Jan 092024
 
 January 9, 2024  Posted by at 9:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


René Magritte Youth 1924

 

Ukraine Has Lost 500,000 Troops – Ex Prosecutor General (RT)
Ukraine May Resort to Printing Money if Western Cash Dries Up (Sp.)
Russia Must Be Asia’s Peace Maker (Hayes)
Poland Covered Up For Nord Stream Attackers – WSJ (RT)
Biden Refills Strategic Petroleum Reserve At Twice The Historic Average (Sp.)
Biden Is Asking For Mexican Help To Stop The Record Surge Of Migrants (NBC)
27 States File to Oppose Colorado’s Disqualification of Trump (Turley)
Donald Trump Will Attend Tuesday Arguments For Immunity Motion In J6 Case (PM)
Trump Co-Defendant: Improper Relationship Between Georgia DA, Prosecutor (NYP)
Musk Responds To WSJ ‘Hit Piece’ (RT)
Hunter Biden Contempt Resolutions Introduced In House (ZH)
Most Germans Want Scholz To Step Down – Poll (RT)
House Freedom Caucus Slams Speaker Johnson’s Proposed Spending Deal (JTN)
“It’s Okay to Be Fat” and Obesity Should be “Normalized” (MN)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Jan 6

 

 

Riveted
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744415213053522390

 

 

Biden plagiarism

 

 

“They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace.”
– Tacitus

 

 

 

 

To achieve what?

Ukraine Has Lost 500,000 Troops – Ex Prosecutor General (RT)

Ukraine’s leaders should frankly admit that they have lost 500,000 service members since the start of the conflict with Russia, and that the monthly casualty rate is at around 30,000, former prosecutor general Yury Lutsenko has said. President Vladimir Zelensky’s goverment could convince reluctant citizens to join the fight by publicly admitting the heavy losses on the battlefield and declaring that the country’s very existence is in jeopardy, he believes. Ukrainians “must know how many have died, and then all debates about the mobilization will be settled,” he added. Speaking to the country’s media on Wednesday, the former official proposed a number of steps to address the draft-dodging and corruption that is hampering the country’s conscription efforts.

He suggested that new legislation must be introduced by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the country’s defense minister, and top army general to emphasize the seriousness of the situation. “They should say how many Ukrainians have died. I know that this news will be received badly. But there is no other way to bring out of the comfort zone millions of those who hide behind bogus stories that everyone can serve except me,” Lutsenko said. According to Lutsenko, this “shock” would lead to large queues at recruitment offices, as had occurred in February 2022. Another important measure, according to the former official, would be the campaign to send members of the Ukrainian elite to the frontline.

“The army should not be all workers and peasants. Everyone should fight for Ukraine,” he stated, arguing that this would encourage ordinary citizens who he said have a very strong sense of justice. Zelensky said in December that the Ukrainian military had asked him to mobilize another 450,000 or 500,000 soldiers to make up for battlefield losses. Later that month, the government introduced a mobilization bill proposing to lower the recruitment age from 27 to 25 and eliminate exemptions for some categories of disabled people. The initiative comes after Ukraine launched a large counteroffensive in early June, which failed to gain any substantial ground. Moscow has described Kiev’s losses as catastrophic, estimating them at around 160,000 since the start of the push. Ukraine, however, has been reluctant to officially publish data on its casualties.

Ukr TV
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744313678021660797

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“The West reportedly pays for a whopping 70 percent of the Ukrainian government’s expenses..”

Ukraine May Resort to Printing Money if Western Cash Dries Up (Sp.)

The Wall Street Journal has crunched some numbers on the Ukrainian crisis and concluded that Ukraine might have to resort to drastic measures if Western support stops flowing. Pointing to “dwindling” Western financial assistance; lesser interest in continuing to fund the proxy crisis; and Russia outguning Ukraine militarily and economically, the outlet warned that “without sufficient support, Ukraine may have to resort to painful spending cuts or even printing money to fill its deficit” to keep the lights on and the war effort going. Such a policy “would pose a grave risk to the health of its economy,” the newspaper said, hinting at the danger of hyperinflation which traditionally hits countries that print money to try to fill budget gaps.

The analysis likewise showed that Russia’s military budget and weapons manufacturing capacity has expanded dramatically. On the other hand, Ukraine’s production has been stagnant since 2022 and today is “no match for a much larger Russian military-industrial complex running at full steam.” The study found, for example, that Russian forces are presently producing and using five times more shells than Ukraine on the front. Politically too, the paper’s analysis pointed to dropping support for the proxy war in both the US and Europe. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, there have been “some declines” in “trust levels” for President Zelensky’s government. Internal polling conducted late last year found Zelensky’s approval rating had sunk to just 32 percent.

US lawmakers have been wrangling with the White House over President Biden’s request to commit another $61 billion in military backing to Kiev. Ukrainian officials have admitted they “don’t have a plan B” if the support, which they insist is “not charity” but “an investment in the protection of NATO,” falls through. In Europe also, deliveries of fresh military and economic support have dropped dramatically in recent months, with the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker showing nearly a 90 percent drop in Western assistance overall between August and October 2023 compared to the same period a year earlier. Western officials have repeatedly warned that Ukraine would be “certain to fail” without a renewed IV drip of financial and military support – confirming nearly two years of statements by Russian officials that the NATO-backed regime would collapse without Western backing.

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister warned last month that salary and pension delays were imminent if Western support was not immediately forthcoming. At the front, foreign mercenaries have reportedly been trickling out of the country after payments to them were halted and they found more lucrative opportunities elsewhere. The West reportedly pays for a whopping 70 percent of the Ukrainian government’s expenses, with Kiev racking up a record-high debt of $157 billion in 2023 – less than ten percent shy of the 100 percent of GDP mark. Debt is forecast to grow precipitously in the coming years, reaching up to $313 billion by 2028.

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“Contrary to what our Nazi-saluting, cat-strangling, welfare cheque-cashing friends in Kiev might think, there is no other power beside Russia in a position to get all sides in Asia to come together to cool things down..”

Russia Must Be Asia’s Peace Maker (Hayes)

Although China and its adversaries have a number of symmetric and asymmetric options available to them that range from Nordstream style no claim no blame attacks on hostile shipping to blowing up, in pre-emptive strikes, the Three Gorges Dam and thereby drowning the 1 billion or so Chinese unfortunates who live in the Lower Yanzgtse Valley, outside the lunatic asylums of Washington, most of those are not realistic choices. That said, China’s reaction to the results of Taiwan’s pending 13 January elections might bring unwanted fireworks to bear on what already is a tense tinderbox. Should William Lai Ching-te, the incumbent vice president and the candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), prevail over Hou Yu-ih from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Party, China will most likely spit the dummy again and launch massive military drills around the island or even grab Penghu Island as a sign it is serious about subjugating Taiwan.

