Aug 102023
 


Priest and scribe Ka-aper ca. 2465-2323 BC

 

Ukraine Defeat Ominous to Team Biden Admitted by US Press (Sp.)
US Stokes Tension in Persian Gulf as It Loses Control, Needs More Wars (Sp.)
West’s ‘Neo-Colonial Geopolitical Crusade Against Russia’ Is Doomed – Moscow (RT)
US Told Pakistan To Remove Imran Khan From Power – Intercept (RT)
US Regime Change Karen Wants To Speak To The Manager In Niger (Marsden)
All-Africa War Possible – Ex-Presidential Aide (RT)
GOP Memo: Hunter Sold ‘Biden’ Brand for At Least $20 Million As Joe Was VP (Sp.)
Trump: Biden ‘Petrified of China’ Because They Pay Him Millions of Dollars (Sp.)
Search Warrant Was Issued For Donald Trump’s Twitter Account (BBC)
Critical Mineral Shortage to Put US Energy Security at Risk (Sp.)
Shakespeare Banned In US School Districts Over ‘Sexual Content’ (RT)
The “Magic Negro Of The Billionaire Industrial Complex” (ZH)

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

RFK Dore

 

 

Watters

 

 

 

 

“CNN is telling it as it sees it, in its own limited way. “

Ukraine Defeat Ominous to Team Biden Admitted by US Press (Sp.)

Having lauded the Kiev regime’s resolve and the Ukrainian military’s resourcefulness for quite some time, the US mainstream press has suddenly changed its tune, being forced to admit that the well-advertised Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed. Some established American newspapers went even so far as to report that the US military tactics had proven almost useless on the Ukrainian battlefield. “After two months of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, the US press is finally waking up to the fact that the offensive is going extremely poorly,” Daniel Lazare, an independent journalist, author, and writer, told Sputnik. “Ukraine has made minimal gains due to very dense Russian defenses, including mines and drone swarms, which are completely changing the battlefield equation. This is devastating news for the Biden administration, which after the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan in August 2021, is now two years later facing an equally dangerous situation in Ukraine.”

As of August 4, Ukraine had lost more than 43,000 soldiers and over 4,900 units of various weaponry, including 26 planes, nine helicopters, 1,831 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, including 25 German-made Leopard tanks, seven French-made AMX wheeled tanks, and 21 US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), as well as 747 field artillery guns and mortars, since the beginning of Kiev’s counteroffensive, per Russia’s Ministry of Defense. Thus, Ukraine’s attrition rate is so high it could hardly be ignored by Western politicians and corporate press. “These articles are not a ploy. That’s not how the US mass media works. They’re honest,” Lazare said. “CNN is telling it as it sees it, in its own limited way.

And after months of pro-Pentagon propaganda, where CNN essentially toed the Defense Department line all the way, essentially now it realizes it can’t do that much longer because the facts are running strongly against it. So CNN, The New York Times, Politico, etc., are forced to recognize the reality of what’s happening in Ukraine. And it’s extremely negative from a US perspective. I think it is a sobering-up process. They are alerting their readers to how dangerous and negative the situation in Ukraine is becoming in terms of American strategic interests. And therefore, they are preparing them for worse to come. But it’s honest in the sense that no one is bribing CNN and it has no ulterior motive in mind. It simply is telling the truth in its own half-witted, politically distorted fashion.”

Still, those who have followed the Ukraine conflict from the very beginning have already noticed that the US media’s prognoses don’t work. So, for them the Ukraine counteroffensive failure was hardly surprising, per US independent journalist and geopolitical analyst Max Parry. “There is no way anyone could follow this conflict closely without noticing Western corporate media’s continuous pattern of failure in its predictions about the outcome of the war in favor of Kiev and then backtracking each time only to come up with excuses as to why its prognostications have been wrong,” Parry told Sputnik. “As a result, it has only revealed the incompetence of Washington’s military strategists and NATO, whose forces have trained Ukraine, and the media’s own role as a propaganda arm of the US.”

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“..its coveted superior role of “being the world policeman that the laws don’t apply to” slipping from its grasp..”

US Stokes Tension in Persian Gulf as It Loses Control, Needs More Wars (Sp.)

The Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, which plays a crucial role for global trade, have yet again found themselves in the focus of the US military, as Washington has accused Iran of “seizing and harassing” civilian vessels – a practice that the Islamic Republic has resolutely denied employing. The United States realizes that it is losing control, and cannot maintain it without creating more wars, which explains why it is stoking tension in the Persian Gulf, Laith Marouf, a broadcaster and journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon, told Sputnik. With increasingly more countries rejecting the US-driven so-called “rules-based order,” and America feeling that its coveted superior role of “being the world policeman that the laws don’t apply to” slipping from its grasp, Washington is desperate to fan hostilities in the region, Marouf underscored.

According to the US press, thousands of US Marines and sailors have been brought to the Persian Gulf by the USS Bataan and the USS Carter Hall, as part of a buildup ongoing for months. On August 4, unnamed US officials told the press that the Pentagon was considering putting armed personnel on commercial ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, as a part of an intensified response from Washington to the allegedly destabilizing activity caused by Iran’s “harassment and seizure of merchant vessels.” The Iranian Foreign Ministry dismissed the US’ claims as untrue. “In the last two years, we saw multiple ships confiscated by the United States – some in international waters – that belong to Iran,” Laith Marouf pointed out, adding:

“It seems like the United States wants to police the world, and in this situation, they want to become a valet service for these international shipping companies that are looting oil from the Gulf… The more the United States acts in such pirate ways, the more we will lose control of the situation.” Reports of more than 3,000 US military personnel having arrived in the Red Sea on board two warships following Washington’s allegations of Iran “seizing” several civilian ships in the waterways is a dangerous escalation, Mazda Majidi, long-time antiwar and social justice activist from Iran, told Sputnik. “It’s really an escalation that’s not really called for by actual developments on the ground,” the activist said, underscoring that it was pretty much a “war footing.” Washington accuses Iran’s Navy of no less than 20 such incidents involving commercial vessels over the past two years.

“The average, accordingly, is less than one a month,” underscored Mazda Majidi, who has written extensively on the nuclear deal and other issues pertaining to Iran and the Middle East. He added that, like the Iranian Navy has said, some of the instances were a reaction to a distress signal, when they went in to see if they could help. “But in the bigger picture, the ongoing problem is the continual US seizure of Iranian oil tankers around the globe. And while the US claims that these are based on the sanctions on Iran, that sanctions that the US has placed on Iran. Those sanctions do not apply to international waters. In other words, the US Navy has no legal right to seize Iranian oil tankers anywhere it sees fit. So in that sense, the Iranian reaction is related to what the US has been doing to tankers carrying Iranian oil,” Mazda Majidi said.

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“Russia will achieve peace on its own terms.”

West’s ‘Neo-Colonial Geopolitical Crusade Against Russia’ Is Doomed – Moscow (RT)

The West is treating Ukraine the same way it treated Georgia, as a proxy against Russia to be used and abandoned, Moscow’s deputy envoy to the UN Dmitry Polyansky has said. August 8 is a “sad day in Georgian history,” Polyansky tweeted on the anniversary of the 2008 conflict. “It’s very hard to rectify the bloody mistakes of [the] Saakashvili regime which acted in 2008 as a puppet of the West. Now Saakashvili is in prison in Georgia but his poisonous legacy is still felt.” The “Kiev regime is doing a far more nefarious mistake right now naively hoping that the West will not abandon it after NATO’s proxy war with Russia until the last Ukrainian,” Polyansky added. “And Washington and its allies are still bringing death and devastation to the post-Soviet space in their futile neo-colonial geopolitical crusade against Russia.”

Mikhail Saakashvili became the president of Georgia in the US-backed ‘Rose revolution’ in 2003. In August 2008, as the world’s attention was on the Beijing Olympics, he launched an attack on the breakaway region of South Ossetia, hoping to overwhelm the Russian peacekeeping battalion stationed there since the 1990s. Moscow’s quick reaction surprised both Tbilisi and Washington. Georgia’s Western-trained military was dismantled within five days. Saakashvili lost the 2012 election and went to the US, then to Ukraine after the US-backed coup in Kiev. Russia’s president at the time, Dmitry Medvedev, also commented on the anniversary of the conflict. In a Telegram post, he said that Saakashvili had been a proxy of the West, “which was trying to stir up the situation in the immediate vicinity of Russia’s borders even then.”

