Feb 122024
 
 February 12, 2024  Posted by at 9:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Vincent van Gogh Snowy landscape with Arles in the background 1888

 

How Ball Got Rolling With Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview Proposal (Sp.)
Egypt Warns Israel: Rafah Invasion Could Negate ’79 Peace Treaty (ZH)
Ukraine Should Be A ‘Buffer Zone’ – Orban (RT)
EU Openly Threatened Orban For His Reluctance To Finance Kiev (TASS)
Ukraine ‘Must Accept New Reality’ – Kremlin (RT)
10 Million More Refugees Could Flee To Germany If Ukraine Falls – Welt (RT)
Zaluzhny’s Photo With Banderite a ‘Threat’ to Zelensky (Sp.)
Russia Must Permanently Abandon Europe And Turn Fully To Asia (Karaganov)
Farmers Bring Poland To Standstill (RT)
“That is Not the Judgment of the Press” (Turley)
“Oh What a Tangled Web Biden Weaves, When He First Practices to Deceive” (VDH)
Could Trump Win By Simple Attrition Rather than Vindication? (Turley)
Soaring Debt Pushing Wealthy Nations To ‘Fiscal Death’ – Economist (RT)
Peaceful Protests Are a Waste of Time and Energy (Paul Craig Roberts)
The Crime Of The Century: Midazolam Murders – Euthanizing The Elderly (Kelly)

 

 

 

 

Liberal tears
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756706512540499971

 

 

Ads
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756692976426701093

 

 


Maria Zakharova: “After watching Putin’s interview, Scholz and Sunak disobeyed the orders of the USA.

“Scholz disobeyed the order of the USA not to watch the interview. If he continues to violate the instructions of the White House, he may lead Germany out of the crisis. The recent Prime Ministers of Britain, weak-willed individuals, they carried out the will not of the British people or even their own personal will, but obediently waltzed, led by Washington towards the boudoir.”

 

 

Nikki Haley

Trump Haley
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756832137980838180

 

 

Biden Superbowl
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756726329695973841

 

 

Sure this is not a Trump ad?!

 

 

 

 

“..the Kremlin had concerns even before the interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin that there would be a “persecution” of Tucker Carlson. ”

How Ball Got Rolling With Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview Proposal (Sp.)

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, released Thursday, lasted more than two hours and covered a range of topics, including the Ukraine conflict, sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, and Russia-NATO relations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told reporters that Tucker Carlson himself proposed the interview with Vladimir Putin and that the president quickly agreed. He also noted that the West is becoming more and more unpredictable, and that the Kremlin had concerns even before the interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin that there would be a “persecution” of Tucker Carlson.

Peskov believes that Tucker Carlson foresaw the heated sentiments around the interview with Vladimir Putin, but that it added to the popularity of the American journalist. “He’s still having a hard time, as far as I’m aware. But he is a clever enough man, I think he foresaw things would get heated. It’s fair to say that this interview has greatly raised his popularity,” Peskov said. On Thursday night, Carlson published his interview with the Russian president, which lasted for over two hours. Prior to that, the journalist faced criticism from his Western colleagues just for sitting down with the Russian leader. The interview sparked huge interest around the world, and has received more than 180 million views on X and 12 million on YouTube.

Oz dub
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756802067711115605

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“..if past is prologue, watch for the Israeli government to disregard the protests of its partners and benefactors — protests that may be offered primarily for domestic consumption..”

Egypt Warns Israel: Rafah Invasion Could Negate ’79 Peace Treaty (ZH)

With Israel on the verge of invading Gaza’s southernmost city, Egypt is warning that such a move could trigger a suspension of the treaty that has maintained peace between the two countries since 1979, the Wall Street Journal reports. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday directed the Israeli Defense Forces to plan the evacuation of the city of Rafah, which lies on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt and reportedly holds more than a million refugees already forced from their homes elsewhere in the 25-mile-long strip. One particularly sensitive slice of real estate is the so-called Philadelphi Route or Philadelphi Corridor, which stretches nine miles along the Gaza-Egypt border. Diplomatic accords establish limits on the number of troops that either Israel or Egypt can position in several delineated zones along and near the border, and certainly don’t authorize large numbers of Israeli troops and armored vehicles.

In late December, Netanyahu said the Philadelphi Route “has to be in our hands” if Gaza is to be effectively and permanently demilitarized. In January, an Egyptian official said, “It must be strictly emphasized that any Israeli move in this direction will lead to a serious threat to Egyptian-Israeli relations.” While an Egyptian diplomatic delegation visited Tel Aviv on Friday to discuss the situation in Gaza, Mexican Egyptian President Sisi has rejected several phone calls from Netanyahu over recent weeks, sources tell the Journal. The threat that large numbers of Palestinian refugees could soon be pouring across the border raises many deep concerns for Egypt. Perhaps more than the challenge of managing a humanitarian crisis, if displaced Palestinians launch attacks on the IDF from Egypt, that could trigger Israeli retaliatory strikes across the border. If Israel doesn’t allow the Palestinians to return, tensions between Israel and Egypt would be sharply increased for years to come.

Since the war began, Egypt has been reinforcing its border with Gaza, building a concrete, barbed-wire-topped wall that extends six meters into the ground below it, while also boosting surveillance capabilities, and moving tanks and armored vehicles into the vicinity. The Israel-Hamas war is proving costly for Egypt in other ways, as Suez Canal traffic has plummeted some 30%. Egypt’s warning comes alongside expressions of concern by a variety of countries both inside and outside of the region: “Military operations right now would be a disaster for those people, and it’s not something that we would support,” said US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

“Invading Rafah… which is the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of civilians whom the brutal Israeli aggression displaced will have [grave] consequences,” said the Saudi foreign ministry. “Deeply concerned about the prospect of a military offensive in Rafah – over half of Gaza’s population are sheltering in the area,” tweeted UK foreign secretary David Cameron. “The people of Gaza cannot disappear into thin air…[it is a] “humanitarian catastrophe in the making,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. A Rafah invasion would create an “unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe,” said EU Foreign Minister Joseph Borrell. Israel’s plan “threatens to cause the loss of more innocent life and exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip,” said the United Arab Emirates foreign ministry. However, if past is prologue, watch for the Israeli government to disregard the protests of its partners and benefactors — protests that may be offered primarily for domestic consumption.

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“Ukraine offers Europeans no additional security because most of us are already members of NATO, which is much stronger than Russia..”

Ukraine Should Be A ‘Buffer Zone’ – Orban (RT)

Ukraine’s best geopolitical bet would be to become a “buffer zone” between Russia and the West, under arrangements made to guarantee the country’s future security, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. The Hungarian premier made the remarks while debating former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel, with excerpts from the exchange published by the Vienna daily Die Presse. Orban disagreed with Schussel’s contention that the Ukraine crisis could be solved only if the immediate start of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU and NATO coincided with the start of ceasefire talks. [BQ] Whether we like it or not, whether Ukrainians like it or not, Ukraine is on the map where it is. The best prospect for it would be to form a buffer zone between Russia and the West – with security guarantees, of course.

In any other case, according to the prime minister, “Ukraine will lose its land,” and “the Russians will destroy Ukraine again and again.” He stressed that Moscow would “never accept an EU and NATO member like Ukraine on its doorstep.” Orban also rejected claims by officials in Brussels and Kiev that Ukraine is “defending” Europe. “Ukraine offers Europeans no additional security because most of us are already members of NATO, which is much stronger than Russia,” he stated, adding that there is “no risk” that Russia could attack a bloc member. He also pushed back against Schussel’s argument that a ceasefire would mean a de facto defeat for Ukraine, saying that this depends on how a person sees the future as Kiev could potentially lose more territory.