Though China certainly carries a big stick, it doesn’t yet seem to grasp the notion that one should speak softly and only wave or use the stick as a last recourse. That is where the diplomats of Russia, which currently chairs the loose and untested BRIICS alliance, comes in. As a long standing ally of Vietnam, China and India, and as one which understands the nuanced goals of all three of those countries, Russia can bring a lot to the table. Not only did Russia help broker peace in the 1965 2nd Kashmir war between Pakistan and India but Russia fully understands that India and Vietnam both want strategic autonomy, and that neither will ever submit to being a vassal of a revanchist China. Taiwan currently leads the world in the crucial field of semiconductors and that is unlikely to change any time soon.

And nor is Taiwan’s status as, for Taiwan to revert to the 1683-1895 era when it paid tribute to the Qing Dynasty, would mean empowering China to annex the entire region as Imperial Japan did in late 1941 from its Taiwanese/Formosan base. Because Japan, India, Vietnam and even the Philippines cannot accept that, China is thereby opening up the door for NATO’s carrier groups and sundry other legacy defence systems and that is far from being an optimal state of affairs if peace and trade, rather than war and all it entails are the goals. There are two or even three ways out of this morass, only one of which is really acceptable. The first of these is to duke it out across the Taiwan Strait and every other strait or reef that is deemed important along the String of Pearls from Siberia to Somalia.

The second way is for China to goose step ahead with its neomercantalism until the global economy revolves around it and it alone. The third and best way is for the BRIICS and allied countries to take the opportunity Russia’s chairmanship of that group offers and chart some way through all the straits and reefs they might sink or run aground on. Contrary to what our Nazi-saluting, cat-strangling, welfare cheque-cashing friends in Kiev might think, there is no other power beside Russia in a position to get all sides in Asia to come together to cool things down. And, because there is still a pivotal role not only for diplomacy but for those like Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and his standing army of fellow Russian diplomats who retain those vital skills the West so stupidly jettisoned, there still mind be time to avoid this looming Armageddon of the Eastern Seas and all it entails.

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The story of the little yacht must be kept alive. It is used to cast doubt on US involvement.

Poland Covered Up For Nord Stream Attackers – WSJ (RT)

Polish officials have withheld evidence and attempted to stall an international probe into the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, making investigators “suspicious of Warsaw’s role and motives,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas lines – which linked Russia with Germany through the Baltic Sea – were destroyed in a series of explosions near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022. A joint inquiry by Germany, Denmark, and Sweden is ongoing, with investigators theorizing that a Ukrainian team rented a yacht in Germany from a Polish company, which they used to transport explosives to the blast sites. When these alleged leads were chaned in Poland, investigators were stonewalled by government officials and law enforcement agents, the Journal reported, citing sources within the investigation.

Polish authorities failed to turn over testimony from eyewitnesses who allegedly encountered the yacht’s six-person crew in the Polish port of Kolobrzeg until pushed to do so by German police, the sources said. CCTV footage from the port was then withheld, and Poland’s internal security agency, the ABW, “failed to answer queries, obfuscated or gave contradictory information,” the newspaper stated. Polish prosecutors said they found no traces of explosives on the yacht, despite never having boarded it to check, the investigators claimed. The investigation would later find explosive residue on the vessel, according to media reports. The prosecutors reportedly told European investigators that the boat arrived in Kolobrzeg at 4pm September 19, when it actually moored seven hours earlier. Later in the investigation, the ABW told its sister agencies in Europe that the yacht “had links with Russian espionage,” the newspaper reported, adding that investigators considered this “disinformation.”

According to all available information, no Western governments or intelligence agencies suspect that Russia was behind the bombings. Gas sold to Europe via the Nord Stream lines was a lucrative source of revenue for Moscow, and was seen as a powerful instrument of leverage for the Kremlin. Poland’s efforts to hinder the investigators have made them “increasingly suspicious of Warsaw’s role and motives,” the Wall Street Journal noted. All of the alleged misdirection and obfuscation took place under Poland’s previous government, however, and unnamed “senior European officials” told the newspaper that they are considering contacting Poland’s new prime minister, Donald Tusk, in the hope that he will grant them access to police and security personnel who may have previously been pressured to stay silent.

According to an alternate theory put forward by American journalist Seymour Hersh, the CIA was responsible for the Nord Stream blasts. Citing sources within the intelligence community, Hersh argued that CIA divers working with the Norwegian Navy planted remotely-triggered bombs on the lines last summer, using a NATO exercise in the region as cover. Bolstering this theory was a tweet by former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who within hours of the explosions shared an image of a giant gas leak at the blast site along with the caption “Thank you, USA.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has backed this explanation, stating last month that the sabotage operation “was done, most likely, by the Americans or someone at their instruction.”

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“They could have picked up several hundred million barrels at $15, but because it was what President Trump wanted, Congress said no..”

“..it will take a whopping 75 months to bring the SPR back to the level at which it was before US President Joe Biden started draining it..”

“..the Biden administration is buying oil at twice the historic average to replenish the SPR..”

Biden Refills Strategic Petroleum Reserve At Twice The Historic Average (Sp.)

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is currently buying three million barrels a month to refill the nation’s SPR in the wake of Joe Biden’s release of over 225 million barrels of oil between March 2022 and August 2023, dumping levels in the reserve to the lowest in 40 years. Tim Stewart, president of the US Oil and Gas Association, alleges that Team Biden is doing nothing short of damage control ahead of the 2024 election given that the nation’s depleted SPR has recently become the public’s concern. “Prior to 2022, the average person knew nothing about the SPR. That has completely changed. When the lovely 75-year-old blue-haired lady at church complains to me how Biden has drained the SPR – they must have caught the public’s attention,” Stewart told Just the News, an independent US media outlet founded by award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon.

Apparently, the Biden administration would have bought “refill barrels” at a greater pace, but it is facing limits on how much crude can be funneled into the reserve per month. That means it will take a whopping 75 months to bring the SPR back to the level at which it was before US President Joe Biden started draining it. To sweeten the pill, the US administration triumphantly claims that it is buying oil for the SPR at an average price of $77.31 per barrel, which is considerably below the average of $95 per barrel it was in 2022. Per Stewart, it’s by no means “a good deal for American taxpayers”: one should bear in mind that the average price paid per barrel in the SPR has been $29.70 per barrel, the expert pointed out. It appears that the Biden administration is guided by its own political interests rather than those of the nation.

It began draining the SPR in spring of 2022, ahead of the midterm election: at the time gasoline prices went up and American voters were not happy with that. Still, Just the News failed to mention that the hike in prices was partially caused by Team Biden’s energy sanctions slapped on Russia over Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine. If one digs deeper, one would learn that the special military operation started after the Biden administration snubbed Moscow’s draft security agreement aimed at safeguarding Europe’s peace, protecting Russia’s borders and restoring the balance of forces vis-à-vis NATO. Now, the Biden administration is buying oil at twice the historic average to replenish the SPR before the 2024 presidential election in a bid to look good in the eyes of the US voters.

The crux of the matter is that the US administration and the Democratic Party in general may have avoided this tricky situation ahead of the election if it had green-lighted Donald Trump’s initiative to fill the SPR at the time when oil prices were extremely low, per Stewart. Back in 2020, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, then US President Donald Trump moved to buy oil for the SPR when West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil prices were under $25 per barrel. Trump requested $3 billion from the US Congress to jump at this lucrative opportunity, but Democratic lawmakers nipped the president’s endeavor in the bud. Per Just the News, Democratic lawmakers bragged at the time that they had “eliminated a $3 billion bailout for big oil.” “They could have picked up several hundred million barrels at $15, but because it was what President Trump wanted, Congress said no,” Stewart told the media outlet.