Washington and its vassals are “once again waging a criminal war by proxy” against Russia, Medvedev added. “Just like in August 2008, our enemies will be crushed, and Russia will achieve peace on its own terms.” The US and NATO have sent over $100 billion worth of weapons, equipment and ammunition to Kiev, as well as cash to keep the Ukrainian government afloat, while insisting they were not a party to the conflict with Russia. Earlier this year, they supplied modern Western tanks to the Ukrainian military, with the expectation of a grand spring-summer offensive that would push the Russians into the sea. Kiev launched the offensive in early June, but has achieved little while losing 5,000 vehicles and 43,000 soldiers, according to Russian Defense Ministry estimates. Earlier this week, senior US and Western officials told CNN that it was “extremely, highly unlikely” the Ukrainians could make progress on the battlefield that could change the balance of the conflict.

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Smells like Nuland around here.

US Told Pakistan To Remove Imran Khan From Power – Intercept (RT)

The US State Department pressured Pakistan to remove its popular prime minister, Imran Khan, last year over the latter’s neutrality regarding the conflict in Ukraine, The Intercept reported on Wednesday, citing a secret diplomatic cable obtained from a Pakistani military source. The cable documents a meeting between US State Department officials and Pakistan’s ambassador to the US on March 7, 2022. “People here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position” on Ukraine, US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu warns his Pakistani counterpart in the cable, blaming the PM alone for the offending policy.

While Ambassador Asad Majeed Khan attempts to correct the American, pointing out that Pakistan’s position on Ukraine is shared across the government, Lu counters that it is the PM’s behavior that is the problem, but that “if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington.” “Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead,” he threatens, adding that Europe will follow the US’ lead in the “isolation of the prime minister.” Ambassador Khan reflects in his notes that the threat seems to be coming directly from the White House and suggests a strong diplomatic response. Khan, who apparently obtained a copy of the cable in the weeks following the meeting, pointed at the US as the director of his ouster after he was removed following a no-confidence vote last April – just as Lu had suggested.

His successor, Shehbaz Sharif, admitted the cable existed and that some of its messaging was inappropriate, but stopped short of acknowledging its confirmation of Khan’s claims. Washington has categorically denied pressuring Islamabad to remove Khan. While the document obtained by The Intercept does not technically constitute a direct order, it attaches strongly-worded threats to noncompliance, hints at rewards for obedience, and confirms both were viewed as coming directly from President Joe Biden. Immediately following Khan’s ouster, Pakistan reversed its neutrality on Ukraine, demonstrating its fealty to Washington by supplying copious amounts of weapons to Kiev.

Its military was reportedly rewarded with a defense pact covering “joint exercises, operations, training, basing and equipment.” While polls have suggested Khan would easily win an election were he permitted to run again, he was sentenced to three years in prison last week on corruption charges, blocking him from contesting elections expected to take place this year. He has been charged with numerous crimes since his ouster, from insulting state officials to terrorism, and last month it was announced he would be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act for revealing the contents of the cable documenting the conspiracy to oust him.

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I meant Karen.

US Regime Change Karen Wants To Speak To The Manager In Niger (Marsden)

France has been kicked out of Niger by its new military government, by extension placing US interests there in peril. Who would ever have thought that the US footing the bill for training Nigerien soldiers would result in a net gain for Russia and China? Apparently not the US State Department. Enter Victoria Nuland with demands to speak to those in charge. Officially the acting US deputy secretary of state, Nuland should really change her title to ‘Regime Change Karen’. In modern parlance, a ‘Karen’ is a middle-aged woman “who uses her privilege to get her way or police other people’s behaviors.” Karens can often be spotted at the customer service desks of big box stores demanding to speak to the manager – or in this case, the military leaders now in charge of Niger.

Nuland rocked up to Niger and demanded to speak to the ousted president, but was refused the opportunity. Instead, she got to meet with one of the coup leaders – the new army chief of staff, Brigadier General Moussa Salaou Barmou, who not only trained at Fort Benning and at Washington’s National Defense University, but was photographed alongside US Special Operations in Africa Commander Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga just a few weeks ago at a US drone base in Niger. In a State Department teleconference on Monday, Nuland said that she was in Niger “because we wanted to speak frankly to the people responsible to this challenge to the democratic order.” That didn’t actually require a foreign trip, though. She could have just stayed home and called a staff meeting. You made this mess yourselves, guys. “The benefit from the joint mortar training event is twofold – providing Nigerien soldiers with a tangible skill, while also bolstering the partnership between US and Niger forces,” the Pentagon said in 2021 of a joint training exercise. Looks like all those skills came in handy when it came to kicking out US-allied France.

“We met with the self-proclaimed chief of defense of this operation, General Barmou, and three of the colonels supporting him,” Nuland said. “I will say that these conversations were extremely frank and at times quite difficult because, again, we were pushing for a negotiated solution.” Interesting how peace and negotiations suddenly appear on the table when Washington loses its foothold, finds itself in too weak or precarious a position to start dropping bombs, and needs to buy some time to regain the upper hand. Such was the case with the Russia-Ukraine Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015, which used peace as a pretext for better arming Kiev against Moscow as Western allies trained and supplied Ukrainian neo-Nazis at Russia’s doorstep. Nuland not so subtly hinted at Washington’s priorities when she said that she “had a chance first to sit with a broad cross-section of Nigerien civil society,” describing them as “long-time friends of the United States.” In other words, to better shore up the in-country proxies to defend US interests.

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Not what Russia needs right now. That’s why it’s happening.

All-Africa War Possible – Ex-Presidential Aide (RT)

A military intervention in Niger could set off a broader war, Antinekar al-Hassan, a political adviser to the ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, told RIA Novosti on Wednesday. “I don’t think ECOWAS will make the mistake of intervening militarily in Niger, because if they intervene militarily, that means all of Africa will be at war,” al-Hassan said. Bazum was arrested on July 26, by a group of Nigerien military officers led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has threatened to deploy troops unless he was restored to power, but their ultimatum to Niamey expired on Sunday. In the meantime, the bloc has closed borders and stopped all trade and transactions with Niger. Al-Hassan said he was against these sanctions, calling them “illegal and illegitimate.” “We’re against the sanctions. They will hurt the people of Niger, not the junta,” he said.

The new military government has refused any talks with the ousted president, who has no intent of stepping down, according to al-Hassan. “He did not sign anything and is not preparing to resign. He would rather die than resign,” al-Hassan said. In an op-ed supposedly written from prison and published in the Washington Post on August 4, Bazoum had appealed to the “US government and the entire international community to help us restore our constitutional order.” ECOWAS military chiefs reportedly finalized their war plans last Friday, but noted the actual intervention requires a political decision by the bloc’s governments. Chad and Guinea have opposed both sanctions and intervention in Niger, while Burkina Faso and Mali said they would regard any military move against Niamey as a declaration of war against both of them as well.


According to the French broadcaster RFI, which was banned in Niger, ECOWAS was mustering a force of about 25,000 troops, most of them from neighboring Nigeria. The new military government in Niamey accused France on Wednesday of setting free terrorists so they could attack a military camp in Niger and violating the country’s airspace as part of a campaign of destabilization. Paris denied that any terrorists were set free, or that any attack took place, and insisted the French aircraft were operating in Nigerien airspace under a military pact with Bazoum’s government. France refused to recognize the generals’ repudiation of the deal last week, and vowed to keep some 1,500 troops in the Sahel country.

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How much more proof is required? Asking for a friend.

GOP Memo: Hunter Sold ‘Biden’ Brand for At Least $20 Million As Joe Was VP (Sp.)

Companies related to the Biden family received a whopping $20 million from foreign nationals during Joe Biden’s vice presidency, as per the GOP-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee. On August 9, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability Majority Staff released a third bank records memorandum within the framework of the ongoing investigation of the Bidens’ alleged influence peddling schemes. The committee identified over $20 million in payments from foreign sources to the Biden family and their business associates during Joe Biden’s vice presidential tenure. Per House GOP investigators, Biden family members and partners routinely collected money from Ukrainian, Kazakh, Chinese, Russian, and Romanian nationals in exchange for protection, assistance, and access to then-Vice President Joe Biden.

“Joe Biden was ‘The Brand’ sold around the world to enrich the Biden family and he was used to ‘signal’ their access, influence, and power,” the congressional memo reads. “Then-Vice President Biden met – in person, for significant periods of time – with those individuals or their representatives. Then-Vice President Biden joined approximately 20 phone calls on speakerphone with Hunter Biden’s foreign business associates and attended dinners with foreign oligarchs who paid huge sums of money to Hunter Biden. Joe Biden, ‘the brand,’ was the only product the Bidens sold.” The memo also referred to the change of the White House’s narrative regarding Joe Biden’s apparent involvement in his son’s business dealings.

While, previously, Team Biden had claimed that Joe was unaware of Hunter’s financial activities and never discussed them, now they say that the “President was not in business with his son.” Still, the White House staff refuses to comment about this departure from previous statements, the memo noted. Commenting on the release of the third memo, Committee Chairman James Comer opined that the data obtained by the committee confirms the assumption that the Bidens, including Joe, were involved in “pay-for-play.” Comer particularly drew parallels between bank records and Hunter’s partners getting access to then-Vice President Biden, including two dinners in April 2014 and 2015 at Washington, DC’s Café Milano.