According to Orban, the EU is also in no position to provide Ukraine with an adequate amount of weapons and money, adding that the bloc’s citizens are “dissatisfied because their governments are giving Ukraine more and more financial support”. Russia has repeatedly voiced concerns about NATO’s unchecked expansion towards its borders after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with President Vladimir Putin citing Ukraine’s push to join the alliance as one of the key reasons for the current conflict. In December 2021, weeks before the start of the hostilities, Moscow submitted a draft of security guarantees to the US and NATO, demanding that the West ban Kiev’s accession to the military bloc and retreat to its borders as of 1997. The overture, however, was rebuffed.

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Nice club to be a member of…

EU Openly Threatened Orban For His Reluctance To Finance Kiev (TASS)

Leaders of the European Union openly threatened to undermine the Hungarian economy if its government refuses to approve financial aid to Ukraine, said Balazs Orban, the political director of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Financial Times reported on January 29, citing an internal EU document, that Brussels was drawing up a confidential plan to undermine Hungary’s economy if it continued to refuse to approve funding for Ukraine. According to the article, the EU threatened to completely freeze Hungary’s outstanding funds and collapse the exchange rate for the national currency, the Hungarian forint, in order to harm the Central European country’s economy and impair its investment attractiveness. “When the heads of EU states and governments talked to the prime minister by phone, they openly threatened him with these particular consequences,” the official told Austria’s Exxpress news portal.

At the EU summit in Brussels on December 14-15, 2023, the Hungarian prime minister blocked amendments to the community’s budget for 2024-2027 that called for allocating 50 bln euros to Ukraine. Instead, Viktor Orban proposed providing financial aid to Kiev on an annual basis with strict controls over expenditures. On February 1, the European Union summit approved the allocation of 50 billion euro from the EU budget to Ukraine spread out over the next four years. At the same time, they accepted Hungary’s proposal and established a mechanism to control the spending of funds. In a year from now, the EU will discuss this issue again, and in two years, it will revise the amount of financial aid to Ukraine in light of its own new budget drafting.

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“Should we begin the same negotiations, there’s a completely different reality now. And this new reality, no matter how painful it may be for the Kiev regime, must be recognized..”

Ukraine ‘Must Accept New Reality’ – Kremlin (RT)

Ukrainian authorities must accept the “new reality” no matter how “painful” it might be for them, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. He was responding to a question on the prospects of new talks between the two warring countries. Peskov made the remarks in an interview released by Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday. Should Russia and Ukraine ever actually get back to the negotiating table, the potential talks will not be the same as those held early in the ongoing conflict, Peskov suggested. “Should we begin the same negotiations, there’s a completely different reality now. And this new reality, no matter how painful it may be for the Kiev regime, must be recognized,” he stressed.

While Peskov did not elaborate, he presumably referred to the territorial changes, namely incorporation of the four formerly Ukrainian regions, Zaporozhye and Kherson, as well as Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics into Russia following referendums in late 2022. Kiev, however, has repeatedly vowed to seize all its former territories from Moscow, including Crimea which broke away from Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup and subsequently joined Russia. The March 2022 negotiations between Moscow and Kiev culminated in the signature of a preliminary agreement between the two nations, signed in Istanbul. The deal obliged Russia to withdraw its troops from around the Ukrainian capital, but Kiev violated the agreement almost immediately after it had been signed.

According to recent revelations by David Arakhamia, the leader of president Vladimir Zelensky’s party in the Ukrainian parliament, and a key negotiator at the botched talks, then-UK PM Boris Johnson played a pivotal role in orchestrating the failure of the talks. As Arakhamia put it, Johnson at the time simply told the Ukrainians “let’s just continue fighting” and urged them not to sign anything with Russia. Moscow has repeatedly insisted it was ready to settle the hostilities through negotiations, blaming the lack of any diplomatic effort on the matter on Kiev. The stance was reiterated by the Russian President Vladimir Putin during the conversation with the American journalist Tucker Carlson last week. “The President of Ukraine [Vladimir Zelensky] has legislated a ban on negotiating with Russia. He signed a decree forbidding everyone to negotiate with Russia. But how are we going to negotiate if he forbade himself and everyone to do this? We know that he is putting forward some ideas about this settlement. But in order to agree on something, we need to have a dialogue,” Putin stated.

RFK Ukraine

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EU governments would be overthrown.

10 Million More Refugees Could Flee To Germany If Ukraine Falls – Welt (RT)

As many as 10 million more refugees could flood into Germany if Ukraine disintegrates, Welt am Sonntag has said, citing estimates from officials. Despite the worsening situation regarding the conflict with Russia, the German government still believes this worst-case scenario is not likely to materialize this year, the media outlet added. Since the conflict between Kiev and Moscow flared up almost two years ago, 1.1 million Ukrainians have fled to the country, according to the German Interior Ministry. Meanwhile, the flow of newcomers from other countries, including Syria, Afghanistan, and African nations, shows no sign of abating. In 2023, more than 350,000 people applied for asylum in Germany, the highest number since 2016, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) reported last month.

The German government estimates that approximately 10 million people would flee Ukraine if the country falls apart, Die Welt, citing anonymous security officials and a lawmaker, said in an article on Saturday. The vast majority of these people would head westward in hopes of reaching Germany, the media outlet claims. Roderich Kiesewetter, an MP from the opposition Christian Democratic Party, told reporters that European nations should pick up the slack as US President Joe Biden’s aid package remains deadlocked in Congress. “If we don’t change our strategy on support for Ukraine, the worst-case scenario of a massive exodus from Ukraine and a spread of the war to NATO states will be much more likely,” the lawmaker predicted. Kiesewetter went on to warn that in this case, “ten million refugees are a rather lowball assumption.” Last week, the governor of the German state of Hesse, Boris Rhein, announced that the federal government and all 16 states of the country had agreed to issue special debit cards to refugees, which are supposed to supersede cash payments during the course of the year.

According to the official, the cards will “prevent the possibility of transferring money from state subsidies to countries of origin, and thus combat… human-trafficking.” Pre-paid cards will apparently have limited functionality, with features such as free cash withdrawal and transfers to recipients inside and outside of Germany disabled. They will also not work outside of the country, or even a designated municipality within it. Last month, the German parliament passed legislation that facilitates the deportation of failed asylum seekers and grants additional powers to the police. The new rules considerably extend the custody period pending deportation, in order to prevent situations in which failed applicants simply abscond around the time they are supposed to be sent home.

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“..while Zaluzhny was respected by his troops and liked by the civilian population, Syrsky evokes the opposite reaction..”

Zaluzhny’s Photo With Banderite a ‘Threat’ to Zelensky (Sp.)

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the top General for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, after weeks of speculation and conflicting reports. The weekend before, after media outlets reported on his imminent firing but before it became official, the Ukrainian commander of the 67th Mechanized Brigade Andriy Stempitsky posted an image of himself smiling next to Zaluzhny with a portrait of former Nazi Stepan Bandera and a red and black Banderaite flag. Mark Sleboda, an international relations and security analyst told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Friday that the image was an “explicit threat against Zelensky.” “We saw Zaluzhny pose over [the] last weekend for a photo with a commander of the Right Sector*, the Banderite fascist, neo-Nazi battalion that is now an official part of the military,” Sleboda recounted. “In front of his giant portrait of Stepan Bandera, the West Ukrainian genocidal Nazi collaborator […] and next to a red and black Banderite flag with the inscription ‘victory without negotiations.’ So, I saw that as a pretty explicit threat against Zelensky.”

Sleboda noted unconfirmed reports that the Ukrainian intelligence agencies were given orders to watch for soldiers leaving the front but also noted that any potential unrest depends largely on Zaluzhny’s next move. “Does he do anything to incite this? Does he maneuver behind the scenes with other political figures against Zelensky? Does he stay quiet and actually put the interest of the regime above his personal ego for the time being?” Sleboda asked. “I don’t know about that because he refused to resign and decided to make, obviously, a political issue out of this,” he concluded, referring to Zaluzhny’s reported refusal to resign. March 15, will be a date to watch, Sleboda said. March 15 is when Zelensky’s current presidential term should end but likely won’t because of a martial law declaration that has been in place in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s special military operation, but Sleboda thinks forces in Ukraine may use that date to make a move against the president.


