Dec 292023
 
 December 29, 2023  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,


Vincent van Gogh Boulevard de Clichy, Paris 1887

 

How Yemen Changed Everything (Pepe Escobar)
There Are No Innocent Ships At Sea (Helmer)
Biden Needs To Come To Israel’s – And His Own – Rescue (MoA)
US, Europe Likely On Track to Become ‘Failed Economies’ – Michael Hudson (Sp.)
What Will Be Left Out of the USA? (Barton)
Russia Has Become Significantly Stronger Over Past Year – Lavrov (Sp.)
Ukrainian ‘Regime’ Must Be Removed – Medvedev (RT)
40 Million Ukrainians Must Fight – Regional Governor (RT)
Scott Ritter: Maryinka’s Liberation ‘Major Victory’ for Russia (Sp.)
‘Zelensky Regime’ Doesn’t Want Peace – Lavrov (RT)
US Sending ‘Bloody New Year’s Gift To Kiev’ – Moscow (RT)
Ukraine Warns Of Pension And Salary Delays (RT)
DOJ Threatens Lawsuit If Texas Enforces New Border Security Law (HC)
Democrat Secretary Of State Kicks Trump Off Maine Ballot (ZH)
Colorado Puts Trump Back On 2024 GOP Primary Ballot (NYP)
Trump Takes Credit For Success Of Home Alone 2 (RT)

 

 

 

 

Tucker

 

 

 

 

Daniel Levy

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..those eleven US aircraft carrier task forces, for all practical purposes, are essentially worthless.”

“..using the “nuclear” option or cutting off potentially at least 25 percent, and up, of the world oil supply. As one Persian Gulf analyst succinctly describes it, “that would irretrievably implode the international financial system.”

How Yemen Changed Everything (Pepe Escobar)

Yemen’s resistance movement, Ansarallah, has made it very clear that any Israel-affiliated or Israel-destined vessel will be intercepted. While the west bristles at this, and imagines itself a target, the rest of the world fully understands that all other shipping is free to pass. Russian tankers – as well as Chinese, Iranian, and Global South ships – continue to move undisturbed across the Bab al-Mandeb (narrowest point: 33 km) and the Red Sea. Only the Hegemon is disturbed by this challenge to its ‘rules-based order.’ It is outraged that western vessels delivering energy or goods to law-breaking Israel can be impeded, and that the supply chain has been severed and plunged into deep crisis. The pinpointed target is the Israeli economy, which is already bleeding heavily. A single Yemeni move proves to be more efficient than a torrent of imperial sanctions.

It is the tantalizing possibility of this single move turning into a paradigm shift – with no return – that is adding to the Hegemon’s apoplexy. Especially because imperial humiliation is deeply embedded in the paradigm shift. Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the record, is now sending an unmistakeable message: Forget the Suez Canal. The way to go is the Northern Sea Route – which the Chinese, in the framework of the Russia-China strategic partnership, call the Arctic Silk Road. For the dumbfounded Europeans, the Russians have detailed three options: First, sail 15,000 miles around the Cap of Good Hope. Second, use Russia’s cheaper and faster Northern Sea Route. Third, send the cargo via Russian Railways. Rosatom, which oversees the Northern Sea Route, has emphasized that non-ice-class ships are now able to sail throughout summer and autumn, and year-round navigation will soon be possible with the help of a fleet of nuclear icebreakers.

All that as direct consequences of the single Yemeni move. What next? Yemen entering BRICS+ at the summit in Kazan in late 2024, under the Russian presidency? The new architecture will be framed in West Asia The US-led Armada put together for Operation Genocide Protection, which collapsed even before birth, may have been set up to “warn Iran,” apart from giving Ansarallah a scare. Just as the Houthis, Tehran is hardly intimidated because, as West Asia analyst ace Alastair Crooke succinctly put it: “Sykes-Picot is dead.” This is a quantum shift on the chessboard. It means West Asian powers will frame the new regional architecture from now on, not US Navy “projection.” That carries an ineffable corollary: those eleven US aircraft carrier task forces, for all practical purposes, are essentially worthless.

Everyone across West Asia is well aware that Ansarallah’s missiles are capable of hitting Saudi and Emirati oil fields, and knocking them out of commission. So it is little wonder that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi would never accept becoming part of a US-led maritime force to challenge the Yemeni resistance. Add to it the role of underwater drones now in the possession of Russia and Iran. Think of fifty of these aimed at a US aircraft carrier: it has no defense. While the Americans still have very advanced submarines, they cannot keep the Bab al-Mandeb and Red Sea open to western operators. On the energy front, Moscow and Tehran don’t even need to think – at least not yet – about using the “nuclear” option or cutting off potentially at least 25 percent, and up, of the world oil supply. As one Persian Gulf analyst succinctly describes it, “that would irretrievably implode the international financial system.”

For those still determined to support the genocide in Gaza there have been warnings. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has mentioned it explicitly. Tehran has already called for a total oil and gas embargo against nations that support Israel. A total naval blockade of Israel, meticulously engineered, remains a distinct possibility. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Hossein Salami said Israel may “soon face the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, and other waterways.” Keep in mind we’re not yet even talking about a possible blockade of the Strait of Hormuz; we’re still on Red Sea/Bab al-Mandeb.

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“..whose prosperity is Operation Prosperity Guardian truly guarding?”

There Are No Innocent Ships At Sea (Helmer)

Since the start of Israel’s genocide of Gaza, it has been the claim of the Israelis, their lawyers, and allies that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, so they say that killing them all is neither a genocide nor a war crime. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said it in India in October. US Congressman Brian Mast said it, following the Israeli lead. The US Navy analyst who spied for Israel and served half a life in US prison for his treason has declared it in print. A French-Israeli lawyer has argued the legality on French television. The reply the Arab militaries fighting against Israel have made is that there is no innocent oil tanker or container ship moving within missile or drone range of Israel, the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean unless it can prove it.

This answer by the Ansar Allah government of Yemen, aka the Houthi military, is that they will attack any vessel which they know to be owned or controlled by Israel through its shipping families, companies, and their cutouts. As a result, Houthi drone and missile attacks have exposed the elaborate scheme of corporate camouflage and false-flagging which Israel has been employing to conceal the vessel identities and movement of its international shipping operations. The Anglo-American maritime industry media, privy to these secrets, have not published them. The mainstream western press remains in the dark. In today’s Gorillla Radio podcast, this isn’t dark any longer. Not genocide in Gaza but money in shipowner pockets is blowing the gaff.

There is much more at stake. The effectiveness of the Houthi ship targeting campaign has so threatened the movement of vital cargoes into and out of Europe that shipping, port, and military officials in France, Italy, Spain, and Greece are now trying to avert a commercial disaster for themselves by arranging secret safe-passage deals with Yemen and Iran in exchange for which they are applying a blockade on Israel’s cargoes, vessels and ports. This is the secret which is torpedoing the Pentagon’s multinational Red Sea naval escort plan, called OPERATION PROSPERITY GUARDIAN. As the secrecy of Israeli shipping companies spills out, along with the secret dealmaking of the international shipowners with the Houthis, American shipowners are already complaining bitterly at being cut out of the profits. “If the main beneficiary of the operation,” editorializes gCaptain of California, a leading US maritime platform, “is one of the largest shipping corporations in the world [Denmark’s Maersk], then there is a question of whose prosperity is Operation Prosperity Guardian truly guarding?”

Just how accurate is Houthi targeting of concealed Israeli shipping connections? In the podcast I stumbled over the name of the MSC United VIII. According to its owner Mediterranean Shipping Company, “MSC confirms that on 26 December 2023 the container ship MSC UNITED VIII was attacked while transiting the Red Sea. The vessel informed a nearby coalition task force warship of the attack and as instructed engaged in evasive maneuvers. The incident occurred on 26 December 2023 at approximately 12:25 UTC while the MSC vessel was enroute from King Abdullah Port, Saudi Arabia to Karachi, Pakistan. Currently, all crew are safe with no reported injuries and a thorough assessment of the vessel is being conducted. Our first priority remains protecting the lives and safety of our seafarers, and until their safety can be ensured MSC will continue to reroute vessels booked for Suez transit via the Cape of Good Hope.”

In its concern for “the lives and safety of our seafarers”, MSC omitted to explain why the company management had decided to expose the vessel, the mariners, and the cargo by running the Red Sea gauntlet on behalf of the Israeli shipowners, Eyal and Idan Ofer; they are behind the vessel’s operation, and that was the reason for the Houthi attack. Here’s the full story. There’s more — MSC appears to be owned by an Italian family, the Apontes, who established the shipping line in Switzerland in 1970. In fact, Gianluigi Aponte, the MSC founder, is married to Rafaela Diamant, and she controls half the shares of the company. Diamant is Jewish and comes from Haifa. The Houthis know this; maritime reporters don’t.

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“..Hamas continues to fight back, even in rubble..”

Biden Needs To Come To Israel’s – And His Own – Rescue (MoA)

For now Israel seems to lose its war against the Palestinian resistance. The October 7 attempt to gain hostages by Hamas and Islamic Jihad was successful. Israeli outrage about it should have been directed against the Israeli government and its army for their chaotic response. They likely killed more Israelis than Hamas did. But outrage was instead instigated against the external enemy. In this case all Palestinians. A united Israel urged its government to wage revenge. The government’s announced aim is to remove Hamas. That however is impossible to do to a social movement with deep roots in its society. The real aim is to remove all Palestinians from Gaza, to either kill them or to dump them in some foreign land. This would be followed by an attempt to remove all Palestinians from the West Bank before capturing and annexing the south of Lebanon.

However no foreign country is likely to support such a genocide and to take up the burden of millions of unruly refugees. The Israeli government still wants to satisfy its people but has no way to achieve that. Meanwhile the resistance against Israel, which has been built by Iran over several decades, is increasing its response. It aims to press Israel into conceding defeat and to liberate the Palestinians from their Zionist occupiers. Changing a society’s mind requires a slow and long response. In the north Hezbullah is slowly escalating its tit-for tat war with the Israeli army. Some 100,000 Israeli civilians have fled from the border zone. The Ansar Islam movement in Yemen has blocked maritime traffic to Israel’s Eilat port. The U.S. attempt to counter that has failed:

“Despite the US calling the Red Sea tensions “an international challenge” requiring a united response, the initial coalition support was limited, with only 10 nations, including Bahrain as the sole Arab state. The Pentagon later announced that 20 countries had joined the coalition, with Greece and Australia among the new members. In a setback to the US, France, Spain, and Italy have declined their participation in the alliance ..”

Local resistances in Iraq and Syria are attacking U.S. troops deployed in those countries. As long as its troops are there the U.S. can to nothing to prevent that. There are also threats to Israel’s Mediterranean coast line. Hezbollah has the ability to close down Haifa and and other Israeli ports. Missiles, cruise missiles and drones from Gaza, from Lebanon, Yemen and from resistance fighters in Iraq and Syria continue to target Israel day by day. With more than 350,000 Israeli troops mobilized and Palestinian workers from the West Bank banned, Israel’s economy is, for lack of workers, in deep trouble. Its military forays into Palestinian cities in Gaza have so far achieved little results but incurred significant losses. All the army can do is to destroy those cities block by block. But Hamas continues to fight back, even in rubble.

The current plan is to make Palestinian life in Gaza so miserable that leaving it will be for them the only alternative to certain death. But leaving whereto when no one wants to take them? That is a question Israel and its U.S. backers fail to answer. With the war going into a prolonged, unsustainable phase the Israeli government needs to do something else, or fail.

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“Without German exports and earnings, there is a “pressure on the euro to go down against the [US] dollar, and the euro is becoming a sort of failed currency..”

US, Europe Likely On Track to Become ‘Failed Economies’ – Michael Hudson (Sp.)

The United States’ efforts to cripple the Russian economy through sanctions have backfired spectacularly not only against the US but also allies who joined the failed economic warfare tactics. Polls in the US show that 70-80% of Americans think their country’s economy “is getting worse and is being mismanaged,” says US economist and former Wall Street analyst Michael Hudson. During an interview with Sputnik, Hudson argued that the US’ gross domestic product growth occurs only for the 10% of the population, with the remaining 90% of Americans being left empty-handed. “So what you are having in the West is a bifurcated economy: it is very good to be a billionaire, it is very good to have stocks and even bonds; it is not good at all if you are a wage earner and have to pay for your housing and your food and your consumption out of what you’re earning,” he explained.