Most recently, US renowned legal scholar Jonathan Turley brought focus on the discussions surrounding Joe’s visits to Café Milano. The lawyer noted that the testimony by Devon Archer – Hunter’s longtime business partner – indicated that the elder Biden had indeed spent time with his son’s clients and was aware of Hunter’s business schemes. “Then-Vice President Joe Biden dined with oligarchs from around the world who had sent money to his son. It’s clear Joe Biden knew about his son’s business dealings and allowed himself to be ‘the brand’ sold to enrich the Biden family while he was Vice President of the United States,” Comer emphasized.

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By the balls.

Trump: Biden ‘Petrified of China’ Because They Pay Him Millions of Dollars (Sp.)

Former US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he believes incumbent President Joe Biden is “so petrified of China” because they are paying him “millions and millions of dollars.” “I believe we have a compromised president. I believe he’s so petrified of China because they know how much money has been given to him, and they know where it is,” Trump said during an interview with US media. “As of today, I think $32 million that went into his accounts, the various accounts of the family. That’s a tremendous amount of money. And nothing was done for it. It was just a bribe … I’m amazed nothing was ever done.”

Trump added during the interview that Biden “is so afraid of China, and the reason he’s afraid is because I believe they paid him a tremendous amount of money, and he doesn’t want people to find out about it.” The former US president claimed that he believes China paid the Bidens “a lot more than that.” “You look at the University of Pennsylvania, you take a look at what’s going on over there, where China pays millions and millions of dollars at Biden’s center. I guess they’re paying him a million dollars a year, or I think they have it at 999,000 dollars a year.

That way you don’t have to maybe reproach because it’s under a million,” Trump claimed. The former commander-in-chief claimed that all signs point to China paying Biden “a fortune” because he has not seen “anyone so weak on China” before. Trump went to reference Beijing’s influence in Cuba and South America over the last three years. At one point during the interview, Trump went so far as to describe Biden as a “Manchurian candidate,” otherwise known as an individual who has become a puppet for a foreign nation. Trump later shifted and called on congressional lawmakers to undertake impeachment proceedings against Biden over evidence gathered by the House Oversight Committee regarding the Biden family’s business dealings.

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Michael Tracey: “Amazing: Jack Smith tried to impose a gag order on Twitter by arguing Trump was likely to “flee from prosecution” if it came out that his account had been seized. DC district court then *affirmed* the validity of this claim. Later, the claim was mysteriously retracted as “errant”.

“..may have included unpublished posts..”

Search Warrant Was Issued For Donald Trump’s Twitter Account (BBC)

The US special counsel investigating Donald Trump obtained a secret search warrant for the ex-president’s Twitter data in January, unsealed records show. Jack Smith requested “data and records” relating to Mr Trump’s account which may have included unpublished posts. After initially resisting the warrant, Twitter eventually complied, but missed a court-ordered deadline by three days. The delay resulted in the company being handed a $350,000 (£275,000) fine for contempt of court. The existence of the search warrant and the legal fight over it was revealed in court documents unsealed on Wednesday. According to the unsealed ruling, which still includes some redactions, Twitter’s lawyers did not object to the warrant itself, but disputed the nondisclosure order which kept it secret.

The company, now known as X under the ownership of Elon Musk, argued that it should be allowed to notify customers whose accounts are subject to search warrants. X handed over the data in February, but appealed the fine. Its case was rejected by a US appeals court last month. There is little indication in the documents about what exactly Mr Smith was seeking, with the court filing noting that only that the warrant directed the company “to produce data and records” related to Mr Trump’s account. The US congressional panel investigating the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot found that Mr Trump had drafted – but never sent – a tweet urging his supporters to come to Washington. It said: “I will be making a Big Speech at 10 a.m. on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the steal!”

The @realdonaldtrump account, which has 86.5m followers, was suspended after the riot. It was reinstated in November 2022 after Mr Musk ran a poll asking users whether the former president should be allowed back on the platform. Mr Trump has not posted on X since being reinstated, instead preferring to use his own Truth Social network. Experts have noted that his Truth Social business contracts mean he potentially stands to lose millions if he resumes posting on X. Mr Trump responded to news of the search warrant on Truth Social, writing that it was a “major ‘hit’ on my civil rights… These are DARK DAYS IN AMERICA!”

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Casus belli?

Critical Mineral Shortage to Put US Energy Security at Risk (Sp.)

Last week, the US Department of Energy (DOE) in a new assessment expanded its list of critical materials, defined as those indispensable to the clean energy transition with high supply risks, adding six new elements in 2023. The DOE warned the list will only grow bigger amid the global race to net-zero emissions and underscored the importance to energy security of establishing reliant and robust critical mineral supply chains.
Nickel, platinum, and silicon carbide join lithium and magnesium as critical in the medium term (2025-2035), while graphite, terbium, and iridium join cobalt, gallium, dysprosium and neodymium as elements considered critical in both the short and medium term (from now until 2035).

The DOE raised the status of copper and aluminum from non-critical to “near critical” in the medium term largely due to their importance to electrification across a wide spectrum. The report, citing International Energy Agency (IEA) data, said critical mineral demand will have to grow by up to 600% by 2040 if the world is to achieve net-zero by 2050. The demand for critical minerals is being driven by a surge in the adoption of electric vehicles, which the IEA says could account for 60% of all auto sales by 2030. The swift growth in EV sales and green electricity networks boosted demand for vital components such as lithium-ion batteries and rare earth magnets, the report noted. The report was released just as the US-China trade war escalated even further, with Beijing’s export controls on gallium going into effect, unveiled last month in retaliation to Washington’s restrictions on Chinese technology.

The US, and many Western allies, have invested heavily in trying to achieve supply chain independence from China. The Biden administration intensified efforts last week in discussions with Mongolian officials about “creative ways” to extract rare earth minerals from the landlocked country, which neighbors both China and Russia. The US faces a daunting task in breaking its mineral dependence on China. For example, China is the leading producing nation for 30 of 50 minerals the US Geological Survey classified as critical to the economy with vulnerable supply chains.

Jonathan Poston, a business strategy consultant for Artax Consulting, shed more light on the implications involving China’s dominance of key critical minerals, most particularly, rare earth elements. “Rare earth elements are a group of 17 elements that are essential for a wide range of clean energy technologies, including magnets, batteries, and catalysts,” Poston told Sputnik. “China is the world’s leading producer of rare earth elements, along with graphite – critical to lithium-ion batteries – and there are concerns about China’s control of the global supply chain.”

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To be replaced with Barbie.

Shakespeare Banned In US School Districts Over ‘Sexual Content’ (RT)

Multiple Florida schools leery of running afoul of a controversial new law banning books with sexual content are dropping Shakespeare plays from their curricula, the Tampa Bay Times reported on Wednesday. Hillsborough County public schools will only be assigning excerpts from the works of Shakespeare during the coming academic year, district officials revealed. While they told the Times they had altered their instructional guides for teachers because of “revised state teaching standards and a new set of state exams that cover a vast array of books and writing styles,” district spokeswoman Tanya Arja admitted the decision was “also in consideration of the law,” referring to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Law.

Better known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, the measure took effect last month, requiring schools to suspend access to reading material alleged to contain pornography, depictions or descriptions of sexual conduct, pending resolution of any complaints from parents or the state. “I think the rest of the nation – no, the world, is laughing at us,” Joseph Cool, a teacher at Gaither High, told the Times on Tuesday, pointing out that “taking Shakespeare in its entirety out because the relationship between Romeo and Juliet is somehow exploiting minors is just absurd.” Because of uncertainty over what constitutes forbidden content, school districts have been preemptively removing books from their libraries in order to avoid parental challenges while trained “media specialists” screen the contents for anything that could potentially run afoul of the law.

If the specialists flag a book, a district-level panel is required to review it and make the final decision on whether it remains in the library. Parents may also file a complaint about any book on the school district’s website, requiring the district to pull the title within five days and keep it out of libraries until it can be reviewed. Local CBS affiliate WJAX found earlier this week that Duval County had removed 19 titles from its shelves ahead of the 2023-2024 school year, while St. Johns County had dropped 31 books and Clay County pulled 115.

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Zero Hedge lifts out a reference to Obama’s presumed homosexuality, but the David Samuels interview for Tablet Magazine with David Garrow has a lot more.