Zaluzhny with Ukrainian 67th Mechanized Brigade commander Andriy Stempitsky post with a metal in front of a portrait of Stepan Bandera.

“There may be political forces unhappy with Zelensky within the regime that will use that as the point to say that he is not a legitimate leader after that and seek to seize control,” Sleboda speculated. Sleboda also explained that he does not believe Zaluzhny’s dismissal was based on bad strategy but for personal reasons. “This was all personal,” Sleboda explained. “He made mistakes, there’s no question there but most […] on both sides, seem to regard Zaluzhny as more intelligent, more competent and more, shall we say, [an] out of the box thinker than [Zaluzhny’s replacement General Oleksandr] Syrsky.” Earlier in the interview, Sleboda explained that while Zaluzhny was respected by his troops and liked by the civilian population, Syrsky evokes the opposite reaction.

“He was the commander of the ground forces, he was responsible for the unsuccessful defenses of [Artemovsk] and […] Soledar,” Sleboda explained. “They call him General Butcher and General 200 (ed. note: ‘Cargo 200’ – military slang used in the Soviet and post-Soviet states referring to the transportation of the deceased soldiers) and neither one of those are favorable,” Sleboda continued. “It is in reference to his seemingly casual way of throwing away the lives of his own men.” Despite his Russian background, Syrsky was picked because of his loyalty to Zelensky, Sleboda explained. He also speculated that Syrsky would be more willing to commit reinforcements to Avdeyevka than Zaluzhny was, just like Syrsky did in the failed defense of Artemovsk. “This is evidently where we’re going, and General Butcher […] is going to be throwing more Kiev regime lives away,” he predicted.

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Professor Sergey Karaganov, honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and academic supervisor at the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow.

Russia Must Permanently Abandon Europe And Turn Fully To Asia (Karaganov)

At the end of the 2000s, with a group of young colleagues, we began to argue the merits and necessity of Russia’s “eastern pivot” (at the same time, current Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu – and his colleagues – were working in the same direction). The concepts and development focus of this challenge included the whole of Siberia and the Urals – a single historical, economic and human region. However, it turned out differently – pivot to Asia and its markets went administratively mainly through the Pacific Far East, and then the Arctic was added to it. The turn that began in the 2010s was successful, but only partially, largely because the Far East was artificially disconnected from the much more populous, industrialized and resource-rich eastern and western Siberia. It also continued to suffer from the “continental curse” – remoteness from markets.

Now, the new geostrategic situation urgently requires a return to the original idea – the eastward turn of all of Russia through the primary development of all of Siberia, including, of course, the Urals. In other words, we are talking about the “Siberization” of the whole country. Western Europe will be closed for many years and should never again become a first-class partner, while Asia is developing rapidly. The war provoked and unleashed by the West in Ukraine should not distract us from the movement towards the south and the east – where the center of human development is shifting. This new, but long foreseen, situation calls us to return to our “home.” A European journey of more than 300 years has given much, but long ago – a century ago, in reality – and has exhausted its usefulness.

Without this journey, initiated by Peter the Great, Russia would not have had many achievements. Foremost among them is the world’s greatest literature – the result of combining Russian culture, religion and morals with Western European culture. Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, then Blok, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn – and other giants of the mind who have shaped our modern identity – would hardly have emerged without the “European injection.” During these three centuries, we have half-forgotten the eastern roots of our state and our people. The Mongols plundered, but they also promoted development. Finally, in opposition and cooperation with them, we learned from many elements of their statehood, which allowed us to build a powerful centralized state and continental thinking. From Genghis Khan’s empire we also seem to have inherited our cultural, national and religious openness. The Mongols did not impose their culture or their beliefs. Indeed, they were religiously open. That is why, in an effort to preserve Russia, Holy Prince Alexander Nevsky made an alliance with them.

Great Russia would not have come into being, and probably would not have survived on the Russian plain, besieged by rivals and enemies from the west and south, if our people had not moved en masse “behind the stone” (the Urals) “to meet the sun” from the 16th century onwards. Inexplicable, apart from the intervention of God’s will, is the speed of their impulse. The Cossacks reached the Great Ocean in six decades. The development of Siberia made the ancient Rus’, the Russian kingdom, into Great Russia. Even before it was proclaimed an empire, the resources of Siberia – first “soft gold,” then silver, gold, and other minerals – allowed us to create and equip a powerful army and navy. The caravans of the Northern Silk Road, carrying Chinese goods in exchange for furs to Russia and beyond, played an important role in this. There in Siberia, the Russians, competing and trading, began to work closely with the Central Asians, the ‘Bukharans’ as our people called them at the time.

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More protests to come.

Farmers Bring Poland To Standstill (RT)

Traffic in cities and town across Poland was severely obstructed on Friday as farmers staged protests over what they consider to be unfair competition from cheap Ukrainian produce, as well as the EU’s green policies. Over the past few months, Polish agricultural workers have also repeatedly blocked the border with Ukraine. The month of January saw similar demonstrations in other EU nations, including Germany, France, and the Netherlands, over Brussels’ climate policies which have led to fuel price hikes. German farmers have been demanding that Chancellor Olaf Scholz reverse the proposed scrapping of a diesel fuel subsidy worth as much as €3,000 ($3,260) annually. The authorities in neighboring France withdrew plans to cut similar subsidies after farmers blocked a major highway near Paris last month.

Organized by the Solidarity trade union, Friday’s protest affected around 260 localities across Poland, with thousands of farmers blocking or slowing down traffic with tractors and other heavy machinery. They also blocked several border crossings with Ukraine. Several highways leading to the capital, Warsaw, were congested as a result of the demonstration, local police reported. In a statement released ahead of the protest last week, Solidarity said it was planning to set up road blockades until March 10. The trade union called out the Polish government for readily accepting the EU’s guidelines on the “import of agricultural produce and food products from Ukraine.” The protesters also called the position adopted by Brussels at the latest EU summit “unacceptable.”

Similar rallies were held across Poland in January. A separate protest by another group of farmers and truckers blocking a key border crossing with Ukraine saw Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government capitulate to the protesters’ demands, which included reinstating a permit system for Ukrainian truckers, adopting government subsidies for Polish corn, and a moratorium on tax hikes. Last Thursday, the European Commission proposed extending the suspension of customs duties on agricultural goods from Ukraine and Moldova through 2025. The measure was originally scheduled to expire this year. Thousands of farmers from across the bloc descended on Brussels ahead of that summit, throwing eggs, rocks, and fireworks at the EU Parliament building and setting huge piles of manure on fire.

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“The problem is Hur, not a President who not only appeared confused in the press conference but openly lied about various established facts…”

“That is Not the Judgment of the Press” (Turley)

“That is not the judgment of the press.” Those words from President Joe Biden were a telling moment after a reporter noted that there is widespread concern that he is mentally diminished. Biden’s cranky response was overshadowed by his confusion on other points during the press conference, including mixing up the presidents of Egypt and Mexico. However, it captured the sense of license and expectation of the Biden White House that the press is supposed to toe the line, as it has for three years. In the disastrous press conference, CNN correspondent MJ Lee reminded Biden that he had urged Americans to “watch me” when he was confronted over his age: “Many [of the] American people have been watching, and they have expressed concerns about your age.” The President angrily responded: “That is your judgment!. That is your judgment! That is not the judgment of the press.”