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At the same time that they’re suing Texas for trying to… “Stop The Record Surge Of Migrants..”

Biden Is Asking For Mexican Help To Stop The Record Surge Of Migrants (NBC)

The Biden administration is increasingly leaning on Mexico to curb the record flow of migrants crossing into the U.S., but Mexico has its own lists of ambitious asks for the U.S., say officials from both governments familiar with the discussions. Previous measures taken by the Biden administration to stem the migrant surge have led to only temporary dips in the numbers, and in late December, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Mexico to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to ask for greater assistance. Those conversations were “preliminary,” the officials said, and did not result in hard promises from either side. In a press conference on Friday, López Obrador called on the U.S. to approve a plan that would deploy $20 billion to Latin American and Caribbean countries, suspend the U.S. blockade of Cuba, remove all sanctions against Venezuela and grant at least 10 million Hispanics living in the U.S. the right to remain and work legally.

All of those are extremely tall demands of an administration headed into a re-election campaign that may hinge on how firmly Biden is able to get control of the southern U.S. border, which saw a record 300,000 migrants processed by Customs and Border Protection in December. Responding to those requests, a senior Biden administration official told NBC News that AMLO, as López Obrador is commonly called, “has a very ambitious agenda. For some of these things, we would need Congress to act. We share the vision that we need to lift up the region.” The two countries are expected to continue talks in Washington later this month. Mexico brings significant leverage to the negotiations, the U.S. and Mexican officials said. López Obrador’s administration would prefer that President Joe Biden win re-election in November, given Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions during his time in office.

But Biden is quickly running out of options to fix a problem that is driving down his poll numbers without increased support from Mexico, three U.S. officials told NBC News. On Capitol Hill, negotiations over border security measures between Republicans and Democrats continue into their second month with no clear breakthrough. And new asylum policies introduced by the Biden administration in May failed to deter migrants, as evidenced by the record surge. To bring the numbers down, the Biden administration needs Mexico to let it push more non-Mexican immigrants back across the U.S. southern border, as the U.S. was able to do through early 2023. During the Covid pandemic, the Trump and Biden administrations used a public health order known as Title 42 to push migrants back into Mexico without an asylum screening. During that policy, which ended in May, Mexico took back migrants over 1 million times each year for three years. Under current policies, Mexico has agreed to take back 30,000 migrants per month, but that is only 10% of December’s tally.

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“.. The Western elites have become a symbol of total, unprincipled lies.”

DC Has Resurrected the Specter of Nuclear Armageddon (Paul Craig Roberts)

The US and Israel have isolated themselves as the two most evil governments on earth. By complying with Washington’s foreign policy, the European puppet governments find themselves despised by their citizens. Eleven months ago Russia’s president Vladimir Putin described the West to the Russian Federal Assembly: “They behaved just as shamelessly and duplicitously when destroying Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. They will never be able to wash off this shame. The concepts of honor, trust, and decency are not for them. Over the long centuries of colonialism, diktat and hegemony, they got used to being allowed everything. They grew accustomed to spitting on the whole world.

“It turned out that they treat people living in their own countries with the same disdain, like a master. They cynically deceived them too, tricked them with tall stories about the search for peace, about adherence to the UN Security Council resolutions on Donbass. The Western elites have become a symbol of total, unprincipled lies.” It took Russian politicians and journalists a long time to recover from their delusion that with the demise of communism the world was a community governed by agreed-upon rules. Many Russian intellectuals and journalists had an idealized picture of the United States which kept the Russian government off balance in understanding Washington’s intentions toward Russia. How else to explain Russia’s lack of preparedness when Washington overthrew the elected government of Ukraine and when Georgia invaded South Ossetia?

As Putin now understands, the consequences of the Russian government’s mistaken expectation of fair and honorable relations with the West have been severe. Unless the West’s degradation results in collapse, war is inevitable. American and European peoples have no impact on their governments who serve the agendas of the financially powerful. Now that the West has demonstrated for all to see that the West suffers no shame from participation in genocide, even the most westernized Russians are likely to keep a safe distance from Washington’s snares. Now that the West has completely shattered the trust built during the Soviet era, the threat of nuclear Armageddon again holds sway over the Earth. In the face of this threat, all other threats recede into nothingness.

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“The attorneys general of Indiana, West Virginia and 25 other states, warn the court that this novel theory will produce “chaos” in the country.”

27 States File to Oppose Colorado’s Disqualification of Trump (Turley)

The majority of Americans oppose the decisions in Colorado and Maine to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot. Other polls put the balance slightly in favor, but all polls show a deeply divided country on this effort. The Maine decision will now be reviewed by the Maine state courts, but the Colorado decision is scheduled for oral argument in a matter of weeks. A reversal of the Colorado decision is now supported by 27 states, which filed with the Supreme Court to oppose the underlying theory under the Fourteenth Amendment. It is relatively rare to see states opposing the expansion of their own authority vis-a-vis Congress. The brief reinforces the view of states like Colorado as outliers in the country in embracing this anti-democratic theory. The attorneys general of Indiana, West Virginia and 25 other states, warn the court that this novel theory will produce “chaos” in the country.

“The Colorado Supreme Court has cast itself into a ‘political thicket,’ Evenwel v. Abbott, 578 U.S. 54, 58, (2016), and it is now up to this Court to pull it out. ‘Confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes is essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy.’ Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1, 4 (2006) (per curiam). If the Colorado decision stands, that critical confidence will be harmed. Many Americans will become convinced that a few partisan actors have contrived to take a political decision out of ordinary voters’ hands.” Advocates are pushing this dangerous theory at a time of deepening divisions in our country. As I have previously said, the four Colorado justices are recklessly throwing matches at a powder keg. That is why I am hopeful that at least one of the liberal justices will follow the lead of the three democratically appointed Colorado justices, who dissent from this anti-democratic decision.

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Federal appeals court.

Donald Trump Will Attend Tuesday Arguments For Immunity Motion In J6 Case (PM)

Former President Donald Turmp will be attending Tuesday’s arguments regarding his presidential immunity motion in the Jan. 6 case being led by Jack Smith. In a post to Truth Social, Trump made the announcement that he would be attending the arguments come Tuesday.

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Crazy story of the day.

Trump Co-Defendant: Improper Relationship Between Georgia DA, Prosecutor (NYP)

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had an “improper” and “clandestine” relationship with the married special prosecutor who assisted in securing the Georgia grand jury indictment against former President Donald Trump, a co-defendant in the election interference case alleged Monday. The bombshell court filing made by former Trump 2020 campaign official Michael Roman argues that Willis should be disqualified from the case and the charges against him dropped because “the district attorney chose to appoint her romantic partner, who at all times relevant to this prosecution has been a married man” to the case.