The “Magic Negro Of The Billionaire Industrial Complex” (ZH)

“I also found the Cuba thing deeply puzzling and offensive,” Garrow said. “It’s a fucking dictatorship that imprisons all sorts of truly progressive, creative people.” Many of the regime’s political prisoners are black but in the style of Frank, Obama is basically uncritical of the regime’s all-white Stalinist dictatorship. But then, as David Garrow says, the composite character is not a normal politician or human being. In one of his first actions, Obama canceled missile defense for U.S. allies Poland and the Czech Republic, and Garrow laments his “failure to object to Russia taking Crimea and the Donbas.” “For Barack, everything has to be a success,” Garrow explained. “Everything has to be a victory.”

And on his own terms, Obama may be the most successful president ever. He transformed the nation into a place where the outgoing president picks his successor and deploys the FBI and DOJ to help Hillary Clinton and harm candidate and President Donald Trump. “From the first time I saw it,” Garrow said, “I realized that Christopher Steele’s shit was just complete crap. It was bad corporate intelligence, even. It was nonsensical.” Samuels is also concerned. “A new milieu had been created consisting of party operatives, the people in the FBI and the CIA who are carrying out White House policy, and the press,” Samuels explains. “That’s something people still seem loathe to admit, even to themselves, in part because it puts them in a state of dissonance with this new kind of controlled consensus that the press maintains, which is obviously garbage. But if you question it, you’re some kind of nut.”


The interview keeps returning to Dreams from My Father, which biographer David Garrow exposed as a novel, infuriating the president. “There was something about this fictional character that he created actually becoming president,” contends Samuels, “that helped precipitate the disaster that we are living through now.” The nation has been transformed into a “Gilded Age oligarchy” by Obama, the “Magic Negro of the billionaire industrial complex.”

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Home Forums Debt Rattle August 10 2023

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  • #140899

    Priest and scribe Ka-aper ca. 2465-2323 BC   • Ukraine Defeat Ominous to Team Biden Admitted by US Press (Sp.) • US Stokes Tension in Persian Gul
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 10 2023]

    #140901
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Surprise! The FBI Lied About ‘White Supremacist’ Memo Targeting Catholics, New Document Reveals

    The FBI lied and they’re sooper mad about it. That’s why no one was fired.

    Speaking of lies no one’s mad about:
    “Security Video Challenges The Narrative On First Man To Die At Capitol On Jan. 6”

    J6 protester NOT harmed by police. Had a simple heart attack before it all started. Now ya think that’s something people would KNOW and not lie about? But it’s so hard to tell since 1/3 of the protesters and online people are FBI starting trouble to cause a civil war. It leaves the question WHO said it wasn’t a simple heart attack. List their names.

    “Nixon decided not to contest the election, despite clear evidence that it was stolen.”

    1) The election isn’t stolen, stupid, you can get banned for that. 2) The election is also COMPLETELY stolen, by the Russians. Both are true and it gives the population zero problems, zero cognitive dissonance. Even if you point it out.

    That goes also 1) There were fraudulent elections but there aren’t any now (see above for next ID10 loop) 2) There were fraudulent elections in the past, but all our Presidents are legitimate. Not like Harding or Adams should be expunged.

    This also causes no cognative dissonance, which is how you know “We’re all PMCs now.” That is, it’s all a magic, abstract world, where nothing we do matters. Therefore, nothing we think needs to be accurate or function. It’s all just a game, an avatar. The people who die are just avatars too, numbers on the screen.

    “Taxpayers were funding Proterra, America’s biggest electric bus company, and now the money’s missing. The whole thing was a political pump and dump scheme and top Democrats were all involved.”

    Deja vu Batman! This was the same with Musk’s “Solana”, back when he was a Liberal and DNC DemiGod and couldn’t be criticized or touched. Or Obama, or somebody, honestly, without Capitalism and bankruptcy they’re ALL political pump and dump schemes, even Ford and GM. If they weren’t, the government would put them out of business.

    “The Collapse Of The EV SPACs: Another One Goes Bankrupt, Others On The Verge
    LikeThis
    https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/US-Stocks-Rivian-2023-08-08.png?itok=25dGkjA2

    Study this chart closely. Next year this will be AI. 2021 was Legalization stocks.

    “[NATO] he launched an attack on the breakaway region of South Ossetia, hoping to overwhelm the Russian peacekeeping battalion stationed there since the 1990s.”

    “Russia’s long, soft, underbelly” as they’ve written constantly for 100 years. But although they write it near-daily, they’re never involved in any conflicts there. No. That would be cray-cray. We’re lily-white and all innocent-like. Although we say we’re not and give anti-aircraft rockets to terrorists…thus creating Osama Bin Laden. Which we never did, because he’s baddie bad, but we did do, which is goodie-good.

    “• US Told Pakistan To Remove Imran Khan From Power – Intercept (RT)

    Roughly speaking part of MacKinder’s “Long, soft underbelly”

    “How much more proof is required? Asking for a friend.”

    Proof of what? I don’t see anything. — American voter.

    You could up this to $200 Million, $20 Billion, $200 Trillion, that Biden had 100 Sons all named Dave and everyone of them did 1,000 years of crack and banged all 20 million of the world’s underage hookers and it wouldn’t matter. …I mean, obviously. If you thought “Nothing matters and anything goes” was just a hyperbolic slogan by Kunstler. No, it’s a sacred vow, it’s the Meaning of Life. Why? “I Am God”. The ‘secular’ religion of Humanism. The present theocracy of New Age, Progress, transhumanism, and scientific materialism. I am God. Therefore only what I think or want matters.

    I don’t think of Hunter, and I don’t want it to be real. So it isn’t. Because I am God. Thus the whole U.S. electorate minus 20% who claim to be Christians and the 1% who actually are.

    “• Trump: Biden ‘Petrified of China’ Because They Pay Him Millions of Dollars (Sp.)

    As yesterday they PRINT money, money means nothing. So what is “Bribery” in this context? They’re all totally corrupt, why doesn’t Joe go down the hall and have Yellen print him some bonds (Newsflash: they do. $40T is missing). So what’s all this “Bribery” stuff? It’s a SIGNAL. It’s like kissing Don Corleone’s ring. Because money has no meaning, only POWER, and CONTROL. And control for what? Well obviously to make people do what they don’t want to, or they’d do it all naturally without your command.

    Control for what? The Master Plan. Which we all know, “To (re)make the world in our Image” and for what? Well, they’re all violent, religious fanatics establishing a theocratic state. To make the world safe and perfect for Lucifer, our Morning Star. Only if we can drive the people to complete physical and moral exhaustion will they Lo! Suddenly see the light and salvation and worship him, the solution to all their problems.

    In short, they’re insane, but most fanatics are. They pay him millions to demonstrate they’re on board with The Plan. The Plan of subjugating and destroying all (free) life on earth.

    “Search Warrant Was Issued for Donald Trump’s Twitter Account (BBC)

    Trump is so unimportant they’re still looking for the smallest DM to erase him. He’s out of office, doesn’t have any power, right? And all the news – CNN for instance – runs 2 articles a day on Trump for 80 articles and only 7 on Biden. …Because Biden is the President and running things, right? Biden’s the important one we need to elect?

    “Critical Mineral Shortage to Put US Energy Security at Risk (Sp.)

    The “Critical Mineral Shortage” = all electric cars. Which can’t be built. Although we’re going to build 300 million of them. Tomorrow. Because we already outlawed all gas cars. And don’t have a grid to charge them.

    Right! Everything goes and nothing matters. When all this fails from PMC advice, rules, and direction, they’ll be driving a Tesla to Starbucks and checking their compounding 401k. Everyone ELSE will be walking to work like plebes with newspapers in their shoes. Or “not-work” as every job will be lost and every business closed.

    Speaking of, Sales Tax quickest, greatest collapse ever. (lost the chart), along with trucking down 20% overnight, and home sales, instantly frozen after which prices collapse next which select CRE is already +60% down. “The Fed raises until something breaks.” Period. They’re not going to raise, then stop with a Dow 60,000, still all-speculation, no banks failing, right? Does that make sense to anyone?

    “• Shakespeare Banned in US School Districts over ‘Sexual Content’ (RT)

    News here is “Teachers have clearly never read Shakespeare”. Of course that’s not news. Please point to what you think is offensive enough that it would give rise to lawsuits or problems? No, they’re just having a toddler tantrum, like Gay Pride when they said they couldn’t be naked in front of children. Or Gay Storyhour where the real problem and legal issue was bringing 5-year-old to bars and strip clubs? This is what they do every other year if you don’t sign off on extortion of School Budgets. …They close the Parks and the Library until morale improves. Because nothing says “Teachers only care about community education” like closing the library to all the poor kids, right? Wouldn’t want them reading without permission or nothin’ would you?

    “Better known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law,”

    Or lesser known as the DSG law…so…let me get this straight: the law only applies to people up to 1st? 3rd? Grade? And that’s why it’s so hilarious they fight it like Cancer. The earth can burn down, we can start WWIII, but the ONLY issue I care about is We MUST do sex with children in the 3rd Grade. MUST!!!!!!!!!!! If kids in the 3rd Grade don’t sex every day, why life is barely worth living!!!!!!!!!!