The next day, many in the media came to Biden’s defense and attacked the Special Counsel report which detailed his “diminished faculties.” Others cleaned up the remark about the press. Biden clearly stated “That is your judgment! That is your judgment. That is not the judgment of the press.” NBC did not include the line in articles on the press conference despite showing it on the live coverage. Roll Call actually edited the President’s remarks to insert “for” in the key line: “That is not the judgment [for] the press.” That changed the line from questioning the right of the press to make such judgments to telling a reporter what the press view should be. Even if it was a Freudian slip, it was a telling slip. Other media inserted or suggested “public” rather than the press in the line. The obvious exasperation of the President reflects years of a passive, enabling media that shielded Biden from difficult questions on various scandals, including the corruption scandal.

What was striking, however, was the degree to which President Biden and his staff spent this week putting out clearly false statements. In an administration that has pushed for the censorship of citizens accused of disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation, the President openly lied about his conduct and the report. President Biden, for example, stated that the Special Counsel report found that he did not willfully retain material. It found the opposite . . . repeatedly. He stated that he did not disclose classified material to his ghostwriter. Special Counsel Hur found precisely the opposite. Biden stated that the material was not highly classified with “that red stuff…around the corners.” In fact, Hur found that the material was “highly sensitive,” including an Afghanistan-related memo from the National Security Adviser to President Barack Obama in 2009 marked “TOP SECRET/SCI” (Sensitive Compartmented Information).

Biden stated that all of the material was kept in locked or lockable filing cabinets. That was a lie. As the pictures vividly demonstrated, Hur found material in unlocked areas and virtually spilling out of torn boxes in his garage. What is notable is that Biden works almost entirely off teleprompters, reading statements clearly crafted by his staff. That would indicate that some of these comments were promulgated by staff. Even in the press conference on Friday, Ian Sams, spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office ran into a skeptical reporter in the form of Jon Decker, the White House correspondent for Gray Television. Decker is the former head of the White House Correspondents Association and one of my former students. Decker is the gold standard for reporters and has always been objective, tough, and fair. His approach has not changed from the Trump to the Biden Administration.

Decker challenged Sam on coming to the podium to address the President’s statements and proceeding to make a false claim that this is the first Special Counsel to end his investigation without charges. So why would the White House risk looking like it is going full “Baghdad Bob” in denying readily observable facts? Because this is no real risk. The reason was evident the day after the report. While usually supportive outlets had to acknowledge the President’s false claims, media figures from MSNBC and CNN quickly fell into line and launched a full attack on Hur, often repeating identical words used by the White House about his observations being “gratuitous.” The problem is Hur, not a President who not only appeared confused in the press conference but openly lied about various established facts.

5 minutes

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“..who exactly had serially lied about Beau Biden’s demise, by claiming that he had died while on duty in Iraq, serving in the Delaware National Guard as a Judge Advocate? Joe Biden.”

“Oh What a Tangled Web Biden Weaves, When He First Practices to Deceive” (VDH)

Joe Biden and his White House handlers continue to peddle misinformation if not lies about his removal of classified files. The worst is that Biden—supposedly so unlike Trump—came forward willingly as soon as he realized that he had unlawfully, but inadvertently, removed and possessed classified files. And thus he cooperated fully and promptly with federal authorities. The truth is far, far different. Biden removed files improperly both as a Senator and Vice President. He held some of them in his unlawful possession for perhaps at least 14 years without a word to authorities, dating back at least to his departure from the Senate on January 15, 2009 when he resigned to become Vice President—or if not longer over his some 36-year Senate career. In fact, in 2017 Biden was fully aware that he had wrongly removed these classified files. As Hur noted, there is a taped conversation on record between Biden and his ghostwriter to just that effect.

Biden, at home in Virginia, was recorded as remarking, “I just found all the classified stuff downstairs”. And yet Biden apparently did nothing. He never came forward to any federal authorities for nearly the next five years. So given that knowledge, why did the attorneys belatedly disclose Biden’s possession of the files on November 2, 2022? Civic virtue? Altruism? Respect for the law? Hardly. Otherwise, Biden would have disclosed his unlawful possession at any time during either the intervening prior years when he was a private citizen or during the first 18 months of his presidency, when he knowingly still possessed classified files and still did nothing about it. In truth, Biden would likely never have come forward, save for one insurmountable problem: Merrick Garland had likely decided to appoint Jack Smith as a special prosecutor to investigate the Trump files that the FBI had swooped into Mar-a-Lago looking for 3 months earlier on August 8, 2022.

In other words, knowing that Smith or a generic special counsel would very quickly be appointed (Smith was sworn in a little over two weeks later, on November 18, 2022), suddenly Biden and Co. preempted that announcement, in fear that Biden had done virtually the same thing as Trump—albeit without presidential declassification power and for at least 14 years in possession of classified files. Had the attorneys and Biden not come forward, Trump and others would have asked whether Biden had not also removed files. So to get out in front of the formal announcement of the Smith appointment, they preempted, misleadingly and disingenuously, preening that civic virtue had prompted Biden’s “voluntary” disclosures and “cooperation”.

A final note: one of the more disturbing moments in Biden’s catastrophic press conference was his flare up at Hur’s revelation (“How dare he bring up that!”) that in formal interviews an enfeebled Biden had not remembered the general date of his son’s tragic death from a glioblastoma brain tumor on May 30th, 2015 at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC. Biden went on to vent at Hur. But Hur was simply documenting his analysis that Biden was severely cognitively impaired, and not as VP Kamala Harris claimed, gratuitously smearing Biden. But who exactly had serially lied about Beau Biden’s demise, by claiming that he had died while on duty in Iraq, serving in the Delaware National Guard as a Judge Advocate? Joe Biden.

Mayorkas

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“Trump has a curious fortune in critics who seem over time to combust in rather spectacular fashion..”

Could Trump Win By Simple Attrition Rather than Vindication? (Turley)

While Woody Allen once said that “80 percent of success is showing up,” former president Donald Trump proved this week that the same could be said about “just sticking around.” Trump had one of the best weeks as cases and critics seemed to implode from the disqualification effort in Washington to the scandal in Georgia. Yet, Trump is not out of the woods and is facing significant threats in what is becoming a war of attrition. In Washington, the Supreme Court gave a chilly reception to the disqualification effort that bordered on the glacial. While law professors like Harvard’s Laurence Tribe insisted that the basis for barring Trump from office under the 14th Amendment was “unassailable,” the justices seemed utterly unconvinced and there is the possibility that the entire effort could now be defeated unanimously. Even liberal justice Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson called the effort anti-democratic.

In Georgia, the case against Trump is floundering as allegations mount against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over her intimate relationship with her subordinate special prosecutor Nathan J. Wade. This week, a court filing alleged that Willis and Wade filed false claims in court on when their relationship began. The two prosecutors have insisted that they only became intimate after Willis hired Wade. Wade’s former lawyer has reportedly come forward to contest that claim. That allegation, if true, could make the continuation of Willis and Wade in the case untenable. Various defendants being prosecuted in Georgia are accused of false statements and filings in court. Of course, the removal of Willis and Wade will not necessarily end the case, but it will present logistical and optical problems for the office. There are also calls for the removal of Alvin Bragg in New York, who is accused of being lax on crime overall despite his determined effort to convict Trump.

Trump has a curious fortune in critics who seem over time to combust in rather spectacular fashion. Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, went to jail and lost his law license. At the Justice Department, various FBI officials from the Russian investigation were accused of wrongdoing and forced out of the Justice Department. That included James Comey who was found to have removed FBI material after Trump fired him and gave it to a friend who leaked it to the press. Another official pleaded guilty to criminal conduct associated with the Russian investigation. In politics, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who attacked Trump for his treatment of women, was forced out of office for sexual harassment. Michael Avenatti was sentenced to a long prison term for fraud and other crimes. Senator Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) who voted for Trump to be convicted in the Senate is now under indictment for corruption.

Even in the arts, Trump critics have fallen from great heights. Comedian Kathy Griffin has not only become persona non grata after her gory depiction of a beheaded Trump but she is now beseeching people to buy tickets for a languishing come-back tour. Alec Baldwin, who scathingly played Trump, has been criminally charged after shooting a movie crew member. Of course, it is fair to note that some of Trump’s allies have fared equally badly, including those convicted or facing trial such as Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and others. Yet, there is no question that time has worked in Trump’s favor in fulfilling certain narratives. He has accused the Democrats of trying to rig elections. While debunking claims in 2020, Democrats like Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold bulldozed any high ground by trying to prevent citizens from voting for Trump as he leads in the polls.

Read more …

“Global debt has surged by $100 trillion from a decade ago and hit a record of $307.4 trillion last September..”

Soaring Debt Pushing Wealthy Nations To ‘Fiscal Death’ – Economist (RT)

Major economies that fail to address their mounting debt issues will die a “fiscal death,” the head of investment and wealth advisory Laffer Tengler Investments, Arthur Laffer, has warned. In an interview with CNBC this week, he predicted a “decade of debt,” adding that the borrowing crisis has embraced both developed and emerging countries, and it is not going to “end well.” Global debt has surged by $100 trillion from a decade ago and hit a record of $307.4 trillion last September, amid the biggest surge in global interest rates in 40 years, according to the economist. Wealthy countries such as the US, UK, France, and Japan account for more than 80% of that increase due to their uncontrolled accumulation of debt.

China, India, and Brazil saw the most pronounced growth of borrowings among emerging markets. “I would expect that some of the bigger countries that don’t address their debt issues will die a slow fiscal death,” Laffer said, adding that some emerging economies “could quite conceivably go bankrupt.” While low-income countries are at high risk of debt distress, repaying debt would be particularly problematic for high-income countries due to an aging population and a lack of workforce, the economist warned. The most recent report by the Institute of International Finance shows that the share of debt has hit a staggering 336% of global GDP compared to an average debt-to-GDP ratio of 110% in 2012 for advanced economies, and 35% for emerging markets.

Read more …

“If Putin and Xi and the Iranians think that they can sit out the conflict, they are mistaken. You cannot sit out a conflict that is directed at you.”

Peaceful Protests Are a Waste of Time and Energy (Paul Craig Roberts)

Will protesters ever learn that peaceful protests do not work when governments care not what people think and represent private agendas and not the people? The protests that work are the violent ones by Black Lives Matter and Antifa. It appears that one-tenth of a million Gazans have already been killed or maimed by the American-financed and militarily-supplied Israeli intended genocide of the remnants of the Palestinian population, a people who have been evicted from their lands and villages bit by bit since 1947. This time the violence is massive, and only the Houthis, a poor population in Yemen that survived years of Washington-inspired attacks from Saudi Arabia, has lifted a hand to help the Palestinians. The “civilized West” responded to the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians by cancelling their contributions to the UN agency that provides Palestinians with humanitarian aid.

Consequently, now 1,000,000 Palestinians are facing starvation as Israel has blocked food deliveries and medicines, knocked out the water supply, hospitals, sanitation, and intends to drive any surviving Palestinians into Egypt. So what do we hear from the governments of the “great moral West”? We hear about Israel’s right of “self-defense.” The Western governments, immoral to the hilt and all enthralled to Israel, have redefined genocide as self-defense. The West’s citizens are so successfully propagandized by Israeli disinformation over decades and generations that the subservience of Western “democracies” to Israel goes unremarked among the small part of the world that is considered to be the West. But not in the rest of the world. The United States and Israel have achieved the status of pariah states, the agents of Satan.

Why, despite this realization, does the rest of the world sit watching the destruction of a people, as Romans watched for entertainment lions devouring Christians in the Colosseum? Russia, China, Iran, and the rest with the exception of South Africa, which took Israel to the International Court of Justice, have not lifted a finger to help the Palestinians. Washington claims to protest but keeps sending Israel the weapons. This despite the fact that the governments of Russia, China, and Iran know that the real target is them. Israel and the neoconservatives intend the destruction of Iran, which will release “jihadists” into the Russian Federation and deprive China of oil. It is Japan in the 1930s all over again, and yet the targeted countries do nothing. If Putin and Xi and the Iranians think that they can sit out the conflict, they are mistaken. You cannot sit out a conflict that is directed at you.

Read more …

“The widespread and persistent use of Midazolam in UK suggests a possible policy of systemic euthanasia.”

The Crime Of The Century: Midazolam Murders – Euthanizing The Elderly (Kelly)

If the data is correct, the only conclusion is that tens of thousands of elderly English were murdered with an injection of the end of life drug Midazolam. These deaths were then falsely blamed on Covid, which was the basis of the public fear campaigns used to justify the lockdowns and mass mandated injections of the public (including children) with an experimental medical intervention that had zero long term safety data. And along the way, a small group pushing the need for mass mandated injections made billions.

https://researchgate.net/publication/377266988_Excess_Deaths_in_the_United_Kingdom_Midazolam_and_Euthanasia_in_the_COVID-19_Pandemic

This paper shows that the UK spike in deaths, wrongly attributed to COVID-19 in April 2020, was not due to SARS-CoV-2 virus, which was largely absent, but was due to the widespread use of Midazolam injections which were statistically very highly correlated (coefficient over 90 percent) with excess deaths in all regions of England during 2020. The widespread and persistent use of Midazolam in UK suggests a possible policy of systemic euthanasia.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

SolarActivity

 

 

RFK vaccines

 

 

Biolabs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756606702634348580

 

 

 

 

Model X

 

 

CO2

 

 

Fish
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756426580446834935

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle February 12 2024

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 99 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #152518
    Oroboros
    Participant

    It’s the economy stupid…

    Meanwhile in the Hinterlands of Duh’merica, all’s not a smooth ride…..

    Oh no! The Chicken then has to Pole Dance now

    .

    #152519
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The Führer Bunker takes on getting Trump off the ballot

    #152520
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    One last report before I take a break from writing and get back to the routine of research and review. Most of you are aware of the rampant mass formation psychosis that is gripping and thrashing the world, but are you also aware of what the psychotic delusional “fix” is that everyone has glommed onto as the solution for their overwhelming problems of lonliness, disconnection and chronic hyper anxiety?

    What crazy falsehood have they set up as an object of worship that NO ONE CAN BE ALLOWED TO CHALLENGE?

    Well, I’ll tell ya, but I’ll probably get “cancelled” for saying it. It’s money.

    And the psychosis which preceded THAT psychotically false obsessive belief, was the dingbat crazy notion idea that your “self” was the only thing of value that mattered (and thus served above all else) and that your “self” was not RIGHTFULLY SUBORDINATE to God. Truly nutso. Just ask one of them. They’ll tell you the same crazy thing that makes no sense whatsoever : that there is no Creator of the creation they’re living in.

    #152521
    John Day
    Participant

    Lloyd Austin hospitalized again:

    Def. Sec. Austin Turns His Duties Over to His Deputy

    #152522
    zerosum
    Participant


    …. must accept the “new reality” no matter how “painful”…

    They don’t even care if you know the false statements

    …. the worst-case scenario, of a massive exodus from Ukraine

    … the worst-case scenario, Russia Must Permanently Abandon Europe And Turn Fully To Asia (Karaganov)

    ….. the worst-case scenario, “People Power” win – Farmers Bring Poland To Standstill (RT)

    ….. the worst-case scenario, cannot repay debt,

    …. the worst-case scenario, • Peaceful Protests Are a Waste of Time and Energy (Paul Craig Roberts)

    …. the worst-case scenario, THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY : THE MIDAZOLAM MURDERS


    ———-

    #152523
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Lloyd Austin gets what he deserves for not following his butt doctor’s strict orders. Post surgery, doctor’s orders to Austin were for him to refrain from all sexual activity for at least 12 more weeks.

    #152524
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Iran is now using the term “Zionist Entity” rather than the word Israel. I like it because it’s accurate and does not remove the possibility of the survival of a nation of that name (but not Zionist or exclusively Jewish owned and operated). Accurate, but not catchy or easy to roll off the tongue. We’ll just have to wait and see if it catches on.

    #152525
    Oroboros
    Participant

    to put Lloyd’s saga into perspective:

    17 year-old Juliane Koepcke was sucked out of an airplane in 1971 after it was struck by a bolt of lightning. She fell 2 miles to the ground, still strapped to her seat, landed in the tree canopy and survived after she endured 10 days in the Amazon Jungle.

    Out of 93 passengers and crew, Juliane was the only survivor of the LANSA flight 508 crash that took place December 24th, 1971.

    .

    Still here, takes a lickin’, keeps on ticking

    .

    #152526
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Taliban in Gaza? It could happen [ link: https://youtu.be/B3d3d2wNxwk?si=qfumIK9ZegEMu4lE ] and if it does happen, then I think Israel better skedaddle like a cockroach when the lights go on.

    #152527

    I had to go back to yesterday’s parrot video. And I’ll probably watch it again after I post.

    Biden’s background flags are not trimmed in gold. Trump’s flags still are. Also, Biden’s flags are cheap printed ones, not embroidered and sewn.

    I read the word philanthropath on ZH “comments” quite a while back. I kind of like the other version of the portmanteau: psycho-pissed.

    Must have been using BlahkChān(TM) Translation along with NTent(TM) AI. That Oz presentation of Putin on Nordstream was spot on. 😉
    (btw, my apologies if I have stolen the real name of a some real company…How many made up mangled words can be used to name companies? -or drugs….?)

    Back to the parrot.

    #152528
    WES
    Participant

    True or False?

    The US sanctioned Russia to isolate and hurt Russia.

    The US issued sanctions against Russia to isolate and hurt Americans.

    #152529
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Neither, when the mouth-breathing crayon-munchers suggested it, the Larry Johnsons at the CIA said, “It won’t work at all, but make Russia strong, independent, and end U.S. hegemony as as Empire”, and Trump said, “Done.”

    Because it takes about 100 years for anything to sink into their ant-like chitinous skulls, the next admin saw how it didn’t work, made Russia stronger, and so deca-tripled down. We’re on Sanction 14, right? “Revenge of Segal” “Death Wish 11” sanctions?

    Explain to me how you couldn’t know AFTER it had already happened eleven times.

    #152530
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @WES

    True, and also True.

    Next questions on the quiz.

    Is it :

    [True or False ?] The biggest players on Team East are the ones who tricked , blackmailed and bribed America to do those things to itself.

    [True or False ?] The Americans had for centuries given them no other choice or way to defend themselves.

    #152531
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    My reply to the Globalist Cabal:

    Hey, thanks for the swell cultures civilizations, nations and technologies we are inheriting now that you’re leaving. If you hadn’t been messing with us so hard for so long , we might never have gotten around to doing it. However, now that we’ve figured out what you’ve been up to and how you’ve been up to it, we’re going to have to throw your sorry butts out in the wilderness to fend for your thoroughly disabled selves. Nothing personal. Just business.

    Just the same, so long and thanks for all the fish.

    #152532
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68271340
    Israel rescues two hostages in Rafah amid deadly strikes
    Cost ….

    100,000 bombs
    2.5 millions Palestinians
    Genocide
    Revenge of middle east
    End of Israel
    ———–

    #152533
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Tucker Carlson happily being grilled with forthright questions in Dubai, at summit meeting of the worlds governments, and forthright answers are forthcoming. link: https://www.youtube.com/live/h2xa7hHMUho?si=Rs_fQNB_rS51diBn

    #152534
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Putin’s message to the west w/ Jeffrey Sachs

    The Duh’merican public is so willfully stupid and unsophisticated it would take a hundred years of actual education and profound study for even the slightest whisper of a chance of a hint for a little awareness about an accurate picture of world affairs to emerge in their tiny Attention Span Deficit consciousness.

    And that’s being extremely generous.

    What ever…

    Little hope of enlightenment, maybe a good pencil sharpener would help…

    #152535
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    More Tucker, … as he takes part in World Government Summit. Quite feisty bugger!

    F.S.

    #152536
    tboc
    Participant

    forthright answers!?!?!?

    The government of The Russian Federation was spooked when they learned the CIA was spying on United States citizens. This perspective is novel, to say the least, the fact is a man named Snowden has refuge in The Russian Federation for more than ten years.

    Were one a judicious and disciplined human being known for courage, honor and duty and donned the atire of a court jester – a fool, he would remain a judicious and disciplined human being.

    On the other hand if a court jester – a fool were to don any costume other than his normal attire he would remain a court jester – a fool.

    A master mechanic uses a tool appropriate to the task. In the event a fool is needed a fool will be used.

    #152537
    zerosum
    Participant

    They don’t even care if you know the false statements
    They assume that you cannot do anything about their lies.
    Will World Government Summit be any different.

    #152538
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Covertly messing around with another country’s internal affairs (which is NOT the same thing as merely spying upon what that other country is secretly up to!) is an actual hostile act of war, plain and simple. Clearly it is not a friendly act, and just as clearly it is done IN OPPOSITION to what that other has decided to accomplish what it feels it must in its own interests. In other words, it is by its very nature AGAINST that countries’ perceived best interests.

    Putin is telling the West to stop doing that. Stop deliberately trying to do things that the US KNOWS to be against other countries’ self determined efforts to do the best thing for itself and its population. The West, of course, wants nothing to do with ceasing or desisting, because it knows damned well what it is doing, and why. It WANTS to take the other country as an overt act of aggression, and doesn’t care a fig about whether the victim likes it or not. The US will stop when it is MADE to stop.

    #152539
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @tboc

    Carlson may be a rookie, neophyte, beginner, newbie, and starry eyed idealist all rolled into one, but he is no fool. That’s why he was chosen for his role in the Anglo-Russo Peace Talks that Putin desires (and which are going happen in one form or another in one way or the other anyway, no matter what.)

    #152540
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Just saw a headline over on Zero Hedge that read, “Stocks Hit All Time High On “New Era In Productivity And Profitability”

    Well, thank goodness for that! I was really worried there for a while.

    #152541
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Every time I see some *couch potato generalissimo* wield his keyboard armament, or some wannabe social media *star*, proclaim that Biden won’t make it to NOV 2024 as THE candidate, I literally ROFLOL 😉

    C’mon man! He’s worked purrfecto thus far, didn’t 2020’s psyop put him where he is now?

    Isn’t everyone literally bogged down with cringing cognitive dissonance due to his award winning performance (art?) as Herr Kommandant und Chef?!?

    Hasn’t he skated on *every* single criminal charge to date?

    Hasn’t We The People clearly been shown to possess no appetite, desire or wherewithal to throw The Bums out-of-office?!?

    It’s clear They’re hoping Resident Biden can hold on for 9 months more, after which time They only have to roll ol’ Joe out for inauguration day, whereas he can hang in the basement with Dr. Jill, perhaps do a green screen here & there…

    C’mon man! Imagine what Obummer would do with the Golden Billion writing him blank checks & Horrorwood on speed dial!

    Oh, you think Orange Man Baddy still has a shot at saving normal, productive “Americans”…

    Do you think that’s air *TRUTH* you’re breathing THINKING now?

    • Might Makes Right The Dominant Fiction •

    #152542
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    Phoenix…..what is golf carts, Alex?

    #152543
    tboc
    Participant

    DBS how many episodes did Carlson host on Fox News? What is his family background?
    I respect your opinion, our opinions differ. I am old enough to remember the day Walt Kelly published his famous cartoon regarding the environment. I understood the environment he, as a veteran of the US armed forces, was referencing. Nothing has changed in the United States since the cartoon was published except we are “another day older and deeper in debt”.(Merle Travis -Ernie Ford)

    ref: Carlson
    Anyone in his socioeconomic condition that believes they can pull the no one messes with a “Biden” schtick is a court jester.

    Anyone in the age of instant communication that believes the 85% +- of the world not a product of western education believes a history of being a host on FOX news lends them some credibility is a court jester.

    Anyone who forfeited their first amendment rights for thirty pieces of silver, regulary delivered, is a court jester. Relinquishing the right of free association for job security and political advantage is the mark of a fool.

    Anyone who willingly lies about the need to murder children to keep the United States of America safe is a court jester. Anyone who lies and says that, starving, poisoning, maiming and murdering children, does not happen by refusing to report conditions accurately is a fool and a water carrier for the likes of Hillary or Pompeo.

    There is a difference between being clever and having a high level of intellectual capacity. There is a difference between presenting yourself as having had a road to Damascus moment and having that moment.

    I will never accept that murdering more than a million human beings in the last twenty three years has been in the interest of “We the people”. To be blunt, I will consider anyone who takes the position the foreign policy of the United States over the last forty seven years has been anything but malicious and murderous a court jester. Chess board or not.

    #152544
    tboc
    Participant

    DBS my tone is that of one who is having their heart and soul ripped from their chest. There are two human beings I can speak openly to. Please accept when I post here, I speak to the ether and not to you personally.

    #152545
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    POLL:

    What color is Tucker Carlson’s hat?

    A> White

    B> Grey

    C> Black

    • Might Makes Right The Dominant Fiction •

    #152548
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @tboc

    DBS my tone is that of one who is having their heart and soul ripped from their chest. There are two human beings I can speak openly to. Please accept when I post here, I speak to the ether and not to you personally.

    I guess I’m doing a little bit better than two (and I’m grateful) , because I think I have three such people, who I can talk with fully, frankly and openly without inciting a riot). So, I really do get what you say about “speaking to the ether”.

    My views on Tucker are more generous to him than yours, but almost every estimate I make of another human being is subject to instant recalibration if they show true colors different than the colors I previously saw in them, Tucker included. If he accepts genocidal sacrifice of children I will put a stake through his heart.

    #152549
    aspnaz
    Participant

    You may have forgotten this battle:

    The Energy Policy Act of 1992, passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by Republican President George H.W. Bush, set the maximum flow rate for showers at 2.5 gallons per minute. Now the Trump administration has increased that rate, which Trump calls inadequate to wash his “beautiful hair.”

    From democrat heartland … https://theconversation.com/in-a-last-minute-rule-change-the-trump-administration-rolls-back-water-saving-standards-for-showerheads-145278

    Yes, the USA “Land of the free” has had a law in place for 25 years that restricts the flow through your showerhead to 2.5 gallons per minute (2 gallons per minute in California). So, instead of the municipality building new reservoirs, or even restricting your household water use, the law comes into your home and tells you how you can use water. How intrusive is that? Where is the freedom in that? Signed by George W, Trump wanted to repeal it.

    I did not realise until doing some research that Americans basically are not allowed power showers; wow, what a bummer.

    The reason I got into this is that I am considering what changes we have to make to our power supply if we were to move our appliances to electricity – this is just research, we have no intention of doing this. The power shower runs off a gas bottle and, when turned up, can run two showers simultaneously, delivers over 8 gallons per minute. Now I have to consider how to get that 8 gallons per minute into electricity, which would mean something like a 26kw on-demand water heater.

    A 26kw appliance in any country could only be driven by an industrial supply, meaning a 3-phase supply which is not even available to many USA households. It is available where I live, although the price of heating water by electricity is way more expensive than heating it by gas. And have you seen the price of 3-phase water heaters, they are ridiculously expensive compared to a gas bottle heater.

    I don’t know how this rule impacted water consumption in the USA, but it seems to me that the USA uses a lot of water, but obviously not on plebs having showers (1 gallon = 4 liters):

    The average domestic water use per person in the U.S. was 98-US-gallon (370 L) per day in 2005,[73] and 88-US-gallon (330 L) per day in 2010.[1] This is about 2.2 times as high as in England (150 Liter)[74] and 2.6 times as high as in Germany (126 Liter).[75][76]

    From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_the_United_States.

    Investigating this whole area made me realise that freedom in the USA is not what it seems. Instead of the government building new infrastructure to deal with the demands of its people, it instead interferes in how the people live, trying to restrain their behaviour. I wonder how much water is used by industry, by golf courses etc, I bet their processes are not as micro managed as the average person’s shower time.

    The fuck you society.

    #152550
    WES
    Participant

    Implementing The Final Solution:

    I am just waiting to see if the Israelis drive the Gaza Palestinians into the Sinai.
    After 100 plus days in Gaza, the Israelis army has proven to be incompetent at mass genocide.
    The Zionists politicians and their bankers must be very disappointed by these events.
    Killing 27,000 of 1,700,000 Palestinians is more than 1% but a bit short of the required 100% final solution.
    Is starvation taking too long?
    Since Egypt joined BRICS, maybe the Sinai Peace Treaty is now expendable?
    The US never honors any peace treaties.
    Just waiting for the final solution to be implemented.
    Even the Palestinians must be tired of waiting too./s

    #152551
    zerosum
    Participant


    President Biden and Jordan’s King Abdullah II delivered remarks Monday afternoon following a meeting at the White House. The president and the king both discussed how they are invested in pushing for a new cease-fire in Gaza and getting more humanitarian assistance into the region.
    ————
    Next.
    Trudeau’s turn to respond to demand for a ceasefire.

    https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2024/02/11/his-majesty-king-abdullah-ii-jordan-visit
    The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced that His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan will visit Canada on February 14, 2024.

    During the visit, the two leaders will discuss peace and security in the Middle East. They will consider how to expand the urgent delivery of rapid, unimpeded humanitarian relief for civilians in Gaza, support for a sustainable ceasefire, and the path towards lasting peace for the region.
    ———-

    #152552
    tboc
    Participant

    Those who remember Mr. Putin in Munich in 2007 and had the good fortune to have read the two essays Mr. Putin published late in 2021 had a memory refresher with the interview.

    A person who is not of The Eastern Rite, an Orthodox Christian, or a follower of The Messenger, all blessings be with him, who has no knowledge of Eastern history or philosophy and considers themself a product of The Enlightenment, WILLS not to understand. When compromise is seen as an opening for exploitation there will be no compromise and the yeast will consume the sugar and poison itself.

    i know you tire of me

    #152554
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Freedom vs Regulation is maybe the most basic of all our never-ending battles. Want some more civilized comfort? Well it’s gonna cost ya another chunk of freedom. As a dichotomy it’s right up there with truth vs lies and good vs bad. The way I see it, most (if not all) of the conveniences we enjoy as a result of being all collaborative, organized and systematized is just a measurement of much full-on freedom we have yielded in payment.

    Satanists reckon they wanna be their own boss no matter what. Me, on the other hand, I see myself as a free-willed voluntary slave of God. Like the old saying goes, “You buys your ticket and you takes your ride.”

    #152555
    WES
    Participant

    Aspnaz:

    Your post on water reminds me of San Francisco forcing everyone to install that low flow toilets!
    Only to find out there no longer was enough water flow to keep the sewer pipes from clogging up!
    This force the city to install constant water flow into the sewer pipes!
    Before the required sewer water flow self regulated itself, throughout the day, by depending upon the number of flushes at any given moment.
    The constant water flow has to be set for the worst case, daily peak toilet use, so it is less efficient.
    Not only that, before each toilet user paid for the water.
    Now the city has to directly pay for the extra water being used!

    #152556
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @tboc

    A person who is not of The Eastern Rite, an Orthodox Christian, or a follower of The Messenger, all blessings be with him, who has no knowledge of Eastern history or philosophy and considers themself a product of The Enlightenment, WILLS not to understand. When compromise is seen as an opening for exploitation there will be no compromise and the yeast will consume the sugar and poison itself.”

    I don’t find that tiring at all. I never tire of then truth. It makes me a little anxious from time to time, and often remorseful or defensive of shortcomings, but never tired.

    #152557
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    @low-flow showers

    Shower heads for US markets have a restrictor plate installed. Ditto most faucets intended for home install. It’s easy to remove in the faucets, can be trickier in the shower heads. If you order from Amazon, it is very likely (my last 3) the fixture arrives without a restrictor plate… i.e. intended for non-US sale.

    There was a time, mid ’70s, drought mitigation was rage. Friends down the street from me were peeing in a bottle (a ‘proto-woke’ family). Bulletins were published about how to put an object in your toilet tank to reduce the amount of water per flush.

    #152558
    John Day
    Participant

    Meet Dr. Kathleen Hicks – SecDef Austin’s Presumptive Replacement Woke Deep-Stater
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/meet-dr-kathleen-hicks-secdef-austins-presumptive-replacement-woke-deep-stater

    #152559
    John Day
    Participant

    Short Term Trust https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/short-term-trust

    This article below is like many you have seen, and it is clearly the case, as far as it goes, but what cannot be repaid, or even serviced for interest, will be defaulted upon by some mechanism when others refuse to continue to lend more money to service debt payments. We can see that spending has been “pulled forward from the future” by means of buying-on-credit. We can likely see that the loans can’t be “repaid” for many reasons, and we can see that many nations are servicing their debts by borrowing money to pay the interest.
    Lending requires faith that the contract between lender and borrower will be honored. There are many reasons not to have such faith, but one might still want to stay in the game if it would not crash this year, or in the next 6 months, or before one would get a clear enough sign to exit immediately. Many investors have exited, already.
    What form(s) will debt default take this time around? It is likely that the complexity of derivatives contracts and asset-“ownership” structures will leave most “holders” of stocks and bonds without a claim which they can actually exercise on a pool of real-wealth which is some small fraction of the claims held upon it.
    How will this be managed politically? Will all retirement plans lose everything? The structure would hold them to be mostly unsecured-creditors after the holders of derivatives contracts, and the holder-of-record of the securities they “own”, which means “have an unsecured claim upon financial-returns from”.
    When Roosevelt collected all of the gold in America and then devalued the dollar against gold, that was a default on debts. When Nixon took America off the gold standard, that was a repudiation of debt-payable-in-gold, another default. This upcoming debt-default will necessarily be larger, since the economy of the future will be contracting, not expanding, and borrowing has been on a vast scale, never seen before..
    In whose hands will the power lie to decide how the real wealth remaining will actually be divided among the many weak and powerful holders of excess-claims upon that wealth.
    Soaring debt pushing wealthy nations to ‘fiscal death’ – economist​ , Global borrowing topped a record $300 trillion last year
    ​ “I would expect that some of the bigger countries that don’t address their debt issues will die a slow fiscal death,” Laffer said, adding that some emerging economies “could quite conceivably go bankrupt.” While low-income countries are at high risk of debt distress, repaying debt would be particularly problematic for high-income countries due to an aging population and a lack of workforce.
    https://swentr.site/business/592093-global-debt-fiscal-debt/

    ​ Farmers bring Poland to standstill​ [Farmers have already been maximally bled. Figure out some other strategy to service debt and pay for wars.]
    ​ The trade union called out the Polish government for readily accepting the EU’s guidelines on the “import of agricultural produce and food products from Ukraine.” The protesters also called the position adopted by Brussels at the latest EU summit “unacceptable.”
    ​ Similar rallies were held across Poland in January. A separate protest by another group of farmers and truckers blocking a key border crossing with Ukraine saw Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government capitulate to the protesters’ demands, which included reinstating a permit system for Ukrainian truckers, adopting government subsidies for Polish corn, and a moratorium on tax hikes.
    https://swentr.site/news/592279-poland-farmers-protest-ukraine-eu/

    ​Paul Craig Roberts presents the case that sociopaths only respond to force which resists and thwarts the exercise of their will. [Non-violent farmers are getting results.]
    Peaceful Protests Are a Waste of Time and Energy
    ​ It appears that one-tenth of a million Gazans have already been killed or maimed by the American-financed and militarily-supplied Israeli intended genocide of the remnants of the Palestinian population, a people who have been evicted from their lands and villages bit by bit since 1947.
    ​ This time the violence is massive, and only the Houthis, a poor population in Yemen that survived years of Washington-inspired attacks from Saudi Arabia, has lifted a hand to help the Palestinians.
    ​ The “civilized West” responded to the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians by cancelling their contributions to the UN agency that provides Palestinians with humanitarian aid. Consequently, now 1,000,000 Palestinians are facing starvation as Israel has blocked food deliveries and medicines, knocked out the water supply, hospitals, sanitation, and intends to drive any surviving Palestinians into Egypt.

    Peaceful Protests Are a Waste of Time and Energy

    ​ A bold assertion here, but “Biden” already can’t “be president”. Deep-state-club-member Obama needs a new puppet.
    Texas Lieutenant Governor Says ‘Deep State Run by Barack Obama’ Has Pulled the Rug Out from Under Biden
    ​ Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas said a Department of Justice report that described President Joe Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” is proof enough for him Democrats are going with a different candidate in November.
    ​ The memo, along with Biden’s late Thursday news conference, means that those who are pulling the strings in the Democratic Party are forcing Biden out, Patrick claimed. He specifically blamed former President Barack Obama and the deep state.
    ​ Patrick made the comments on social media Friday morning, where he also predicted Americans could see former first lady Michelle Obama on their ballots this fall.

    Texas Lieutenant Governor Says ‘Deep State Run by Barack Obama’ Has Pulled the Rug Out from Under Biden

    #152560
    John Day
    Participant

    Bobby Kennedy Jr. Points out that BlackRock owns the American military contractors that get a captive customer base from every new NATO member, and are getting the great majority of the money allocated for the war in Ukraine. That’s why “we” have to have wars and NATO has to keep expanding.

    Ceasefire or truce? Any Gaza deal could break Netanyahu’s coalition​ , The fate of Israel’s coalition government now hangs on a Gaza agreement.
    A short truce will continue the war and Tel Aviv’s global censure. A full ceasefire will deliver a Hamas victory.
    https://thecradle.co/articles/ceasefire-or-truce-any-gaza-deal-could-break-netanyahus-coalition

    ​ Netanyahu Doubles Down on Plans to Attack Rafah Despite Growing Criticism
    It’s estimated 1.5 million Palestinians are packed into Rafah, which had a pre-war population of 275,000

    Netanyahu Doubles Down on Plans to Attack Rafah Despite Growing Criticism

    ​ Israeli army approves plan for ground offensive in Rafah
    ​ “The plan will be presented when the army is requested to do so,” Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said during a Cabinet session as cited by the Israeli public broadcaster KAN.
    The Israeli army plans to launch a ground offensive in Rafah, home to more than 1 million residents seeking refuge from war, to defeat what Tel Aviv calls the remaining “Hamas battalions.”
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-army-approves-plan-for-ground-offensive-in-rafah/3134415

    ​ Egypt Threatens to Suspend Key Peace Treaty if Israel Pushes Into Gaza Border Town, Officials Say
    ​ Egypt is threatening to suspend its peace treaty with Israel if Israeli troops are sent into the densely populated Gaza border town of Rafah, and says fighting there could force the closure of the territory’s main aid supply route, two Egyptian officials and a Western diplomat said Sunday.
    ​ The threat to suspend the Camp David Accords, a cornerstone of regional stability for nearly a half-century, came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said sending troops into Rafah was necessary to win the four-month-old war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
    https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/02/11/egypt-threatens-suspend-key-peace-treaty-if-israel-pushes-gaza-border-town-officials-say.html

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