Mar 182024
 
 March 18, 2024  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,


Johannes Vermeer The Concert 1663
Stolen from Gardner Museum March 18 1990, the single largest art theft in the world. Never recovered.

 

Trump Warns Of ‘Bloodbath’ If He Loses Presidential Vote (RT)
Leftist Corporate Media Unleashes Trump “Bloodbath Hoax” (ZH)
US Is Not A Democracy – Putin (RT)
West’s Aggression Unites Russian People Behind Putin (Sp.)
Putin’s ‘Dedicated Work’ Added to Reinvigorated Russia – Scott Ritter (Sp.)
Zelensky ‘One Of The Greatest Salesmen In History’ – Trump (RT)
The Alleged Superpower, USA, No Longer Has a Military (Paul Craig Roberts)
European ‘Peace Fund’ Stoking War in Ukraine (Babich)
‘NATO’s Going to Suffer Defeat’ in Proxy War With Russia – Mearsheimer (Sp.)
Kamala Harris Urged to Step Down Ahead of 2024 Election (Sp.)
The Main Problem With EU diplomacy (Bordachev)
Only 15% of F-35s May Be Combat Capable (ET)
Haiti Health Care System Collapses Amid Unrest, Hospitals Looted (Sp.)
Native American Lawsuit in New York Sheds Light on Dark History (Sp.)
Boeing: How Much Trouble Is The Company In? (BBC)

 

 

 

 

Fani Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1769110575693303866

Wade Fani
https://twitter.com/i/status/1769023193497456855

 

 

Trump cars

 

 

 

 

China is ready
https://twitter.com/i/status/1769033617643123112

 

 

J6

 

 

Britain should consider conscripting citizens into the military to deter Russian aggression, Latvia has said…


A recruitment poster used in 1914 to encourage civilians to enlist for the First World War

 

 

 

 

“..for the American automobile industry and the whole country..”

Trump Warns Of ‘Bloodbath’ If He Loses Presidential Vote (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has warned of a “bloodbath” for the American automobile industry and the whole country if he doesn’t win a second term as a result of the vote on November 5. Trump made the remark during a rally in Vandalia, Ohio on Saturday while he was speaking about his plans to protect US carmakers from Chinese competition. The former president addressed China’s leader Xi Jinping from the stage, saying that “you and I are friends, but… those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now… you’re going to not hire Americans and you’re going to sell the cars to us, no.” “We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected,” the presumptive Republican nominee in the election added.

Trump urged Americans to vote for him in the fall, saying: “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it.” Later in his address, he also cautioned the crowd that “if this election isn’t won, I’m not sure that you’ll ever have another election in this country.” Trump’s speech that evening was mostly improvised as he complained about not being able to use the teleprompter due to strong winds. “I can’t read this damn teleprompter. This sucker is moving. Like reading a moving flag in a 35-mph wind,” the 77-year-old said.

The team of US President Joe Biden interpreted Trump’s mentioning of a “bloodbath” as a threat of “political violence” from their rival. “He wants another January 6, but the American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge,” Biden’s campaign spokesman James Singer said in a statement. Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt responded to the accusations later on Saturday, telling CNN that “crooked Joe Biden and his campaign are engaging in deceptively out-of-context editing.” Leavitt clarified that the former president was speaking exclusively about the country’s car manufacturing industry. “Biden’s policies will create an economic bloodbath for the auto industry and autoworkers,” she said.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1769414275888566776

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Fun for the whole family…

Leftist Corporate Media Unleashes Trump “Bloodbath Hoax” (ZH)

Corporate media and their woke allies on the Biden/Harris social media campaign team launched a disinformation and misinformation propaganda campaign against former President Trump, purposely misconstruing his speech at an event on Saturday. The blatant disinformation and misinformation by leftist newspapers, radicals in the Biden administration, and even Democrat lawmakers have been on full display over the last 15 hours. There has also been an awakening on X of just how bad Democrats are at propaganda – and they can’t even make it believable anymore. Let’s begin with the actual speech. On Saturday evening, X account EndWokeness posted a video of Trump at a campaign rally in Vandalia, Ohio. In it, Trump tells the audience that the American automobile industry will be a bloodbath if he’s not re-elected because the Biden administration will allow Chinese cars to flood the market.

https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1769245792831701070

Almost immediately, legacy media outlets, such as NBC News, ABC News, and Politico, among others, took Trump’s speech entirely out of context… Then, the official X account of Biden/Harris trimmed down the clip to just nine seconds, taking Trump’s speech even more out of context. The Biden/Harris X account even released this ridiculous statement:

And the ‘Bloodbath Hoax’ by Democrats was even pushed on CNN this morning by the best stock trader who has ever lived:

Meanwhile, Elon Musk commented on the absurd propaganda, saying, “Legacy media lies.” Musk added, “Yup, hoax-making in process. And it is surprisingly effective!”

“Please send links from this platform to your friends who are still being misled by the legacy media!” said Musk. The disinformation and misinformation campaign by the Democrats this weekend is right out in the open. And they’re not even good at it! And you wonder why trust in corporate media is imploding to record lows as Americans are tired of being lied to for years. The result of breaking out of the corporate/government propaganda matrix has been the flood of Americans finding their news on X.

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“..the “whole world is laughing at what is happening” in the US..”

US Is Not A Democracy – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that by criticizing democratic processes in other states, all while using their own administrative resources to suppress one of American presidential candidates, Washington has become a laughing stock of the rest of the world. Speaking to the journalists at his campaign headquarters in Moscow on early Monday morning, after the preliminary results indicated his victory with over 87% of the vote in the country’s presidential elections, the Russian leader said that the “whole world is laughing at what is happening” in the US. “We are behaving with more restraint than their opponents in other countries, but this is just a catastrophe, not a democracy – that’s what it is,” Putin said.

Putin noted that the US administration is using all its power and resources to attack one of the presidential candidates, apparently referring to former president Donald Trump, who is facing a litany of lawsuits despite being the frontrunner and virtually the only remaining Republican hopeful. In a pre-election interview earlier this week Vladimir Putin said that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections and will work with any elected US president. “I think it’s obvious to everyone that the American political system cannot claim to be democratic in any sense of the word,” he said in an interview with journalist Dmitry Kiselyov. Putin refused to comment further on the current presidential campaign in the US, but described the atmosphere as becoming “increasingly uncivilized.”

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“..they will emerge as a dominant political country as Europe crumbles in the confusion of their own jealousy, envy, greed, and berserk belligerency.”

West’s Aggression Unites Russian People Behind Putin (Sp.)

“This is a great day for Russia,” declared former US State Department counterterrorism analyst Scott Bennett as early results showed a landslide victory for Vladimir Putin in 2024’s presidential contest. Bennet made the claim during an interview with Sputnik as it was revealed a record high number of Russians participated in the election. “The record turnout of the Russian people and the record landslide of Vladimir Putin… indicate the following,” said the former Army officer. “One, that the Russian people see [that] President Putin has the best hope for moving the people and culture and country forward in a prosperous, healthy, traditional way. Two, the Russian people see themselves unified in one voice, and together, oppose the violent economic, diplomatic and informational war that has been waged against them and President Putin by the West for the last 10 years.”

“And, three, the Russian people are prepared to face any challenge and realize their strength in unity is what empowers them to withstand the aggression against them,” he concluded. Russia was met with political condemnation and economic sanction in 2022 when President Vladimir Putin sent troops to carry out a special military operation in the Donbass region. Western countries portrayed the move as an act of unprovoked aggression and imperial conquest. Putin asserted the decision was inevitable, claiming Ukraine was being transformed into an anti-Russia force that threatened Moscow’s national security. Recent revelations of longtime CIA involvement with the Kiev regime have since proven the Russian president’s claims. A fierce information war has been waged against Moscow in recent years, with observers saying the West’s attempts to discredit Russia’s presidential election represent the latest intensification of the campaign.