    Anyway, my point: So their allegation is that Florida sub-3rd Graders all read Shakespeare? Has to be pried out of their soft little baby hands? Uh, yeah. I wish. This is what passes for logic all day around here, in #Idiocracy. Which wasn’t meant to be an Operator’s Manual. This is then reported without irony by people dumber than that.

    “Obama, the “Magic Negro of the billionaire industrial complex.”

    He’s not a Negro. He’s half-white. Or all-White since he was raised exclusively in a White family. …Unless we all believe in the “single drop of black blood” theory, right? Oh, you all DO believe in that? My bad.

    ‘Native American Guardians Association’ Petition to Restore Washington Redskins Name Goes Viral

    They erased all the actual Indians, so now the Liberals with true #Helping are going to erase even the very MEMORY there were ever Indians. Or proud. So no Pontiacs, no Cherokees, no Redskins. Don’t you know remembering the Indians, that they existed and were powerful and important, is racist? The only not-racist thing is to erase them entirely, as if they never were. So once again, Sherman, the KKK, and Liberals all agree.

    But there is so much more work left to do! Now we must, must erase Robbie Robertson. Or at least any ties between him and Mohawk. And what’s the prize Herr Docktor, once we do? Why we’ll say the world was composed of, and created by, only White People, of course! First we erase them, then we make them feel guilt for it. Then Ka-Ching: Step 3: Profit.

    “It’s impossible to parody what is already an absurdist parody.” -OTM

    I guess this is the result of “Everything goes and nothing matters.” It’s therefore the “nothing matters” part. Nihilism, depression, despair. When Power – PMCs – erase all cause and effect and live in a world of perfect madness, this is the result. Nothing matters. Which gives life its very meaning that something matters, that what you do counts.

    But nothing you do counts. Nothing you do matters. If you make or do anything we take it, ‘coz “FROM each according to their ability, TO each according to their need.” As long as that’s true, nothing you do matters and life has no meaning.

    #140902
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    #140905
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks everybody for leaving kind and thoughtful comments last evening.
    I replied at the lower hem of that thread this morning.
    I was reading a book about Enneagrams which a friend recommended.
    Couple of days into it. Might be useful, ancient Sufism and stuff, modernized since Gudjieff https://www.amazon.com/Enneagram-Understanding-Yourself-Others-Your/dp/0062506838/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=580689038077&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9028322&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=11591826933824456450&hvtargid=kwd-838080605&hydadcr=15522_13517448&keywords=helen+palmer+enneagram&qid=1691528950&sr=8-1

    #140906
    tboc
    Participant

    “FROM each according to their ability, TO each according to their need.” As long as that’s true, nothing you do matters and life has no meaning.” Dr. D

    A short and most succint argument against the extended family and human procreation with investment in child nurturing.

    #140907
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Inspirational Thoughts

    .

    #140908
    John Day
    Participant

    Ukrainian Church Leader Given 5 Years In Prison For Being Seen As Sympathetic To Russia
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukrainian-church-leader-given-5-years-prison-being-seen-sympathetic-russia

    #140909
    Oroboros
    Participant

    One of the greats

    Robbie Robertson – Fallen Angel

    #140910
    John Day
    Participant

    I keep having to log out, then log back in to leave each comment this morning…

    Germany Plans $63 Billion In Green Energy Investments For 2024
    The ruling coalition in Germany has decided that nearly all new heating systems should run on 65% renewable energy, with exemptions for homeowners aged over 80 and for households with the lowest incomes.
    Industry associations and the German public disagree with the planned ban.
    A Forsa survey commissioned by RTL and ntv showed in April that 78% of Germans do not approve of the bill, and only 18% think the decision to ban oil and gas heating systems is the right one.
    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Germany-Plans-63-Billion-In-Green-Energy-Investments-For-2024.html

    #140911
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Robbie Robertson had just finished the sound track for Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ before he passed into the Shadow Lands

    #140914
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #140915
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Go Woke Get Choked

    Forced To Sell Off Beer Brands After Losing $27B In Market Value

    Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB-InBev), the once world-renowned brewing conglomerate, will sell eight of its craft beer brands.

    This decision is a clear indication of a significant downsizing in AB-InBev’s craft beer portfolio, a part that the company had once aggressively pursued.

    The buyer, Tilray Brands, is a Canadian cannabis firm

    Hahahahahaha!

    A cannabis company kicking Anheuser-Busch in the nuts!

    Hahahahahaha!

    It has been making strategic inroads into the craft beer market. The brands that will transition to Tilray’s ownership include Shock Top, Breckenridge Brewery, Blue Point Brewing Company, 10 Barrel Brewing Company, Redhook Brewery, Widmer Brothers Brewing, Square Mile Cider Company, and Hiball Energy.

    #140916
    zerosum
    Participant

    I don’t see a change around me.
    Since when do people admit that they have been fooled/scammed/ been wrong/its their fault/that they made a mistake/that their leaders were wrong?

    The American people realize they’ve been deceived by the media and Washington,”

    “Is it worth the cost already being paid — tens of thousands of dead youngsters and families?” Kennedy wrote on Twitter on August 7. “Billions of American dollars drained from our food banks, our hospitals, our schools and instead detonated in foreign skies to rip young flesh from bone? Higher gas bills, higher grocery prices, higher utility bills, higher housing costs, and too little money in your bank account to pay for them? Tell me, President Biden, how is it worth all this to fight a war that could have ended a month after it began?”

    #140919
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    .

    #140920
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #140923
    jb-hb
    Participant

    lots of attempts to post getting eaten or going to a spam warning

    “FROM each according to their ability, TO each according to their need.” As long as that’s true, nothing you do matters and life has no meaning.” Dr. D

    A short and most succint argument against the extended family and human procreation with investment in child nurturing.

    You snipped the quote at just the right part, didn’t you? But here’s the full statement you were quoting

    If you make or do anything we take it, COZ “FROM each according to their ability, TO each according to their need.”

    The thing you made (perhaps over years or decades of dedication and labor) FOR your wife, FOR your 7 year old son or daughter for instance, GETS TAKEN AWAY FROM YOU

    ergo anyone who objects is against families!

    Ergo, we take everything from you “for” extended family. You don’t hate, aren’t against extended family are you? Then live in zee pods, eat zee bugs, do not object if we want to sterilize your child and end your family line. It’s for family.

    And who will decide for us who does the taking and what gets taken? Away from our families FOR family? You in your higher than ours wisdom?

    Taking a stand for evil. Golf clap.

    #140924
    John Day
    Participant

    Defending What’s Ours https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/defending-whats-ours

    The Great Unravelling: ‘For All That Is Ours, We Must Fight’
    The entire American political set-up – with or without a FARA indictment, and with the 2024 elections looming – is fragile, Alastair Crooke writes.
    ​..For the sake of clarity, what is being expressed here is that this ​[latest Trump] indictment is part and parcel of the ongoing western ‘culture war’ – just as scientists were cancelled, dismissed from their professions and ostracised for expressing a view about mRNA science; just as views on human biology are subject now to official negation; just as ‘misgendering’ has become a potential criminal offence (hate speech), so ideological and institutional capture is being extended to the political sphere.​..
    ..This ​[Biden bribery scandal] might argue for an early exit from Ukraine, or contrarily, the Clinton stratagem in respect to ‘imploding the Lewinski scandal’ – war on Serbia.​
    ​ The reaction against the ​’politics of negation’ (as Chris Rufo terms it in his book, America’s Cultural Revolution) or cancellation in today’s vernacular has come to Europe too. In the UK, the scandal arising from the banking world’s blacklisting of Nigel Farage for his political views (the former leader of a pro-Brexit party), revealed the hitherto unknown fact that more than 1,400 companies are members of a corporate lobby ‘diversity scheme’ – one that insists corporate members stand against “all forms of oppression” and “dismantle racist systems, policies, practices, and ideologies”, and align with the interests of ‘wider society’.
    ​ Farage’s bank was accredited to the scheme, with the bank citing its ‘B Corp’ membership to contend that pro-Brexit Farage did not conform with the bank’s ‘diversity commitment’, or those of ‘wider society’, as cause for closing his account.
    ​ Behind the scenes then, it transpires, there is B Corp pursuing diversity correctness, and Stonewall (the LBGTQ charity) overseeing employment guidelines in the UK. With no bank account (as all other banks conformed to the blacklisting), Farage would have been ‘cancelled’ from society.
    ​ The point that Rufo makes in his book is that a political programme rooted in “negation” can offer no positive programme that won’t swiftly fall victim to its own politics of critique (as the Farage case illustrates). The result, Rufo argues, has not been utopia, but a harvest of “failure, exhaustion, resentment, and despair, and a proliferating class of peevish bureaucrats bickering about symbols and ephemera”.
    https://strategic​-culture.org/news/2023/08/07/the-great-unravelling-for-all-that-is-ours-we-must-fight/