Roman contends that Nathan Wade, a private attorney with the Atlanta-based Wade & Campbell Firm, used some of the nearly $654,000 in legal fees that he’s been compensated for by the Fulton County DA’s office for his work on the Trump case to take Willis on lavish vacations to “Napa Valley, California, Florida and the Caribbean.” “Mr. Roman … moves the Court for an order disqualifying the district attorney, her office, and the special prosecutor from further prosecuting the instant matter on the grounds that the district attorney and the special prosecutor have been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case, which has resulted in the special prosecutor, and, in turn, the district attorney, profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers,” the 127-page filing states.

“Accordingly, the district attorney and the special prosecutor have violated laws regulating the use of public monies, suffer from irreparable conflicts of interest, and have violated their oaths of office under the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct and should be disqualified from prosecuting this matter,” it continues. Roman’s filing claims that “sources close to both the special prosecutor and the district attorney” have confirmed that Willis and Wade had an ongoing fling, and that Wade filed for divorce in Cobb County, Ga., “a day after his first contract with Willis commenced” in November 2021. “In addition, the district attorney and the special prosecutor have been seen in private together (in a personal relationship capacity) in and about the Atlanta area and believed to have co-habited in some form or fashion at a location that neither of them owned,” the filing alleges.


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“@WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird,” he concluded, adding a “poop” emoji.”

Musk Responds To WSJ ‘Hit Piece’ (RT)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hit back at the Wall Street Journal in a post on his X platform (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, a day after the paper published a lengthy article detailing company executives’ purported concerns over his use of illegal drugs. Referring to an infamous 2018 interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, during which Musk smoked marijuana on camera, the Tesla tycoon explained: “after that one puff with Rogan, I agreed, at NASA’s request, to do 3 years of random drug testing. Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol.” “@WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird,” he concluded, adding a “poop” emoji.

In its article, headlined: “Elon Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders at Tesla and SpaceX,” the Journal claimed multiple company executives and board members at both companies were concerned that what they viewed as Musk’s erratic behavior was caused by the use of illegal drugs. These supposedly included not only the cannabis he was seen smoking with Rogan, but also ketamine – for which he has claimed to have a legal prescription – LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, and magic mushrooms. Musk’s brother Kimbal and at least one current SpaceX board member reportedly took drugs with Musk, though it was not stated whether they were among those supposedly concerned about the billionaire’s habits. Musk has allegedly used drugs at “private parties around the world,” where attendees were made to sign non-disclosure agreements or turn in their phones.

While “people close to Musk” were said to be “concerned [his drug use] could cause a health crisis,” the Journal focused more on the potential implications for his businesses, specifically the fate of $14 billion in government contracts enjoyed by SpaceX. “Drug abuse” – the use of controlled or illegal substances “in a manner that deviates from approved medical direction” – could jeopardize Musk’s security clearance and would violate federal contractor requirements. Following the Rogan incident, SpaceX randomly deployed drug-sniffing dogs on company property and executives “began warning employees to follow company rules at all times, including to not use illegal drugs even outside of the office,” insider sources told the WSJ.

Despite focusing on drugs, the report acknowledged that even those concerned about Musk’s behavior were not sure whether to attribute it to substance use or other issues like his “consistent lack of sleep,” being on the autism spectrum, or (self-diagnosed) bipolar disorder. Few investors complained about his behavior when his companies were performing as well as they were in recent years, it admitted. Musk fans on X have condemned the “hit piece,” which think-tank director Jeffrey Tucker decried as “the kind of vicious thing you would expect to see in East Germany or the old Soviet Union.”

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“..by pulling a Bannon, Hunter now faces the expectation in many circles that he will get the full Bannon treatment from Garland.”

Hunter Biden Contempt Resolutions Introduced In House (ZH)

House Republicans on Monday introduced contempt resolutions against Hunter Biden, recommending that he be held in Contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas and appear for testimony in front of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees on Dec. 13. Hunter, who was handsomely compensated for doing nothing on the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma (right before his father strong armed the Ukrainians into firing their chief prosecutor – who was investigating Burisma), skipped out on his closed-door deposition, and instead said he would only appear for public testimony – where questions would be far more limited. According to the committees, “Biden has violated federal law, and must be held in contempt of Congres.”

The committees said they want to get information from Hunter Biden to determine whether his father, President Joe Biden, was involved in any bribery schemes, abused his positions of political power as president or vice president, or knowingly participated in any scheme to enrich himself or his family, including through contact with foreign entities. -Just the News. As Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley noted in December; “Few people expected Hunter to testify in the deposition. The evidence against him is overwhelming, as shown in his second federal indictment on tax charges. He and his uncles were allegedly engaged in one of the largest influence-peddling operations in history involving millions of dollars from various foreign sources. Hunter simply could have done what prior witnesses have done: Go in and take the Fifth. That is what attorney and former IRS official Lois Lerner did — twice — when House Republicans wanted to ask her about the Obama administration targeting conservative groups.”

It was a no-brainer that someone appears to have radically over-thought on the Hunter Biden legal team. Hunter can now be held in contempt of Congress. That will force the hand of Attorney General Merrick Garland, who aggressively pursued Trump figures for contempt, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Despite some of us writing to the contrary, Bannon claimed his lawyers told him he did not have to appear before a House committee. He was swiftly charged and convicted by Garland’s prosecutors. In this instance, the contempt case would go to the U.S. Attorney in D.C., Matthew Graves, who previously declined to assist in bringing tax charges against the president’s son. Yet by pulling a Bannon, Hunter now faces the expectation in many circles that he will get the full Bannon treatment from Garland.

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Sounds like Biden: “Bild described Scholz as “the most unpopular chancellor of all time.”

Most Germans Want Scholz To Step Down – Poll (RT)

Public support for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has fallen to record lows, the tabloid Bild reported on Monday, citing a fresh survey conducted by the INSA polling institute. Almost two-thirds of Germans want him to resign before the next federal election, scheduled for October 2025, the data suggests. As many as 64% of respondents told INSA that Scholz should vacate his position and hand it over to Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who is a fellow Social Democrat. Less than a quarter of Germans opposed that prospect. Scholz would also lose an election versus any of his major rivals, the poll showed. Only 23% of Germans would support the current chancellor against Friedrich Merz, the leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Merz himself would enjoy the backing of 26% of voters.

Should Scholz face off against Markus Soeder, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) – the traditional CDU ally in Bavaria – Soeder would secure a clear victory with 36% to 20%. Pistorius would claim a narrow victory against Merz with 25% to 23%, but would still lose to Soeder 25% to 34%, the survey said. Under German law, the chancellor is confirmed by MPs on the proposal of the federal president. Soeder currently serves as governor of Germany’s most populous state and is known for his criticism of Scholz’s policies. In November, he warned that Germany was in a “serious crisis,” particularly slamming the chancellor’s cabinet over its budget and police failures, adding that the “government has gone bankrupt.” The Bavarian politician also criticized the federal government’s strategy of using only subsidies to combat price hikes resulting from forgoing Russian energy supplies. He also criticized Berlin for, as he said, prioritizing military aid to Ukraine over the nation’s own security.