However, Hudson also indicated that across the pond, Europe is not faring any better as the “destruction of German heavy industry as a result of the Nord Stream blow-up and the sanctions against Russia have pushed Germany into a decline. The German economy’s woes, in turn, put the “entire euro’s exchange rate” at risk because of the significant role Germany’s export surplus played in the Eurozone balance and foreign exchange. Without German exports and earnings, there is a “pressure on the euro to go down against the [US] dollar, and the euro is becoming a sort of failed currency,” Hudson said. “So there is talk now in both Europe and America, ‘Is America a failed economy? Is Europe a failed economy?’ That’s really what we should be talking about, not simply whether the economy is growing or not,” he pointed out.

Hudson dismissed US President Joe Biden’s boasting about the American economy growing, with the American economist noting the growth is essentially a product of the US Federal Reserve “pumping money into the stock market and that is pushing up stocks.” “For Mr. Biden, the contributors to the Democratic Party are the financial sector, and for the financial sector, it is doing just fine. So Mr. Biden’s economy is thriving,” Hudson continued. “Unfortunately, the economy for the 90% is not thriving, that is not Mr. Biden’s economy and that is why Mr. Biden’s approval ratings have fallen to the lowest approval of any sitting president since World War II, since statistics began to be covered.” At this time, the United States faces a health crisis, housing crisis and a “general economic malaise,” he added. Hudson also weighed in on matters such as the ramifications of Western powers’ seizure of Russia’s foreign assets and the role of US dollar as an instrument of control wielded by Washington.

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“..the majority non-white population in the U.S. will become a reality. The Bureau says the change will occur in 2042..”

What Will Be Left Out of the USA? (Barton)

The most decisive latest turning point that was to affect the U.S. ethnic make-up then, now and in the future was introduced by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In fact, it was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on October 3, 1965 and is known as The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 also known as the Hart–Celler Act. The most essential changes introduced by the act amounted to abolishing quotas based on national origin. That meant the end of preferences for northern and western Europeans and selecting immigrants on individual merit and not race or ethnic origin. Apart from President Johnson, the proponents of the bill were Ted Kennedy, along with Attorney General and Senator Robert Kennedy, in part to honor their brother, the late president Kennedy. They did a lot to confuse the public. The lead supporter of the act Ted Kennedy for instance, while debating it in the Senate stated the following:

‘The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.’ After signing the act an electoral backlash against Republicans ensued. Yet in 1960, one-third of “non-white” voters (the vast majority of them, black) supported Richard Nixon, the Republican Party candidate. It wasn’t so four years later. The Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, an arch-conservative who also voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and whose law-and-order message may have struck many observers as a thinly veiled appeal to white backlash scored about 6% of non-white vote. With the relentless inflow of Third World migrants exceeding one million a year in recent years it would be right to ask whether the 1965 Act had a decisive impact on the presidential election of 2016. Yes, it did have.

Donald Trump won 52% of the white vote on a platform that writer and professor Josh Zeitz rightly classified as uniquely unappealing to minority voters. Hillary Clinton grabbed only 40% of the white vote. But as minorities grow in numbers and proportion of the U.S. population, the impact of the Hart-Celler Act will gain much more in significance. Any Democrat that will be a presidential candidate in 2024 is likely to have even more minorities to vote for him, and Trump (if he will be allowed to run for presidency) will face the depleted white vote if his program remains unchanged. To gain more votes his electoral platform will have to become minority inclusive. In view of the above, what is held in store for the future elections and the USA in general?

It was for the first time in 2011 that non-Hispanic whites accounted for a minority of births in the U.S. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that minorities – defined as anyone who is not a single-race non-Hispanic white – made up 50.4% of the nation’s population younger than age 1 on 1 July, 2011. The growth, it was claimed, was fueled by immigration and births. One doesn’t have to strain his imagination to realize that once the old generations pass away the majority non-white population in the U.S. will become a reality. The Bureau says the change will occur in 2042. According to The Pew Research Center, whites in the U.S. will account for 47% of the population by 2050. Are the above forecast to satisfy power hungry democrats and liberals? Apparently not.

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“He betrayed his people. And not just one, he betrayed two of his nations,” Lavrov concluded.”

Russia Has Become Significantly Stronger Over Past Year – Lavrov (Sp.)

Russia has become significantly stronger over the past year, with the people opposing the West in the hybrid war it has unleashed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Sputnik and the Rossiya 24 broadcaster. “As a result of this hybrid war of the entire collective West against Russia, which was unleashed by the hands, bodies and all other components of Ukrainian society against us … Russia has become significantly stronger this year, and the unity of our people has increased significantly,” Lavrov said. The top diplomat added that the West’s plan to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia had failed miserably. “The West is indeed changing its tactics, probably even thinking about restructuring its strategy. Even if we claim that the ‘strategic defeat of Russia’ was the strategy, forgive me for repeating, then the strategy has failed miserably,” Lavrov stated.

He stressed that since US has labelled Russia as its “enemy”, Moscow is ready for any course of events. These days, the advance of a fairer economic order cannot be stopped, said Sergey Lavrov. “The movement towards a fairer world order, economic world order, is, of course, unstoppable”. He recalled that developing countries and BRICS members have been demanding IMF and World Bank quotas that would reflect their real economic standing, but the West has been reluctant. Russia’s top diplomat stressed that this case is yet another example of how the US violates the principles of honest free market competition. Lavrov added that the world majority grew very tired of the US dollar as the main reserve currency, because it has turned into a tool of political pressure.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Sputnik and the Rossiya 24 broadcaster that he does not see any bright future for the European Union. “I do not see such a rosy future, or rather, I do not see a rosy future in a good sense for the European Union. In other senses, they have already defined this future for themselves,” Lavrov said. The top diplomat stressed that Russia plans to achieve all the goals of the special military operation in the wake of changes in Ukraine. “We are preparing to implement all the goals that were set. Demilitarization, denazification. You can’t escape it,” he said. Sergey Lavrov said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a traitor. He recalled that recently the Ukrainian leader said that he had forgotten the Russian language and his words looked as if they were parts of a play.

The top diplomat added that years earlier Zelensky had urged to “leave Russians alone” and pretended that Russian was his language and at the same time he was a citizen of Ukraine. Russia’s foreign policy chief lamented that Zelensky was unable to stick to this position. “He betrayed his people. And not just one, he betrayed two of his nations,” Lavrov concluded.

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“..The removal of the Western-backed government of Vladimir Zelensky is an undeclared but a “most important and inevitable goal” of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine..”

Ukrainian ‘Regime’ Must Be Removed – Medvedev (RT)

The removal of the Western-backed government of Vladimir Zelensky is an undeclared but a “most important and inevitable goal” of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, former President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev has said. On Thursday, Medvedev, who now holds the position of deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, was asked by RIA-Novosti about the prospects of peace talks between Moscow and Kiev in 2024. The Russian military operation in Ukraine will continue next year with its goals remaining unchanged, he replied. According to the former president, those goals include “the disarmament of Ukrainian troops and the rejection of the ideology of neo-Nazism by the current Ukrainian state.” “The removal of the ruling Banderovite regime isn’t being openly declared, but it’s the most important and inevitable goal that must and will be achieved,” he said, referring to the Zelensky government.

‘Banderovite’ relates to Stepan Bandera (1909-1959), a Ukrainian nationalist leader who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II and is now revered as a hero by authorities in Kiev. “Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Nikolaev, Kiev, they are Russian cities, like many others under temporary occupation [by Ukraine]. All of them are marked in yellow and blue on paper maps and electronic tablets, for now,” Medvedev said. About talks, they are “of course, possible,” he acknowledged, adding that “Russia never rejected them, unlike the insane Ukrainian authorities.” The former president stressed, however, that Moscow has no deadline for any negotiations and that these may proceed all the way until “the complete defeat and capitulation” of the NATO-backed Ukrainian forces.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the authorities in Moscow “identify a lack of drive for peace on the part of the Zelensky regime. His representatives think in terms of war and use very aggressive rhetoric.” The US and the EU remain committed to “containing Russia with the hands and bodies of Ukrainians” and realize that without aid from these sources the Kiev government “is doomed,” the minister said. He also recalled that, more than a year ago, Zelensky officially banned himself from negotiating with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Instead, the Ukrainian leader has been promoting his so-called ten-point peace plan, which calls for Russia to withdraw from all territories claimed by Kiev, for Moscow to pay reparations, and for the formation of a war-crimes tribunal. Russian authorities instantly rejected the proposal as “unrealistic” and out-of-touch with the situation on the ground.

Arestovich
https://twitter.com/i/status/1740159924846694473

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Zelensky wants 500,000 new conscripts. He’ll be short: people, armory, uniforms, etc etc.

40 Million Ukrainians Must Fight – Regional Governor (RT)

Ukraine should mobilize its entire population to fight against Russia instead of the 500,000 recently proposed by President Vladimir Zelensky, the governor of the Nikolaev region, Vitaliy Kim, has said. Kim’s comments in a TV interview came after Zelensky stated last week that Ukraine’s military command had asked to conscript half a million men over the coming year. The secretary of Ukraine’s parliamentary national security committee, Roman Kostenko, explained that the mobilization drive is needed to cover casualties and form new units. Kim, however, argued that conscripting 500,000 people is “not enough” and that Ukraine needs to attract at least two million volunteers. Or better still, the governor suggested, Kiev should look to mobilize the country’s entire population of 40 million, claiming that the fight against Russia is similar to WWII.

In addition, Kim suggested that all enterprises in Ukraine should be mobilized and put on a war footing, regardless of the impact on profits. “The more we mobilize, the faster Putin will surrender,” the governor said. Zelensky’s proposal to mobilize 500 thousand people has raised eyebrows even in Kiev, with Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzny stating that he had never requested any specific numbers from Zelensky and has only demanded, as always, ammunition, weapons and human resources. Ukraine’s Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko has also seemingly been baffled by Zelensky’s proposal, stating that no concrete plans have yet been submitted to his ministry, and that it is unclear where Kiev would can get the money to fund the mobilization of half a million people, which would cost an estimate of 500 billion hryvnia ($13.2 billion).

However, some have suggested that Zelensky’s mobilization announcement may be an attempt to encourage the West to provide additional weapons and funds. According to former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov, the Ukrainian leader could use the situation to tell Kiev’s partners: “see, we’re gathering an army of half a million. It must be equipped, it must be armed. These are huge costs and expenses.” While it is unclear when and how Kiev will conscript 500 thousand men, it has already started working on revising its mobilization laws, with lawmakers looking to reduce the conscription age from 27 to 25 and introduce electronic military summons. According to Russia’s estimates, an estimated 400,000 Ukrainian troops have been either killed or wounded since the start of the conflict in February 2022, including 125,000 during Kiev’s failed counteroffensive between early June and late November.

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“..part of the concerted effort being undertaken by the Russian military to create a situation for the civilians of Donetsk, where they can live in peace without the fear of daily bombardment..”

Scott Ritter: Maryinka’s Liberation ‘Major Victory’ for Russia (Sp.)

Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the Russian Armed Forces had liberated the town of Maryinka on Monday. Maryinka is a heavily fortified settlement situated on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk. “In the course of offensive operations, assault detachments from the Southern Group of Forces completely liberated Maryinka southwest of Donetsk,” Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin during Monday’s briefing. Speaking to Sputnik, Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector recalled that from Maryinka, a town of around 9,000 people, Ukrainian forces carried out “merciless shelling of the civilian population of Donetsk and the surrounding area. “Capturing Maryinka and eliminating the source of this artillery and mortar fire represents a major moral victory for the Russian forces,” Ritter pointed out.

He dubbed Maryinka’s liberation “part of the concerted effort being undertaken by the Russian military to create a situation for the civilians of Donetsk, where they can live in peace without the fear of daily bombardment that has killed so many innocent civilians, including children.” According to Ritter, Maryinka is just “one of the battles for the Russian forces” who are pushing the Ukrainians out of previously heavily defended cities, towns, and villages, which he said means that strategic initiative is in Russia’s hands. He recounted that the Russian defense industry “is in full gear” producing new military equipment in significant quantities for the Russian forces that are deployed in the Donbass and the new Russian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhye. “Right now, it looks like Russia will sustain and maintain the strategic advantage,” per Ritter.