    Ecuador’s Outspoken Anti-Narco Presidential Candidate Assassinated In Broad Daylight
    ​ “When he stepped outside the door, he was met with gunfire,” a member of Villavicencio’s campaign team said of the candidate. “There was nothing to be done, because they were shots to the head.”
    ​ Villavicencio, a legislator in the National Assembly, has been tireless in speaking out against organized crime, drug trafficking, and government corruption. Among his talking points on the campaign trail has been that Ecuador is a “narco state” being led by the “political mafia”.
    ​ This is why in the aftermath of his killing, it’s being widely blamed on those very criminal elements. He was by far the most vocal candidate against the drug traffickers and corrupt dealings with the state. He was also a former investigative journalist, having years ago exposed government corruption and bribery deals related to the oil industry.
    ​ The suspected gunman died in police custody after being wounded at the scene in a shootout with security personnel. The attack additionally injured nine people and two police officers.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ecuadors-outspoken-anti-narco-presidential-candidate-assassinated-broad-daylight

    ​ Gilbert Doctorow on Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s recent speech:
    ​ Very few in the West have questioned the logic of expansion being a plus and only a plus. One such person was Professor Stephen Cohen, when he pointed out nearly twenty years ago that NATO is not a fraternity house. It is supposedly guided by the national security interests of its member states, and admission of the Baltic States was a net negative for the alliance. I have updated that critique with today’s remarks on how Finland’s joining the Alliance is another ‘own goal’’ by the NATO team.
    ​ Now let us proceed with this debunking of U.S. security considerations by taking a look at the often cited author of Washington’s Ukraine strategy as from the administration of Barack Obama to today, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Many promoters of U.S. and allied support for Ukraine in its war effort now cite Brzezinski’s “prescient” remarks in his widely sold and read book of 1997, The Grand Chessboard. This was written at a time when Americans were still looking for a new global strategy given that they had, as they believed, won the Cold War and seemed to lack a replacement national purpose.
    ​ Brzezinski insisted that if Ukraine could be detached from its close industrial and political relationship with Russia, then Russia would cease to be an imperial power and could be re-categorized as just another non-threatening European state.
    ​ We all know today where pursuit of Brzezinski’s road map has brought us. Russia is arguably stronger than ever now that its society has been consolidated behind a patriotic mission, now that its armed forces have mastered the arts of high-tech ground war and its military industry has expanded production multifold. In this context, we may say that Brzezinski’s advice to his compatriots and their leadership was harebrained. For anyone who cares to look into this question further, I urge them to consult my several chapters critiquing Brzezinski’s writings in the ‘90s and early in the new millennium in my collection of essays entitled Great Post-Cold War American Thinkers on International Relations (2010).
    ​ Brzezinski’s efforts to contain Russia went beyond his writings to active participation in plans laid by his former protégé Madeleine Albright, who became Secretary of State, to wage ‘pipeline wars’ against Russia. This was a two-pronged effort: to stymie Russia’s planned gas pipelines to Europe like South Stream and to promote alternative pipelines from Central Asian and Caucasus gas producers which would run outside the borders of the Russian Federation and so would be free of Kremlin interference. The various actors and developments in the multi-year ‘pipeline wars’ are discussed in my 2013 collection Stepping Out of Line.
    ​ The end result of that policy was the imposition of a ban on importation of Russian hydrocarbons into Europe as punishment for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline last year. As we know today this is resulting in the deindustrialization of Germany, Europe’s lead economy and exporter, in high inflation across the Continent and in a widespread decline in European living standards.
    ​ Moral of the story: be careful what you wish for.

    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on threats to Russian security posed by Finland’s NATO membership and Poland’s military build-up

    Coup In Niger Could Derail This Strategic Pipeline​ [Detailed research and context]
    The coup in Niger could lead to the deployment of Wagner forces in the country.
    Media concern has focused on the fact that Niger is a supplier of uranium, and is a key supplier to France.
    One thing that got halted, however, is the $13 billion USD, 5,600-kilometer Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline.
    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Coup-In-Niger-Could-Derail-This-Strategic-Pipeline.html

    #140925
    John Day
    Participant

    Tom Luongo eventually makes the case that the ECB is losing assets that it can leverage to conjure more euros, as currency-crisis looms.
    Collateral Damage
    ​ As Alex Krainer taught me a few years ago, it’s all about collateral. Europe cut itself off from its energy collateral. It tried through the Iran Nuclear deal to get some collateral by investing in Iran. Who was the first to belly up to the trough in 2016 after the deal was signed? No less than France’s Total, with a $4+ billion deal.
    ​ Trump killed that when he tore up the JCPOA. That Total contract went to China.
    ​ The Syrian invasion was all about bringing in cheap Middle East energy into the EU, bypassing Russia. Russia killed that. Now they’ve outmaneuvered Europe in N. Africa.
    ​ While you see the Biden administration acting quickly to isolate Niger’s coup, mostly through the Davos-controlled State and Treasury departments did we see the Pentagon rush into action?
    ​ Not really. It’s the same kind of mealy-mouthed pablum Zelensky complains about daily. This is another tell.
    ​ Niger may further expose the rift at the top of the US power structure, especially while the walls are closing in on “Joe Biden.” The sheer number of stone walls going up around Capitol Hill to protect Biden and his people tell me there’s a bull market in bricks and mortar somewhere. But as fast as they erect them, their lies are getting exposed and a diffe​rent wall is torn down. So, it’s all a mess right now.
    ​ Leverage is stacking up all over the place and this is now getting very interesting.
    ​ Expect the full court press into US political clown show over the next six to nine months, feeding the ratings game and the global perception of the US descending into anarchy.
    ​ In my mind, S&P and Moody’s will ultimately do what they are told to do. S&P put France on ‘credit watch negative in June, so by September they will have to make a new decision.
    ​ This week, Fitch just gave away who they work for. The S&P 2011 downgrade was a Davos operation in hindsight, to bring on the coordinated CB policy and stay at the zero-bound forever.
    ​ When it failed, flip to CBDCs and expand the colonization strategy.
    Oops.

    France, Niger and Why Five Basis Points Continue to Change the World

    ​ “Until something breaks…”
    ​ Money-supply growth has now been negative for eight months. During June 2023, the downturn continued as YOY growth in the money supply was at –12.4 percent. That’s up slightly from May’s rate of –13.1 percent, and was far below June’s 2022’s rate of 5.7 percent. With negative growth now falling near or below –10 percent for the third month in a row, money-supply contraction is the largest we’ve seen since the Great Depression. Prior to March thr.ough June of this year, at no other point for at least sixty years has the money supply fallen by more than 6 percent (YoY) in any month​.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/credit-crunch-money-supply-has-shrunk-eight-months-row

    ​The Greater Financial Crisis of 2024, Jim Rickards (Can’t really pick the start date)
    https://dailyreckoning.com/the-greater-financial-crisis-of-2024/

    ​Meryl Nass MD, The timeline on this is really short. Next month is already pivotal. Nobody knows.
    The United Nations Has Proposed Creating An “Emergency Platform” To Allow It To Rule During Major ‘Global Shocks’

    The United Nations has proposed creating an “Emergency Platform” to allow it to rule during major ‘global shocks’

    #140926
    John Day
    Participant

    Heart-Scarring Observed In Children Months After COVID-19 Vaccination: Study​ [Not “mostly reversible”]
    ​ Researchers followed a group of 40 patients aged 12 to 18 for up to one year after the children were diagnosed with myocarditis, or heart inflammation, following vaccination with one of the messenger RNA shots from Pfizer or Moderna. They performed a series of tests, including echocardiograms.
    ​ Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, or cardiac MRIs, was performed on 39 of the 40 patients. Abnormal results came in for 26 of those who were imaged, including 19 who had late gadolinium enhancement, or signs of scarring.
    ​ The patients with abnormal results returned for follow-up cardiac MRIs at least five months after the initial tests and 15, or 58 percent, had residual late gadolinium enhancement (LGE). The one patient without an initial scan also had mild late gadolinium enhancement when scanned during a follow-up visit.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/heart-scarring-observed-children-months-after-covid-19-vaccination-study

    Biden Admin Concedes No Evidence Behind Recommendation for 6 Annual COVID Booster Shots
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-admin-concedes-no-evidence-behind-recommendation-6-annual-covid-booster-shots

    Rand Paul Slaps Fauci With DC Criminal Referral Over Perjury Allegations
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rand-paul-slaps-fauci-dc-criminal-referral-over-perjury-allegations

    Horowitz: CDC committee shockingly approves yet another RSV shot that had more fatalities in trial group than placebo​
    The RSV vaccine was the original poster child for negative efficacy of failed vaccines in the 1960s. Now officials want to take your newborn and, on top of the existing list of vaccines plunged into his body, administer a brand-new RSV shot that openly has safety concerns. Josef Mengele is smiling in hell.
    ​ What sort of government would rush RSV shots on newborn babies with numerous questions about the clinical trial data, especially after experiencing so much carnage from the rushed COVID shots? A country that values the biomedical security state and pharma grift more than the lives of children.
    ​ State of play with RSV shots
    ​ Despite Fauci himself warning that RSV shots were not ready for prime time, and despite no rationale to rush an RSV shot at pandemic speed, the FDA has already approved three versions. Officials have approved Pfizer’s shot both for seniors and for pregnant women and have approved GSK’s version for seniors. GSK’s shot for pregnant women was suspended because of safety concerns, but Pfizer’s was approved even though it has the same problems and is very similar.
    ​ According to FDA briefing documents, two people in the Pfizer RSV trial for those over 60 years old experienced the dangerous form of neuropathy known as Guillain-Barré syndrome. Also, in the Phase 1/2 trial for Pfizer’s RSV shot, among a younger cohort of 18- to 49-year-olds (which has not been approved yet), the trial reports one death among the 164 participants in the group getting 120 micrograms. As for GSK’s senior shot, members of the CDC’s advisory committee raised concerns that it “can overstimulate the immune system, which is why it is only used for the elderly or immunocompromised.” Gee, where have we seen that before? Autoimmune problems from a rushed vaccine?
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/horowitz-cdc-committee-shockingly

    FLCCC Doctors Plan to Fight Board Decision​ [American ​Board of Internal Medicine decertified exemplary treating physicians]
    Dr. Pierre Kory says ABIM is telling doctors to take orders from bureaucrats in Washington and from medical journals instead of basing treatment decisions on their training and expertise.
    https://flccc.substack.com/p/flccc-doctors-plan-to-fight-board

    #140927
    John Day
    Participant

    Well it won’t let me upload a duplicate of wht it just failed to upoad, so, breaking it up a bit…

    Heart-Scarring Observed In Children Months After COVID-19 Vaccination: Study​ [Not “mostly reversible”]
    ​ Researchers followed a group of 40 patients aged 12 to 18 for up to one year after the children were diagnosed with myocarditis, or heart inflammation, following vaccination with one of the messenger RNA shots from Pfizer or Moderna. They performed a series of tests, including echocardiograms.
    ​ Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, or cardiac MRIs, was performed on 39 of the 40 patients. Abnormal results came in for 26 of those who were imaged, including 19 who had late gadolinium enhancement, or signs of scarring.
    ​ The patients with abnormal results returned for follow-up cardiac MRIs at least five months after the initial tests and 15, or 58 percent, had residual late gadolinium enhancement (LGE). The one patient without an initial scan also had mild late gadolinium enhancement when scanned during a follow-up visit.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/heart-scarring-observed-children-months-after-covid-19-vaccination-study

    Biden Admin Concedes No Evidence Behind Recommendation for 6 Annual COVID Booster Shots
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-admin-concedes-no-evidence-behind-recommendation-6-annual-covid-booster-shots

    Rand Paul Slaps Fauci With DC Criminal Referral Over Perjury Allegations
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rand-paul-slaps-fauci-dc-criminal-referral-over-perjury-allegations

    FLCCC Doctors Plan to Fight Board Decision​ [American ​Board of Internal Medicine decertified exemplary treating physicians]
    Dr. Pierre Kory says ABIM is telling doctors to take orders from bureaucrats in Washington and from medical journals instead of basing treatment decisions on their training and expertise.
    https://flccc.substack.com/p/flccc-doctors-plan-to-fight-board

    #140928
    John Day
    Participant

    Horowitz: CDC committee shockingly approves yet another RSV shot that had more fatalities in trial group than placebo​
    The RSV vaccine was the original poster child for negative efficacy of failed vaccines in the 1960s. Now officials want to take your newborn and, on top of the existing list of vaccines plunged into his body, administer a brand-new RSV shot that openly has safety concerns. Josef Mengele is smiling in hell.
    ​ What sort of government would rush RSV shots on newborn babies with numerous questions about the clinical trial data, especially after experiencing so much carnage from the rushed COVID shots? A country that values the biomedical security state and pharma grift more than the lives of children.
    ​ State of play with RSV shots
    ​ Despite Fauci himself warning that RSV shots were not ready for prime time, and despite no rationale to rush an RSV shot at pandemic speed, the FDA has already approved three versions. Officials have approved Pfizer’s shot both for seniors and for pregnant women and have approved GSK’s version for seniors. GSK’s shot for pregnant women was suspended because of safety concerns, but Pfizer’s was approved even though it has the same problems and is very similar.
    ​ According to FDA briefing documents, two people in the Pfizer RSV trial for those over 60 years old experienced the dangerous form of neuropathy known as Guillain-Barré syndrome. Also, in the Phase 1/2 trial for Pfizer’s RSV shot, among a younger cohort of 18- to 49-year-olds (which has not been approved yet), the trial reports one death among the 164 participants in the group getting 120 micrograms. As for GSK’s senior shot, members of the CDC’s advisory committee raised concerns that it “can overstimulate the immune system, which is why it is only used for the elderly or immunocompromised.” Gee, where have we seen that before? Autoimmune problems from a rushed vaccine?
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/horowitz-cdc-committee-shockingly

    And for your viewing pleasure and entertainment:

    Scientific paper calculates that the 12,000 year interglacial period ended in 2020 and Earth has crossed a threshold into The Next Ice Age:​

    ​”Mission Iceland” Less than 2 minutes of fine cerebral humor and nobody gets hurt. Thanks Eleni!

    #140930
    John Day
    Participant

    Durn!
    Thwarted again:
    Scientific paper calculates that the 12,000 year interglacial period ended in 2020 and Earth has crossed a threshold into The Next Ice Age:​

    ​”Mission Iceland” Less than 2 minutes of fine cerebral humor and nobody gets hurt. Thanks Eleni!

    #140931
    John Day
    Participant

    And this:
    Horowitz: CDC committee shockingly approves yet another RSV shot that had more fatalities in trial group than placebo​
    The RSV vaccine was the original poster child for negative efficacy of failed vaccines in the 1960s. Now officials want to take your newborn and, on top of the existing list of vaccines plunged into his body, administer a brand-new RSV shot that openly has safety concerns. Josef Mengele is smiling in hell.
    ​ What sort of government would rush RSV shots on newborn babies with numerous questions about the clinical trial data, especially after experiencing so much carnage from the rushed COVID shots? A country that values the biomedical security state and pharma grift more than the lives of children.
    ​ State of play with RSV shots
    ​ Despite Fauci himself warning that RSV shots were not ready for prime time, and despite no rationale to rush an RSV shot at pandemic speed, the FDA has already approved three versions. Officials have approved Pfizer’s shot both for seniors and for pregnant women and have approved GSK’s version for seniors. GSK’s shot for pregnant women was suspended because of safety concerns, but Pfizer’s was approved even though it has the same problems and is very similar.
    ​ According to FDA briefing documents, two people in the Pfizer RSV trial for those over 60 years old experienced the dangerous form of neuropathy known as Guillain-Barré syndrome. Also, in the Phase 1/2 trial for Pfizer’s RSV shot, among a younger cohort of 18- to 49-year-olds (which has not been approved yet), the trial reports one death among the 164 participants in the group getting 120 micrograms. As for GSK’s senior shot, members of the CDC’s advisory committee raised concerns that it “can overstimulate the immune system, which is why it is only used for the elderly or immunocompromised.” Gee, where have we seen that before? Autoimmune problems from a rushed vaccine?
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/horowitz-cdc-committee-shockingly

    #140932
    John Day
    Participant

    Look, a time-delay function!

    #140933
    Noirette
    Participant

    On Dore and Kennedy (> at top post.)

    Other: Jimmy Dore was astonished at Bob Kennedy Jr. spouting over-the-top, extravagant, Zionist stuff. See:

    Dore interview of Kennedy Jr.

    Aug. 2, 2023. 29 mins. https://tinyurl.com/yc6yb5ds

    Dore is surprised, thrown off, doesn’t respond much, seems lost…

    Later, Dore appeals to Max Blumenthal, and has him on to de-bunk what Kennedy said.

    Aug. 5, 2023. 60 mins or so. https://tinyurl.com/mpz8r2t2

    (I watched only the first half, so idk if any surprises later.)

    #140934
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Will this comment go to the black hole?

    #140935

    All those ugly, smirking thugs
    Tend to see us all as bugs.
    When they say you’ll eat ze bugs,
    Whaddya think they mean?

    #140936
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    What I learned is that if you make a comment that includes a link that WORDPRESS thinks is a (spam) site then you will have to contact RIM before you will be able to comment again, ever.

    #140937
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.”

    Jb beats me to it in a slightly different emphasis.

    To me, that seems simple: there are two bodies there: from and to. In his case, Fathers (workers) and families (women and children). But there aren’t. THERE ARE THREE.

    The Third party is WHO is transferring FROM and TO? As soon as you add that third party — the one that Marx has hidden — it all becomes perfectly clear. WHO transfers, or more importantly WHO decides? Marx does. He’s the smart guy. He writes the papers, he’s bourgeois, he’s the apparatchik, HE decides. He is God. He knows better than society, the family, even better than YOU. He knows all: is omniscient and omnipotent. Marx is God.

    Or any and every one of his acolytes who say the same thing: — I — know best. — I — am the smartest person in the room. — I — know better than every. single. person. anywhere in society, ever.

    …That’s why Marx is attractive to the young and very foolish. They haven’t had their teeth knocked out yet.

    Put another way, WHO knows best what MY family needs when I create stuff for them? — I — do. Me. I do that VOLUNTARILY. Charity, love is VOLUNTARY. It’s a VOLUNTARY expression, a voluntary ‘exchange’ if you will, although you get nothing for it. To do anything else is to FORCE love, an internal state. To FORCE charity, an internal state. Does that make it clearly why it doesn’t work?

    And that is best demonstrated in “Hate speech”. That is, we are going to control HATE, an internal emotion, so I feel the right and duty to go INSIDE YOUR MIND, in YOUR SOUL, to ATTACK and remove and adjsut anything — I — feel like. Any TIME I feel like. Because I am God. How much less to merely attack, inject, imprison your body?

    No, sirs. You do NOT control my LOVE. Nor my hate for that matter. You cannot FORCE Love. Love for Big Brother, for you, to fill your narcissistic hollowness. Love comes from God, so maybe seek him out and meet him sometime.

    #140938

    And not one comment on that amazing 4,500 year old wooden head sculpture…. I can look at that for ages. The eyes, the soft expression, the kindness, this is someone I could meet today, and have a great conversation with. And then you think: that’s quite the cleft there in his forehead. 4,500 years. What was happening then where you live?

    #140939

    As for the WordPress/AI /spam thingy: I have no control of it. But I would advise patience. I see John Day try again and again, and that ain’t doing the trick. Just please know it ain’t me, I don’t censor, other than when you get way out of line.

    #140940
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The first thing I thought of seeing that beautiful carved figure was where did a piece of wood that big come from?

    It it a large date palm trunk?

    Imported cedar from Lebanon?

    Habitat destruction was not quite in full swing in 2465-2323 BC

    I’m not concerned with humans effect on climate, I’m concerned with habitat destruction and a complete lack of respect for the natural world and it’s creatures.

    I’d save this monkey family’s habitat

    .

    over this ‘habitat any day of the week

    Complete lack of boundaries and any self control, just whining about how unfair wealth distribution is.

    Cry me a river.

    These people would gladly destroy that monkey family’s habitat without the slightest pang of conscience or guilt for another rice paddy or train station.

    #140941
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The Chinese, who have about the same population would NEVER tolerate the urban squalor, hoomelessness and public poverty you see everywhere in India.

    Like never.

    So I can see why India and China have ‘issues’.

    The Chinese think Indian social structure is a horrifying chaotic mess and the Indians think the Chinese are Anal Retentive Control Freaks (ARCF), social credit score hell.

    I don’t ever agreement between the two culture, even though both are burning through habitat and resources like a human forest fire.

    #140944

    Ilargi- I did look at for a long time- and I have looked at him for a long time many times before. It is a remarkable portrait from a time when realistic portraiture was absent. Check out the angle on wiki-p, and his demeanor changes. From bemused and pensive face-on, to a bit apprehensive and wry from the side. Astonishing craftsmanship!
    That’s a 4500 year old piece of wood. Thanks for posting it.

    #140945
    citizenx
    Participant

    I rode in to Nazareth, was feeling about half past dead
    I just need someplace where I could lay my head
    I said, “Hey mister, can you tell me where a man might find a friend+?”
    He just grinned and shook my hand and “yours+” is all he said

    Robbie left the same day as Ol Jerry.
    Garcia and the Dead were clearly a fan of The Band as they covered many of their tunes with both the Dead and Jerry Band.

    + On a few occasions, Jerry changed the lyrics of “The Weight” from ‘bed to friend’ and ‘no to yours’ as noted above.

    The Dead literally keeping the music Alive.

    Catch a cannon ball now to take me down the line
    My bag is sinkin’ low and I do believe it’s time
    To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she’s the only one
    Who sent me here with her regards for everyone

    Take a load off Fanny
    Take a load for free
    Take a load off Fanny
    And (and, and) you put the load right on me
    (You put the load right on me)

    Now, I don’t mind chopping wood
    And I don’t care if the money’s no good
    You take what you need
    And you leave the rest
    But they should never
    Have taken the very best

    Garcia Band with Bruce Hornsby sitting in…

    #140946
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks Iargi,
    I DID appreciate Priest and scribe Ka-aper 🙂

    #140948
    jb-hb
    Participant

    The Third party is WHO is transferring FROM and TO? As soon as you add that third party — the one that Marx has hidden — it all becomes perfectly clear. WHO transfers, or more importantly WHO decides? Marx does. He’s the smart guy.

    Like Ticketmaster, standing between music fans and musicians. Uh, Ticketmaster, what is it, would you say, that you do for us? “I take your money”

    Hedge fund running servers on a laser link bidding and retracting bids at nanosecond speed to take money from traders and investors. What do you do for us, hedge fund? “I supply liquidity” Ahahaha coughcough whew. No really though, what? “I take your money”

    Marx just thinks no that is wrong, Ticketmaster and skimming hedge fund servers should be HIM and he should be everything. There shouldn’t be stuff out there that isn’t that and isn’t me. And we’ll call that The Extended Family. Not creepy and weird at all.

    Jonathan Pageau explains the concept of “self-crowning”

    #140949
    tboc
    Participant

    jb-hb
    “But nothing you do counts. Nothing you do matters. If you make or do anything we take it, ‘coz “FROM each according to their ability, TO each according to their need.” As long as that’s true, nothing you do matters and life has no meaning.”

    There ya go Mr. Projection.
    indeed an effort is made to pack innuendo into each short phrase, however your ability to read between the lines is astonishing. D’s reversal of the intent of the From To phrase is cynical even for the Dr. I hope you understand that the capitalist renunciation of the original was because the flow of resources was the antithesis of that used in today’s comment.

    May i offer you a breath mint?

    #140951
    jb-hb
    Participant

    “FROM each according to their ability, TO each according to their need.” is exactly what Dr D said in his post, what you said in your post, and what I said in my post.

    “D’s reversal of the intent”?
    “capitalist renunciation of the original”?

    I haven’t seen anyone reversing from and to. I even ctrlf’ed the entire conversation and no one said it differently.

    Capitalism: individual ownership of the means of production
    Communism/Socialism: State ownership of the means of production

    Everyone, as far as I can see, is talking about “FROM each according to their ability, TO each according to their need.” without renunciation, inversion, or reversal. Someone is going to gather up the resources, the access, whatever, and then distribute it equitably in this scenario.

    If you’d like to define it as something other than its standard understood meaning, the meaning Marx meant, for instance if you want to say:

    “Marx was wrong and totally mistook the meaning of that phrase, what it really means is x”

    that would help as a basis for conversation. We’re discussing the phrase as Marx is understood to have intended it in terms of application and how his followers have repeatedly applied it. How his current followers in academia understand its application. So I guess explain how you see Marx as being wrong in his interpretation of his statement first, then?

    Or if you want to say “Marx was right, but Lenin, Mao, Trosky, and everyone else got it wrong” ok, then state your case.

    #140952
    zerosum
    Participant


    The info is there to look at

    BREAKING, Leaked Documents Show Tens Of Millions From Ukraine Paid To Kerry, Biden Jr Fund, Report

    BREAKING, Leaked Documents Show Tens Of Millions From Ukraine Paid To Kerry, Biden Jr Fund, Report
    By TFPP Wire
    Published November 14, 2019 at 5:20am

    https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/6003585/Rosemont-Seneca-Bohai-Bank-Records-Listing.pdf

    Ask these wealth/banking advisors who did the work with the money
    https://advisor.morganstanley.com/the-finnegan-moye-schatz-mclaughlin-boyle-group
    MORGAN STANLEY PRIVATE WEALTH MANAGEMENT
    The Finnegan Moye Schatz McLaughlin Boyle Group
    ——–

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