The INSA poll showed that Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) had the support of just 16% of Germans, 15 percentage points behind the CDU and seven percentage points behind the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Scholz has been losing public support for quite some time. In early December, a YouGov poll showed that 74% of Germans believed he was doing a poor job as chancellor, with only 20% seeing his performance in a positive light. As many as 73% said they were unhappy with his entire cabinet. Some 77% said they placed little or no trust in the way Scholz is governing Germany. Even among SPD supporters, this figure reached 60%. Later in the month, Der Spiegel reported that Scholz’s personal approval had slipped to just 30%, down from 44% in June 2023. On Monday, Bild described Scholz as “the most unpopular chancellor of all time.”

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“This is total failure.”

House Freedom Caucus Slams Speaker Johnson’s Proposed Spending Deal (JTN)

The conservative House Freedom Caucus slammed House Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposed top-line spending deal with Senate Democrats as a “total failure,” arguing the potential agreement costs about $68 billion more than the Louisiana Republican said it would.Johnson told members of Congress on Sunday that he reached a $1.590 trillion spending deal with the Senate and White House, but the Freedom Caucus slammed the proposal later that evening in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “It’s even worse than we thought,” the caucus wrote. “Don’t believe the spin. Once you break through typical Washington math, the true total programmatic spending level is $1.658 trillion — not $1.59 trillion. This is total failure.”

At the end of last month, the Freedom Caucus released a statement titled, “House GOP’s New Year Resolution Must Be Cutting Spending,” which stated that the U.S. is “on the path to fiscal ruin” but that Congress has “done little to force a course correction from this calamity.” With a slim Republican majority, the 45-member Freedom Caucus holds a significant amount of sway in the 435-member House, and most recently played an integral role in deciding the House speaker. Now, the House needs to pass a deal before government funding completely expires on Feb. 2.

Johnson

Read more …

“The medical field is determined to kill whatever shred of credibility it still has left. And it is succeeding.”

“It’s Okay to Be Fat” and Obesity Should be “Normalized” (MN)

A doctor at Cedars-Sinai posted a TikTok video saying “it is okay to be fat,” and that being fat “needs to be normalized,” despite obesity-related diseases being the biggest killer in America. Yes, really. “Here’s my hot take as a doctor, I totally agree, it is okay to be fat, we don’t say that enough, but it needs to be normalized,” remarked Dr. Nicole Vangroningen. Vangroningen went on to claim that being fat is “typically not a problem that requires immediate solving.” Presumably, it only needs “solving” once an obese person has developed numerous fat-related diseases that greatly increase their risk of dying. Perhaps even more ludicrously, the doctor said “it is okay to not be healthy,” suggesting that people who suggest otherwise are engaging in “healthism,” adding “a good doctor will not judge you for being fat, they will not judge you for being unhealthy.”

Vangroningen completely removes any responsibility from the equation, telling potential patients, “We are also here to help you if you decide to not make any changes at all”. God forbid anyone end up under her “care”. According to the CDC, “In the United States and worldwide, obesity is also associated with the leading causes of death, including deaths from diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer.” “We now have doctors speaking out against “healthism,” commented Matt Walsh. “The medical field is determined to kill whatever shred of credibility it still has left. And it is succeeding.” As we document in the video below, the ‘body positivity’ movement has been triumphed by the culture and the establishment despite literally killing some of its leading advocates.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Picnic
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744318846268285388

 

 

Gorilla mom

 

 

Orchestra

 

 

Microlight
https://twitter.com/i/status/1744307961122443769

 

 


Reminder that experiencing awe quite literally improves your health.
Awe, which has only been studied properly in the last two decades, has been shown to:
• Reduce stress
• Trigger the release of oxytocin
• Lower levels of inflammatory cytokines

Being made to feel small (experiencing “self-diminishment”) even quells our negative self-talk, by deactivating the part of the cortex involved with how we perceive ourselves. Through awe we become less attuned to ourselves and more attuned to the wider world. Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley said: “We are at this cultural moment of narcissism and self-shame and criticism and entitlement; awe gets us out of that.” Neuroscientists define awe it as the emotional response to something vast that defies (and changes) our existing frame of reference of something.

What’s one way to experience it? Travel to your nearest cathedral and gaze upwards. Gothic architecture was built for this very purpose – through maximum height and maximum light. Achieving this at vast scale was a critical breakthrough by medieval engineers, who pioneered the flying buttresses, the pointed arch, and various other innovations which made taller and thinner walls possible. Those builders also believed that light itself was divine, and that when it poured in through the great windows it elevated one’s consciousness to the heavens. As English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge said: “The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.”

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle January 9 2024

Viewing 36 posts - 41 through 76 (of 76 total)
  • Author
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  • #150041
    John Day
    Participant

    Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Monday that Israel had created a whole generation of orphans with its “brutal” war in Gaza, where he said over 30,000 people, mostly women and children, had been killed or were missing as a result of the conflict, Reuters reports…
    ..“More children have died in Gaza than in all other conflicts around the world this past year. Of those who have survived, many have lost one or both parents, an entire generation of orphans,” he said. “How can indiscriminate aggression and shelling bring peace? How can they guarantee security, when they are built on hatred?” Abdullah said of Israel’s war against the Hamas group.
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240108-jordan-king-abdullah-israels-brutal-war-creates-generation-of-gaza-orphans/

    ​ Moroccan group: Israel kills journalists to cover up its crimes in Gaza
    ​ Morocco’s Al-Adl Wal-Ihsane (Justice and Kindness) group said Israel’s goal in killing journalists is to “discourage the media from reporting the truth, and to cover up its crimes against civilians, children and women, and the failure of its war in the Gaza Strip.”
    ​ In a statement after Israel killed journalist Hamza Al-Dahdouh, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Wael Al-Dahdouh, and his colleague Mustafa Thuraya yesterday, the organisation said this is “a deliberate war crime through which Israel seeks to discourage journalists from reporting the truth.”
    ​ Hamza and Mustafa were killed in an Israeli bombing that targeted a car they were travelling in as they covered events unfolding in the besieged Gaza city of Khan Yunis. Some 109 journalists have now been killed in Gaza since the start of the genocide.​ In killing journalists, Al-Adl Wal-Ihsane said, Israel “aims to cover up [its] crimes against civilians, children and women, and its failure [in its war] in the Gaza Strip.”
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240108-moroccan-group-israel-kills-journalists-to-cover-up-its-crimes-in-gaza/

    Israeli bombing of Al-Aqsa Hospital backyard prompts MSF evacuation
    The head of the Doctors Without Borders mission in occupied Palestine’s al-Quds, Stefan Goriely, speaks to Al Mayadeen about the situation at Al-Aqsa Hospital.
    https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israeli-bombing-of-al-aqsa-hospital-backyard-prompts-msf-eva

    ​ UNRWA: 146 of our employees killed in Gaza
    ​ The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced the martyrdom of 146 employees working for it since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.
    ​ Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, up to 1.9 million people or more than 85 percent of the population have been displaced across the Gaza Strip, UNRWA said in a report issued on Monday.
    ​ There are approximately 1.4 million displaced people taking refuge in 155 UNRWA facilities in all five governorates of the Gaza Strip, with another half a million people accessing UNRWA services.
    https://en.ypagency.net/315647

    ​ Demands for Israeli Ambassador to UK’s Expulsion After ‘Clear Call for Genocide’
    “The Israeli ambassador has gone on national British radio and incited genocide,” said one columnist. “This is an illegal act under the 1948 Genocide Convention.”
    ​ A member of British Parliament demanded the foreign secretary “take the strongest possible action against” Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the U.K., after she appeared on a radio broadcast of LBC and told host Iain Dale in no uncertain terms that Israel’s military must target civilian infrastructure in Gaza—a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
    ​ Hotovely told Dale that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have found that “every school, every mosque, every second house, has an access to tunnel,” referring to the tunnels used by Hamas—which were first built when Gaza was under Israeli control in 1980.
    ​ “That’s an argument for destroying the whole of Gaza, every single building,” Dale said, prompting Hotovely to ask, “Do you have another solution, how to destroy the underground tunnel city?”

    Demands for Israeli Ambassador to UK’s Expulsion After ‘Clear Call for Genocide’

    #150042
    Farmer McGregor
    Participant

    “Russian Claim: Austin Dead In Ukraine” — Real Raw News

    The RRN website is entirely bogus. By their own admission on their “About” page:
    “Information on this website is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes. This website contains humor, parody, and satire. ”
    In other words: bullshit. Perhaps just more Qanon style psyop for the foolishly willing dupes.

    #150043
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ NATO Weakness Exposed as US-Led Red Sea Coalition Flops – Italian Admiral
    ​ The West’s failure to put together a coalition to secure the Red Sea is a worrying sign for NATO and EU unity, Luigi Binelli-Mantelli, a retired Italian admiral and former chief of staff of the Italian Navy and Italy’s Defense Staff, has said.
    ​ “France and Italy won’t join the US-led coalition in the Red Sea. This will have no impact from an operational point of view, since navies are well trained to coordinate their actions even outside a definite chain of command, but politically it’s proof of our weak cohesion as NATO as well as EU partners,” the senior former naval officer said.
    ​ “We must cope with [the Red Sea crisis] because this is not simply aimed against Israel, it’s a direct challenge to all Western countries, testing our determination and cohesion to protect our economy and our common values and way of life,” Binelli-Mantelli suggested.
    ​ [Has this train already departed?]​ The admiral encouraged the Western bloc to “revise and widen its role in the world’s stability and security,” and called on Brussels to “wake up from its ecumenic dream and think twice about its own solidity,” presumably referring to European nations’ efforts to create joint military forces based in EU structures instead of relying solely on NATO and the US.
    https://sputnikglobe.com/20240108/us-red-sea-coalitions-flop-signals-natos-weakness-italian-admiral-1116062403.html

    ​ Opinion: Russia Must Be Asia’s Peace Maker , Declan Hays
    ​ The two main lessons East Asia can glean from the Suez/Red Sea stand off is that Israel, which has recently bombed civilians in Beirut, Damascus and Tehran in addition to its countless other war crimes, has torn up the rules of war by making everyone and everything legitimate targets. When we further factor the asymmetries Houthi missiles and Iranian war ships cause in the Red Sea, there are very major implications both for NATO’s plans to contain China and for China’s plans to propel its own neomercantilist agenda forward.
    ​ As the navies of China and NATO both see it, there are a series a pivot points, layered strings of pearls, as the Yanks call them, stretching from Vladivostok in the north, down through Japan’s home islands, past South Korea, onwards to Okinawa, Yonaguni and Taiwan, Itbayat, Basco, Batanes, Luzon and the Philippines, westwards through Palawan, the Spratly and Paracel Islands, Vietnam, Singapore and the Strait of Malacca, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, Myanmar’s Coco Islands and Kyaukphyu port, Pakistan’s deep water Gwadar port and back to the Gulfs of Aden, Persia and Oman. One big tinderbox, from Siberia to Syria, being welded in by China’s Belt and Road Initiative to other tinder boxes, a pyromaniac’s paradise.
    ​ The importance of all those choke points and potential flashpoints is that both NATO and China are militarising them to degrees the world has never previously witnessed. NATO’s plan, much like Harry Truman’s earlier NCS 68 plan to contain the Soviet Union, is to corral China’s lines of advance into a relatively narrow waterway across the Taiwan Strait to Taiwan’s west and to then bombard China’s sea and land positions from forward bases on the front islets of Japan and the Philippines to Taiwan’s east.
    ​ China, meanwhile is colonising the South China Sea by turning Fiery Cross Reef, Gaven Reefs, Mischief Reef, Subi Reef and other once insignificant pinpricks like them into fully fledged military bases, complete with runways, fighter planes and missile batteries. When China’s DF-21D carrier killer missiles are added into the mix, China presents a real and present danger countries like India must factor into their own calculations, all the more so as China attempts to build land and sea bridges through Pakistan to Gwador thereby further threatening India to its north, and giving NATO and its fleet of Australian nuclear subs opportunities aplenty to stir the Asian pot further.
    ​ Although NATO’s Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) are designed to keep all these sea lines of communication (SLOCS) not only open but outside the grasp of China’s strategic strong points, there are plenty of chances for miscalculations, particularly in the South China Sea where China has been particularly aggressive, as evidenced by its repeated attacks on the Filipino marines on BRP Sierra Madre, which sits atop the 2nd Thomas Shoal.
    ​ Although China and its adversaries have a number of symmetric and asymmetric options available to them that range from Nordstream style no claim no blame attacks on hostile shipping to blowing up, in pre-emptive strikes, the Three Gorges Dam and thereby drowning the 1 billion or so Chinese unfortunates who live in the Lower Yanzgtse Valley, outside the lunatic asylums of Washington, most of those are not realistic choices.
    ​ That said, China’s reaction to the results of Taiwan’s pending 13 January elections might bring unwanted fireworks to bear on what already is a tense tinderbox. Should William Lai Ching-te, the incumbent vice president and the candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), prevail over Hou Yu-ih from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Party, China will most likely spit the dummy again and launch massive military drills around the island or even grab Penghu Island as a sign it is serious about subjugating Taiwan.
    ​ Though China certainly carries a big stick, it doesn’t yet seem to grasp the notion that one should speak softly and only wave or use the stick as a last recourse. That is where the diplomats of Russia, which currently chairs the loose and untested BRIICS alliance, comes in.
    ​ As a long standing ally of Vietnam, China and India, and as one which understands the nuanced goals of all three of those countries, Russia can bring a lot to the table. Not only did Russia help broker peace in the 1965 2nd Kashmir war between Pakistan and India but Russia fully understands that India and Vietnam both want strategic autonomy, and that neither will ever submit to being a vassal of a revanchist China.
    ​ Taiwan currently leads the world in the crucial field of semiconductors and that is unlikely to change any time soon. And nor is Taiwan’s status as, for Taiwan to revert to the 1683-1895 era when it paid tribute to the Qing Dynasty, would mean empowering China to annex the entire region as Imperial Japan did in late 1941 from its Taiwanese/Formosan base. Because Japan, India, Vietnam and even the Philippines cannot accept that, China is thereby opening up the door for NATO’s carrier groups and sundry other legacy defence systems and that is far from being an optimal state of affairs if peace and trade, rather than war and all it entails are the goals.
    ​ There are two or even three ways out of this morass, only one of which is really acceptable. The first of these is to duke it out across the Taiwan Strait and every other strait or reef that is deemed important along the String of Pearls from Siberia to Somalia. The second way is for China to goose step ahead with its neomercantalism until the global economy revolves around it and it alone. The third and best way is for the BRIICS and allied countries to take the opportunity Russia’s chairmanship of that group offers and chart some way through all the straits and reefs they might sink or run aground on.

    Russia Must Be Asia’s Peace Maker

    ​ Charles Hugh Smith explains “crapification”, What’s the Source of the Astounding 50% Boost in Corporate Profits?
    No wonder Corporate America added $1.2 trillion in profits to be distributed to the elites of America: everything is diminished, stripped of quality and rendered miserable.
    https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/whats-the-source-of-the-astounding

    #150044
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Dr. Marian Laderoute , Guessing at the Number of COVID-19 Shot Associated Deaths In CANADA
    Governments do NOT want you to know that there were more deaths associated with the vaccines than COVID-19 and An Estimated only 1424 C19 Deaths were averted in 2021 due to the First Shot
    https://hervk102.substack.com/p/guessing-at-the-number-of-covid-19

    Steve Kirsch , 32 entries , A summary of the evidence against the COVID vaccines
    Here’s a quick summary of the key pieces of evidence that taken together show that the COVID vaccines are unsafe and that the medical community should not be trusted.
    https://kirschsubstack.com/p/a-summary-of-the-evidence-against

    ​ Sasha Latypova explains why the Federal Court venue is exactly what Pfizer needs, due to contract with the Pentagon for Emergency Use Authorization “countermeasures”, never any “pharmaceutical product”, as legally defined.
    ​ Pfizer moves in TX v Pfizer​ , Files Notice of Removal to Federal Court
    https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/tx-v-pfizer

    ​ [Nazis first, then pedophiles, right?] ​ And So It Begins …
    Substack’s been accused of being a haven for Nazis. Is this the beginning of a coordinated effort to staunch the influence of Substack?
    https://billricejr.substack.com/p/and-so-it-begins

    #150045
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ [No name-jokes, please. This is serious] Georgia DA Fani Willis had affair with prosecutor on Trump case: lawsuit
    ​ Roman contends that Nathan Wade, a private attorney with the Atlanta-based Wade & Campbell Firm, used some of the nearly $654,000 in legal fees that he’s been paid by the Fulton County DA’s Office for his work on the Trump case to take Willis on lavish vacations to “Napa Valley, California, Florida and the Caribbean.”
    https://nypost.com/2024/01/08/news/trump-co-defendant-alleges-improper-relationship-between-georgia-da-and-prosecutor-demands-indictment-be-thrown-out/

    ​ Ray Epps Dodges Prison Sentence – Gets Probation, Community Service For Telling J6ers To Go “Into The Capitol”
    ​ Ray Epps, the man caught multiple times telling January 6th protesters to escalate their demonstration and go “into the Capitol” on January 6th, 2021, will spend no time in prison for his role that day.​ Instead, Epps has been given 12 months probation, $500 in restitution, and 100 hours of community service.​ [Service for the FBI, maybe?]
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ray-epps-dodges-prison-sentence-gets-probation-community-service-telling-j6ers-go-capitol

    Here We Go: Michelle Obama Says She’s “Terrified” Of Trump Winning​ , What is she going to do about it?
    https://modernity.news/2024/01/09/here-we-go-michelle-obama-says-shes-terrified-of-trump-winning/

    #150046
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks Farmer McGregor.
    “We shall see.”

    #150047
    Oroboros
    Participant

    ” met secretly to discuss mounting an asymmetrical offensive to “bring Vladimir Putin to his knees,”

    This meaning terrorism and assassinations against Russia

    Well, what goes around comes around…..

    #150048
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The guy who jumped the fence in the court room and attacked that judge the other day…

    making an example, just saying…

    “I know that this guy jumped over a desk and attacked a judge….but there is something very disturbing about seeing a Black man in chains and muzzled.”

    The good old days, the good old days, I was there, where were they?

    .

    .

    #150049
    John Day
    Participant

    On the Need to Include the Study of Jewish Power as Integral to the Globalist Push for Centralized Control of Everything
    Much Has Changed Now That Israel is Being Charged by the International Court of Justice for Violating the UN’s Genocide Convention , ANTHONY JAMES HALL
    https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/on-the-need-to-include-the-study

    #150050
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    Awe, respect, sadness.

    The Clipper Lindbergh
    is the shortest, a Boeing 747-400. It’s pretty old, a used airframe. They chopped a section out and put in a ‘roll-top’ door
    so they could fly around with the door purposely open. On the tour, the pilot “Manny” said the door stuck open on an early test flight, and
    had been so well designed, and the plane itself so well-mannered, that the landing was pretty normal.

    There just isn’t anything like this produced here anymore.

    #150051
    zerosum
    Participant

    He shed Crocodile tears, and will hold Iran accountable for this senseless tragedy.
    However, not a tear for the +23,000 killed in Gaza by Israel.

    https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2024/01/08/statement-prime-minister-national-day-remembrance-victims-air-disasters
    Statement by the Prime Minister on the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Air Disasters
    January 8, 2024
    Ottawa, Ontario

    #150052
    zerosum
    Participant

    Has anyone done the calculations if lowering life expectancy by a decade or more would

    result in saving trillions on pensions and healthcare.

    #150053
    John Day
    Participant
    #150054
    John Day
    Participant

    It is in PENNSYLVANIA…

    National Park Service Scraps Plans To Remove William Penn Statue After Public Outcry
    Just hours after the National Park Service announced they would be removing a statue of William Penn at Philadelphia’s Welcome Park, located in the Old City section of the city, the service swiftly reversed course.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/national-park-service-scraps-plans-remove-william-penn-statue-after-public-outcry

    #150055
    John Day
    Participant

    Certainly not a back-door to poly entendre..
    Fanigate Widens: Atlanta Trump Prosecutor’s Alleged DA Lover Met With White House Counsel Before Indictment
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/georgia-trump-prosecutor-accused-secret-disqualifying-romance-da-fani-willis

    #150056
    Just Some Randomer
    Participant

    @ John Day – if he ‘Dies’ before the end the week then I’ll agree that it was a bad case of Khinzal-itis that got him. If the official line is that prostate cancer was the cause of death , that would be as good as admitting that notavax caused turbo cancer killed him. As far as I am aware people do not die quickly from prostate cancer under normal circumstances.

    ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive’ as Rabbie Burns once wrote. Hard to get the lies straight in a hurry.

    #150057
    John Day
    Participant

    @just some randomer:
    Ah, but this would be an infection after transrectal pelvic surgery as a complication of prostate cancer, which is quite plausible…

    #150058
    Just Some Randomer
    Participant

    Thanks. Genuinely plausible to an expert such as yourself given that he is someone who can obtain the best healthcare known to mankind – or just plausible enough for the people who get their information from the TV?

    #150059
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The Duran has an interesting theory about Austin and the fact that no one including the WH and State Dept seemed to know anything.

    Start at the 1:00 minute mark.

    Very unique and plausible, nothing to do with Ukronaziland.

    #150060
    WES
    Participant

    If Llyod Austin does die then it could still be due to precise Russian missile surgery!

    It has been entertaining with all the rumors, none wishing Austin a speedy recovery.

    Does clot shot weakened immunity and turbo cancer hope still remain?

    #150061
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Alexander suggests that Austin would be trying to keep the US out of Iran, despite being a warhawk. Meh. On that, Israel just bombed the hostage negotiator. Sure seems like a lot of people want infinite escalation. …Like cutting the legs off 100 children a day…but you know, with the NICE bombs. We paint rainbows on them, tie on a teddy bear, and shoot them from very far away…

    I’m with you guys: just trot the guy out on camera, make up some s–t, problem solved. We’ve all seen 20x worse. So IF we knew what happened, they’d HAVE a cover story by now, because they’d know the risks and which dreadful, idiotic lie to tell. …But they don’t know? What’s going on that they can’t even tell which lie to tell?

    …Like he’s missing, but they’re hoping he’s alive, and can’t tell if there’s enough body for a casket?

    Prostrate Cancer? Gee, you JUST SAY IT, spin him as a double hero, respect our privacy, blah blah. That’s why it took a few days: sure they’re loons, they’re always lying, no worries you can’t tell what a bucket of snakes and spineless weasels wriggling around are doing. But this? That they don’t know? What is this? This isn’t the usual lies or incompetence.

    And what’s with saying “The White House didn’t know?” Like, whut? Even if they didn’t and ESPECIALLY if he thinks he’s the President, have the White House JUST LIE. They lie every minute on every subject. The miracle is when they DON’T lie. So they’re lying: they DID know where Austin was. They needed something juicy to keep the press off. And us off, more likely. While we’re running around in a spin, jousting the wrong horse.

    Who else will know? Trump will know. Inside rumors and informants would get it to him. So watch him for trolling, which specific unusual words he’s using.

    …Not that I care. Austin could disappear or never been born, makes no difference to me. To there’s only more bombs each day, or less. More bankrupt or more functional. No man and certainly not Austin has much affect on that. The people trying to WWIII Israel by killing 1 million children and all the negotiators do. …Oh and still talking F16s in Crimea. That too.

    #150062
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    Half million dead Ukrainians, 30,000 dead, mostlly women and kids in Gaza. Demonicjews, creating Hell on earth using your money to finance it. Will people wake up? I dont see it happening. Too far, fuckin gone. TV and jewphones, porn and credit cards…how simple it is to turn minds into shit…guiding the sheep into their pen.

    #150063
    aspnaz
    Participant
    #150064
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Puppet Master Shuckin’ and Jivin’

    #150065
    Polemos
    Participant

    The site is literally telling you that it is a joke, having a laugh, meant to trick and befuddle and amuse people, and you get the honorable doctor just smilingly slyly winking and saying, “We shall see.” I love you guys, but come on.

    Red posted a link about this story yesterday, the arrest of the Rebel News Reporter who was questioning Chrystia Freeland. Here’s their own video of the actual arrest:

    Quick opinions:
    1. Red’s link earlier said it was a brutal arrest. That’s not my impression. Rodney King was a brutal arrest. That Georgia State Trooper pitting a truck doing burnouts in Atlanta then sliding across his hood to drag that driver out —a classic, that’s brutal. What they’re doing to Mendies is tame cop behavior. They understand they are making a political arrest. This is why they allow him to wave his microphone around for minutes and pretend —with him— that he’s interviewing them, and make a special point to restore his personal belongings into Menzies’ knapsack (but be mindful: what are they planting?). It’s not a brutal arrest. Unless this is speaking purely metaphorically, in which case: there is no brutality in the ever-hightening arc our reality bends towards, the redemption of the fallen and the transcendence of all who walk in principled self-interest towards justice.

    2. I remember cops like Bald One. Bald One instigated things. He obviously signaled something to Freeland and the aide, which is why the aide went one direction and Freeland went the other. I’m not a sports guy, but don’t they call this maneuver a “pick?” Offense leads defense right into offensive wall, who obstinately holds ground while defense unwittingly fouls him by momentum alone? Or he probably just wanted to stage an event to look important and arrest the awful news guy. Notice how the other cops act around him. Did I catch that one guy somewhat rolling his eyes at the other, and the rest just doing their jobs? They may hate Bald One and talk shit about him even to his face, but in public they will have to go along with such an awfully obvious shit arrest and keep order or else they will never have a moment of sanity or ease; cops have to stand by one another and work at the edges of this shituations to bring them under control, into the law’s boundaries, and see it through to wherever it ends up. I’ve seen it. The Wire does a good job with depicting this, but that’s what I’m seeing in the behaviors. Bald One triggers my sociopathy detector. He has no trouble, no problem, breaking the law for the greater good.

    #150066
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The Smartest Guy He Knows

    Well, the smartest crackwhore he knows

    #150067
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Well, not a real crackwhore but close…

    #150068
    Dora
    Participant

    Tucker Carlson.

    #150069
    Oroboros
    Participant

    VP commentary about women-on-the-street interview

    #150070
    Oroboros
    Participant

    And finally to end the day with another mystery besides Darth Austin

    The Crown Heights Tunnels Mystery

    Oy vey!

    #150071
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/cuba-increase-price-fuel-more-124337087.html
    Fuel in Cuba to become five times more expensive
    Emily Atkinson – BBC News
    Tue, January 9, 2024

    It said that from February the price of a litre of petrol would rise from from 25 pesos ($0.20; £0.16) to 132 pesos.

    #150072
    John Day
    Participant

    @Polemos: Dima at Military Summary Channel picked up the Lloyd Austin MIA story. See the first 5 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcNYDc2-Msw

    #150073
    John Day
    Participant

    Pentagon slammed for calling Lloyd Austin’s surgery to remove cancer ‘elective’: ‘Arguing semantics’
    Medical professionals said that characterizing Secretary Austin’s prostate cancer surgery as elective is ‘misleading’
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pentagon-slammed-calling-lloyd-austins-surgery-remove-cancer-elective-arguing-semantics

    #150074
    John Day
    Participant

    The Lloyd Austin timeline is getting more fleshed out as the day progresses.
    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/08/austins-hospital-debacle-pentagon-00134372

    #150075
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Active duty require COs permission to have surgery for many good “corporate” reasons.
    I suppose the resident experts will explain those details also.
    Jesus….The Good Doctor May

    Basically active duty body and soul belong to the military service AND the you lose all disability benefits *not called disability, rather Limited Duty and Medical Boards.

    I’m still betting on LapBand.
    I take it John never dealt with catastrophic bowel or superior mesenteric artery occlusion/infarction.

    Maybe PE or urosepsis in a fat old sedentary gut after surgery

    #150076
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    SecDef isn’t subject to the same restrictions but since Austin is retired military, he can be brought back on active duty to be court martialed. Federal court reaffirmed this authority as recently as November 2022.
    Hopefully Ritter or Tulsi can chime in.

    Either way it’s a nothingburger except for what remains of Austin’s life

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