The ex-US Marine Corps intelligence officer underlined that it remains to be seen whether Maryinka represents “the beginning of a new phase of aggressive offensive operations or whether Russia will continue to pick away at these heavily fortified Ukrainian defenses before going on the full-blown offensive.” In any case, he reiterated, “one thing is for certain: the fall of Maryinka is a major victory for Russia.” “Morally, it stops the source of the daily shelling of the innocent civilians of Donetsk. And two, it represents yet another victory of the Russian Armed Forces over not just the forces of Ukraine, but the collective West and NATO,” Ritter concluded.

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“..Washington feels compelled to trigger crises worldwide as it sees global power slipping from its hands..”

‘Zelensky Regime’ Doesn’t Want Peace – Lavrov (RT)

The US and its allies will continue sending arms to Kiev since its goal of hurting Russia while sacrificing Ukrainians remains unchanged, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TASS published on Wednesday. The top diplomat was asked whether the Middle East crisis has affected the amount of Western military assistance provided to Ukraine, potentially nudging President Vladimir Zelensky into a negotiated resolution of the conflict with Russia. According to Lavrov, “inflicting ‘a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield’ remains a priority for most unfriendly governments.” Officials in Washington and Brussels, he said, remain committed to “containing Russia with the hands and bodies of Ukrainians” and realize that without aid, the Ukrainian government “is doomed.”

“We identify a lack of drive for peace on the part of the Zelensky regime. His representatives think in terms of war and use very aggressive rhetoric,” the diplomat noted. According to Lavrov, the fact that a legal ban remains in force in Ukraine on negotiating with Russia as long as President Vladimir Putin keeps his office is sufficient to make such conclusions. The minister believes that Washington feels compelled to trigger crises worldwide as it sees global power slipping from its hands. As long as this attitude persists, “no one is safe from its political machinations. And the world increasingly realizes this.” Western leaders have pledged to support Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia. This year, Ukrainian forces attempted to use heavy weapons provided by foreign donors to breach through Russian defensive lines but failed to achieve significant territorial gains.

Moscow estimates Ukrainian losses in the so-called counteroffensive at over 159,000 troops and more than 383,000 in total since the hostilities began last year. As a result of these casualties, Kiev plans to ramp up forced conscription to replenish manpower. As a result of Kiev’s lackluster results on the battlefield, Republican opposition in the US Congress blocked a White House request to appropriate additional funds for Ukraine. The holdouts have demanded that Democrats approve a major immigration reform as a concession. Meanwhile, in the EU, Hungary vetoed Brussels’ plan for long-term Ukraine assistance. The proposed packages are measured in the tens of billions of dollars and euros, respectively.

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“..The Americans “are pushing the puppet regime to the abyss, dooming thousands of ordinary Ukrainians to certain death..”

US Sending ‘Bloody New Year’s Gift To Kiev’ – Moscow (RT)

The Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, has criticized Washington for its recent arms package to Ukraine, stating that it reflects an intention to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.” The diplomat’s remarks came in response to the $250 million worth of military assistance, including air defense munitions, rockets, artillery shells, and small-arms rounds, approved on Wednesday by the administration of US President Joe Biden. Antonov called the latest round of military aid a “bloody New Year’s gift to Kiev” in remarks published on social media. The Americans “are pushing the puppet regime to the abyss, dooming thousands of ordinary Ukrainians to certain death,” he warned.

On the other hand, the official emphasized Russia’s recent success in acquiring the town of Maryinka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, a strategic Ukrainian stronghold. According to Antonov, the US tends to ignore such developments and instead focuses on highlighting “Ukrainian fetish ‘victories.’” The diplomat predicted that any arms provided by NATO nations to Ukraine would be “burned and destroyed” without altering the situation on the ground. The White House could not appropriate more funding for Ukraine after Republican opposition in Congress blocked its request. The lawmakers have demanded major concessions on immigration reform and southern border security as a precondition for their approval of spending additional billions of taxpayers’ dollars on Ukraine support.

US officials have indicated that this latest package would be the last under the current spending allowance. US President Joe Biden has accused those lawmakers opposed to more Ukraine spending of jeopardizing national security by tying it to domestic policy issues. He suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin might attack a NATO member after dealing with Ukraine. Putin dismissed this remark as “absolute nonsense,” saying that Biden was using exacerbated rhetoric to cover up his administration’s foreign policy failures. Moscow maintains that preventing NATO expansion into Ukraine is a key objective in the conflict.

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“..Ukraine has to achieve a sustained economic recovery so that those who fled the country after the start of the Russian military operation will return..”

Ukraine Warns Of Pension And Salary Delays (RT)

The Ukrainian government could be forced to delay paying pensions and salaries to millions of citizens if the US and the EU do not provide more financial support, Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko has warned. The country is facing a “huge risk of underfunding of certain social sectors” as it prioritizes defense and debt servicing amid the conflict with Russia, Sviridenko, who is also the economy minister, told the Financial Times on Wednesday. If Kiev does not receive more foreign aid, it may be forced to postpone salary payments to 500,000 civil servants and 1.4 million teachers, as well as delay benefits for 10 million pensioners, she added. The amount of Western assistance to Ukraine has reduced significantly in recent months.

US Republican lawmakers are resisting attempts by the administration of President Joe Biden to push through another $60 billion in aid for Kiev, while Hungary has vetoed the EU’s planned four-year, €50 billion ($55 billion) aid package for Ukraine. “The support of partners is extremely critical. We need it urgently,” Sviridenko said, estimating that Ukraine would require $37 billion in external assistance next year to function properly. The country’s economy, which according to the IMF saw 4.5% GDP growth this year, will be back in “survival” mode without more Western aid, she stated. Unnamed Western officials told the FT that Ukraine should be able to sustain itself for a few months by borrowing domestically or through monetary financing by its central bank. However, they warned that this could provoke a spike in inflation, undermine financial stability, and weaken the tax base, thus making the country even more dependent on foreign support.

Ukraine has to achieve a sustained economic recovery so that those who fled the country after the start of the Russian military operation will return, Sviridenko insisted. Unemployment is currently almost 19%, although at the same time numerous sectors are suffering labor shortages, the deputy prime minister said. Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov suggested on Wednesday that there is “discord” in the West regarding further support for Ukraine, considering that funds go “to a regime that uses it with unknown efficiency and for unclear purposes.” The US and the EU are “already well aware of the level of corruption [in Ukraine]. They understand that a large part of this money is simply being stolen,” he claimed. The shift in the public opinion in the US regarding the issue has been reflected by FT-Michigan Ross poll earlier this month, which revealed that 48% of Americans thought that Washington was spending “too much” on helping Kiev.

Read more …

The Texas governor can’t protect Texas from Washington.

DOJ Threatens Lawsuit If Texas Enforces New Border Security Law (HC)

The Department of Justice is warning Gov. Greg Abbott that it will sue if Texas moves forward with legislation empowering state officials to remove people from the U.S. who they suspect of being in the country illegally. The new legislation, which Abbott signed into law earlier this month, is unconstitutional and will disrupt the federal government’s immigration enforcement operations, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton wrote in a letter to the governor obtained by Hearst Newspapers. The letter says that if Abbott does not confirm the state will forgo enforcement of the law by Wednesday, “the United States will pursue all appropriate legal remedies to ensure that Texas does not interfere with the functions of the federal government.”

The law, set to take effect in March, would allow any law enforcement officer in Texas to arrest migrants accused of unlawfully entering the state from Mexico and empower judges to order their removal. It is a major escalation of Abbott’s border security initiative, Operation Lone Star, and has been cast by the governor and other Texas Republicans as an invitation for the Supreme Court to revisit longstanding precedent leaving immigration enforcement solely to the federal government. El Paso County and two immigrant rights groups earlier this month sued to stop what they called the “patently illegal” legislation. The American Civil Liberties Union is representing them in the case. The Mexican government, which would have to accept immigrants ordered removed by state officials, has also said it will not go along with the law and has threatened to take action to stop it, as well.

Abbott, a former Texas attorney general, has said he believes the law was crafted in a way that “can and should be upheld in the courts on its own.” He has said the law is necessary to stem the record number of border crossings under the Biden administration and has accused President Joe Biden of failing to secure the border. The DOJ letter says the U.S. Constitution tasks the federal government with regulating immigration and controlling the international borders. The law “therefore intrudes into a field that is occupied by the federal government and is preempted,” the letter says. The Justice Department points to a landmark Supreme Court ruling from 2012 that held that only the federal government has the power to enforce immigration laws.

Abbott has cast the law as an opening for the high court to reconsider that ruling. In that case, the high court struck down portions of an Arizona law that authorized police to arrest anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Then-Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the federal government has “broad discretion” in setting immigration policy and that the state could not pursue policies that “undermine federal law.” “Indeed, the Supreme Court has confirmed that ‘the removal process’ must be ‘entrusted to the discretion of the Federal Government’ because a ‘decision on removability’ touches ‘on foreign relations and must be made with one voice,’” the letter says.

Read more …

She’s unelected, with unusual powers.

“She immediately suspended her decision. Meaning Trump stays on the ballot in Maine. This is just for show.”

Democrat Secretary Of State Kicks Trump Off Maine Ballot (ZH)

A day after former president Trump’s lawyers demanded the Maine secretary of state recuse herself from her upcoming decision on the former president’s ballot eligibility under the 14th Amendment – citing her past statements about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot; Shenna Bellows – a Democrat – has kicked Trump off the state’s primary ballot. The letter from Trump’s lawyers seeking Bellows’ recusal cites two social media posts Bellows issued the day Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial, which concerned the Capitol riot. “The Jan 6 insurrection was an unlawful attempt to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. Today 57 Senators including King & Collins found Trump guilty. That’s short of impeachment but nevertheless an indictment. The insurrectionists failed, and democracy prevailed,” Bellows wrote on Twitter, the platform now known as X.

The letter also takes aim at a post Bellows issued on the one-year anniversary of Jan. 6, in which she reposted a news report highlighting Bellows’s efforts to protect election workers. “One year after the violent insurrection, it’s important to do all we can to safeguard our elections,” Bellows wrote. Thus, the lawyers argued, Bellows “has already passed judgment” on Trump’s “core assumptions.” But, as The Hill reports, unlike other states, where plaintiffs have sued over Trump’s eligibility in court, Maine’s system first allows the secretary of state to weigh in – unilaterally, Judge Dredd-style. As she explains, ‘she is the law!’ Challengers can then appeal in state court. Bellows determined that the former president could not run for office due to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. She argued his actions violated the 14th Amendment.

Read more …

“..it has done so based on a subjective claim of insurrection the state lacks any constitutional authority to make.”

Colorado Puts Trump Back On 2024 GOP Primary Ballot (NYP)

Colorado’s secretary of state said Thursday that former President Donald Trump will remain on the 2024 primary ballot for certification next week, as the state Republican Party appeals a court ruling that had found him ineligible for office earlier this month. “With the appeal filed, Donald Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot when certification occurs on January 5, 2024, unless the US Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling,” Jena Griswold’s office said in a press release. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Dec. 19 that the former president could not receive the Republican nomination because he had unconstitutionally participated in an “insurrection” against the US government on Jan. 6, 2021.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment includes a clause that bars those who have taken an oath of office from being elected again to govern if they have violated the Constitution by having “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” “Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and was disqualified under the Constitution from the Colorado Ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court got it right. This decision is now being appealed,” Griswold said in a separate statement. “I urge the US Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election.” On Wednesday, the Colorado Republican Party asked the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling from their state’s high court, saying the party “has been irreparably harmed by the decision” to disqualify the 77-year-old ex-president.

“The state has interfered in the primary election by unreasonably restricting the Party’s ability to select its candidates,” states the 45-page petition from the Colorado GOP and the nonprofit American Center for Law and Justice. “As a natural and inevitable result, the state has interfered with the Party’s ability to place on the general election ballot the candidate of its choice. And it has done so based on a subjective claim of insurrection the state lacks any constitutional authority to make.” The high court has yet to make a decision on the ruling, which would need to occur before a Jan. 5 deadline for candidate names to be certified by both parties for the Colorado ballot.

Read more …

For 2 seconds?

“I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it. They were very nice, but above all, persistent.”

“..another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself.”

Trump Takes Credit For Success Of Home Alone 2 (RT)

Donald Trump has rejected a claim by movie director Chris Columbus that he “bullied” his way into his brief appearance in the 1992 hit movie ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.’ He argued that the scene with him helped to make the iconic Christmas film a success. Writing on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Trump insisted that the sequel producers at the time were “begging me to make a cameo appearance.” In the film, a sequel to the 1990 classic ‘Home Alone,’ Trump is briefly seen speaking to central character Kevin McAllister in a scene, who was played by the then-eleven-year-old Macaulay Culkin. “They rented the Plaza hotel in New York, which I owned at the time,” Trump wrote. “I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it. They were very nice, but above all, persistent.”

But once an agreement was struck, “that little cameo took off like a rocket and the movie was a big success,” he stated. In his 2020 interview with Business Insider, Columbus said that Trump’s brief appearance came about as a condition demanded by him to permit the production team to use the Plaza’s lobby for a scene in the film. Trump owned the iconic New York hotel between 1987 and 1995. “He did bully his way into the movie,” Columbus recalled, paraphrasing Trump as having stipulated: “The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie.” “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Trump insisted on Truth Social. “That cameo helped make the movie a success, but if they felt bullied, or didn’t want me, why did they put me in, and keep me there, for over 30 years?” Trump added that Columbus’ contradiction is an example of “another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself.”

Trump’s cameo has been a source of several headlines in recent years. In 2019, he claimed that an edited-for-TV version of the film for Canadian audiences removed Trump’s bit part at the behest of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. A spokesperson for the CBC television network said at the time that the scene, along with several others, were removed due to time constraints because it was “not integral to the plot.” Meanwhile, in 2021 the star of the Home Alone films Macaulay Culkin, who is now 43, said he was “sold” on the idea of Trump’s cameo being digitally removed from all future versions of the film. In the Home Alone films, Culkin plays a young boy who is accidentally separated from his family during the Christmas holidays, and who fights off a pair of thieves played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. The film made $359 million at the box office and was 1992’s third highest-grossing movie.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audrey

 

 

Too cool

 

 

Can’t stop
https://twitter.com/i/status/1740484270731518062

 

 

Wild animals

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle December 29 2023

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 51 total)
  • Author
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  • #149357

    Vincent van Gogh Boulevard de Clichy, Paris 1887   • How Yemen Changed Everything (Pepe Escobar) • There Are No Innocent Ships At Sea (Helmer) •
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle December 29 2023]

    #149358
    Red
    Participant

    For a look at a possible reason for climate weirding other than human caused. Assuming of course one can hold two opposing views in ones head at the same time.

    A lot more here to chew on if you really can think beyond the local.

    https://www.youtube.com/@Suspicious0bservers/featured

    #149359
    Basseterre Kitona
    Participant

    Trump definitely improves the appeal of Home Alone 2…but the real star power is Rob Schneider.

    Without those two, Home Alone 2 is no better than the first movie…which was just a showcase for a psychopathic young boy torturing a couple of hapless dupes.

    Which is all kind of moot because everybody knows that Ernest Saves Christmas is the superior holiday classic of that era.

    #149360
    Red
    Participant

    You don’t have to worry about the climate if these folks get their way. You will be staved to death if you can’t pay and most won’t be able to, by design. They will attempt to have backyard gardening outlawed soon enough.

    Colin Todhunter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). In 2018, he was named a Living Peace and Justice Leader/Model by Engaging Peace Inc. in recognition of his writings.

    With reference to the section on India in the author’s 2022 e-book Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order, Aruna Rodrigues, lead petitioner in the GMO mustard Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India, stated:

    “Colin Todhunter at his best: this is graphic, a detailed horror tale in the making for India, an exposé on what is planned, via the farm laws, to hand over Indian sovereignty and food security to big business. There will come a time pretty soon — (not something out there but imminent, unfolding even now), when we will pay the Cargills, Ambanis, Bill Gates, Walmarts — in the absence of national buffer food stocks (an agri policy change to cash crops, the end to small-scale farmers, pushed aside by contract farming and GM crops) — we will pay them to send us food and finance borrowing from international markets to do it.” 

    Sickening Profits: The Global Food System’s Poisoned Food and Toxic Wealth

    #149361
    Dr. D
    Participant

    I’m sure images again…

    Tmobile now reading all your texts, forwarding them to the government, and fining you for hate speech.

    TMobile Provides Government Access to Your Texts

    Thank God we have no competition! That’s Capitalism! And Thank God we have a full merger of government and corporation, that’s also Capitalism and not a violation of 1A, 4A, and every other “A” at all! “Democracy!” Where you can’t speak and have no choices at all!

    “”That’s bad, but…”We’re watching something much darker than that” “The objective of the entire administration is to destroy the United States…”

    And it’s not that hard to tell, and they publish and tell you what they’re doing and why. “We want to fundamentally change America” – Barack Obama.

    Translation: “America is a free and prosperous Democracy, but we’re here to change all that.”

    Galloway, no atrocities. Can ANYONE be discredited, ever? Here Galloway tells you, tells NPR reporters, but the NPR/BBC reporters realize it, then change nothing and like children believe in Bad Santa again tomorrow. Probably writing the same new atrocity articles right this minute. (yes they were, see below on Yemen)

    “those eleven US aircraft carrier task forces, for all practical purposes, are essentially worthless.”

    They’re getting off easy. I would hope the U.S. would be willing to save those 5,000 sailors by going home – sailors are hard to train and can be moved to ships that are relevant – but I doubt it. No empire has ever done that before, it would be a surprise of epic proportions if we were the first. Here’s hoping though.

    This is also not “just going to go” the we, Russia, or anyone thinks. It’s become too complicated and will have its specific lighting strike somewhere no one’s looking. So like all history, it will be both easy to see in general, and impossible to see in detail. Here “America First” told them to get back to the Constitution, come home, back as far as the 90s, but certainly although following orders the Military realized this need since 2002. Maybe only below-General rank, but it’s there the whole time. Point is, they’ve been pushing for it, positioning for it, and trying to find the window to complete it. Yemen and Ukraine are giving us the window, and Biden is giving us the fall guy.

    I don’t know enough internal politics and stories of India yesterday, but strikes me as very similar. India is very large and has a lot to think about. (IF) they chose to position so as to keep pressure off the Global South and NOT have immigration polycrisis the bad boyz dreamed of, that’s similar to our attempting to slow down our politicians, generally, but more specifically with our position in Ukraine. We can’t stop them, but the gunpowder isn’t packed and so their big efforts go off like a squibb all the time, existing mostly in fevered media imagination. So most of the things they wanted still occur, but India stopped them from being sharp, and that really, really mattered.

    The same India who shockingly did anything the British Empire told them, even outlawing cash to kill a million and destroy their economy (in 2014?). Like us, they’re so large they did this, diverted it, then could point at it after to say, “Aw shucks, I guess we can’t keep going, that just didn’t work.” In hindsight, probably the right move. Not a digital currency but an innoculation against a digital currency. But as they’re collection bio-signatures, it’s a mixed victory.

    “The Houthis know this; maritime reporters don’t.”

    Reporters: so they don’t know, don’t look, don’t ask.
    MoneyBusiness
    https://i.imgflip.com/3it601.jpg

    FilthyAnimals
    https://i.imgflip.com/2xr6an.jpg

    #149362
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “A united Israel urged its government to wage revenge.”

    Nope. That’s the story OF THE PRESS, but that was categorically false. Even immediate polls showed that Israelis blamed Bibi and not Hamas (generally). The press lies got in under the tent even for Helmer, and so the rest of us often too. Ah Lies: is there anything you can’t fix?

    ““Without German exports and earnings, there is a “pressure on the euro to go down against the [US] dollar, and the euro is becoming a sort of failed currency..”

    We’re in a standoff with Europe to see who collapses first. And gets capital flows. Joke’s on both of us: we’re irrelevant and the larger tide is going East to Asia as Armstrong says. A 100 year flow takes time though. And why? We’re both completely untrustworthy. They can’t keep their hands of anyone’s money. Railworkers, Ohioians, 401ks, Republicans, Truckers, Venezuelans, anyone’s money is fair game.

    “Polls in the US show that 70-80% of Americans think their country’s economy “is getting worse and is being mismanaged,” But Biden said it’s the Peoples’ and the Press’s fault for being “Far Right Wing White Supremacist Conspiracy Theorists” not that more people are living in tents than any time in all 400 years of American history.

    “White House Press Secretary replaced with literal gaslight” — BBee
    Lite
    https://genesiustimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/press-gaslight-white-house-1024×538.jpg

    ““..the majority non-white population in the U.S. will become a reality. The Bureau says the change will occur in 2042..”

    Back to the above quote: ““We’re watching something much darker than that” “The objective of the entire administration is to destroy the United States…”

    The object here is to import the Visigoths, then to give all 10 million of them citizenship if they promise to be soldiers and shoot all Americans (white) in the streets. ‘Cause when has that plan ever gone bad? And the Black Community loves it! Did you not see them on the courthouse steps in Chicago, with signs and slogans and shouting of complete joy? “Shut up and take my job!” they said.

    ““The movement towards a fairer world order, economic world order, is, of course, unstoppable”.

    Just what I said about the no-market, no-choice, no-property-rights Western order yesterday, where they’ve so screwed the accounting, and are so corrupt top to bottom, it literally can’t be straightened out. So if you want a fairer, that is, not corrupt, thieving world order, one where there are “property rights” and your work, the hours of your life aren’t stolen in violent slavery, and maybe your bank can keep semi-accurate records and allow you to use your own money, then you have NO CHOICE but to move BRIICS. Dodge this.

    ““..The Americans “are pushing the puppet regime to the abyss, dooming thousands of ordinary Ukrainians to certain death..”

    Biden was the first genocider-in-Chief, from Slavs. But to be fair, he was moving on from genociding Black Men in America, then opening new slaves markets in Africa. Imprisoning a generation of Black men and creating literal open-air slave markets = not discredited.

    Like Diogenes, still wandering around with a lantern, looking for anything in the city that can discredit someone. Pom-poms? (chuck it at them.) Nope. Pack of gum (chuck it at them)? Nope… Killing 20 Million Americans? Nope. Doctors being 3rd leading cause of death? Nope.

    “DOJ Threatens Lawsuit If Texas Enforces New Border Security Law (HC)

    Downside is, THIS is the certain legal path to Civil War. Which the Feds want and must be avoided. First they have a legal disagreement, then each sends it to their biased courts, then each sends armed men to enforce their court order. How do you THINK this sort of thing happens? Billy Joe and Will Jones wake up one morning and point guns at each other? No. They are both LEGAL OFFICERS OF THE COURT. People don’t get in fights: bureaucracies do. Why? Because only then can they order SOMEBODY ELSE to get punched in the face. As long as it’s not me, I’ll order YOU to get punched in the face all day. I ain’t no Senator’s son.

    And that, Virginia, is what governments are for. If a corporation tells you to do that, you quit. Only governments.

    “It’s really wild that the Maine Secretary of State just seized the power to unilaterally block presidential candidates from the ballot, based on a brand new non-judicial administrative procedure she literally just made up herself, supposedly to enforce the federal 14th Amendment” …That he was never convicted of, or even charged with.

    Another thank you card goes out to Maine.

    They’re so green and love the earth they are outlawing gardening, wood stoves, and making cows extinct wherever they are found. Because what says “Earth” better than this:
    GoGreen
    https://i0.wp.com/magazine.lucubrates.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/20190309-destroyed-suncells.jpg

    #149363
    Dr. D
    Participant

    When I watched the “Ewok Planet” and became an environmentalist, that’s what I saw: cutting down all those redwoods, killing all the furry critters and putting in a Death Star of uniform, glass industrialism. Now what child hasn’t dreamed of that, amirite? And now all our childhood dreams are fulfilled.

    These guys are LITERALLY insane. The environmentalists, I mean.

    #149364
    oxymoron
    Participant

    They are not environmentalists – they are liars and snake oil salesmen and the people who believe them are dupes.
    Environmentalism never stopped being based on the biological and not the technological. You can have a bit of tech but not alot. It can’t make it”s own babies.
    Well until then I guess – whaddoiknow?

    #149365
    Alexander Carpenter
    Participant

    Here’s a sweet rant from Karl Denninger, with the implied subtext of fellow-travelers aiding and abetting the core political agenda. Not naming names, but we see some here…

    Time To Make It Clear From All Humanity

    COP28, or whatever the fraud-laced nonsense from Kerry and his pals might be (and by the way, Kerry is clear in that his agenda is to kill you and/or prohibit reproduction, and no, he’s not kidding) — include many paths forward, including attacking the food supply as he believes cow farts are one of the reasons we’re all going to bake to death.

    Methane is the same thing as natural gas, chemically CH4. It is also formed in the gut of an animal when it consumes carbohydrates — that is, said animal farts due to incomplete conversion. This is biological reality; you fart, I fart, the cow in the field farts (a lot.)

    Kerry, of course, refuses to cut his own carbon emissions down to size. He could live in a place that has the required things for himself and his wife, an heiress. They are very wealthy but nothing requires him and his wife to “live large” — they do because they want to and can afford it, not because they need to. Snopes and others try to dismiss this claiming that his wife actually owns many of these things but that is immaterial; they are a husband and wife couple and thus their actions while married, which they are at the present time, are properly charged to both of them equally. If he disagreed he could divorce her and live as a single man in a tiny, 500 square foot house. He doesn’t; he instead produces a hundred or even a thousand times as much in carbon emissions into the environment as a common person.

    Five very large and expensive mansions, a private jet, yachts and similar are all extreme energy consumers. Exactly zero of them are necessary for the human condition; all are a matter of convenience. Kerry could fly commercial, of course — but that’s “beneath” him, you see, so on a carbon-per-mile basis he emits a hundred times what you do going to the same place and in the daily process of living his life.

    The problem with this is that carbon is the reason all these things exist. Without them his mansions would not exist, his yacht would not exist, his private plane would not exist and neither would all that other fancy stuff he and his wife enjoy. In fact, his wife, a wealthy heiress, would not have any of her money (now his too) without the exploitation of carbon — and he has given up exactly zero of that which, according to him, you should not have the right to gain through your exploitation of carbon.

    The facts are that carbon is at the core of human progress. I don’t care if you like that or not. Without it literally nothing you enjoy today exists. The expansion of human life expectancy has basically all, since the beginning of the human race, been about the exploitation of carbon in various forms.

    Indeed it was the exploitation of carbon to cook animals, and our consumption of meat, that led to the expansion of the (protein-based) human brain and thus our capacity for humanity that exists today. The human race would literally not exist but for the exploitation of carbon.

    These people argue that we must stop this and that the planet will be irretrievably damaged if we don’t.

    They’re wrong, and they know it.

    They seek to keep you under their boot, and that is all. If they really believed any of their bullshit they would have voluntarily ceased all of their own ridiculously outsized exploitation of carbon. Kerry and his wife would have destroyed their mansions, irrevocably branding the deeds to said property as “clear, open, green space” which of course would be a carbon sink, since plants turn CO2 into biomass and in the process release oxygen into the atmosphere. They have not. They would live in a house sufficient to shelter two humans, built entirely sustainably with very thick insulated walls and entirely powered by the “green energy” they claim to support, all sourced from materials and manufacturing using same with no inputs from slave labor or other exploitation of the earth such as open mining for lithium and enslaving children for cobalt. They would own zero private aircraft and no boat of any sort, say much less a yacht. They would share one electric vehicle, charged entirely with wind or solar energy — and if it wasn’t available because it was calm, cloudy, rainy or snowing, they’d do without. For any trip under about 5 miles which didn’t involve carrying more than 20 or so pounds of load beyond their person they’d use a bicycle, the most-efficient man-powered means of conveyance ever invented (still, after all these years), benefiting from aerobic exercise at the same time.

    They haven’t done any of this but they wish to impose on you such a lifestyle at literal gunpoint.

    We, the humans of this planet, must make this clear: No, they won’t impose any such thing. We are not slaves and we will not accept the premise that is blatantly unconstitutional — and thus illegal on its face — that they are “more equal” and thus can do whatever they want carbon-wise, enjoying the fruits thereof, while we cannot.

    Fuck these people and their “goals”; their goal is your slavery, not the planet’s health and it is irrevocably proved by people like Kerry, Gore and many others who demonstrate every single day that they believe exactly zero of what they preach.

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=250364

    #149366
    tboc
    Participant

    sometimes my naivete surprises me. I realized the other morning that i had completely misunderstood why Thoreau and Melville were included in the required reading in school. In one of those road to Damascus moments came the realization that i was supposed to ridicule those moral ideas as not being profitable and not allow them to be inculcated into my world view.

    Always thought “What are you doing out there” was the proper stance. All of those years feeling revulsion when i thought of Taggert instead of attempting to emulate his persona.

    Woody Guthrie on immigration
    My father’s own father, he waded that river,
    They took all the money he made in his life;
    My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
    And they rode the truck till they took down and died.

    Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
    Our work contract’s out and we have to move on;
    Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
    They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

    We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
    We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
    We died ‘neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
    Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

    and Saint Ronnie made sure the illegals could have driver’s licenses. give me a break about illegal immigration being a recent and Democratic situation

    #149367
    John Day
    Participant

    We found a lot of the same stories again, and I just started putting a post together last night.
    The Houthis in Yemen are a special kind of Underdog today…
    underdog

    #149368
    zerosum
    Participant

    Summary – Yesterday is gone

    How did Yemen, (backward desert nomads?), find the shipping secrets and learn to use modern weapons?

    https://new.thecradle.co/articles/how-yemen-changed-everything
    How Yemen changed everything
    In a single move, Yemen’s Ansarallah has checkmated the west and its rules-based order

    1. blockade of the Red Sea supply chains
    2. Israel may “soon face the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, and other waterways.”
    3. a possible blockade of the Strait of Hormuz

    Read more …

    BECAUSE OF ISRAEL’S WAR AGAINST PALESTINE, THERE ARE NO INNOCENT SHIPS AT SEA


    • There Are No Innocent Ships At Sea (Helmer)

    The effectiveness of the Houthi ship targeting campaign has so threatened the movement of vital cargoes into and out of Europe that shipping, port, and military officials in France, Italy, Spain, and Greece are now trying to avert a commercial disaster for themselves by arranging secret safe-passage deals with Yemen and Iran in exchange for which they are applying a blockade on Israel’s cargoes, vessels and ports.
    —————-

    #149369
    John Day
    Participant

    My current perspective on atmospheric CO2 concentration, which humans ARE increasing by burning buried carbon, is that it might be “bad” or “good” for “life on earth” in various time spans from 10 years to 10,000 years, but that it is a necessary feedstock for surface life, which has been going down for a long, long time, so it is probably “good for life on earth” in longer time frames.

    will try image again

    #149370
    John Day
    Participant

    Durn, it won’t let me post another image.
    This image address:
    https://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif

    #149371
    John Day
    Participant

    @Zerosum: Yes, exactly that paragraph from Helmer is the best focus of that article , “Underdog”.

    #149372
    zerosum
    Participant

    Our social/economic/political system.

    A living wage means you don’t live in a tent.

    #149373
    Red
    Participant

    “Our social/economic/political system.”

    Is a race to the bottom.
    Can you see the bottom yet?
    Do you need glasses?
    TAE provides some glasses.
    Good optometry here.

    #149374

    That time is coming soon when we’ll be called
    To add our assets to the things which crawled
    From out the slimed miasma: Central, Inc.
    Resist. Or in that slime pit shall we sink.

    #149375
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Lions…
    One of the things that I notice is how the lions’ behavior is, essentially, identical to the behavior of my house cats — especially the one that looks like it has either Siberian or Maine Coon ancestry. The vocalizations are a bit different — no doubt from the size difference — but the behavior is identical. It is uncanny.

    #149376

    neo liberal.
    neo conservative.
    neo libertarian. tmtmtmtmtm

    #149377
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    I hear you Oxy…

    Environmentalism plus my own interest in frugality and doing things myself plus economic hardship has shown me that by working with biology and natural systems much can be accomplished and a good life can be had with fewer resource inputs than are typically used. It took over 15 years to figure it out, but the past few years have seen my front yard garden in Phoenix become more than I believed that it could be. Last year, I had broccoli for family meals once and twice a week for months. (Fortunately, most of the household likes broccoli; green beans not so much.) The keys have been gravity fed irrigation from an indoor shower and using dirt from my hen yard as fertilizer. (Who said that old hens past their laying don’t serve a useful purpose…?) Current projects include gutters and rain barrels, with the goal being to reduce my dependence on city water for gardening.

    The current “climate change warriors” seem only interested in talking points handed to them. The wealthy ones compare notes about their Teslas and the poorer ones grovel to maintain their local “Master Gardener” status. (I looked into the program. It emphasizes desert-only plants, and requires many hours of volunteer labor to maintain. It seems like a “gold star” to bestow on those who are willing to fritter away their time on other people’s garden projects for external praise. I would rather eat from my front yard.)

    #149378
    Noirette
    Participant

    from MoA listed at top post: – (b is good imho) –

    The real aim is to remove all Palestinians from Gaza, to either kill them or to dump them in some foreign land. This would be followed by an attempt to remove all Palestinians from the West Bank before capturing and annexing the south of Lebanon.

    However no foreign country is likely to support such a genocide and to take up the burden of millions of unruly refugees.

    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/12/biden-needs-to-come-to-israels-and-his-own-rescue.html

    Allrighty… All those who support Israel’s ‘attack on Hamas’ and consider Hamas ‘a terrorist organisation’ have spoken not ONE word about accepting refugees: Palestinians in Gaza, other, such as Christians, the Stateless, other Arabs, Orphan children, Unidentified Homeless, Refugees, etc.

    At best, they pushed the ‘send them to the Sinai’ directive. For the rest, as the French say, •Silence Radio.•

    Those who have declared Hamas a ‘terrorist org’, labelling as a sign of adherence to ….:

    AUS, NZ and Paraguay. In part, only, as they draw a distinction between the political / military wing.

    Plus, natch… USuk – isr. EU, Canada, and Japan. (list is from wiki, ok imho but things can change fast.)

    #149379
    Red
    Participant

    Net zero Hmmm….

    We don’t need to hypothesize. Government data disprove the Treasury’s contention and demonstrate that increasing deployment of renewable capacity reduces the productivity of Britain’s grid. In 2009, 87.3 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity, including only 5.1 percent of wind and solar, generated 376.8 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity. In 2020, 100.9 GW of generating capacity, with wind and solar accounting for 37.6 percent of capacity, produced 312.3 TWh of electricity. Thanks to renewables, 13.6 GW (15.6 percent) more generating capacity produced 64.5 TWh (17.1 percent) less electricity.
    Those numbers are damning for renewables and demonstrate why they make electricity more expensive and people poorer. Before mass deployment of renewables, 1 MW of capacity in 2009 produced 4,312 MWh of electricity. In 2020, 1 MW of capacity generated 3,094 MWh, a decline of 28.3 percent. It’s as clear as can be: Investment in renewables shrinks the economy’s productive potential. This is confirmed by the International Energy Agency’s net-zero modeling. Its net-zero pathway sees the global energy sector in 2030 employing nearly 25 million more people, using $16.5 trillion more capital, and taking an additional land area the combined size of California and Texas for wind and solar farms and the combined size of Mexico and France for bioenergy—all to produce 7 percent less energy.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/britains-net-zero-disaster-and-the-wind-power-scam-5553319?

    #149380
    jb-hb
    Participant

    humans ARE increasing by burning buried carbon

    Agreed, but when I give Elon Musk a quarter, I increase his wealth.

    We are fighting with 1,000’s of volcanos and a ginormous sun trying perhaps in vain to take credit for any change in temperature, hopefully upward just a little bit on the eve of re-glaciation. The actual science of geology with actual scientific data such as the Vostok ice cores tells us that CO2 followed rather than preceded heat and ALSO spells out the many reglaciation cycles for the ice age we are currently in.

    I’m not all that concerned about arguing the specific points anymore. I’m satisfied by the perpetual lying and goalpost-moving, not to mention the relentless censorship and defunding of scientists who disagree with CO2 warming. If it could stand the light of day, it would stand the light of day.

    I’m really more concerned with more with sort of our collective mental health.

    Imagine you are in your living room with friends and family over. In the place of your coffee table is a Lovecraftian eldrich horror, a bit like a large beetle with a very flat top carapace. It moves very slowly. A foot an hour? Less?

    As the gathering continues, we all refuse to even give recognition to things that come from outside nice living rooms and things that normally happen in them.

    “So sad that cousin Jeannie just died of that strange blood disease”
    “Terrible that uncle Bert died of a heart attack – he was my favorite uncle!”

    on and on, the “coffee table” moves almost imperceptibly slowly about the living room and everyone says what a shame it is, what’s happening.

    No one can bear to recognize that something from outside, behaving in ways not appropriate to inside IS inside.

    Liberalism, science, Robert’s Rules of Order, our Western values so implicit we cannot actually see them… they are great for organizing things less-imperfectly, thus optimally. But when they lose the ability to recognize that there IS an outside, they become death traps.

    Trying to conduct a meeting where everyone else follows Robert’s Rules of Order while one person, several persons, who do not share the values or goals of the people in the meeting, who would only use those rules against the members, whose desire is to demolish those rules, the group having the meeting, the individuals that comprise the group, the meeting house….

    If everyone takes, as an ultimate takeaway of Robert’s Rules of Order that they “have to be nice no matter what,” they are doomed. The very idea of groups meeting and having discussions to hammer out what to do, of even having an actual community – OVER while their worldview cannot accommodate the concept that anything could exist that is alien to itself. Their concept of niceness itself dies because they cannot defend it.

    So often, wokeists of various disciplines, be it CO2 or Ukriane or Notavax or Whiteness, gender, whatever, the way they operate is indistinguishable from Cluster-B/Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That’s because intrinsically, narcs act outside of context and not in good faith. Maybe there’s ClusterB going on in their heads? And maybe not. Maybe these memeplexes attract sick people or sicken people? Immaterial. When the behaviors are indistinguishable, the WHY is the least of your worries.

    There’s a flat-topped thing in your living room the approximate dimensions of your coffee table, but it is not of your living room, it is not doing living room things. It is not doing things normal to a social gathering in your living room. It isn’t doing things normal to your house, your neighborhood, your town, your county, your state, your nation, your planet, your dimension.

    Both abusers and victims have boundary issues. At their very worst, both can say “I am boundary-less” And what are our unspoken implicit values that demarcate where our boundaries should be? Earnestness, good faith, honesty, scruples, recognizable capacity in that context for shame? The ideas being put forth are chaff, fluff, do not matter. They exhaust the earnest good faith of those trying to discuss, which is their purpose. Watch what they do and how they do it, not what they say.

    #149381
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    @phoenixvoice re: lions

    Yes, but… They exhibit very doggish behavior, s#!+ anywhere they please and decline to bury, live in strong social structures, do not hold much of a schedule.

    #149382
    John Day
    Participant

    @Oxymoron: Sleeping the sleep of the hard-working farmer in late spring.


    @Phoenixvoice
    : Eat your Front Yard! 🙂

    @Lions: I’m not taking my eyes off you for a moment.


    @jb-hb
    : Yes, indeed. I have thoughts about CO2, and thoughts about how I SHOULD be adjusting my life, and I’m not sure how linked they should be. I’m not burning “the owners'” jet fuel these days…

    #149383
    John Day
    Participant

    United Underdogs https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/united-underdogs

    On Christmas Day we drove from Austin up to Fort Worth to help our son Jim with his “new” 1950s house structural assessment for repair and remediation work, mostly in the attic.
    We also visited our other son Steve, and our granddaughter on the other side of the DFW megalopolis, in McKinney. Steve came over to help his dad and brother on Tuesday, as we were cutting 2X4s and making measurements and plans. It was nice to be working together
    We drove back to Austin last night after a couple of “good” days beginning attic structural repairs, with consulting help from Lester, an Architectural Engineer “friend indeed”. Jim and “dad” got a good start on the structural repairs, figuring out the process along the inside of the crest of the roof, and also began insulating the bare ducting for heating and cooling with fiberglass blankets and duct tape. It seemed like a pretty good “meaning of Christmas” endeavor, and we worked out some good methods.

    It is the reflective time of year to look at our world, where industrial society is being drained by rising expense of fuels, especially oil, and rising extraction of value as “profits” from the productive economy, through “financial innovations”. European nations have forsworn Russian oil and gas, except as passed through Indian refineries to raise prices. They are using Liquified Natural Gas at 3-4 times the cost. More people can’t afford that, and industries are shutting down, as they can’t sell products like fertilizer and plastics at high enough prices to make money. Global oil production (even redefined “oil and natural gas liquids”) peaked in late 2018, and is as good a reflection of productive economy in the world as anything. Electrical generation points out where economies have been stagnant or expanding.
    The Honest Sorcerer has that story:
    Goodbye 2023, Goodbye Old World​ , The year when western industrial civilization slipped
    https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/goodbye-2023-goodbye-old-world

    ​”Ruh-Roh”; used up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve … Global gasoline consumption hit a record 26.9 million barrels per day (bpd) this year, exceeding the 2019 peak and defying estimates that the last pre-pandemic year was the time when gasoline demand worldwide would peak.
    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Record-Global-Gasoline-Consumption-Defies-IEA-Forecast.html

    ​ Charles Hugh Smith points out that there is not a good historical analog for 2024. After WW-1 industrial economies were in decline following peak-anthracite-coal (the good, hard, black stuff in steam-engines). That drove Italy into the arms of Germany, when England could not export coal to her. The predations of global banking were similarly bleeding economies, by forcing “allied” nations to repay their vast debts at interest, which they could not, and tried to extract from Germany, which really could not pay those bills, which led to the adaptive strategy called “World War 2”.​ The US, as the largest oil producing country, had begun the transition to oil-based economy, and replacing horses with cars and motorized trucks. The US Navy had transitioned to oil, as well.
    Differences are that there is no new-oil to become a dominant fuel as oil, coal and natural gas deplete. Additionally, the amount of debt compared to productive economy is vast, and predicated on just service of the debt in perpetuity, by an exponentially growing economy.
    There are countries which meet the needs of their citizens more efficiently, but most of us live where the energy and financial efficiencies of providing for human needs are low. There is extraction of value at every level in the US, for instance, due to “rentier” financial interests having long prevailed politically over productive industrial enterprises. Restructuring along the lines of “Classical Economics” would minimize rent-extraction, the goal of classical economic theory, but there is no political structure to serve this need, as globalist rentier-interests have bought the political apparatus in western economies.
    ​ What If There Are No Analogs for 2024?​ , Maybe we’ll get 1893, 1929, 1968 and 2008 analogs mixed into a heady cocktail of surprises.
    https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/what-if-there-are-no-analogs-for

    #149384
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Righting a wrong: Burying decades of US-led wars​ , Today’s global conflicts – whether in Eastern Europe, West Asia, or East Asia – are spawned by a fading US hegemon desperately clinging to power.
    ​ Official US documents, including last year’s National Security Strategy, underscore Washington’s conviction that waiting is a luxury it cannot afford; that it “will act decisively” to maintain its global leadership. As such, the US involvement in conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as the militarization in Southeast Asia, must be seen through this lens of international dynamics.
    ​ Broadly, tensions in Africa and Asia are interconnected with the west’s frenzied initiatives to maintain a dominant position and decisive role in the new multipolar order.​..
    https://new.thecradle.co/articles/righting-a-wrong-burying-decades-of-us-led-wars

    ​ Mike Mihajlovic does a really good job of explaining what Yemeni ballistic missiles and drones can do, how they do it, and what that means for shipping to and from Israel, Israeli-owned ships, and western navies within range. This effectively closes the Red Sea to Israeli interests, and if the US Navy attacks Yemeni missile sites, it will receive heavy damage to military vessels.
    The Red Sea Show [i]​ , Yemeni Ansar Allah (Houthis) vs ‘the Coalition’
    https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/the-red-sea-show-i

    ​ John Helmer says that the Yemenis know who owns what ships through shell companies, and exclusively attack Israeli shipping interests.
    BECAUSE OF ISRAEL’S WAR AGAINST PALESTINE, THERE ARE NO INNOCENT SHIPS AT SEA
    ​ Since the start of Israel’s genocide of Gaza, it has been the claim of the Israelis, their lawyers, and allies that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, so they say that killing them all is neither a genocide nor a war crime.
    ​ Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said it in India in October. US Congressman Brian Mast said it, following the Israeli lead. The US Navy analyst who spied for Israel and served half a life in US prison for his treason has declared it in print. A French-Israeli lawyer has argued the legality on French television.
    ​ The reply the Arab militaries fighting against Israel have made is that there is no innocent oil tanker or container ship moving within missile or drone range of Israel, the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean unless it can prove it. This answer by the Ansar Allah government of Yemen, aka the Houthi military, is that they will attack any vessel which they know to be owned or controlled by Israel through its shipping families, companies, and their cutouts.
    ​ As a result, Houthi drone and missile attacks have exposed the elaborate scheme of corporate camouflage and false-flagging which Israel has been employing to conceal the vessel identities and movement of its international shipping operations. The Anglo-American maritime industry media, privy to these secrets, have not published them. The mainstream western press remains in the dark.
    ​ In today’s Gorillla Radio podcast, this isn’t dark any longer. Not genocide in Gaza but money in shipowner pockets is blowing the gaff.
    ​ There is much more at stake. The effectiveness of the Houthi ship targeting campaign has so threatened the movement of vital cargoes into and out of Europe that shipping, port, and military officials in France, Italy, Spain, and Greece are now trying to avert a commercial disaster for themselves by arranging secret safe-passage deals with Yemen and Iran in exchange for which they are applying a blockade on Israel’s cargoes, vessels and ports.
    ​ This is the secret which is torpedoing the Pentagon’s multinational Red Sea naval escort plan, called OPERATION PROSPERITY GUARDIAN.

    BECAUSE OF ISRAEL’S WAR AGAINST PALESTINE, THERE ARE NO INNOCENT SHIPS AT SEA

    ​ Pepe Escobar may be projecting a little ahead of events, but just a little bit.
    How Yemen changed everything​ , In a single move, Yemen’s Ansarallah has checkmated the west and its rules-based order.
    ​ Yes, a pawn can impose a seismic checkmate. That’s where we are, geopolitically, right now.
    ​ The cascading effects of a single move on the chessboard – Yemen’s Ansarallah stunning and carefully targeted blockade of the Red Sea – reach way beyond global shipping, supply chains, and The War of Economic Corridors. Not to mention the reduction of the much lauded US Navy force projection to irrelevancy.
    ​ Yemen’s resistance movement, Ansarallah, has made it very clear that any Israel-affiliated or Israel-destined vessel will be intercepted. While the west bristles at this, and imagines itself a target, the rest of the world fully understands that all other shipping is free to pass. Russian tankers – as well as Chinese, Iranian, and Global South ships – continue to move undisturbed across the Bab al-Mandeb (narrowest point: 33 km) and the Red Sea.
    ​ Only the Hegemon is disturbed by this challenge to its ‘rules-based order.’ It is outraged that western vessels delivering energy or goods to law-breaking Israel can be impeded, and that the supply chain has been severed and plunged into deep crisis. The pinpointed target is the Israeli economy, which is already bleeding heavily. A single Yemeni move proves to be more efficient than a torrent of imperial sanctions.
    ​ It is the tantalizing possibility of this single move turning into a paradigm shift – with no return – that is adding to the Hegemon’s apoplexy. Especially because imperial humiliation is deeply embedded in the paradigm shift.
    ​ Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the record, is now sending an unmistakeable message: Forget the Suez Canal. The way to go is the Northern Sea Route – which the Chinese, in the framework of the Russia-China strategic partnership, call the Arctic Silk Road.​..
    ..A total naval blockade of Israel, meticulously engineered, remains a distinct possibility. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Hossein Salami said Israel may “soon face the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, and other waterways.”…
    ​..As part of the Axis of Resistance, Yemen’s Ansarallah is now a key actor in a complex Eurasia-wide drama that redefines Heartland connectivity; and alongside China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the India-Iran-Russia-led International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), and Russia’s new Northern Sea Route, also includes control over strategic chokepoints around the Mediterranean Seas and the Arabian peninsula.
    ​ This is another trade connectivity paradigm entirely, smashing to bits western colonial and neocolonial control of Afro-Eurasia. So yes, BRICS+ supports Yemen, who with a single move has presented Pax Americana with The Mother of All Geopolitical Jams.
    https://new.thecradle.co/articles/how-yemen-changed-everything

    ​ Moon of Alabama , Biden Needs To Come To Israel’s – And His Own – Rescue
    ​ For now Israel seems to lose its war against the Palestinian resistance.
    ​ The October 7 attempt to gain hostages by Hamas and Islamic Jihad was successful. Israeli outrage about it should have been directed against the Israeli government and its army for their chaotic response. They likely killed more Israelis than Hamas did.
    ​ But outrage was instead instigated against the external enemy. In this case all Palestinians.
    ​ A united Israel urged its government to wage revenge. The government’s announced aim is to remove Hamas. That however is impossible to do to a social movement with deep roots in its society. The real aim is to remove all Palestinians from Gaza, to either kill them or to dump them in some foreign land. This would be followed by an attempt to remove all Palestinians from the West Bank before capturing and annexing the south of Lebanon.​..
    ..The Ansar Islam movement in Yemen has blocked maritime traffic to Israel’s Eilat port. The U.S. attempt to counter that has failed…
    ​..There are also threats to Israel’s Mediterranean coast line. Hezbollah has the ability to close down Haifa and and other Israeli ports. Missiles, cruise missiles and drones from Gaza, from Lebanon, Yemen and from resistance fighters in Iraq and Syria continue to target Israel day by day.
    ​ With more than 350,000 Israeli troops mobilized and Palestinian workers from the West Bank banned, Israel’s economy is, for lack of workers, in deep trouble.
    ​ Its military forays into Palestinian cities in Gaza have so far achieved little results but incurred significant losses. All the army can do is to destroy those cities block by block. But Hamas continues to fight back, even in rubble.
    ​ The current plan is to make Palestinian life in Gaza so miserable that leaving it will be for them the only alternative to certain death…
    ​..With the war going into a prolonged, unsustainable phase the Israeli government needs to do something else, or fail.
    ​ It plans to open a new front in Lebanon against Hezbollah. But a repeat of the 2006 war, which Israel lost, can not be risked. To fight Hezbollah on the ground Israel needs active U.S. backing, not only by U.S. delivery of weapons, but by U.S. forces on the ground.
    ​ A new U.S. war in the Middle East against a well prepared enemy is the last thing President Biden needs for his re-election campaign.
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/12/biden-needs-to-come-to-israels-and-his-own-rescue.html

    #149385
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 82: Israel accused of harvesting organs from dead Gazans
    Despite a UNSC resolution calling for humanitarian aid in Gaza amid Israeli attacks, Gazans remain starving. Meanwhile, Palestinian bodies returned by Israel were “mutilated” and missing “vital organs” according to Gaza officials
    .20,915+ killed* and at least 54,536 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
    311 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
    Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,405 to 1,139.
    498 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 1,952 injured.
    Israeli Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi: Israeli forces will not refrain from operating in declared “safe zones” if it “identifies terrorist organization activity.”
    Israeli teen sentenced to 30 days in prison after refusing to join military.
    Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas: What is happening in Gaza is greater and more horrific than the Nakba in 1948.

    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 82: Israel accused of harvesting organs from dead Gazans 

    ​ Serbian Maidan Attempt a ‘Desperate Flailing Response’ by NATO to Ukraine, Red Sea Failures
    ​ About 2,500 radicalized opposition supporters gathered in Belgrade on Sunday and attempted to storm city hall after contested snap parliamentary elections last week. Sputnik asked leading geopolitical analysts, including a top American Balkans expert, for their takes on what happened, and who could be pulling the strings behind the scenes.
    ​ Ultimately, the OSCE mission concluded that it could not find any instances of vote rigging, confirming that “election day was smoothly conducted,” barring some “procedural deficiencies.”
    These “procedural deficiencies” were apparently enough for Serbia’s opposition to attempt to violently storm Belgrade’s City Hall on Sunday. Riot police quickly intervened, pushing protesters back using teargas and batons, with at least thirty officers injured, two seriously, in scuffles with demonstrators. 38 protesters were detained.​..
    ..Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic concurred with Vucic’s assessment of events, calling the violence the attempted “Maidanization” of Serbia’s capital…
    ​..“Serbia, along with the Republika Srpska (half of Bosnia and Herzegovina) have been the holdouts on NATO. Neither entity wants to join NATO. And both entities have refused to go along with the NATO-EU policy towards Russia. Both refused to impose any kinds of sanctions on Russia,” Szamuely, a renowned expert on the Western policy toward the former Yugoslavia, recalled.
    ​ “So this is a sore point because essentially NATO has encompassed the entirety of the European continent, with the exception of Serbia and the Republika Srpska, and NATO obviously wants to bring that to an end…They’ve been trying to push Vucic out for some time, and they’ve been trying to get rid of Milorad Dodik, the president of the Republika Srpska at the same time,” the observer said.
    ​ “What’s also important is that from the beginning, from the 1990s on, Serbia has always been seen as a substitute for Russia. Where Serbia is, there is Russia. It’s the one thing that prevents NATO from complete dominance of the Balkans. And it’s the area where Russia continues to have some influence in Europe. So if you want to push Russia out of Europe altogether, you have to deal with the ‘Serbia problem’. They came close from 2000 on, when you had the color revolution that overthrew [Slobodan] Milosevic.​..
    ​..Veteran international relations expert and Eastern European affairs specialist Dr. Gilbert Doctorow concurs with Szamuely’s assessment.
    “We are witnessing this new attempt at a Maidan coup, because the authors of this attempt to overthrow Vucic are the same superficial Ivy League scenario plotters in the State Department, in the CIA, that have been guiding America’s disastrous foreign policy adventures for the past thirty years.”​…
    ​..“On top of the above short-term issues arising from the Ukraine debacle, the disruption to shipping in the Red Sea has pushed the Chinese Belt and Road project back up to the top of the geopolitical agenda. The close relations established recently between Hungary and Serbia, which include major improvement works to the railway links between the two, take on greater significance with the possibility that ongoing tensions and conflict in the Middle East will make overland trade routes from China to Western and Arab markets much more important and profitable,” Griffin explained, highlighting the complex difficult calculations at play in the Balkans.​..
    ​..“Serbia has the potential to be hugely important as the final stepping stone to the Adriatic and beyond – especially if the victory of Russia in Ukraine were to convince Vucic to stop trying to walk the tightrope and to come down firmly on the Russian side and to push to connect Serbia properly to the Serbian enclaves on the coast,” the observer stressed.
    ​ Asked whether the West could ultimately succeed in its efforts to oust Vucic, Griffin stressed that this “depends on Russia!”
    https://sputnikglobe.com/20231225/serbian-maidan-attempt-a-desperate-flailing-response-by-nato-to-ukraine-red-sea-failures-1115810064.html

    ​ Scott Ritter: US ‘Sustainability’ in Jeopardy as World Turns Against Hegemony
    ​ The Ukrainian military will continue to sustain a strategic defeat in 2024 as it is exhausted in terms of manpower, ammo and arms, according to Sputnik’s interlocutor. It’s up to Moscow and the Russian Armed Forces’ operational tempo whether the conflict will drag on until 2025, as per Ritter.
    ​ Russia’s special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine has never meant to be a blitzkrieg, the expert stressed, adding that the conflict will end when political and military objectives set by the Russian leadership are accomplished.​..
    ​..”The Ukrainian-Russian conflict has opened up a new chapter in modern warfare,” Ritter stressed. “The drone technology of today has changed the modern battlefield in every way that the machine gun changed warfare during World War I or the tank changed warfare during World War II. The drones have changed the face of modern warfare, and I think that armies all around the world are going to be studying or should be studying what’s taking place on the battlefield between Ukraine and Russia today.”​…
    ​..Ritter does not see the Israel-Palestinian conflict spiraling out of control next year and believes that it will wrap up early in 2024. He points to the fact that the rift is already growing between Tel Aviv and Washington and the international community increasingly opposes the “genocide” of the Palestinian people.
    ​ “I see the Gaza conflict actually wrapping up early in 2024 and then the question is what happens next. Will Hamas be given a chance to lead a new Palestinian state or we will find ourselves in a continued political quagmire? I see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sort of self-regulating in many ways. I don’t see it expanding.”​ …
    ​..Meanwhile, the Indo-Pacific could turn into a theater of war if the US and China clash over the island of Taiwan, according to Ritter.
    ​ In January 2024, the Taiwanese will cast ballots in general elections. The stakes are high given that the pro-US ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could be unseated by the opposition Kuomintang (KMT).
    ​ While KMT vice presidential candidate Jaw Shau-kong has made it clear that he and his running mate Hou Yu-ih will not talk with China about unification if elected, the two are advocating resuming dialogue and restoring ties with the People’s Republic.
    ​ For its part, the US-backed DPP has adopted a belligerent stance against Beijing, with the Biden administration increasingly arming the island.​..
    ..Ritter believes that if the DPP wins, a conflict could potentially erupt between China and the US which would have dramatic consequences for the global market and drag the world into recession.​..
    ​..While the US has already engaged in a series of proxy conflicts, the problem is that it is unprepared for an all-out war with China or Russia, according to Ritter.
    According to the military expert, the Ukraine conflict has shown that the idea of the US having technological superiority has been largely overestimated.​..
    ​..For its part, the US cannot wage a war of attrition and “doesn’t have numbers”, he noted. In particular, Ritter referred to Washington’s incapability of rapidly replenishing its ammo and weapon stockpiles amid the Ukraine conflict.​..
    ..”Nobody in NATO’s prepared for modern warfare because they can’t sustain it within a period of a week,” Ritter claimed. “These NATO forces would be depleted to the point that they were no longer a cohesive combat unit. So their combat effectiveness had dropped to zero. And now you’d see Russia rolling over them.”​…
    ​..Generally, the US has become a “prisoner of the military procurement system” which is aimed not at improving the nation’s security but at making money in the first place, he said.​..
    ​..To make a long story short, the US does not have the capacity to maintain its global hegemony and engage in high-intensity conflicts worldwide, as per Ritter. The world is turning against the US imperial ambitions, seeking to create a multi-polar environment where all countries are treated equally and with due respect.
    https://sputnikglobe.com/20231227/scott-ritter-us-sustainability-in-jeopardy-as-world-turns-against-hegemony-1115837656.html

    Gilbert Doctorow , Will the Russians use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine?
    ​ Until a few days ago, I regularly dismissed as utterly fanciful and propagandistic in intent all suggestions in Western media that Russia might deploy nuclear weapons in their ongoing war on Ukraine. The notion was put forward by Washington in support of the narrative that Russia was losing the war and could ‘go nuclear’ to prevent a disgraceful defeat…
    ​..Against this background I paid full attention to a report from the field that was aired on a Vesti news program of Russian state television about three days ago. What I heard was a seemingly casual remark by a Russian soldier manning a new, relatively small and maneuverable artillery piece with 17 km firing range that he said ‘could accept nuclear charges.’ That was absolutely the first time I have heard Russians speak of tactical nuclear weapons since the war began. It is unthinkable that this remark was spontaneous and had not been cleared in advance by the senior editors, of whom Dmitry Kiselyov is the top boss.
    ​ Now why would the Russians themselves raise the issue of their vast capabilities in tactical nuclear weapons? Why do it now, when even mainstream Western media acknowledge that the Russians hold the upper hand in the fight and that time is on their side?
    ​ I venture to say that the Kremlin had received intelligence reports of some dastardly American plan to interrupt the natural course of events in this war if only to save face and keep alive Joe Biden’s chances of re-election. With this discrete remark on a news show that American intelligence would be sure to pick up, the Russians were putting them on notice that two sides can play dirty, if it comes to that.​..
    ..And yesterday Shoigu reported to Putin on the conquest of Mariinka, a town 5 kilometers distant from Donetsk city, the capital of the Donbas oblast of the same name that has been the object of a struggle for control since the very start of the Special Military Operation. The significance of Mariinka is that it was one of the most heavily fortified outposts of the Ukrainian forces and that it was sending artillery and missile strikes on Donetsk city on a daily basis this whole time, causing great damage and loss of civilian lives.​..
    ..Swallowing up the whole of Ukraine, the realization of some imperial drive for territorial control was never a Russian objective. This was attributed to Russia by Western propagandists to serve their own purposes.
    ​ From the outset and to this very day, as emphasized by Vladimir Putin in his Direct Line dialogue with the nation a week ago, Russia has sought denazification, demilitarization and neutrality as the outcome of this military engagement. To this triad, demilitarization is, of course, the element which enables the other two, and demilitarization, measured by the destruction of Ukrainian soldiers and materiel, is proceeding very nicely, thank you.

    Will the Russians use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine?

    ​ DOJ threatens lawsuit if Texas enforces new border security law​ [Texas is trying to protect the national border, having already shared the mob-facilitated global influx with Chicago, N​ew York and DC.​]
    ​ The Department of Justice is warning Gov. Greg Abbott that it will sue if Texas moves forward with legislation empowering state officials to remove people from the U.S. who they suspect of being in the country illegally.
    https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/justice-department-threatens-sue-texas-new-border-18578418.php

    #149386
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Malaysia’s Consumer Association And MDs Call For IMMEDIATE Withdrawal OF mRNA Shots Amidst Mass Sickness and Death: “The World Has Come To Know That This Vaccine Is Not Safe”
    “Our people are dying. Everywhere we see people are dying, most of them are suffering, they cannot work.”
    ​ “In a press conference initiated by the Muslim Consumer’s Association (PPIM) in Malaysia on Dec 28, 2023, a collective voice of concern was raised about the safety and efficacy of the current COVID-19 vaccines being administered. The call for the immediate recall of these vaccines comes amidst growing reports of adverse effects from consumers and medical professionals alike.”
    https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/malaysias-consumer-association-and

    ​ Meryl Nass MD notes that biological lab leaks are very common and mostly go unreported.
    ​ A new study reports 309 lab acquired infections and 16 pathogen lab escapes between 2000 and 2021, several deaths/ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
    This from a review of *published* literature and omits thousands of unpublished reports collected in the US alone, but is still valuable at demonstrating the seriousness of lab leaks
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/a-new-study-reports-309-lab-acquired

    ​ Dr. Nass has some very good news, but we need to remain on-guard. Globalists are not vanquished, not at all, not even in this WHO battlefield.
    New Zealand *rejected* the May 2022 WHO Amendments just before the deadline at end November, the only national government for which there is proof this was done.
    This is hugely important. However, the question as to whether the amendments were legally passed remains open, so they may turn out to be null and void for all countries.
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/new-zealand-rejected-the-may-2022

    #149387

    “Banana Republic isn’t just a store at the mall.”

    #149388
    John Day
    Participant

    Banana-Republicans-R-US!
    ;-(

    #149389
    chooch
    Participant

    @davidveale

    You said,

    “In all honesty, I gave up hope for a positive outcome about 5 years ago, as the industrialist’s propaganda campaign really started to take hold. That’s probably a significant factor in the colon cancer I was diagnosed with last year.”

    Not diet, not environment, not genetics but despair brought on your cancer, an epigenetic response to your circumstance. You saw that the flora and fauna were paying a heavy price, species were disappearing our planet was dying. You set out to make a difference, change peoples awareness only to lose hope and throw in the towel.

    I appreciate you sharing your journey and your thoughts and wish you well.

    #149390
    zerosum
    Participant

    According to Ukraine.
    Even in their biggest missile, drone, attack, Russia can’t even average one death.
    What a waste of ammunition. (Maybe, they should be claiming more deaths than Amas)
    /sc

    #149391
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Nazilensky.

    “You can’t make this stuff up even if you wanted to

    “Haus am Bogensee” is the name of a lakeside villa that was Hitler’s gift to Nazi regime’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels for his 39 birthday.

    He used it as a secret “love nest” and as a tranquil refuge from where he wrote his notorious “Total War” speech.

    According to the real estate purchase agreement, in October 2023, the villa was purchased by the “Film Heritage Inc” company for over 8 Million Euros.

    The company is linked to Volodymyr Zelensky – the president of Ukraine.

    Before becoming president, as reported by the Guardian, Zelensky declared some of his private assets. They included several offshore companies.

    One of these companies is Film heritage Inc, registered in Belize.

    Collective West ‘citizens’ should ask yourselves: Where did our billions of money go?”

    Down a Rat Hole

    .

    #149392
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://lenta.ru/news/2023/12/29/na-ukraine-priznali-bessilie-pered-rossiyskoy-raketoy-x-22-vsu-ne-smogli-sbit-ni-odnu-iz-nih/
    29 December 2023
    In Ukraine, they recognized their powerlessness in the face of the Russian X-22 missile. The Armed Forces of Ukraine were unable to shoot down any of them
    Speaker Ihnat said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were unable to shoot down a single X-22 missile during the NWO
    PlotSpecial Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine

    Screenshot: TechnoVot / RuTube

    The spokesman of the Air Force (Air Force) of Ukraine, Yuriy Ihnat, admitted the impotence of Ukrainian air defense systems (air defense) in the face of the Russian X-22 missile. He confirmed that since the beginning of the special military operation (SMO), the Armed Forces of the Republic (AFU) have not been able to shoot down any of them.

    Ignat pointed out that the Kh-22 long-range supersonic air-launched anti-ship cruise missile “flies at a speed of 4,<> kilometers per hour, it enters the target most often along a ballistic trajectory, so special means are needed to intercept it.”

    The enemy has used more than 300 of these missiles [since the beginning of the NWO]. In addition to the Kh-22, they also have an upgraded version of this missile, the Kh-32

    Yuriy Ignat
    Spokesperson of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
    Earlier, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already recognized the impossibility of resisting Russian Kh-22 missiles
    In August, Ihnat said that Ukrainian air defense systems are not capable of countering Kh-22 missiles. “Not a single [Russian] Kh-22 cruise missile was destroyed by Ukraine’s air defenses (…) for the entire period of hostilities,” he said.

    According to the spokesman of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, these ammunition can be shot down by the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system (SAM). In addition, Ihnat believes that this air defense system is allegedly capable of coping with Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles.

    In the summer of 2023, Ihnat also spoke about the difficulties in hitting Russian missiles that are capable of maneuvering in flight. “It even turns 180 degrees in order to complicate the work of air defense by abruptly changing routes,” he explained. The military also noted that Ukrainian air defense and attack drones circling in the sky are confusing them.

    Photo: Press Service of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation / RIA Novosti

    According to Military Watch Magazine, Ukrainian officials complain that the Kh-22 missiles, designed to bypass the multi-layered air defense system surrounding U.S. aircraft carrier groups, cannot be intercepted.

    The publication says that projectiles of this type play a key role in hitting strategic targets in Ukraine, and “their large 950-kilogram warheads cause enormous damage.”

    The main problem of the Ukrainian air defense system is named
    Retired colonel, military expert Anatoly Matviychuk said that the main problem of the air defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is its non-systemic nature and the low level of protection of Western systems supplied to Kyiv.

    There is no unified system, as it is done in Ukraine. It is more of a “hodgepodge” that consists of everything that different countries have given them. The system is open-ended, and it does not provide cover in the event of an air attack by us

    Anatoly Matviychuk
    Military Expert
    According to Matviychuk, the air defense systems that the West is sending to Ukraine “have shown their complete inability to resist our air components.” “IRIS-T from Germany, Patriot from the United States were delivered there – all of them showed that they are able to perform tasks in the near zone, but they cannot cope with massive targets, for example, a swarm of drones, when we overload the enemy,” he said.
    In turn, military observer Anton Lavrov considered that the main problem of Ukraine’s air defense system is its dependence on Soviet-made ammunition stockpiles.

    He noted that these reserves are large, but not infinite. Large cities and key facilities in Ukraine are covered by outdated modifications of the S-300 and Buk anti-aircraft missile systems (SAM). According to him, air defense missiles are more expensive than kamikaze drones used by Russia. Lavrov stressed that Kyiv has nowhere to get additional missiles.

    “Therefore, heavy Ukrainian air defense systems were protected and not always used even to cover troops. They operated from ambushes, turning on occasionally and briefly, changing positions. With the beginning of massive strikes on infrastructure, the Ukrainian command was forced to use them to the fullest, and as a result, the location of many anti-aircraft systems was detected and hit. Such strikes have further thinned out the Ukrainian air defense,” the specialist said.
    ———–
    https://lenta.ru/news/2023/12/29/na-ukraine-priznali-bessilie-pered-rossiyskoy-raketoy-x-22-vsu-ne-smogli-sbit-ni-odnu-iz-nih/

    “Destroy a complex worth a billion dollars” SBU colonel revealed the purpose of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine
    SBU Colonel Starikov: Russia Hit Western Weapons At Ukrainian Air Bases
    PlotRussia and NATO:

    Photo: MOD Russia / Globallookpress.com

    Oleh Starikov, a retired colonel of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said that Russian missile strikes were carried out on warehouses and Western weapons at air bases.

    The officer noted that the main task of the massive attack was the elimination of Ukrainian weapons depots, another goal is the destruction of air defense systems.

    The Kinzhals and Iskanders are aimed at blowing up critical facilities, specifically air defense systems such as the Patriot. Therefore, a missile that costs two million dollars can destroy a complex worth a billion dollars. Moreover, we have a limited number of them

    Oleg Starikov
    ———–
    Starikov said that air defense missiles cannot withstand such strikes
    Starikov noted that with the help of the air operation, the Russian military achieved an overload of the air defense system, forced them to fire expensive Western missiles at their targets.

    He also pointed out that most of the strategic strikes fell on air bases where depots with weapons transferred to NATO are located, and air defense systems could not resist such tactics.

    There are a limited number of air defense missiles both in our country and in the West. It is impossible to produce them like pasta. There will not be enough money and resources to issue them

    Oleg Starikov
    ———-
    The attacks were of strategic importance to Russia
    Russia struck Ukrainian enterprises where missiles and drones were produced, for it this attack is of strategic importance, the British newspaper The Economist reported, citing a source in the republic’s defense industry.

    A source in the Ukrainian defense industry suggests that Russia mainly struck defense facilities. Some of them were related to the production of missiles and drones

    Economist
    The interlocutor of the publication stressed that the attacks were of strategic importance for Russia, since the destruction of enterprises producing such weapons could reduce the potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).
    ———
    Russia launched a massive missile attack on Ukraine on December 29
    On December 29, Russia launched a massive missile attack on the territory of Ukraine. According to the spokesman of the Air Force (Air Force) of Ukraine Yuriy Ihnat, Ukrainian servicemen have not seen so many targets on their monitors at the same time for a long time as during a large-scale air raid on Friday.

    Moscow launched “everything except Kalibrs,” in particular the Kinzhal, S-300, cruise and ballistic missiles, UAVs, Kh-22 or Kh-32, Ihnat said. About 18 strategic bombers launched the Kh-101/Kh-505, he added.

    The spokesman of the Ukrainian Air Force clarified that the republic has not shot down a single X-22 missile since the beginning of the military conflict. According to him, Russia has already used more than 300 such shells.

    The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said that on the night of December 29, explosions occurred at military and industrial facilities of Ukraine, as well as at critical infrastructure facilities of the republic.

    It is reported that Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Poltava, Vinnytsia, as well as Khmelnytsky, Odesa and Mykolaiv regions were attacked.

    Retired General of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Serhiy Kryvonos said that the Russian military hit one of the most powerful Ukrainian enterprises during a massive strike.

    ———

    #149393
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Once again film of unguarded by infantry IDF tanks being hit on the weak spot on top of the turrets where the armor is thinnest with double-tap armor piercing RPGs.

    The ‘invincible’ Israelis are too chickenshit to get out of armored vehicles and do the incredibly dangerous work of protecting tanks that can’t maneuver in the rumble from ambushes.

    They will loose a tremendous number of ground forces doing this but it’s the only way to progress through cities reduced to rumble.

    The Soviets annihilated German Panzer forces in Stalingrad this way.

    Quite the analogy

    #149394
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Once the Israeli tanks are disabled, the crews are killed by Hamas fighters trying to flee the burning tanks because there is no near by IDF infantry to give the tank crews cover

    #149395
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The Israelis are using mostly ‘reservists’ taken from the civilian economy, which is dying on the vine every day it’s workers are not at work producing goods and services.

    The Empire of Lies is having to subsides the Israeli economy because of labor shortages generated by reservist leaving.

    And each reservist killed will never come back to work making a large gap in the labor pool.

    #149396
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Palestinians are not going to fill the labor gap made by Israelis killed and wounded out of principle

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