“The West is trying to compromise President Putin‘s victory because they have always feared him,” claimed Bennett. “And now with this victory they will especially fear him, and become increasingly loud, obnoxious, and hostile because they understand this landslide victory will inspire the Russian people to greatness and boldness to challenge – not just withstand – and overcome the European-American sanctions against them.” “This will also greatly inspire the rest of the world to stand shoulder to shoulder with Putin,” the analyst said. Bennett claimed Putin’s convincing victory will frustrate attempts to divide and weaken Russia’s centuries-old civilization. Two years ago, the US-government sponsored Helsinki Commission held a hearing on its plans to balkanize Russia under the pretext of “decolonization.” The country has long been seen as a threat to Western and US hegemony with its vast territory, wealth of resources, and cultural resilience.

Former US Vice President Dick Cheney once proposed carving Russia up into several smaller countries, while ex US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski advocated transforming it into a “loosely confederated” union of republics. The United States employed such tactics in the former Yugoslavia and has openly admitted to funding separatists in China to erode national unity. “The West understands that with Putin’s victory they have lost the chance to dismember and cannibalize and weaken the Russian government, culture, and people,” said Bennett. “This is significant because the West’s strategy has always been to disintegrate and steal Russian resources.” “This is a great day for Russia and it gives new hope and promise that the future has a greater chance for peace and stability with President Putin at the helm of Russia than it would without him,” he concluded. “Moving forward we will see the Russian people stand with one voice, one heart, and one vision, and they will emerge as a dominant political country as Europe crumbles in the confusion of their own jealousy, envy, greed, and berserk belligerency.”

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“..a world without Russia is a world that cannot exist.”

Putin’s ‘Dedicated Work’ Added to Reinvigorated Russia – Scott Ritter (Sp.)

Speaking to Sputnik, former US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter looked back at Putin’s previous years of presidency in light of the Russian head of state’s election victory. According to Ritter, the process of reinvigorating the Russian nation was one of the key achievements by Putin. One should understand that this process “didn’t happen in a vacuum” and was “the byproduct of a quarter century of dedicated work on behalf of Vladimir Putin for Russia and the Russian people,” the ex-US Marine Corps intelligence officer said. He recalled Putin’s state of the nation address to the parliament last month, when the Russian president talked about “the pride that Russians have in their country, the pride he has in being a Russian leader, that Russia is a civilization that must be taken into account by the rest of the world, that a world without Russia is a world that cannot exist.”

It seems, however, people “don’t understand where this is coming from,” per Ritter. “You see, the root of all of this passion for Russia comes from the decade of the 1990s, the time when the very existence of the Russian state, of the Russian people, of the Russian nation was being called into question. It came in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was born of the dark times of the failure of perestroika,” which saw former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s “failed gambit to transition from a communist society into one where Western market capitalism could prevail,” Ritter noted.

At the time, he went on, “criminal oligarchs took over, hijacked the Russian economy on behalf of ostensibly western allies, who weren’t true allies, rather people […] who were seeking to dominate Russia politically and economically. This was the decade that Vladimir Putin grew into political prominence,” the former US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer pointed out. “Vladimir Putin was a product of the 1990s. He saw the reality of the 1990s and he understood that Russia could never allow itself to go back to those times. He understood that if Russia didn’t break free of the path that it was headed on during the decade of the 90s, there would be no Russia,” Ritter concluded.

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“I’ve never been able to do that. He’s a much better salesman than me..”

Zelensky ‘One Of The Greatest Salesmen In History’ – Trump (RT)

Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner, has claimed that Vladimir Zelensky is one of the “greatest salesmen” he has ever known, as the Ukrainian head of state manages to leave Washington with pockets full of cash every time he visits the US.During a campaign rally in Vandalia, Ohio on Saturday, Trump also shared his views about providing billions of dollars in support to Kiev. The former president reiterated his earlier idea that the US should lend money to Kiev instead of simply handing it over. “We should loan them the money, not send them the money, so that if they do make it – they are against tremendous odds – they pay us back,” Trump said. “Loan them the money, let them be a little bit like they have to be a little nice… Loan them the money, don’t just hand them a check for $60 billion,” he exclaimed.

“I tell you, Zelensky is one of the greatest salesmen in history. Every time he comes to the country, he walks away with $50 or $60 billion,” Trump said. “I’ve never been able to do that. He’s a much better salesman than me,” he added. Since the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, Washington has been Kiev’s primary backer, having provided it with around $113 billion in military, economic, and humanitarian aid. Trump, US President Joe Biden’s presumptive Republican challenger in this November’s election – said last week that NATO countries “laugh at the stupidity of the United States” for spending so much money on Ukraine, and must “pay their bills.”

Biden is currently pushing Congress to pass a $95 billion foreign aid bill that includes more than $60 billion worth of additional military aid for Kiev. He has claimed that Ukraine would lose more territory to Russia if the bill is not approved. The administration’s request – which was greenlit by the Senate – has stalled in Congress because of Republican opposition. On Tuesday, the Biden administration said that Washington would send a new military aid package to Ukraine worth $300 million. The White House also looked at options for seizing some $285 billion in Russian assets frozen in 2022 and using the money to purchase Ukraine weaponry.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1769133267175829602

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“There is no unity between heterosexual white males mainly from the South, and sexual perverts, feminists, people of color, and the higher command that restricts white heterosexual promotions and requires its only warriors to submit to “sensitivity training.”

The Alleged Superpower, USA, No Longer Has a Military (Paul Craig Roberts)

“West Point Drops “Duty, Honor, Country” from Its Motto and Replaces It with “Army Values” in Its Mission Statement”. Does this mean that “duty, honor, country” are no longer Army values? Are we moving toward a military academy whose values will be transformed in keeping with the woke ideology that has taken over the universities, public schools, Democrat Party, corporations, and media? Will the academy’s values be “transgenderism, equity, and open borders”? Time will tell. We can see why honor and country have to go. The last time the US military fought a war that could be claimed was “defending the country” was World War II. The Korean War was about preventing unification of Korea under the communists. The Vietnam War was about this and also defending the “Domino theory.” The Middle East wars were fought for the benefit of Israel. The Ukraine war was orchestrated as a strategy against Russia. The Israeli-Hamas war was intended to be a prelude for an attack on Iran.

Actually, all wars are fought for the benefit of the power and profit of the US military/security complex. Most of these wars were about bombing women and children. The notion that these murdered women and children were a threat to the United States is so far-fetched as to be insane. The question before us concerned civilians of the United States and the military veterans and retired officers is: Who is it that is destroying the US Military and its traditional values? The US military has turned off real warriors. The US military today is a tower of babel. There is no unity between heterosexual white males mainly from the South, and sexual perverts, feminists, people of color, and the higher command that restricts white heterosexual promotions and requires its only warriors to submit to “sensitivity training.” Sensitivity training means one thing only: that a white person must accept that compared to “people of color” you are a second class citizen.

This is the American world today. Little wonder no military service can meet its recruitment needs and is talking about enrolling immigrant-invaders to “defend” the country they themselves have violated. “Duty, honor, country” to be displaced by “Army Values” is for me and my generation a sacrilege. To witness the Superintendent of West Point, the Biden Secretary of the Army, and the Secretary of Defense submit to, or is it to orchestrate, this sacrilege tells me that the future purpose of the US military is not to protect the United States of America from invasion, but to serve the interests of the ruling elite. Indeed, the current tyrannical regime in Washington has declared open borders and is flooding America with immigrant-invaders. The same tyrants asserting American hegemony are pellmell destroying America. And dumbshit Americans will vote for this anti-white, anti-American regime that is destroying them. A country half of whose population is committed to its own destruction is already destroyed.

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“They [Estonians and other EU members] are sending their scraps to Ukraine and later buying brand new war materials for themselves, using EU money..”

European ‘Peace Fund’ Stoking War in Ukraine (Babich)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently vowed to procure more weapons for Ukraine at a meeting in Berlin. “A new era is dawning,” claimed Macron, while Poland’s Tusk lauded: “We want to spend our money on Ukraine.” But a closer look shows that European taxpayers’ money “spent on Ukraine” will go to a scheme called the European Peace Facility, which since its inception has been promoting war instead of peace and enriched shady operators. The problems bothering the three European leaders in Berlin seem clear. A $60 billion bill aimed at supporting Ukraine’s “war effort” has got stuck in the US Congress and $300 million worth batch of arms that the US recently sent to Kiev is obviously not enough to stop the gradual retreat of Zelensky’s troops.

So, Scholz, Macron and Tusk felt an urgent need to create the impression that “Europeans are ready to step in” and compensate for the military-industrial complex of the United States, with the EU sending deadly “gifts” to Ukrainians. This reimbursement is supposed to be done through the grossly misnamed and off-budget scheme European Peace Facility (EPF). The EPF fund was established in 2021 and was initially used to reimburse European producers of arms that were sent to “EU-friendly dictators in Africa” – an expression used by the fund’s critics in Western media. But from February 2022, the EPF started operating with billions and devoted itself entirely to arming Russia’s adversaries in Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries. On the surface, the EPF’s operations make an impression: “The EU agrees to €5 billion in Ukraine military aid,” “EU cash for Ukraine” – such headlines were omnipresent in the Western media last week. The EU member countries’ envoys in Brussels recently indeed agreed to increase the EPF’s assets to €17 billion, of which €11 billion are meant for Ukraine. (So far, the EPF has already spent €6.1 billion of taxpayers’ money on supplying Zelensky’s regime with arms.)

However, the European Conservative, a Budapest-based media outlet, reports that “it is theoretically possible that no actual money reaches the EPF under the agreement.” Why? The EU has become a victim of its own hypocrisy. According to the EU’s legislation, the European Union is a peaceful organization that cannot legally finance any war effort directly, despite member countries fighting in just about all the major wars since 1991 – from Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya and Yugoslavia. Hence the need for this “peace” fund, which uses European money, but legally is not a part of the EU budget system with its strict regulations, the outlet writes. So, all 27 countries of the European Union are supposed to make contributions to the EPF, depending on the relative size of each country’s economy. However, there is a provision that makes it possible for every country to replace its share in the obligatory payment of €5 billion by “an in-kind donation.”

This means that instead of donating money, Estonia or Germany could just “donate” weapons (including old ones) to this venerable “peace” fund. This opens the door to schemes. “The fine print specifies that for every $2 worth of military equipment donation member states can deduct $1 from their required money donation to EPF – with no limit on deductions,” The European Conservative writes. So, if we read the fine print, the news about the €5 billion ‘sacrifice’ of EU member states for the Ukrainian Army is not quite accurate: Germany, for example, may not pay an additional cent to the fund. Here is why. As Politico reports, Germany has been the largest donor for the Ukrainian military, having given €17.7 billion in military supplies. Now Germany is supposed to pay €1.2 billion a year into the EPF, but as long as it gives at least €2.4 billion in weapons to Ukraine in a year, Germany is free of any obligation to pay money to the fund.

However, if Germany is the biggest donor, then Estonia is the smartest schemer. Earlier this year, Politico accused Estonia of using a loophole in the rules that the European Council adopted for the EPF. The bureaucrats in Brussels forgot to specify how EU members should calculate the procurement price of the weaponry they send to Ukraine’s war machine via the European Peace Facility. So, Estonia (followed by Latvia and Lithuania) vastly overestimated the value of the old Soviet weapons that it provided. However the EPF still gave Estonia the money, which the officials later used to satisfy their country’s defense and consumer needs. “They [Estonians and other EU members] are sending their scraps to Ukraine and later buying brand new war materials for themselves, using EU money,” Politico writes.

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“..huge problem and a devastating defeat for the West.”

‘NATO’s Going to Suffer Defeat’ in Proxy War With Russia – Mearsheimer (Sp.)

“It’s becoming manifestly clear to more and more people that Kiev is gonna lose the war,” John Mearsheimer, an American political scientist and Professor at the University of Chicago, told the YouTube channel Duran, referring to the Ukraine conflict. “We can talk about exactly what it means ‘cause that is a very complicated issue, but there’s no question that […] the Russians are going to win,” while Ukraine “is going to suffer a defeat and indeed NATO’s gonna suffer a defeat as well,” Mearsheimer pointed out. According to the pundit, “there’s no plausible strategy” for Kiev and Brussels to rectify the situation, something that he said is a “huge problem and a devastating defeat for the West.”

What’s more, there are “no formidable military forces in Europe” that could fight in Ukraine or “even provide much deterrence” to Kiev without US support, the professor added. The comments come after French President Emmanuel Macron recently said in an interview that he doesn’t rule out a potential scenario of his country’s military conducting an operation to “confront Russian troops” in Ukraine. Moscow responded by making it clear that such a development would inevitably lead to a direct military conflict between Russia and NATO. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called discussing the possibility of sending “certain contingents to Ukraine an important new element of rhetoric.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, warned that the possible deployment of a European military contingent to Ukraine would not change the situation on the battlefield and would only lead to serious consequences for the Kiev regime. European head of states, NATO leadership and the White House, in turn were quick to say that they were not considering sending their militaries to Ukraine, with France’s Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne not ruling out that the French military could be send there for demining operations and weapons production on Ukrainian territory. In a separate development, Putin stressed during last month’s State of the Nation address to parliament that Russian forces are “firmly holding the initiative” and are successfully advancing in a spate of operational areas in the special military operation zone.”

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“..The former Democratic presidential hopeful is known for her own political ambitions with some observers suggesting that she may try to return to politics if Biden and Harris completely lose steam..”

Kamala Harris Urged to Step Down Ahead of 2024 Election (Sp.)

A Washington Post editorial called on the US vice president to step aside as she has become a “burden” to the Democratic ticket. Pulitzer Prize-winning WaPo politics columnist Kathleen Parker subjected Vice President Harris to sharp criticism this week. Despite Harris having an impressive resume, “pizzazz”, and a reputation for being a tough prosecutor, she has failed to meet the public’s expectations, according to the journalist. “Her performance as second in command has been disappointing, to say the least,” Parker highlighted. According to FiveThirtyEight poll aggregator, just 37.2 percent of Americans approve of the incumbent vice president while 52.3 percent disapprove. Parker pointed out that Harris “was a colossal failure as border czar” and used to “embarrass her boss with her sometimes inane, rambling remarks and a laugh that erupts from nowhere about nothing obvious to others.”

The Democratic Party’s “indulgence of identity politics” is not allowing President Joe Biden to fire Kamala, a Black woman of Asian descent, at the time when she has become a “burden to the Democratic ticket,” continued Parker. What’s more, one should bear in mind that Harris could take the reins of US politics if something happens to Biden: “The seriousness of this situation can’t be overstated,” the journalist warned. “Biden’s diminishing faculties, notwithstanding his relatively successful State of the Union address, and his increasing physical frailty are concerning. Every honest person knows he’s not in top form.” “There’s no reason to think her ranking would spike were she suddenly promoted to the Oval Office. Instead, most signs point to disaster,” Parker stressed. The reporter insisted that Biden could tap “someone else with executive experience”, who “would be ready to take the reins should events require it.”

The op-ed came on the heels of ex-Special Counsel Robert Hur testimony before American lawmakers about his investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified records. Hur stressed that Biden willfully retained classified records when he was a private citizen, which was illegal. The former special counsel also underscored that despite not bringing charges against Biden he did not exonerate the president. Hur in his report described the president as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory”. The description cast doubt on Biden’s mental capacity and his 2024 reelection campaign, according to the press. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying in February 2023 that Harris wouldn’t be able to win the Democratic primaries due to the lack of “political instincts.” The former Democratic presidential hopeful is known for her own political ambitions with some observers suggesting that she may try to return to politics if Biden and Harris completely lose steam.

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“..we ourselves have never had the opportunity to understand what it is like to have a permanent enemy that can never be conquered..”

The Main Problem With EU diplomacy (Bordachev)

A recent incident in which a group of ambassadors from EU states refused to attend a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov perfectly encapsulates the state of European diplomatic culture today. The reason is simple – over the past 30 years, the need to be diplomatic in the traditional sense of the word has almost disappeared. Despite the fact that the envoys of EU countries in Moscow are relatively well-educated and not stupid, these individual peculiarities no longer count for much. Everything is determined by their dogmatic world view, which has become the opposite of what is necessary for civilized relations between states. And those observers who believe that in today’s conditions, it has become unnecessary to have ambassadors of individual EU states in Moscow, have merit in their arguments. After all, they do not decide anything and cannot fulfil their duties in the traditional accepted way. It would be much easier for everyone if these people – both great and not so great – would return to their countries for a while.

There are several reasons why Western Europeans have ventured so far on the road to their own, different world. First, they experienced a colossal upheaval just over 30 years ago. Since the 16th century, these states had been neighboring Russia, which they could not defeat. Dominic Lieven, a fine British scholar of Russian Empire origins, wrote in one of his works that the Russians were the only people Western Europeans had to deal with who were capable of fighting for their special, independent niche in the modern world with boundless courage, perseverance, and self-sacrifice. Consider these words – we are the only civilization against which the West has attempted to act aggressively, and failed to achieve its goals. All the rest – the Great Empire of China, the ancient civilization of India, and many others – were unable to withstand the decisive thrust of the West, which for 500 years had been expanding the frontiers of its power by fire and sword. They were beaten, even if they were able to restore their statehood after some time.

Our country was never defeated. But let’s try to put ourselves in the Western Europeans’ shoes and understand their emotional state. For centuries, they have been living with a trauma called ‘an independent Russia’. However, we ourselves have never had the opportunity to understand what it is like to have a permanent enemy that can never be conquered. So, when the USSR suddenly collapsed in 1991 and the unified state disintegrated, Western Europe found itself in a situation it had never experienced before. Overnight, the most unfulfilled wish of generations of European politicians and military leaders came true. All by itself, without a decisive military clash, and with the Russians’ full of desire to join the ‘European family’, even as pupils. Such a shock could not pass without serious consequences for the psyche of the statesmen and ordinary citizens of these Western European states.

Their entire foreign policy culture was based on the fact that Russia would never be pushed around or told what to do. Suddenly, the West felt it had won the Cold War without firing a single shot. In a state of fantastic emotional upheaval, the Western Europeans began to build relations with Russia as if it had finally been defeated. For several years, Moscow accepted the rules of the game that the West imposed. It took into account the wishes of the Western Europeans in the economic sphere and developed its foreign relations with an eye to how this would affect the main goal – which was gradual ‘integration’ with the EU. In the new circumstances, the bloc found itself in the position of a demanding teacher, offering numerous ‘partnership’ programs with two simple objectives. First, to secure the interests of Western European business and make the Russian market even more open to it. Second, to ensure that Moscow was complying with its instructions.

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And it’s not even Boeing…

Only 15% of F-35s May Be Combat Capable (ET)

A September 2023 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the F-35 revealed some shocking statistics on just how unready hundreds of billions of dollars worth of F-35s are to provide actual combat power. In fact, the report indicated that only 15 to 30 percent of F-35s may be capable of combat. But if you were to read a typical article in the media, you might believe that, on average, some 55 percent of F-35s are combat-capable. However, you would be wrong. You see, when the average person sees a report declaring that 55 percent of F-35 combat aircraft are “mission capable,” they assume mission capable equals combat capable. But in doing so, they are being deceived The deception comes out of how the F-35 program office and the whole of the Department of Defense define “mission capable.” It turns out that the DoD definition of “mission capable” does not mean combat capable. What it means is that an aircraft can fly and perform at least one mission.

So, a plane designated as mission capable might be capable of doing some type of combat, but it might not. Instead, the mission it might be capable of executing could be testing or training, or some other mission that does not involve combat. And even if it is considered capable of testing or training, it might not be capable of doing the full gamut of testing or training you would expect from a fully functional aircraft. Likewise, it could still be classified as mission capable even if it is only capable of executing a portion of the combat-type missions it is supposed to be able to perform. Hence, within the environs of the military–industrial–congressional complex, “mission capable” is a highly ambiguous term that allows for a whole lot of gaming of accountability metrics. And it tells us very little.

Still, it is worth noting that at a 55 percent mission capable rate, the F-35 fleet is well below program targets of 90 percent for the F-35A (Air Force) and 85 percent for the fighter’s F-35B (Marine Corps) and F-35C (Navy) variants. In other words, the F-35 fleet as a whole is nowhere near meeting its mission capability goal of being able to do anything at all. However, there is another metric that is more useful: “full mission capable.” It turns out that “full mission capable” F-35s are supposed to be able to perform all the missions for which they were contracted, including combat-oriented missions, surveillance, training, testing, show of force, etcetera. This metric is not often publicized, but in the case of the F-35, the watchdog side of the GAO actually did a detailed report of the problems and issues with the F-35 that included how the F-35 fleet looked from the “full mission capable” perspective.

Even for someone who is an F-35 realist, the results are shocking. Not only is the F-35 fleet’s full mission capable rate in the neighborhood of 30 percent, the full mission capable rate of the Marine Corps’ F-35B was a miserable 15.5 percent in March 2023. More current full mission capable rates have not been published, but given the program’s ongoing problems and issues, including unreliable engines that are now under-specced due to feature creep, it is highly unlikely the situation has improved in the last year.

Read more …

Where are the Clintons?

Haiti Health Care System Collapses Amid Unrest, Hospitals Looted (Sp.)

The attack on Haiti’s capital has devastated the country’s already fragile health care system, with more than half of Port-au-Prince’s medical facilities out of service because they have been left without medicine amid gang violence, The New York Times reported Sunday. The State University Hospital, the largest in Haiti, is closed due to a lack of donated blood and fuel for generators, the report said. Haitian doctors predict a spike in maternal and infant mortality as thousands of women are forced to give birth at home in the coming weeks, the newspaper added.

On February 29, gang violence erupted in the downtown area of the capital Port-au-Prince while Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry was visiting Kenya to seek an agreement for the deployment of foreign forces in Haiti to fight organized crime. The gangs said their goal was to prevent the prime minister from returning to Haiti, and they stormed Haiti’s largest prison and freed an unconfirmed number of inmates. The Haitian government declared a state of emergency in the capital region. Haiti has long been mired in a social and political crisis that escalated after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on July 7, 2021. The country has faced an unprecedented increase in the activities of criminal groups, while the humanitarian situation has deteriorated due to a multitude of natural disasters.

Read more …

“The problem is that all of the land in New York, in the United States, is stolen Indian land.”

Native American Lawsuit in New York Sheds Light on Dark History (Sp.)

“The doctrine of discovery refers to a principle in public international law under which, when a nation ‘discovers’ land, it directly acquires rights on that land,” according to a definition offered by Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute. “This doctrine arose when the European nations discovered non-European lands, and therefore acquired special rights.” More broadly, the doctrine of discovery can be described as an international law doctrine giving authorization to explorers to claim terra nullius [uninhabited land]… in the name of their sovereign when the land was not populated by Christians. It’s a theory that’s offensive to most modern ears -suggesting settlers have a right to violently confiscate territory in the name of religion- and it was acknowledged as such last year when the Catholic Church officially repudiated it. But the doctrine of discovery was cited by the United States highest legal authority as recently as 2005, when the US Supreme Court ruled against the indigenous Oneida Nation in a majority opinion authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Oneida people, the justice claimed, had no special rights in land they had inhabited for thousands of years before descendents of Europeans like Ginsberg crossed the Atlantic. New York State’s Onondaga Nation had filed a similar lawsuit just days before seeking compensation for territory they claimed their ancestors had been forced to sell against their will. The Onondaga have since reconsidered their strategy, taking their claim to the supranational Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. US media examined their story this week as the commission is expected to rule on the Onondaga’s claim in the coming months. “If we don’t admit that those things have happened, how do we move forward together?” asked Joe Heath, a lawyer for the Onondaga people. “The problem is that all of the land in New York, in the United States, is stolen Indian land.” Heath’s observation raises a thorny issue.

The US, for a time considered the world’s lone superpower after the Cold War drew to a close, has increasingly fashioned itself as a global arbiter and enforcer of morality. Ending genocide, toppling dictators, spreading democracy, and defeating communism are just some of the reasons offered by the United States to justify bloody interventions around the globe. But academics often dispute the validity of America’s self-perception as an authority on human rights, noting the country is unique among others as an historic settler colonial regime. “Settler colonialism is a form of colonization where a settler society entirely or partially replaces an indigenous people on their land,” explains the website Visualizing Palestine. Many countries trace their history back centuries or even millenia, recognizing a legacy of many historical inhabitants. Others continue a process of deliberately stamping out native influence, appropriating indigenous lands and killing their inhabitants.

Read more …

“The culture at Boeing has been toxic to trust for over a decade now..”

Boeing: How Much Trouble Is The Company In? (BBC)

Earlier this month the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, said that a six-week audit of the 737 Max production process at Boeing and its supplier Spirit Aerosystems had found “multiple instances where the companies failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements”. The findings came shortly after another report into Boeing’s safety culture by an expert panel found a “disconnect” between senior management and regular staff, as well as signs that staff were hesitant about reporting problems for fear of retaliation. Adam Dickson, a former senior manager at Boeing who once worked on the 737 Max programme, agrees there is a gulf between executives and workers on the factory floor. “The culture at Boeing has been toxic to trust for over a decade now,” he says. “You can add safety steps, you can add procedures. But the fundamental issue of distrust makes those changes almost ineffective”, he claims.

Meanwhile, further evidence of how production problems could endanger safety emerged this week. The FAA warned that improperly installed wiring bundles on 737 Max planes could become damaged, leading to controls on the wings deploying unexpectedly, and making the aircraft start to roll. If not addressed, it said, this “could result in loss of control of the airplane”. Hundreds of planes already in service will have to be checked as a result. Boeing said based on the FAA audit it was continuing “to implement immediate changes and develop a comprehensive action plan to strengthen safety and quality, and build the confidence of our customers and their passengers.” But concerns about Boeing’s production standards are far from new.

Whistleblower John Barnett, who was found dead last weekend, had worked at Boeing’s factory in South Carolina from 2010 until his retirement in 2017. A quality manager on the 787 Dreamliner programme, he had claimed the rush to build planes as quickly as possible in order to maximise profits had led to unsafe practices. Among a number of allegations, he told the BBC that in some cases under-pressure workers had deliberately fitted substandard parts to planes on the production line. Boeing denied his claims. But his untimely death, which occurred between legal hearings in a lawsuit against the company, has focused new attention on them. The crisis at the aerospace giant is now causing problems for airlines. Ryanair has warned that delays to new aircraft deliveries will push up prices for passengers in Europe this summer. US carrier Southwest plans to cut its capacity this year because it can’t get hold of the planes it needs.

Some carriers may try to obtain Airbus models to replace the lost Boeings. But a wholesale transfer of orders from the American manufacturer to the European is simply impractical. Both have very full order books. Airbus has a backlog of more than 8,000 planes and Boeing more than 6,000. Airlines are already having to wait longer than they would like for new aircraft. Airbus has had its own supply chain problems, leading to late deliveries. There is a potential third player. The Chinese manufacturer Comac has developed the C919, a plane designed to compete with the 737 Max and the A320 neo. But that programme is still in its infancy. By 2028 it will be producing only 150 aircraft a year.

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Home Forums Debt Rattle March 18 2024

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 50 total)
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  • #154892

    Johannes Vermeer The Concert 1663 Stolen from Gardner Museum March 18 1990, the single largest art theft in the world. Never recovered.   • Trump
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle March 18 2024]

    #154893
    Red
    Participant

    A recent exchange I’ve had with my insurance broker:

    I’m currently working on your upcoming commercial auto renewal with economical, policy number # and I was hoping you could answer the below questions:

    is the vehicle still the 2013 Toyota Tacoma?
    are you still the only driver?
    you currently have 1 million liability is this sufficient?
    is your radius of operations still 80km?
    do you still carry painting tools in the vehicle?

    also insurance companies now require a copy of the vehicle permit so if you could email a photo of the permit that would be great!

    thank you,

    first reply:

    is the vehicle still the 2013 Toyota Tacoma? It would be fraud if it wasn’t.
    are you still the only driver? Yes
    you currently have 1 million liability is this sufficient? Yes
    is your radius of operations still 80km? No it is 50km
    do you still carry painting tools in the vehicle? Yes

    also insurance companies now require a copy of the vehicle permit so if you could email a photo of the permit that would be great!

    Why? I can’t get the permit renewed without proof of insurance. If the permit is required to get get the insurance than it will quickly turn into a catch-22 situation won’t it? I will need a detailed explanation in writing why this is required.

    broker:

    The reason we need the permit is to make sure that the registered owner of the vehicle is the same as the named insured. So where you have the named insured as yourself they’d like the vehicle to be registered in your name, if it isn’t you would either have to register it to your name or add the name its registered to as a named insured.
    Your policy will renew even if you don’t send it over its just they like to make sure so you wont have any issues with renewing the permit as your policy will renew.
    Hope this clarifies some things,

    My reply:

    Sorry to keep banging on, but this just doesn’t pass the sniff test. They are solving a problem that does not exist. I renew my registration online, the only thing that is asked for is a policy number and expiration date. Nothing about who is insured as the driver. Also the actual ownership of the vehicle is a third document in this province, also me in this situation but beside the point.

    Again sorry for the waste of your time on this.
    Thanks

    Broker:

    No worries it is a new thing that we and insurance companies do. Essentially if there was a loss of the vehicle, the insurance company would want to pay out the named insured and they like when the registered owner of the vehicle is the same as the named insured. If you were to let’s say have it registered under Shawns Construction company, they would pay out the named insured but it would get sticky as the registered owner technically isn’t the named insured so it would slow the process down. This is because the insurance company would question why you have a policy that is for a vehicle not registered under your name. you would have to submit your registration if their was a loss the insurance company was to pay out and they would question why a vehicle is registered under a different name then the policy if that’s the case.
    This will not affect your premium in any way.
    If the vehicle is registered under your name, then there will no issue with regards to this. But if the vehicle was registered under a name that isn’t on the policy is where it gets sticky.

    Me now:
    This is were it gets very weird as the ownership paper is a third document. The registration plate in my province is owned by me and moves from one vehicle to the next. The ownership of said vehicle isn’t shown on the registration paper, it only shows what vehicle that plate should be attached too. The actual ownership certificate is never in the vehicle, it is home in the safe. Maybe the vehicle is owned by Dr.D they have noway to know by the registration papers.

    The following article alerted me to what maybe the reason for the strange requested info. They aren’t getting enough info on/from me?

    Smart Cars Reporting to Govt – Insurance Rates up 26% YoY

    #154894
    aspnaz
    Participant

    The findings came shortly after another report into Boeing’s safety culture by an expert panel found a “disconnect” between senior management and regular staff, as well as signs that staff were hesitant about reporting problems for fear of retaliation.

    Yes, that tends to happen when management decide to rape the company of all the money they can get, replacing their responsibilities to the customer with short term responsibilities to the share holder. Of course, the shareholder owns the company and they want maximum bucks, so the dark pools at Citibank and elsewhere pay the CEO huge salaries, they pay their management huge salaries, the management see the people who do stuff as simply a liability, then they treat them as trash and are quite happy to ruin their careers if they make the boss look bad. But why is this happening? Because the stock exchange is now the casino. Banks and investment funds now own all the shares, they then provide products to pass the benefits on to their customers, but the customers no longer have voting rights, so it all becomes about money …. this is one way the Americans fucked themselves in the ass.

    #154895
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “wife of deceased Alexei Navalny urges Russians to disrupt presidential election…”

    Nothing says “Democracy” like…preventing elections.

    “”Reduce Poverty Migration To Zero” – German Politicians Propose Crackdown On Migrants Sending Billions To Their Home Countries

    Okay, only some of this is “Enforcing the law”. The other parts are perfectly normal immigration policy as shown over the last 250 years. How dare you.

    “Supreme Court Rules Public Officials May Block Their Constituents On Social Media

    Trump as the one-man exception to all rules: I thought this was settled BY the USSC in his case like 2017. As the #Opposite, as he’s essentially always public. AOC then defied the ruling, DGAF, a judge ordered her to, and nothing was done.

    Thinking about the process and timing of NATO collapsing with Europe, then the flood that will backwash the US. We HAVE to do it this way, before reforming. Why? Because we’re not going to pay those $36 Trillion in bonds. If we admit have have stuff, we’ll be expected to pay in the restructuring. This is standard not cooking, but like arranging the books, your own records for a while before you go see the bankruptcy judge. (Also the reason we have to “War” with China. Just renege the bonds, then sue for peace the day after).

    Maybe we don’t go full default but re-value 10:1 overall. …That would be the perfectly NORMAL. Like in 1970-80. Back to $3T on a $15T economy is very safe although we’ll have to double our real GDP to overcome the half of GDP that’s all welfare payments and bond-kiting. It’s fully possible though. It also has to be Biden’s and the Democrats’ the CIA and MICMAC’s fault.

    See how on a deeper level it has to run this way?

    Body Cam footage: “Thank you, Officer. Thank you for your patience.”

    Again, the Capital is OPEN. They look like tourists, which are allowed for 200 years and are very common.

    “Britain should consider conscripting citizens into the military to deter Russian aggression, Latvia has said…”

    Latvia misses that UK is the world’s unhappiest country, far more unhappy than Latvia. What are the odds the nation’s most pissed off citizenry is going to sign up to fight instead of toppling Sunak at home? But Latvia is run by Dr. Doom, and he likes that sort of thing. Extensive history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latveria

    “• Trump Warns of ‘Bloodbath’

    I can’t believe we even have to discuss such things. Good thing we’re not on the edge of WWIII or nothin’.

    Biden-Harris: So MLA Literary Guidebook, “Black” is capitalized but “brown” is not? Mr. Biden, why do you hate brown people so much??? Are you saying they’re not human? Not equal? That brown is less than Black? What?

    I pick on details like this because, like their argument that women-who-wear-pants-hearby-become-men, none of their mental functions are coherent and all conflict, making them a danger to themselves and others. …Especially brown people. As demonstrated by bombings worldwide until they ran out of bombs. …Under Obama.

    “• US Is Not A Democracy – Putin (RT)

    Not if I’m correct. If I’m correct it’s being puppeted by a tiny cartel of rich insiders. …Except those insiders are White Hats with a pretend Biden, and I still object. I don’t care who’s doing it or their intent, it’s illegal and immoral. If I could figure out a way, I would fight you. …However, I seem to be slow out of my chair to stop them when they’re finally hammering through my countrymens’ thick skulls. Esp GenZ

    “the US administration is using all its power and resources to attack one of the presidential candidates, apparently referring to former president Donald Trump, who is facing a litany of lawsuits despite being the frontrunner”

    Biden said this is illegal. You can’t even ASK about a RELATIVE of a man who ISN’T a candidate and has no reason to think ever will be, raising 5% in the DNC Primaries. Remember? That’s “Election interference” to ask about family members of non-candidate insiders. Ze could just have said “Whoops! I forgot to look.”

    “• West’s Aggression Unites Russian People Behind Putin (Sp.)

    Again, Putin (or someone?) has said recently that the reason they’ve been so successful is long, careful planning. …The U.S. under TRUMP put in the strongest sanctions ever, adjusting them in time for the war sanctions. The war was prosecuted by Nuland, who is the most epic failure in State Dept history, and this attack on Russia yesterday – that nobody heard about – was the stupidest, most failed military charge since General Custer at Little Big Horn. …Essentially thousands of men, material, Bradleys, engineering equipment, helicopters INVADED RUSSIA PROPER, and bounced off like spitballs. They were trying to attack, occupy, and blackmail a NUCLEAR FACILITY inside Russia as “leverage” to just…surrender, I guess?

    This is almost certainly Nuland’s “Plan” and “Surprise” she promised Putin on the election, and what she got fired for. Not only are they about 500,000 men short of such an action – if they’ve read Napoleon – but the Russians knew they were coming of course.

    Anyway, having failed failures who fail, who fail serially, constantly, reliably, is the prime way to INSURE Russia wins. Attacking Russia INSURES Russia wins and becomes united under “Putin” for a generation. Trickling in weapons INSURES Russia wins. Escalating at a snail’s pace INSURES Russia wins. Conclusion: the Federal Government has been acting since about 2017 to insure Russia destroys NATO. …And our liability there, where empire can finally end and it won’t be “Our Fault.” Huh. Funny old world.

    …America First, anyone? They’ve outplayed the globalists. You can read it another way, but the world’s biggest string of coincidences, wouldn’t you say?

    “• Putin’s ‘Dedicated Work’ Added to Reinvigorated Russia – Scott Ritter (Sp.)

    Since we’re “Closing the Collapse Gap with the Soviet Union” this is what’s going to happen to us over the next 25 years. We look at the rich, entitled people because they’re online and Algo’d, but like Russia in the 90s, every real person coast to coast is already beaten daily like a rented mule. Eating canned soup in an apartment they’re getting evicted from. This is creeping up even into every enclave as rich college kids go bankrupt with their rich, entitled Apparatchik parents. Whose houses are being broken into by organized criminal gangs as a written, multi-billion dollar business plan. And everyone’s on drugs, sold by the same people. Whose daughters are on OnlyFans, run by the same people.

    Like “Friends” of the 90s, where they own a penthouse apartment as baristas there’s the American illusion and the American reality. Look to Oliver Anthony as the reality: 20 years minimum wage OT gets you 10 acres and a trailer with no access road. Own nothing but a 30 year old truck and an iPhone, from Elizabethtown to Sacramento. Everything else is owned and run by corrupt oligarchs doing crack with Hunter.

    Which America, which Russia does that sound like? Yeah, like Russia in the 90s. “Don’t Believe the Hype” – Chuck D 1990

    “Trump: Ukraine must pay us back”

    He’s being disingenuous. He knows it’s all sold to BlackRock and Monsanto. So they are the “Us” getting paid. However, private companies, European-facing.

    “Sensitivity training means one thing only: that a white person must accept that compared to “people of color” you are a second class citizen.”

    As we say here, this is “Critical Theory”. Marxist Theory applied. One are the “Oppressed Workers”, one are the “Bourgeois”. They must erase religion, the opiate of the masses, overthrow the Patriarchical power, and “Seize the Means of Production” that is to say, all the wealth and good stuff you worked hard to accumulate. 1st Class, 2nd Class citizen, morally, legally, functionally. I fail to see how that isn’t identical here. Why? Because it works, so we ported it over to see if it would work again. Marxism is just a port of Catholic religion though. Why? It worked to control people for 1,000 years, so we ported it over to murder all kings and set up bank oligarchs. America doesn’t like class, so we ported it to race, it worked in test samples, so we ran with it.

    What are the next boring, 200 year old, textbook Communist moves? This: taking over, dividing, demoralizing the military. And everywhere else in culture. Make Russia, Germany, France, the greatest cultures known, all self-hating so they murder their neighbors and starve to death. Hahahahaha! #Winning! We’ll kill another 100 Million yet!

    Critical. Theory. These guys are morons. It’s very, very simple. So if they’re that dumb and it works, what are you?

    “EU ‘Peace’ Fund” Yup, you knew if they opened mouth, lie would come out. If they said a thing, it would be the #Opposite. 100% of the time, every time. Since they do this right in front of you, how dumb are you to believe it? STOP OBEYING. Stay home. Don’t buy that Amazon. Don’t deliver to NYC.

    ““pizzazz”, and a reputation for being a tough prosecutor,”

    Yes, tough against innocent black children.

    “• Only 15% of F-35s May Be Combat Capable (ET)

    That’s ridiculous. The “Flying Penguin” isn’t combat capable even off the assembly line. “A Camel is a horse made by committee.”

    Anyway, I don’t know what standard jets are, but it’s like 1 hour maintenance per hour flown? 2:1? WTF? This was similar to the Abrams, like 1:2 but still terrible, unsupportable, unworkable, implausible. The artillery was the same, although maybe like 100:1 to rebarrel, it can’t be done in the field and is like 10x more fragile than a Russian piece.

    Okay, think of that in modern war: 100% of your jets are in the repair shop each day. Russia can see and reach them from space, 24/7. This isn’t the 60s, you f—ks. Like all Ukraine, where exactly do you think you’re going to be toddling over to the coffeemaker in a clean dry hanger with a plasma wrench? And repair parts only made in one shop in one factory in Seattle, a world away? Jesus like I have to be the one to say these things out loud. “Water is Wet.” “Time Exists.” “Your gun needs to fire.” We don’t’ disassemble and rebarrel your M16 every third shot…YET.

    “because they have been left without medicine amid gang violence, The New York Times reported”

    Sounds like here. Also we can’t really tell since it’s “The Gangs” which are taking over are the new government. “Gang” violence may be “The government-in-exile is returning” or it could be actual common criminals. Since I’d expect a duck to talk before reading truth in the NYT, we won’t know until some Gonzalo Lira appears there with a daily blog.

    ““The problem is that all of the land in New York, in the United States, is stolen Indian land.”

    Like Critical Theory, Original Sin, I used to believe this as everyone does. But it is false. It was written, so it’s false. “Scientists” believe it, so it’s therefore false. We just covered the Puritan Thanksgiving, where the TRIBE was with the English to get protection from the INDIANS. That is to say, they were sworn, written, entreatied allies for 100 years. This is actually pretty common. As like Aspnaz, YES a lot of actual appalling theft went on. But a lot of it didn’t too, and there’s a difference.

    In King Philip’s War, 1675, what did the tribe think when they declared open, legal war on the Colonists? Yes, that if they won, they would by law of conquest, steal all English land and drive them into the sea. They were about the same strength, in fact, early on, both cultures are remarkably similar from our perspective, like Scotland, both living in longhouses with open fires on the floor. — As did Japan, Norway, etc at the same time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip%27s_War And? The colonists won, and did to Philip what he said he would do to them. That’s war, isn’t it? Or should we win and give everything back anyway? Like the West thinks should happen in Ukraine? Winning = Losing. #Oppositeland!!

    “The Oneida people, the justice claimed, had no special rights in land they had inhabited for thousands of years”

    This sentence, like everything in this article is completely false. The point of like Plymouth is that NO ONE WAS THERE. The locals found out and were like, “I don’t care. Everyone I’ve ever known is dead and we’re not using it.” Like most/all tribes the Oneida were considered a sovereign country, nation, and people, which is something we don’t believe in even today. They had offical F-ing ambassadors taking residency back and forth like to Denmark and Poland. Their recognized nationhood could not possibly be more apparent to anyone who’s read a book ever. …But no one of this generation has, so they just “Make s—t up.”

    Guess what? After trying valiantly to to be neutral for 200 years, the pressures finally broke this working plan and caused them to sign in with the Crown. And they promised? Yes, the King promised if they won, he’d give them all the white lands out to I dunno, Albany or something. And they lost. So…? And then the Opposite happened. The Rebels instead took all the land out to Ohio. But I see when you’re in a war, it’s heads I win, tails you lose. The combined confederacy had the largest army in America, larger than the King’s and Washington’s, and they signed as an enemy combatant. Now. If you want to follow some accuracy here, no sooner had they won that legally than they signed they would do X and Y. That is, stole all Cornplanter’s Reservation specifically given by George Washington himself, and treating the Onondaga, who took the other side and were Washington allies, the same as the Tory Oneida and Seneca. Now most of THAT was illegal. But again, that makes every word of this article dead-false, knowingly so. Read a book.

    ““The culture at Boeing has been toxic to trust for over a decade now…”

    Apparently they murder their own employees in public, so Ya think?

    “What’s the moral of this story?”

    That Kids are awesome! That was the moral for me. Also if he had four bothers he’d waterballoon them instead. Think strategically.

    MilliMinute: A measure of deaths over time, The number of Gazans Aspnaz thinks are being killed now that we no longer care about accuracy.
    PalestiniTonne: The number of Gazans who are actually being killed, which are not not enough to care about unless it’s the inaccurate number above.

    #154896
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Of course, the shareholder owns the company and they want maximum bucks,”

    Actually, this is not an “of course”. The shareholders ARE the owners, so if Boeing goes under, they lose. They can, however, be reckless and stupid if they want to, they are humans, after all, and I can’t outlaw being stupid. Now WHY, after 100 years of stock-companies, did they SUDDENLY decide one day to be short-term and stupid? A: Inflation. Unlimited money-printing by a government-protected cartel of financial insiders sends signals to everyone that “Hard work doesn’t pay.” At all. Ever. Corruption and financial engineering, casino-hopping pays. Ask Oliver Anthony vs the crypto kidz which pays. That leads to short-termism and pillaging speculation 100% of the time in all human history. So ask your government.

    Shareholders, if they wish, can rein in every bad company on earth. The bad boys would have to find a new method and go around them. What’s happening is, the people are so lazy, so stupid, so abdicated all duty, that they buy only in Trust Funds, ETFs, where BLACKROCK then votes for what movies DISNEY should make next year, instead of you just owning the stock directly and voting yourself. …As an owner does. Who behaves like an owner. YOU. Then Blackrock, in collusion with Morgan and the DTCC, creates 30% more stock than actually exists to make sure the Board of Directors do what they’re told. It’s election-rigging, and it’s also illegal. In like 10 ways. The stock owners don’t care, or they would take the SIMPLEST steps of owning their own stock, and voting, to end it. …Even before going up to trillion dollar lawsuits to Morgan, Vanguard, and erasing the DTCC. They won’t, so what do you want from me? If they’re corrupt down to every man, are you going to be more moral than yourself?

    Everything is somebody else’s problem. Everything is somebody else’s fault. And this isn’t at you, Aspnaz, it’s like burrowing out and expanding a detail we all say daily.

    But for example, what happens if you know there is fraud in your company and industry? Stop participating. Legally, you must. Or you’re complicit and accessory to a felony. When no one is left in the industry, it reforms itself to survive. For example, cattle trader Ann Barnhardt, on seeing MF Global mix funds, and Jon Corzine walk away with applause, then raise money on his good name for the DNC, she closed her practice. Why? EVERYTHING IN THE MARKET WAS NOW RIGGED. There were no rules at all in any commodity. That means RISK IS UNLIMITED. What does that mean for her? She cannot legally and morally advise clients to put all money at unlimited risk as a fiduciary. It’s the same as recommending you merge bank accounts with Al Capone.

    And? She was the only one. Every other broker/trader (all Boomers) merrily continued on, now at unlimited risk and no rule of law. That’s the “Red Button” Solari talks about sometimes. So? The system didn’t get reformed, because YOU DIDN’T REFORM IT. The Comex didn’t have the equivalent of the Trucker’s Strike. They love having their money stolen by mass-murdering pedophiles, so who am I to stop them? Fund those guys with infinity money since you like complaining so much.

    You think the Chinese would put their money at unlimited risk for no potential? Chinese markets suck and are corrupt, but at least they behave and factor in they’ve merged bank accounts with Al Capone and act accordingly.

    STOP HELPING. It all stops when you stop helping the Bad Guys. Stop enlisting. Stop participating. Choose ethical companies. Stay home. You’d think it would look like this if the Amish were running it?

    #154897
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Dr D said

    Actually, this is not an “of course”.

    Except that these days the share owner is the bank, not the individual who goes to his bank and asks to buy a bunch of shares. The vast, vast majority of shares are owned by funds, banks and othe rinvestment houses, they do the voting, the person who paid for the shares and takes the losses does NOT own the share, that is why they are called dark pools. So, you go to JPM and buy 100 boeing shares, you will get that added to your investment portfolio, but you ask the share registrar which numbers are your shares and they will kick you out. You go to an annual meeting and they will kick you out. You take the risk, you take the profit, but they take control over the company. Get with the modern world Dr D.

    #154898
    John Day
    Participant

    About “the Kamal” being “urged to step down”, the weird movie trailer where the POTUS is bioweaponed and the VP steps in does have a female VP, but it is not the Kamal, because it doesn’t cackle.

    ​ Sasha Latypova, Moderna is substantially expanding manufacturing capacity, despite low demand for their mRNA poison…
    Moderna is building manufacturing facilities in many countries, much more capacity than they had for covid shots.​ [Why, pray tell?]
    https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/moderna-is-substantially-expanding

    ​ Sasha linked to this Aussie site: October Surprise: ‘Bioterrorism’? Should we fear the WHO – or the USA?
    The trailer for the new “Biodefense” movie – just released by Washington D.C! – is summarized on YouTube as follows :
    ​ After the President is incapacitated due to a bioterrorism attack during a National Security speech, the Vice President must step up to lead a unified response as ​the biological threat quickly spreads across the country.
    ​ Put in context, does this official 2024 “movie trailer” brought to you by Senator Lieberman and his biodefense co-commissioners – depicting a “bioterrorism attack” and subsequent epidemic across America this fall – prophetically predict the impending “next pandemic” that Bill Gates and Co repeatedly warn about?
    ​ Is this “the next phony baloney crisis to put Americans back where they belong”, to quote the “Center for Disease Disinformation” guy from The Simpsons?
    https://democracymanifest.substack.com/p/october-surprise-bioterrorism

    #154899
    John Day
    Participant

    I must side with aspnaz that “Financial asset markets” are a casino and people who take financial risk and have a claim to a percentage of profits are not titled-owners at all. Ellen Brown:

    “The Great Taking”: How They Can Own It All

    Casino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another ‘Lehman Moment’?

    #154900
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks Red: Old, reliable cars don’t talk to their distant “masters” about you.

    #154901
    Oroboros
    Participant

    They are beginning to militarize the transportation system starting in NYC with the subway, then Philadelphia and spreading to any other majority Blue States first.

    Bus systems will be next. Martial law as needed in baby steps.

    When the word go down for the millions of illegals of military age to start chaos and mayhem, the National Guards in Blue States will be told to stand down so as to wind up the murder and madness to a fever pitch.

    Red States will not follow, they will be islands of law and order.

    Other things like the electric grid and water systems and highways could become unusable with relatively little effort.

    Hell, Duh’merica’s infrastructure barely functions in many states as is.

    The election will be “postponed” until “order” is restored.

    For god sake, the Overlords are telegraphing this in their clumsy ham-handed way right now.

    So even if elections can go off relatively smoothly in Red State, they can’t in Blue States so no electoral vote majority can be achieved.

    Simple as that.

    .

    #154902
    Dr. D
    Participant

    I just said. Stop participating. If 85% of owners said they need registered in their name, they’d be run over. If they refused, the market would be discredited. No one will even ask.

    If they were discredited, all money leaves stock shares, their market falls they go broke, can’t HFT rig, and say Goulds Pumps starts issuing shares directly off-market, privately. People fear both stocks AND the US$, leave them, and buy gold. Like has happened every other time in the known universe.

    Let the bank try. THEY ARE MY AGENT. If I refuse to en-Agent them as my financial fiduciary and invest in local town houses instead, they can get stuffed. They’re screwed. They have no business model, no profits, and collapse. WE are in the drivers seat. WE are in charge. And not only are WE the financial market, WE are also the government.

    That’s why I used the Amish as an example. Why are they getting rich hand over fist and expanding? A: No JP Morgan. No Sachs. If they want a barn raised they loan it themselves, to themselves, and they take their own interest. YOU can do this. THEY cannot stop you. YOU can buy with cash, not card. Heck, you can own crypto and make 1,000% in “DogWithHat” coin. But you won’t so why complain? Clearly you all love it more than your mother, so kiss Citi on the lips for me.

    I guess the modern thing is, “Everything Old is New Again.”

    #154903
    zerosum
    Participant

    Count and Compare
    disinformation and misinformation propaganda campaign against former President Trump.

    disinformation and misinformation propaganda campaign against Putin.

    Find Peace
    ————-
    https://sputnikglobe.com/20240318/wests-aggression-unites-russian-people-behind-putin—ex-us-state-department-analyst–1117396141.html

    West’s Aggression Unites Russian People Behind Putin – ex-US State Department Analyst

    “This is a great day for Russia,” …. One, Two, Three, …..

    Recent revelations of longtime CIA involvement with the Kiev regime have since proven the Russian president’s claims.
    A fierce information war has been waged against Moscow in recent years, with observers saying the West’s attempts to discredit Russia’s presidential election represent the latest intensification of the campaign.
    ——————

    Vladimir Zelensky is one of the “greatest salesmen” he has ever known, – Trump

    ———
    read the fine print,

    “They [Estonians and other EU members] are sending their scraps to Ukraine and later buying brand new war materials for themselves, using EU money,” Politico writes.

    https://sputnikglobe.com/20240317/european-peace-fund-stoking-war-in-ukraine-as-scheming-eu-governments-take-advantage-1117385528.html
    European ‘Peace Fund’ Stoking War in Ukraine as Scheming EU Governments Take Advantage
    ———–
    Pulitzer Prize-winning WaPo politics columnist Kathleen Parker subjected Vice President Harris to sharp criticism this week.

    inane, rambling remarks and a laugh that erupts from nowhere about nothing obvious to others.”

    Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, … may try to return to politics if Biden and Harris completely lose steam.
    —————-
    Path to green transformation with no carbon energy
    living in longhouses with open fires on the floor.

    #154904
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Tay-Sachs Disease discriminates against the Jews….Ashkenazi type and…….wait for it…… the Amish, far less so, but an odd “connection” nonetheless. Autosomal recessive requires inbreeding to express those recessive genes in an unfortunate individual. However I haven’t mentioned the Catholics yet. There I just did.

    Inborn errors of metabolism and lysosomal storage diseases. Can someone else expound upon the health of Amish children and their culture’s recent discovery of neocapitalists methods? I’d like to compare your data to the direct observation of my neighbors.

    #154905
    John Day
    Participant

    A 26-year-old Haitian national has been charged with raping a 14-year-old girl at a Massachusetts hotel being used to house illegal immigrants under the Gov. Maura Healey administration.

    Cory Alvarez was arraigned on the charges of child rape on Thursday, March 14, at the Hingham District Court. The alleged assault took place at the Comfort Inn in Rockland, according to a press release issued by police. Rockland is located about 22 miles south of Boston….
    Lt. McDonald said that Mr. Alvarez, the victim, and her family are among the illegal immigrants being housed at the Rockland hotel.

    The attack in Massachusetts has drawn national outrage with some levying blame against President Joe Biden for it.

    “Biden flew this illegal dirtbag into our Country,” Congressman Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee) wrote on X. “No border, no budget. Shut it down.”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/haitian-national-arraigned-rape-14-year-old-girl-massachusetts-hotel

    #154906

    For real?
    RFK, jr picking the ex mrs Brin?

    #154907
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Ex-Elon Musk consort

    #154908
    John Day
    Participant

    Elon Musk says he “never had sexual relations with that woman”, or something to that effect.

    #154909
    John Day
    Participant

    @Zerosum & V. