposition largely was fortuitous. Nonetheless ‘73 Easting’ is a NATO myth, turned into the general doctrine for the Ukrainian forces – a doctrine structured around Iraq’s unique circumstance. The hubris – in line with the Daily Telegraph video – however, ascends vertically to impose the unitary narrative of a coming western ‘win’ onto the Russian political sphere too. It is an old, old story that Russia is military weak, politically fragile, and prone to fissure. Conor Gallagher has shown with ample quotes that it was exactly the same story in World War 2, reflecting a similar western underestimation of Russia – combined with a gross overestimation of their own capabilities.

The fundamental problem with ‘delusion’ is that the exit from it (if it occurs at all) moves at a much slower pace than events. The mismatch can define future outcomes. It may be in the Team Biden interest now to oversee an orderly NATO withdrawal from Ukraine – such that it avoids becoming another Kabul debacle. For that to happen, Team Biden needs Russia to accept a ceasefire. And here lies the (the largely overlooked) flaw to that strategy: It simply is not in the Russian interest to ‘freeze’ the situation. Again, the assumption that Putin would ‘jump’ at the western offer of a ceasefire is hubristic thinking: The two adversaries are not frozen in the basic meaning of the term – as in a conflict in which neither side has been able to prevail over the other, and are stuck.

Put simply, whereas Ukraine structurally hovers at the brink of implosion, Russia, by contrast, is fully plenipotent: It has large, fresh forces; it dominates the airspace; and has near domination of the electromagnetic airspace. But the more fundamental objection to a ceasefire is that Moscow wants the present Kiev collective gone, and NATO’s weapons off the battle field.

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“The White House has publicly disavowed attacks carried out by the Kiev regime, drawing a dividing line between arms sales and terrorist attacks..”

Zelensky Becoming ‘Toxic’ To The West – Zakharova (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has become “toxic” to the collective West, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. The White House has “publicly disavowed” the new Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Crimean Bridge, she pointed out on Tuesday. “The White House has publicly disavowed attacks carried out by the Kiev regime, drawing a dividing line between arms sales and terrorist attacks. This is, of course, just another manipulation. But something else is important – Zelensky has become toxic to the West,” Zakharova wrote in a Telegram post. The remarks apparently came in response to statements made by US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby on Monday.

The official insisted the White House was “not in a position to attribute the attack to any particular party at this point,” refusing to confirm the attack on the strategic bridge was launched by Kiev. Moreover, Kirby noted the attack on the structure had hardly impacted Russia’s military capabilities and was not expected to have a “dramatic effect” on them in the long run. “I think it’s just too soon to know whether that attack on that bridge is going to have any significant military impact on their ability to continue to fight this war,” he said, adding that “the Russians have many, many, many other ways of providing logistics and sustainment to their troops in Ukraine.” The Crimean Bridge, linking the peninsula – which broke away from Ukraine back in 2014 and joined Russia after a referendum – to the country’s mainland was attacked early on Monday.

An early assessment of the incident indicated that it was targeted by two sea drones launched by Kiev, Russian investigators have said. The attack left the road section of the bridge heavily damaged, while a Russian couple was killed in their vehicle. Their now-orphaned 14-year-old daughter was seriously injured in the blast. Russian leadership, including President Vladimir Putin, has squarely described the incident as a “terrorist attack” launched by the “Kiev regime” on a civilian installation. The bridge was first targeted by Ukraine last October, when a truck packed with explosives was detonated on it. The blast heavily damaged both road and railway sections of the bridge, prompting a large-scale repair effort, which has been completed since then.

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“..which has become a hallmark of the British foreign policy..”

London’s New Sanctions Seen as Display Of Blatant Hypocrisy – Zakharova (TASS)

London’s new sanctions against Russian nationals and organizations are nothing but a show of blatant hypocrisy, something that has become a hallmark of London’s foreign policy, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday. “We consider London’s openly hostile actions as new manifestations of unabashed hypocrisy, which has become a hallmark of the British foreign policy,” she noted. According to Zakharova, no “sanctions convulsions” can help London force Russia to change its sovereign course. “The task and goals of the special military operation will be fully attained,” she stressed.

“Demonstrating fake ‘concern for children,’ it [London] continues to demonstrate unparalleled cynicism and supply deadly weapons to the Kiev regime, which uses them against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Donbass, the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, in the Republic of Crimea and other Russian regions. British shells and missiles kill, cripple and orphan children it allegedly ‘defends.’ It makes London a co-perpetrator of this and other crimes of the Kiev regime and it will not escape responsibility,” she stressed. The UK Foreign Office on Monday announced sanctions on 13 Russian nationals and the Artek international children’s center in Crimea. The restrictions that include an entry ban and asset freeze cover Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov, Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova, Kamchatka Region Governor Vladimir Solodov, Adygeya Republic Governor Murat Kumpilov, and the head of the Kharkov Region’s military-civilian administration, Vitaly Ganchev.

According to the Foreign Office, the sanctioned individuals, including the Moscow Region children’s ombudsperson Ksenia Mishonova; the Donetsk People’s Republic human rights ombudsperson Darya Morozova; adviser on children’s rights to the DPR’s head Eleonora Fedorenko; and the head of staff of the Sevastopol office of the Young Army Cadets National Movement, Vladimir Kovalenko, contributed to the alleged deportation of Ukrainian children. Russian President Vladimir Putin said at talks with African leaders on June 17 that the Russian government had acted absolutely legally when it evacuated children from the conflict zone in Ukraine and had never objected to their reunification with their families.

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“The US-led bloc plans to dramatically expand its 40,000-strong Response Force (NRF) to over 300,000 troops..”

But they don’t have the troops… It’ll take years…

NATO To Quadruple Presence In Bulgaria (RT)

The US-led military bloc plans to send thousands of troops to Bulgaria, Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov said on Tuesday. The move would expand the battalion-size task force currently stationed in the Balkans country to a reinforced brigade. NATO will increase the bloc’s troop presence in Bulgaria four-fold, with a “powerful brigade” made up of well-trained units from multiple NATO countries, Denkov was quoted as saying by the Serbian newspaper Politika. “The plan is for the multinational battle group on our territory to be reinforced up to brigade level,” said Defense Minister Todor Tagarev. He added that Bulgaria will endeavor to have the brigade at full strength, meaning at around 5,000 troops, and that the government in Sofia needs to build the logistics and infrastructure to make that possible.

The battalion-sized task force currently in Bulgaria is made up of troops from several NATO member states. Around 700 are from Italy, which has operational command of the unit. The UK sent a company from the Royal Irish Regiment, while Greece has deployed an anti-tank platoon. Soldiers from Türkiye, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania are also part of the force, outfitted with US-made Stryker armored vehicles. Upgrading this force is part of NATO’s plan for a massive military build-up in eastern Europe, announced last week at the summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. The US-led bloc plans to dramatically expand its 40,000-strong Response Force (NRF) to over 300,000 troops, citing the supposed danger from Russia and the Ukraine conflict. The battalion in Bulgaria was actually announced in late 2021, prior to the escalation of hostilities in Ukraine, as part of the NATO build-up in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia to match the increased presence in Poland and the Baltic states.

The parliament in Sofia approved its creation in late January 2022, though it was initially supposed to be a Bulgarian formation – but NATO made it an Italian-led project the following month. France was given the lead in the neighboring Romania. All battle groups are ultimately under the authority of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), currently US Army General Christopher Cavoli. Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004, as part of the bloc’s march eastward that Moscow has repeatedly condemned as a security threat and a breach of promises made at the end of the Cold War. Last week, Sofia announced it would send 100 armored vehicles to Ukraine, while hoping to get replacements from the US. Denkov’s cabinet made the decision against the recommendations of President Rumen Radev, who has favored negotiations over supplying Kiev with weapons.

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Kissinger as the peace apostle. What’s next?

Kissinger Warns US And China Against Conflict (RT)

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has called for Washington and Beijing to find a way to coexist peacefully. The 100-year-old diplomat traveled to China to meet with Defense Minister Li Shangfu on Tuesday. “The United States and China should eliminate misunderstandings, coexist peacefully and avoid confrontation. History and practice have continually proved that neither the United States nor China can afford to treat the other as an adversary,” the Xinhua news agency quoted Kissinger as saying after the meeting. Kissinger urged both sides to “be wise” and work together, making every effort to improve relations and “and maintain peace and stability throughout the world.”

Li described the relations between China and the US as “hovering at a low point since the establishment of diplomatic relations” because “some people on the US side have failed to move in the same direction as the Chinese side.” China remains committed to “building stable, predictable and constructive” relations with the US along the lines of President Xi Jinping’s “three principles” formula of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation, Li said. Kissinger, who recently turned 100, served as secretary of state (1973-1977) and national security advisor (1969-1975) to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He played a major role in the talks to end the Vietnam War, as well as the normalization of relations with Beijing in the 1970s, with an eye to pitting China against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

His trip to Beijing follows visits by several senior US officials, from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. President Joe Biden’s administration has repeatedly said it does not seek “confrontation” with China, while sending weapons to the disputed island of Taiwan and strengthening military alliances in the Asia-Pacific with Australia, Japan, and South Korea. Last week at the summit in Vilnius, NATO accused China of pursuing “coercive policies” that somehow threatened the US-led bloc’s interests all the way in Europe. Beijing has denounced the NATO statement as “slander” and a “smear,” accusing the bloc of remaining trapped in a Cold War mentality.

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Is Putin playing around with this?

Arresting Putin Would Be ‘Declaration Of War’ – South African President (RT)

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that executing an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin when the Russian leader attends the BRICS summit next month in Johannesburg would amount to a “declaration of war” against Moscow. “Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting president would be a declaration of war,” Ramaphosa said in a court filing released on Tuesday. “It would be inconsistent with our constitution to risk engaging in war with Russia.” He added that such a move would also fail his duty to protect South Africa. As an ICC member, South Africa is required to abide by the court’s orders, including the March ruling to arrest Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

However, the country also is the hosting member of this year’s BRICS summit, and it has sought to maintain good relations with Russia. Ramaphosa has resisted US pressure to condemn Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, maintaining neutrality on the issue, and has suggested that NATO’s eastward expansion helped trigger the crisis. South Africa’s leading opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), demanded that the government arrest Putin and turn him over to the ICC if he sets foot in the country. Ramaphosa’s affidavit came in response to a legal challenge by the DA, which sought to force the president’s hand. Pretoria is seeking an exemption from its obligation under the ICC warrant because arresting Putin could jeopardize the “security, peace and order of the state,” Ramaphosa said.

His deputy, Paul Mashatile, has reportedly asked the Russian president not to attend the summit. The Kremlin said on Friday that Putin hadn’t decided whether he would attend the meeting in person or participate remotely. Heads of state for other BRICS members, including China, Brazil and India, are expected to attend. The ICC accused Putin and the Russian commissioner for children’s rights of “forcible transfer of the population” over the evacuation of minors from the combat zone in Ukraine. Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the court, and the Kremlin has said that the ICC has no authority.

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Russia gives away the grain to the poorest countries, and Kiev misses the revenues.

End Of Grain Deal Won’t Cause Food Crisis Thanks To Russia’s Supplies (TASS)

The suspension of the grain deal will not lead to a food crisis and an increase in grain prices thanks to sufficient supplies from Russia, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera notes on Tuesday adding that grain exports from Russia are close to all time high. According to the newspaper, Russia supplies a large amount of grain to the market at reduced prices, which contributes to a decrease in global prices, so the rise in food prices that was observed a year ago has ended. For this reason, the forecast of “food apocalypse” is wrong, the newspaper notes. The publication also reminds that African countries are not the main recipients of Ukrainian grain.


The grain deal came to an end on July 17. Russia refused to extend it again because the part of the deal envisaging the removal of obstacles for Russian agricultural exports had not been implemented. Apart from that, Moscow has repeatedly stressed that the bulk of grain that was meant to be supplied to the poorest counties was shipped to Western countries. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow was ready to resurrect the deal but only after its part related to obligations to Moscow was fulfilled.

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“A large portion of the report is titled “Fears over Russia’s subordination of Belarus.”

“The entire history of European integration and the European Union [..] is a history of gradual submission of authority of EU states to the EU’s supranational institutions.”

European Parliament Wants ICC Arrest Warrant For Lukashenko (TASS)

The European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) approved a report on the situation in Belarus Tuesday, calling on EU countries and institutions to seek an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for his involvement in the evacuation of children from the combat area in Ukraine. The Committee refers to accusations made earlier against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova. “Belarus is responsible for damage caused to and crimes committed in Ukraine, MEPs point out, including through the regime’s role in the illegal transfer of children [from the combat area – TASS].

The report therefore calls on the EU institutions and member states to take all necessary steps at the international level to enable the criminal prosecution of those Belarusian political and military leaders responsible for crimes against humanity and genocide. With the International Criminal Court (ICC) already having issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, MEPs call on the ICC to consider a similar arrest warrant for [Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko],” the press release reads. A large portion of the report is titled “Fears over Russia’s subordination of Belarus.”

The report noted that “MEPs note with great concern the rampant political, economic, military and cultural subordination of Belarus to Moscow, rendering the country a de-facto satellite state that also hosts tactical nuclear weapons under Russian command.” In this regard, the European Parliament calls on EU states and institutions “not to recognize any agreements made by the Lukashenko regime and Russia that cede the country’s sovereignty against the will of the Belarusian people.” The entire history of European integration and the European Union, starting with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952, is a history of gradual submission of authority of EU states to the EU’s supranational institutions. US B-61 tactical nuclear aviation bombs have been permanently deployed in four non-nuclear EU states – Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands – since the Cold War.

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Out of hand.

Trump Says He Is About To Be Arrested Again (Az.)

Former US President Donald Trump revealed Tuesday that his attorneys had informed him he is a target of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot — and that he is prepared for “an Arrest and Indictment” in the case, Report informs via the New York Post. Trump, 77, is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and decried what he called a “WITCH HUNT” and “ELECTION INTERFERENCE” on his Truth Social platform.


“WOW! On Sunday night, while I was with my family, having just arrived from the Turning Point event in Florida, where I won the Straw Poll against all other Republican candidates with 85.7%, with all polls showing me leading in the Republican Primary by very substantial numbers, almost everyone predicting that I will be the Republican Nominee for President, and as I am leading Democrat Joe Biden in the polls by a lot, HORRIFYING NEWS for our Country was given to me by my attorneys,” Trump wrote. “Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.”

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Creepy and scary.

Feds Seize Trump Advisors’ Phones In Jan 6 Investigation (PM)

Federal investigators have reportedly seized the phones of advisors to 2024 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump as part of an investigation into the events of January 6, 2021. According to the New York Times, the phones of Boris Epshteyn, described as “an in-house counsel who helps coordinate Mr. Trump’s legal efforts,” and campaign strategist Mike Roman, who was director of Election Day operations for Trump’s campaign in 2020. The phones of John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark were also seized. Clark’s phone was seized as part of an investigation into alternate electors. The action comes as Trump revealed on Tuesday morning that he had received a letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith on Sunday night stating that he is “a target of the January 6th grand jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.”

“So now, Joe Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, who I turned down for the United States Supreme Court (in retrospect, based on his corrupt and unethical actions, a very wise decision!), together with Joe Biden’s Department of Injustice, have effectively issued a third indictment and arrest of Joe Biden’s number one political opponent, who is largely dominating him in the race for the presidency.” The potential for another indictment comes as Trump faced arraignment in Miami last month after the Biden DOJ claimed that he improperly retained documents after the end of his presidency despite being covered under the Presidential Records Act. Trump has also been arraigned in Manhattan by DA Alvin Bragg, who charged the Republican with felony counts of falsifying business records.

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Metabiota. Hunter Biden. Say no more. + Ukraine biolabs.

Pentagon Wanted To Test Unregistered Medicines On Africans – Russia (TASS)

The Pentagon planned to use its biolaboratories in Africa to test unregistered medicines on the local population, Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said on Tuesday. According to Kirillov, documents that were found in Ukraine indicate that the Pentagon planned to use the US army to test unregistered medical drugs on the local population and then submit them for approval by supervisory authorities “in the interests of the so-called big pharma.” For these ends, it was planned to use its biolaboratories and facilitating agencies, such as Metabiota. “Take note of Metabiota’s commercial offer marked ‘confidential,’ which was found among documents at one of the biolaboratories in Ukraine.

The offer is addressed to the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and concerns training of specialists in infectious diseases in Kenya and Uganda. The document demonstrates that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) and the Department of Homeland Security were involved in the study of pathogens in African countries, while the US Agency for International Development and a number of European Union structures were engaged to make these activities look like ‘humanitarian cooperation,’” he said at a briefing on the analysis of documents concerning the United States’ military biological activities.

Apart from that, in his words, evidence was found showing that Metabiota had been involved in the study of the H7N9 bird flu virus and that it had played a leading role in the implementation of the Predict project for the study of new coronavirus types, under which their carriers – bats – had been caught. “We have repeatedly pointed to the company’s ties with the son of the US incumbent president, Hunter Biden, and government organizations. Notably, Metabiota’s representatives admit that as a matter of fact they are establishing ties to ensure the Pentagon and other American agencies’ work abroad,” Kirillov added. He also said that Ukraine’s Science and Technology Center and other Pentagon contractors were taking an active part in these activities.

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Home Forums Debt Rattle July 19 2023

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  • #139371

    Mick Jagger letter to Andy Warhol 1969   • Gen. Milley: Counteroffensive ‘Far From A Failure’ (RT) • Gen. Milley Explains F-16 Delay For Ukraine
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle July 19 2023]

    #139372
    Red
    Participant

    The way we live next
    Posted on July 18, 2023
    REFLECTIONS ON THE REAL ECONOMY
    “Simultaneous harvest failures across major crop-producing regions are a threat to global food security”, according to a new report published by Nature. The technical jargon here references a “meandering jet stream” but, for non-specialists, what this means is that we can no longer rely on worse-than-average crop conditions in some places being cancelled out by better-than-average conditions in others.
    Commenting on this in The Guardian, George Monbiot says that only five stories about this have appeared in the global media, which he contrasts with “more than 10,000 stories this year about Phillip Schofield, the British television presenter who resigned over an affair with a younger colleague”.
    “In mediaworld, a place that should never be confused with the real world, celebrity gossip is thousands of times more important than existential risk”, says Monbiot.
    This is a conundrum that affects issues beyond climate change, critically important though this obviously is. We can imagine busy people, with lives to lead and issues to confront, switching off in droves when the media turns to economics.
    Moreover, they’re right to do this, if all that’s being presented to them is an outdated, fallacious doctrine which promises infinite growth on a finite planet, and claims that there’s a financial fix for every economic ill.
    If it’s difficult for people to find time to think about a real issue like climate change, how can we expect them to take an interest in nonsense about infinite growth and the cure-all characteristics of money?
    I’m writing this as the Surplus Energy Economics project closes in on its tenth anniversary.
    To be candid about it, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do next, but I can tell you my immediate plan.
    This is the first of two planned articles to appear here. The second will try to sum up what I think we now know about the economy, understood as an energy system.
    Here, I’m going to reflect on some of the implications that we can draw from what we know about the economy.

    Of reality and perception
    There are, of course, two ways in which we might explain the disparity of coverage between hard and important scientific news and the doings of people in the “mediaworld”. One is that ‘the powers that be’ who control the world’s media don’t want us to hear about – or worry and get angry about – threats to global food security.
    The other is that the general public is simply more interested in stories about ‘slebs’ than in the complicated science and gloomy prognostications of the experts, and the media have a commercial interest in covering those stories which attract the greatest attention.
    As I’m writing this, Southern Europe is in the grip of a searing heatwave, with similar conditions occurring in the United States and China. The media have a choice about how they present this news. They can show images of people suffering from extreme heat in Rome, Athens or Malaga, or they can delve into the back-story of climate change. Some media opt for the latter, but far more choose the former.
    Climate science does at least have aspects that can interest the general public, who are able to experience heatwaves and flooding at first-hand, as well as seeing images of these and other phenomena.
    Economics has no such appeal. The so-called “gloomy science” is indeed gloomy more often than not, but it can’t remotely be called a “science”. Once we understand the concept of two economies – the “real economy” of products and services, and the parallel “financial economy” of money and credit – it becomes apparent that the so-called “laws” of economics are no more than behavioural observations about the human artefact of money, and are in no way analogous to the laws of science.
    Orthodox economics has always promised infinite growth, an absurdity which, at least until recently, has appeared to be true, simply because we’ve been continually ramping up the use of fossil fuels. Last year, we consumed 42% more oil, natural gas and coal – and 50% more primary energy in total – than we did back in 2002. No wonder economic output has increased over that period (though a real-terms tripling of debt between those same years ought to give us serious pause for thought).
    The general public seems to have been becoming aware that meaningful improvement in their own economic conditions has petered out, a process characterised, for many of them, by worsening insecurity, ever-growing burdens of debt and other commitments and, latterly, the combination of surging inflation and sharply rising interest rates.
    Yet officialdom, supported by economists and reported in the media, keeps insisting that “growth” is continuing.
    For many, the understandable suspicion is that, in reality, growth may indeed be continuing as the experts claim, but that they’re not benefiting because a greedy, unprincipled minority is cornering all and more of the growth in which ‘ordinary’ people do not participate. Inequality statistics strongly reinforce such suspicions.
    Small wonder, then, that, in a recent British opinion poll, 38% agreed that “the world is controlled by a secretive elite”, outnumbering the 33% who disagreed. It seems a reasonable supposition that such suspicions are by no means unique to the United Kingdom, and would have been far less pronounced, there or elsewhere, had equivalent polling been conducted thirty, twenty or even ten years ago.
    We cannot know whether these suspicions are well grounded, and it’s worth remembering that different elites in different countries could respond to the same issues in the same ways without a necessity for co-ordination. Moreover, if this un-co-ordinated process did happen, its effects on the experiences of ordinary people would be much the same as if central plotting did exist.
    We can’t, then, know whether the conspiracy theorists are right or not – but we can conclude that ever-increasing numbers of people suspect that they are.

    At the end of growth
    The reality of the situation is both simpler and more disconcerting. The proper target of popular suspicion should be anyone, including but not limited to politicians, who promises them economic growth in perpetuity.
    The “hoax” that we’ve been subjected to isn’t climate change, for which there’s compelling scientific evidence, but the continuity of “growth”, which, consciously or not, is being faked.
    Simply stated, the fossil fuel dynamic, which has powered economic expansion ever since James Watt unveiled the first really efficient steam engine in 1776, is fading out. Naturally enough, the easiest, most accessible and lowest-cost sources of fossil fuel energy were used first, and are being replaced by ever-costlier alternatives.
    This is a surprise only to those – seemingly a majority – who’ve never been prepared to recognize the obvious. The warnings set out in The Limits to Growth (LtG), published back in 1972, have been reinforced by those who have found close correlation between subsequent data and the LtG projections. Kenneth E. Boulding, co-founder of general systems theory, famously pointed out that only “a madman or an economist” would believe in the possibility of infinite, exponential economic expansion on a finite planet.
    In recent times, we’ve become aware of the environmental and ecological risks posed by reliance on carbon fuels.
    But we have yet to recognize the parallel economic threat, which is that, through relentless rises in energy costs, the fossil-based economy has deteriorated from growth, via stagnation, into contraction.
    We’re assured that a solution exists to climate hazard in the form of renewable energy, principally from wind and solar power. We’ve addressed this issue here before, but many critical questions remain unanswered in the wider world.
    Here are some of them:
    1. If transitioning to renewables is undoubtedly going to be costly – USD 130 trillion seems a reasonable estimate – what are we going to do without in order to pay for it?
    2. This sort of money equates to enormous amounts of raw materials, most obviously steel, copper, lithium, cobalt and other minerals – do they even exist in the requisite quantities, and how much environmental damage are we going to cause by mining and processing them?
    3. What source of energy are we going to use to access and utilize these raw materials, and, again, what other uses of energy are we going to relinquish in order to make this possible?

    The economics of process
    The critical issue here is the nature of the material economy itself. Essentially, the economy functions by using energy to extract raw materials and convert them into products, most of which are destined rapidly for landfill. The necessary parallel thermal process involves the conversion of energy from concentrated into diffuse forms, the latter being waste heat.
    In short, this dissipative-landfill system relies on the availability, not simply of energy itself, but of dense energy. To replace fossil fuels without suffering economic contraction, alternatives would need to match, not just the quantity of energy sourced from oil, gas and coal, but the density of these fuels as well.
    This is something that wind and solar power simply cannot do. Accordingly, a transition to renewables will truncate the dissipative process on which material production depends, the result of which will be a smaller material economy.
    This doesn’t for one moment mean that we should scale back the pursuit of sustainability, still less abandon this quest altogether. Barring some wholly new discovery in the field of energy supply, wind and solar are the best options on the table.
    The problem, rather, lies with unrealistic expectations. A “sustainable economy” may be feasible, but “sustainable growth” is not. Our lives may become cleaner, and might also become immaterially ‘better’, in a post-carbon, post-consumerist economy, but we’re also likely to be materially poorer.
    Can we handle this reality, and stop deluding ourselves that we can ‘fix’ economic contraction? How is the world reacting, or likely to react, to the ending and reversal of “growth”?
    And what, come to that, will the future economy look like?

    A future unfolds
    For large and increasing numbers of people, economic hardship has already arrived. For many, the “cost of living” has been rising more rapidly than incomes. This problem is compounded, not just by rises in the costs of mortgages and rents, but also by the debts and other financial burdens that households already carry.
    Promises that conditions will improve if people ‘just hold their nerve’ are ceasing to convince. We’re told that inflation was triggered by war in Eastern Europe, but – quite apart from the fact that inflation took off before the invasion – the immediate effects of the conflict have now dropped out of the year-on-year figures. There’s scant evidence of a wage-price spiral, but plenty of support for the concept of a margin-price effect, a phenomenon known as “greedflation”.
    As you’ll read in the companion article when it arrives, we know a great deal about the unfolding energy dynamics of the material economy. Rises in trend ECoEs – the Energy Costs of Energy – are making it ever harder to strike prices which meet the needs of producers and consumers. This makes it likely that the availability of energy will decrease, led downwards by fossil fuels.
    Analysis of prior trends makes it clear that the rate of conversion between energy and material economic value is remarkably invariable. This means that, if energy supply decreases, economic output goes into decline. At the same time, rising ECoEs are widening the gap between output and prosperity, the latter being a function of the surplus energy that remains after ECoE has been deducted.
    This has two specific consequences. The first is that, just as prosperity declines, the costs of energy-intensive necessities will carry on rising. The world’s average person is, according to the SEEDS model, going to be 10% less prosperous by 2030, and fully 27% worse off by 2040, than he or she was back in 2019.
    Rises in the real costs of essentials are likely to mean that the average person’s PXE – Prosperity eXcluding Essentials – will have fallen by 20% by 2030, and 50% by 2040.
    The outlook for discretionary (non-essential) products and services, and for those businesses and employees who provide them, is almost unrelievedly grim. The employees affected might be absorbed into a more labour-intensive economy, but this transition will undoubtedly be disruptive. This trend is already emerging, as consumers cut non-essential spending as the costs of necessities rise.
    The second implication is that the financial burdens carried by households – including mortgages, rents, credit commitments, staged-purchases and subscriptions – are going to become impossible to sustain as PXE, the equivalent of disposable incomes, contracts. The “real economy” of products and services is already 43% smaller than the “financial economy” of money and credit. We seem to be heading straight towards a cascade of defaults and a crash in asset prices.

    Tantrum time?
    How is the public, already highly suspicious of the leadership cadres in government and beyond, likely to react to a relentless deterioration in prosperity which is so strikingly at odds with so many promises of “growth”?
    I think we can get some idea by imagining a youngster returning home from school to find that all his shiny toys are being dumped into a skip. Unless he’s a remarkably philosophical child, his reactions are likely to be tantrums, outrage, grief and denial.
    The adult world seems to behave in much the same way. The ultra-rich are determined, at all costs, to hang on to the trinkets and trappings of wealth and power, irrespective of what that might mean for everyone else, or for the climate.
    But ‘ordinary people are likely to react in very similar ways. Anyone doubting this should try standing for election on a platform of ‘saving the planet’ by replacing cars with buses and trams, and restricting or prohibiting overseas flights.
    We might, collectively, want to tackle environmental and ecological hazard, but very few, whether wealthy or not, seem willing to make real sacrifices to this end.
    This could very easily become a home run, not just for conspiracy theorists but for agitators as well. There are numerous historic examples of economic hardship, particularly when allied to perceptions of unfairness, leading to social unrest.
    Governments, whose own resources face relentless compression, could try to tough this out, though history, again, suggests that this won’t work.
    A more rational course, it seems to me, would be to find out what the economic outlook is likely to be, and start to prepare the public accordingly.

    Dr Tim Morgan

    #259: The way we live next

    #139373
    tboc
    Participant

    Red,
    truth in advertising first. i consume Jesus koolaid by the drum not the glass.

    there was a time when there were words “writ in red” in the Gospels, everything aside from these passages are commentary. Western minds have been taught that a political, economic, socio hierarchy is the Church. In the United States ALL text books for primary education come from the same source. The rubric for elementary mathematics has been changed so frequently that those charged with teaching math no longer have any insight into a millenia old process. A member of my family is an elementary school teacher. The main purpose of our education process has become enforcing obeisance to heirarchy. This is not news, this is history.

    we have arrived at a point in time where those who were taught an attitude of deference or homage to authority are now “authority”. from the article you posted “A more rational course, it seems to me, would be to find out what the economic outlook is likely to be, and start to prepare the public accordingly.” Do you think that those who accepted Reaganomics or Thatcherism and were the authority figures at the time have attempted to prepare any citizen for “A more rational course”?

    do you remember when David Rockefeller stated “there is more oil now than there has ever been” and everyone in authority agreed? Do you remember when those in authority positions applauded Mr. Reagan for removing the the solar collectors from the grounds of the White House? Both of these men and their statements and actions were deemed to be “A more rational course”.

    How do you say to the citizens of the United States “ninety percent of everything you have been taught is a lie”? Do you think that any pharmacist, nurse, doctor, medical system administrator or public employee who went along with poisoning their fellow man to maintain their position of authority has the insight to “to find out what the economic outlook is likely to be”?

    i live in nothwest Florida. In the years since the coup in Ukraine a sufficient number of human beings have been murdered to depopulate northwest Florida from Bay County through Escambia County. How do you prepare citizens who do not understand “and then they came for me”?

    the citizens of the United States as a group, five years to either side of my station, make teats on a boar hog appear utilitarian. This is a group of people who still see the atomic structure of a hydrogen atom in terms of the tinker toy models they encountered in elementary school in the 1950s. “A more rational course”. Give me a rest.

    #139374
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Canadian PM Trudeau Corners Himself Between His Enthusiasm For Trans & Muslims”

    When you’re #Illogical by nature and foundation, this is no problem for you. It’s just a problem for the rest of us.
    When you’re rich and powerful, you never take the consequences of your actions, you push them off on other people. Otherwise, what’s the point of power?

    “IEA Warns of Winter NatGas Crisis If Russia Cuts Supplies”

    What the actual? Russia never cut anything. You boycotted them. Then blew up said pipeline. Then supported blowing up their country and drone-striking the Kremlin.

    “China’s Evergrande Reports $113 Billion Loss Over Two Years

    Just like FTX, we add and remove billions, trillions, from the economy in a few minutes, in a few days, and nothing happens, nothing changes. That’s how you know it’s all fake. Suppose you’ve got a big car auction. And among the 500 people there, the largest dealer in the state just disappears, gets a call, leaves the auction with all his money. Then with 20% less bidding in that auction, all the prices just stay the same? Whatever.

    “Used-Car Prices Continue Slide as Signs of Normalcy Start to Reemerge

    When money is removed, this is what happens. It returns to something like use-value, as related to income. By the way, housing value should be 3x income to be safe. It was 6x income at the ’08 top and now in some places is 10x income.

    “AI-Detectors Think The US Constitution Was Written By AI”

    Trust AI. It’s going to take over the world. Like Cisco, Nortel, Nokia, and Japan in 1989. Meanwhile, it can’t even write a paper for a courtroom without lying.

    “Pentagon Says “Significant Escalation” in Russian Jets Endangering Lives of US Pilots over Syria”

    Why are U.S. jets illegally over Syria in contradiction to all domestic and international law?

    “’Libertarian’ Reason Magazine Goes Full Pfizer-Shill, Smears RFK Jr.

    Yes, it’s basic Libertarian value to support monopoly corporations and to oppose people having opinions.

    NY REIT in over it’s head. Yes, somebody needs to take the loss. Button, button, who’s got the button?
    (A: the Taxpayer)

    No, they’ll savage these “commoner” multi-billionaires. They’re no longer big enough to matter. S—t happens.

    Milley claimed that Ukraine’s military is making “steady progress,”

    As from the Pentagon, “steady progress” in demilitarizing and making Europe collapse along with the Euro banks that had the cheek to attempt to kill Wall Street.

    “Gen. Milley Explains F-16 Delay For Ukraine (RT)

    It’s because F16s are too slow, and basically immobile. Clearly it’s not like they can just FLY somewhere, at supersonic speeds or anything. Remember Orlov’s observation that, as a light, fast, home defense plane, it hoovers up all dust and debris from less-than-perfect airports, and destroys itself. Translation: if they wanted them there, they’d all arrive in 24 hours. We have hopping bases and air refueling worldwide.

    P.S. what is Kiev (and Davos) even THINKING, fighting a war not just with lesser air power, but no air power at all? Is there anyone since 1920 who would permit that?

    “Failure Of Counteroffensive May Lead To West’s ‘Devastating Defeat’ (TASS)

    Russia has now gathered 900 tanks and thousands of men in one area. They may be screwing with them, though.

    “How do you win an unwinnable war? Well, the élite answer has been through narrative. By insisting against reality that Ukraine is winning, and Russia is ‘cracking’.”

    No, literally. They’ve written this in their White Papers. A war is now nothing but narrative. Win the Narrative, win the war. …This comes from success, that is hubris. When they discovered Bernays, (and his protege Goebbels) and the astonishing success advertising mind control can have, they kept applying it to more and more areas, with more and more successes until at last, they decided there’s nothing it can’t do. Oh lying: Is there ANYTHING you can’t do? This has led them to the All-American religious conclusion about “The Power of Positive Thinking” and manifesting “your best life now.” That it! You “Think and Grow Rich.™” So here we are. Any tool, be it a book, a laser, nuclear bombs, space ships, they all have limits. There are things they can do and not do, things they are best for and some things they are not.

    They no longer believe this. There is no challenge on the earth, anywhere, at any time, that is not conquered by Bernays, by lying and the Ritual Magic (literally) of Positive Thinking.

    So they literally think Positive thinking will defend them from rocket attacks. I.e., that is, that they’re insane. Or we WOULD all be living in a dream, a simulation, where there are no laws of physical reality even residually, and that would ruin the whole POINT of incarnation. If you want that dream-like rules, stay in the dream and spirit world. The reason to be here is that you DON’T have those rules. Reality here is unbending.

    “The fundamental problem with ‘delusion’ is that the exit from it (if it occurs at all) moves at a much slower pace than events.”

    This turns out to be the key element in war because it can’t be created or removed: Time. We COULD have tanks, but it takes too much Time. And clearly we’ve moved that problem from Soviets making 40 tanks and us making 45, off to Ludicrous Speed. Russia makes 1,000 and we make zero, we’re actually disassembling them for parts.

    Thus the arrival of, well, anything. Any French APCs, any mercenaries, any rockets, any shells. We send one shell at a time, with a card and a box of candy. Like your papa, we let you borrow the tank for the prom but have to have it back by midnight. That may look like numbers, but in the back end, like the F16s, it’s Time.

    Russia is controlling the Time, and so long as we let them, they must win. Like the Viet Cong. If you want the other way, look at Ireland. They re-established control over the time and pace and beat the British Empire 100 miles away. But as in that example controlling Time takes Time. No “Shock and Awe” invasions we demanded they do for us.

    “Response Force (NRF) to over 300,000 troops..” But they don’t have the troops… It’ll take years…” Time…

    “Zelensky has become toxic to the West,”

    Yes, but why? Because he shows NATO and the West – particularly Western MIC arms sales – are worthless. Every single thing we make is worthless, that is, worth no money. Can’t be sold. This needed to be demonstrated, otherwise how do you get rid of the anchors of the MIC and the Derp State: the weapons manufacturers who have 5 lobbyists per Congressman?

    Speaking of, Tucker was doing not even a “gotcha” debate it was like the candidates had never seen questions before. …Which of course they hadn’t. And he asked Scott if he would force peace, and Scott demonstrated he’d never heard of that “peace” thingy before. He never considered it, it’s an alien concept. (Seen on Jimmy Dore)

    From that which is only a passing observation we all already knew, is this far better one on RFK. (Time stamp)

    “That’s the thing about RFK, if you ask him a question, he just answers it.” That’s unheard of. Can he DO that? Is that cheating? Election interference? Telling the truth directly is an unfair advantage and needs to be outlawed right away (as they immediately and literally do this by deplatform and hit-piece him from the Kennedy-loving left AND the Libertarian Right.)

    “I think it’s just too soon to know whether that attack on that bridge is going to have any significant military impact on their ability to continue to fight this war,”

    No, it’s not too soon. The attack was pointless, and everyone would know that BEFORE it was attacked. Russia owns the isthmus, they no longer need the bridge. It’s all symbols, signals, The Narrative™. Don’t you know you win wars by signaling? Oh! If only General Patton had realized this, how many lives would be saved! Marcus Aurelius should have just signaled!

    “• Kissinger Warns US And China Against Conflict (RT)

    Who? Some private citizen from a nursing home? Translation: so who is Kissinger speaking for? Who gives him his authority? Clearly it’s somebody very important. More, how come nobody asks? Or even thinks of it? If my grandpa calls up Congress to speak about the war, do Senators drop everything to listen and is then reported by the NYT?

    …But there’s no Derp State. No powerful families around. That’s all a weirdo theory said three generations of Bushes and two generations of Clintons.

    “• Trump Says He Is About To Be Arrested Again (Az.)

    Of course. The last two times didn’t work, his poll numbers didn’t go down.

    “Federal investigators have reportedly seized the phones of advisors to 2024 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump as part of an investigation into”… what their election is up to and how they can counter it. Didn’t they try to grab all his election material and strategy last time too?

    Of course, we could all be wrong. Maybe Clark just went to Catholic mass, then a School Board meeting. Like an unhinged radical.

    “The Pentagon planned to use its biolaboratories in Africa to test unregistered medicines on the local population,”

    This goes with – I read so much I forget, but RFKs discussion? — about how all the vaccinated girls in Africa died at 20% higher rates than the unvaccinated? Just not from the vax diseases such as Diptheria. Yes, that’s a genocide if you’re aware of it. Which it’s nearly impossible they weren’t. I guess like Epstein’s banker, and every other banking scandal in the history of the world like Nick Leeson and Barrings, it’s just one rogue trader out there, increasing a million deaths by 20%, and nobody noticing. Like Madoff, where every banking transaction had to be overseen directly by the Board of Directors but nobody knew nothin’.

    …Except the Africans, who not being stupid, immediately noticed. And have stopped taking certain vaccines and issued arrest warrants. They didn’t lack intelligence or motivation; what they lacked was POWER. Raw, military power to force their will on the people killing them. That may change shortly.

    #139375
    oxymoron
    Participant
    #139376
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Democracy in the west …

    Cigarettes I used to smoke in London in 1990’s … Silk Cut.

    The same cigarettes in the current mandated packaging in 2023 … Silk Cut.

    We don’t have any of this shit in China. What has happened to the west, is this their superior life?

    #139377
    tboc
    Participant

    Red, from the moment Gutenberg offered printing as a commercial enterprise there has been no free open fair press. The idea that there has been a press in service to the citizens is a fallacy created by those who own the presses.

    When one has been knocked to the ground with sufficient force to need and ask for assistance in regaining a standing position the ground has been prepared for “A more rational course”.

    Invictus
    ” Out of the night that covers me,
    Black as the pit from pole to pole,
    I thank whatever gods may be
    For my unconquerable soul.

    In the fell clutch of circumstance
    I have not winced nor cried aloud.
    Under the bludgeonings of chance
    My head is bloody, but unbowed.

    Beyond this place of wrath and tears
    Looms but the Horror of the shade,
    And yet the menace of the years
    Finds and shall find me unafraid.

    It matters not how strait the gate,
    How charged with punishments the scroll,
    I am the master of my fate,
    I am the captain of my soul.” Henley
    Do you know anyone who lives these words outside the fantasy they have created for themself?

    #139378
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Running on a parallel track with the physical annihilation of the Nazilensky Snake Oil Show® is the financial annihilation of Collective Western economies.

    Empty shells of puffery

    I think it’s a part of Putin’s measured pace, wait as long as possible for the West’s financial implosion.

    The rest of the world would love to default on western fiat dollar debt.

    .

    Look at the angle of debt explosion since 1997

    Remarkably constant angle

    The West’s ‘industrial production’ is disintegrating and completely dependent on cheap fossil fuel

    Renewables are a sick joke for replacing that much energy in a timely manner for the western economies.

    The vax injury showing up in work force disability claims will add another dimension of doom to the debt bomb.

    Guess we will have to wait and see

    .

    #139379
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    @aspnaz, SBS, celticbiker don’t stop.

    As an aside, 2nd Vatican Council addressed some of these issues at least for Catholics. Even further afoot, more than one religion espouses money lending for the benefit of the poor and the greater community rather than enriching the lender . One doesn’t or is it two?

    Nostra aetate

    Interesting and unfortunate use of the word ‘apostle’ to describe the ‘peace apostate’ and practitioner of Judaism, Henry Kissinger. For Cambodia alone, no man deserves annihilation more. Live in a Cambodian community briefly and you’ll come to understand Henry Kissinger deserves it even more.

    Yet, there is alternate interpretation to Raul’s “Kissinger as the peace apostle. What’s next?”

    (((Kissinger))) warns U S. and China Against Conflict.
    When (((someone))) deems to warn the world’s two superpowers from a self-imposed position of authority that IS (((arrogance))) nonpareil.
    Chutzpah?
    Makes one wonder (((who))) is running the world notwithstanding The celebration of Kissinger’s 100th birthday by U S. power elite and Kissinger’s audience with China’s defence minister.

    I’ll wait patiently for the China bashing to start for hosting the most notorious (((war criminal)) of our time, an (((American))) no less.
    I mean, they, the Chinese, DID host him and listen to him, right? Is it bad judgment or paying attention to their (((minders)))?

    #139380
    zerosum
    Participant

    Waging a proxy war

    Ukraine Is the Mercenary Army for USA
    Ukraine has no troops, no money, no weapons, no ammo … and no planes.

    • Gen. Milley Explains F-16 Delay For Ukraine (RT)
    ———–
    After +10 years of training and supplying Ukrainians neo-nazi for attack/counteroffensive
    operations that involve large-scale maneuvers featuring tanks, armored vehicles, infantry, artillery, and billions of dollars, and air power, …. Russia has not been defeated.
    Russia dominates the airspace with drones and has near domination of the electromagnetic airspace.
    ———–
    Spending money that they don’t have and hiring Mercenary army that doesn’t exist.

    • NATO To Quadruple Presence In Bulgaria (RT)

    Bulgaria will endeavor to have the brigade at full strength, meaning at around 5,000 troops, and that the government in Sofia needs to build the logistics and infrastructure to make that possible.

    The US-led bloc plans to dramatically expand its 40,000-strong Response Force (NRF) to over 300,000 troops, citing the supposed danger from Russia and the Ukraine conflict.
    ————
    https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2023/07/18/259-the-way-we-live-next/
    REFLECTIONS ON THE REAL ECONOMY
    Dr Tim Morgan

    My Answer
    Priority of elites/governments/those in power/authority ….
    depopulation to keep power, and control energy production and control energy distribution.

    ———

    #139382
    Michael Reid
    Participant


    Former Moldovan politician Iurie Roşca discusses
    how he was forced to make a paradigm shift several times throughout his life
    to come to his current state of mind (e.g. anti-communist, anti-imperialist, anti-globalist).

    He discovered how the Collective West was attempting to change family values
    and even the national constitution in Moldova through economic imperialism.

    He’s been politically assassinated, is persona non grata in Romania,
    and had his website taken down by Moldovan state security.

    Initially, he supported the Collective Kremlin, but many doubts began to emerge.

    The greatest shock came in 2020 with the Covid operation when
    we were able to see that we have only one global center of real power.

    Iurie Roşca: There’s No Multipolarity, Only One Global Center of Real Power

    Iurie Roşca: There’s No Multipolarity, Only One Global Center of Real Power

    #139383
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Okay, fine, chickens have family, or “tribes.” However, in my observations over nine years, when one dies, fallen to the ground in the chicken yard or coop, the flock does not appear to be bothered in any way.

    #139384
    zerosum
    Participant


    Ukrainians Have Lost The Entire Port Infrastructure. Military Summary And Analysis For 2023.07.19

    #139385
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    SEE article posted by Red…
    One of the obvious ways to reduce resource use without reducing quality of life significantly is to repair broken things. Of course, to do this well means shifting the way items are produced to make repair more do-able….

    #139386

    From “ChildWifeAisha” over at ZH comments:
    obit for GvdB’s book collaborator, John Heathco.

    and how he died
    “Prosecutors in Mexico’s Baja California Sur state said last week that autopsies suggest Lutz and Heathco died of “intoxication by an undetermined substance.” Local police initially said gas inhalation was suspected as the cause of death.
    Lutz’s family told CBS News that days before their deaths the couple was treated for what they thought was food poisoning. They spent the night in a Mexican hospital where they were treated for dehydration, her family said.

    The next day, they were back at their hotel.

    “She said, it’s the sickest she’s ever been,” said Lutz’s stepsister, Gabby Slate, adding that Monday night was the last time the family heard from her.
    Fernando Valencia Sotelo and Grisel Valencia Sotelo, [the paramedics] who tried to revive the couple, “were overcome” as they attended to the couple. Now the two are receiving medical care at a private hospital, a fundraiser for the siblings states.
    CBS

    #139387
    Noirette
    Participant

    CNN admits – heh, sub rosa, one employee .. – that climate change, global warming or sthing like that, is, will be the next – pandemic like story. Note he doesn’t even really know what it is all about, struggles to find words, is obviously clueless.

    https://tinyurl.com/bbmur5e4

    The MSM now has only one function, to manipulate ppl and instill fear as a no. 1. propaganda move to nudge, encourage, and ultimatley force ppl into submission. Nothing else.

    #139388
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The world’s debt is exactly as trustworthy of its promise ever being kept (i.e. the promise being that the debt would be repaid) as the trustworthiness of the people who made the promise.

    So, how trustworthy are they?

    Did they tell the truth when they promised to make good on the debt or did they lie?

    So what did they borrow and what did they promises to pay back?

    What they “borrowed” was our goods and services (and loyalty, time, and faith), and what they gave in return were these little scraps of paper that were basically just written IOU’s, or promises to repay the full value of whatever was written or printed on the scrap.

    So, did they?

    Do they give fair value back to us for the goods and service we gave them (and continue to give them!) in exchange for the “money” which they reassured us was fully and dependably equivalent to those goods and service?

    Silly rhetorical question isn’t it? Here’s another one, do you think they’re ever going to change?
    And here’s the final one (and it’s a real kicker), so why are you still accepting their lying promises by taking their phony money?

    I should also add (despite the risk of appearing to be pedantic) that it is by their victims accepting the money as good in the first place that the liars hire the help they need to pull off the caper.

    So is the money good? Which is to say, is the debt ever going to be repaid? Or will the liars simply issue more lies to you (which you accept as “not lies”) in order to roll-over refinance the old ones?

    Just askin’

    And I was also wondering how long such an absurdity can continue. It has already far surpassed my own worst expectations, and I’m being frankly honest when I say I just don’t know why it hasn’t already blown up into sky high smithereens. I’m just watching with bated breath like everyone else who ain’t sleeping.

    #139389
    Noirette
    Participant

    Re. VAx-X damage, there is a lot going round, but of course no acknowledgement of any problem, and no State / Gvmt. – affiliated, or Corporate / Industry, etc., will touch the issue.

    Even to supposedly ‘investigate’, via ‘token’ atempts, as these would lead to ‘discussions’, ‘objections’, and could be shown to be obfuscatory, manipulated, even false. (Better say nothing.)

    This, from E. Dowd, is hyper alarming and well documented, maybe worth sending on?

    Ed Dowd Drops Bombshell Data: Hematological (Blood-Related) Claims Up 522% Above Trend in 2022

    https://vigilantfox.substack.com/p/ed-dowd-drops-bombshell-data-hematological

    #139390

    George Webb snd Reiner Fuellmich discuss Malone and other things.
    (Also from ZH comments)

    #139391
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    Here’s another excellent overlay for viewing our PRESENT circumstances.

    Beyond Thaumatophobia 3: The End of the Age of Reason – post by John Michael Greer

    “You know that an age of reason is coming to an end when magic escapes from these marginal environments and begins to find a home in pop culture. That inevitably faces savage push-back from the managerial caste and their hangers-on, and understandably so; the rise of magic is an exact measure of the failure of reason, since people turn to magic when the officially approved options of their society don’t work. Since no managerial caste anywhere seems to understand that their push-back just makes rejected ideas more popular, that guarantees the spread of magic through the crawlspaces of society.

    The revival of religious institutions comes a little later in the process. What drives that revival is the terminal collapse of the claims of rationalism to provide meaning and value to human life, and that collapse is driven in turn by the failure of the managerial caste to follow through on its grand promises. In the wake of that failure, people left adrift by the collapse of the rationalist promise look for other sources of meaning and value, and a great many of them find it in the old religious institutions of their society. Oswald Spengler, who studied this process carefully in half a dozen civilizations, referred to it as the Second Religiosity.

    You can deal with that by practicing a traditional religion—and the operative word here is “practicing,” not merely believing; the rites, sacraments, and everyday practices of traditional faiths have as one of their benefits the attunement of the individual to positive spiritual currents, which drive off the noxious influences just mentioned. You can also deal with it by practicing some form of traditional occultism. Ethics won’t do the job by themselves but they’re a necessary ingredient in either path.

    Pretending that the Unseen does not exist, though, emphatically won’t cut it any more. The age of reason is ending, and whether or not you believe in metaphysical powers is irrelevant, since their existence and action does not depend on your opinions; whether you believe in them isn’t that important, since they also have a say in the matter. The question at this stage of history’s arc is simply whether you’re going to deal with their reality in a constructive fashion, or in a destructive one, or whether you’re going to close your eyes and let yourself become the passive implement of forces you won’t let yourself perceive. The choice is entirely yours, dear reader. Which will you do?”

    LOVE to SEEKERS.

    Beyond Thaumatophobia 3: The End of the Age of Reason

    #139392
    zerosum
    Participant

    At one time I had all the phone numbers, that I used, memorized.
    Now, I don’t even know my own I-phone number.

    #139393
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The size of the fear must be commensurate with the acceptability of the solution or else people just won’t accept the solution. Big price-tags require big problems. People are not going to accept lock-down and vax mandates unless they are scared shitless about SOMETHING (either fear of the virus or fear of the storm troopers, it doesn’t matter which one because either will do the trick.)

    So, complete submission to the will of the State is a pretty high price tag. Who would pay it? Only people who are scared shitless about a whole passel of really big things, I really do think.

    Looking around I also really do believe that there are indeed a whole passel of really big things that are really quite scare-worthy.

    I’ll spare you agony of listing them all out yet again, BUT it should be noted that pretty nearly every vital system and institution necessary to the adequate function of an advanced technological civilization is currently at existential risk of going up or down in a blaze of glory or a miasma of infamy. (so MANY metaphors would work! It drives me crazy.)

    That could be enough fear to make some folks accept some pretty bad price tags.

    In fact, I don’t think that it takes an extraordinary amount of conspiratorial mindedness to conclude that it’s possible this whole shit show was actually planned out as one big co-ordinated show, meant to result in stark fear driving humanity into acceptance of transparently suicidal solutions. Ya gotta get folks right their on the razor’s edge of terror driven madness before you can persuade them leap to their certain deaths.

    The upside of the horror show is that as push comes to shove it becomes more and more apparent just who, in particular, is orchestrating the mess. Their identities gradually emerge into the open, and an enemy seen is an enemy who can be fought.

    Quite obviously a disproportionately large number of these planners and takers are Jewish, especially in the finance and managerial ranks. Now aspnaz and CelticBiker start frothing at about that point, but all I’ve got to say further about that is to point out that knowing what they are doesn’t tell you who they are. And one last other point, too: the “who” that we’re chasing down predates the Jews by decades of millennia. That “Jewish Connection” is a valid clue, but it is only a clue as well as being way late in the chronological chain. Inadvisable to get side-tracked and bogged down into a vast generality when our target is very very much a small number of SPECIFICS.

    The mists are clearing. Keep your eyes peeled.

    #139394
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    Hunter propositioning the wrong woman

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1681357243596390416

    #139395
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Golly Gee Wilikers

    Renting is now much more affordable than owning

    Look at that curve angle at the end for mortgage/income ratio

    Much worse than 2007-08

    .

    #139396
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #139397
    EnjoysGlow
    Participant

    Does anyone have knowledge about or experience with this long covid protocol?
    https://intercom.help/the-dr-ardis-show/en/articles/7925777-venom-detox-protocol

    #139398
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    It’s been 5 months since the train fire in Ohio, and while the EPA hasn’t been testing for dioxins inside homes, independent testing has found “dioxin levels were more than eight times higher than that of the controlled sample.”

    Independent testing of furnace filters shows elevated dioxin levels in East Palestine
    https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/east-palestine-train-derailment/independent-testing-of-furnace-filters-shows-elevated-dioxin-levels-in-east-palestine/

    #139401
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    https://www.rt. com/shows/crosstalk/579883-tucker-carlson-comeback-show/

    #139402
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    Don’t take a genius to know jewmoney owns republicans and democrats in jewsa. They just bent over backwards, in congress, for a love vote. We love jews, fuck us harder! Now just extend this to the international stage. Mr Rosca is correct. There is 1 crew, 1 boss, which means its all dismal theatre, like the 100 year old jewboy, feuled by adrenechrome. It’s all bullshit and lies….you’re being played, Goyim, wake the fuck up.

    #139403
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Looks like CMT (Country Music TV) wants to die, I guess someone had to take the baton from Bud Light … https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1681521615232745472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw.

    #139404
    TAE Summary
    Participant

    * The bad news: climate change may be an extinction level event
    The good news: it’s not caused by burning fossil fuels so let’s use them all while we can

    * Dogs are creatures of their pack; Cats are creatures of their territory; Chickens are creatures of their pecking order

    * The Amish have no autism, no myocarditis, no SIDS, no SADS, no ADHD, but they suck at World of Warcraft, so there

    * The jabbed will never revolt; It is hard for them to kick against the pricks

    * Peak Oil is nonsense; There is more oil now than there ever has been or ever will be

    * The MSM instills fear to survive; They have nothing to fear but the fear having nothing to fear itself

    * My Tucker’s back and you’re gonna be in trouble, hey la, day la, my Tucker’s back

    * The total world debt of $225 trillion divided among the 7.8 billion people on the earth is only about $29K per person; We could eliminate the debt by declaring a jubilee or better yet by having every person on earth sell just one of their kidneys

    * The Europeans are to blame for all our problems; Never trust anyone over 30 degrees latitude

    #139405
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Celticbiker said

    Don’t take a genius to know jewmoney owns republicans and democrats in jewsa.

    True, but the “clever” people are too afraid to stand up to the Jews, too afraid to be social outcasts and labelled as “haters”. Remember when people used to insult the “anti-vax” community for being stupid, they stood by their reasoning and they were socially outcast. Remember all the cowards who knew nothing but would turn on the anti-vaxers. The anti-vaxers are not so stupid anymore, not such outcasts any more. But the Jews are still a step too far, the cowardice of the “clever” people is bringing down the whole of the West, not just the USA. They will eventually reaslise what is happening, but by then they will have been ruined even further, like the vaccinated.

    #139406
    zerosum
    Participant

    Winner takes all. Lose it or Negotiate with Russia
    https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/takeover-ukraine-agricultural-land.pdf
    WAR AND THEFT
    THE TAKEOVER OF UKRAINE’S AGRICULTURAL LAND
    This report was researched and authored by Frédéric Mousseau and Eve Devillers.

    #139407

    It used to be products were sold to the people
    By showing off whistles and bells,
    But psychology showed us that just one thing matters,
    And that is: anxiety sells.

    And so we live in constant fear to keep up profits year to year.

    #139408
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The bad news:
    We are being played by the globalists

    The good news:
    We are not dead yet

    #139409
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ my parents said know

    Regardind sequios, they are beautiful and large.

    If you would like to visit and pick blueberries, September is a good time.

    My email is [email protected]

    #139410
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    That injection that was given
    should not have been called the vax injection.

    It should have been called the HIV injection.

    Immune system destroyed / goes on tilt.

    And then nothing to fight the cancer cells.

    Seems like everyone in my family that took the vax has had cancer. That will teach you.

    #139411
    those darned kids
    Participant

    https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/the-spectacle-of-covid

    Over the last few weeks I’ve been chewing on The Spectacle of Covid. The more I think about it, the weirder it gets. What’s striking about the iconic images from the pandemic is how contrived and artificial they now appear. These photos were presented as “breaking news” but now it seems that nearly all of the iconic images of the pandemic were elaborately staged to tell a particular story and achieve certain political outcomes.

    #139421
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    At TAE Summary #139404

    * The Europeans are to blame for all our problems; Never trust anyone over 30 degrees latitude NORTH

    Fixed it for you – No Charge

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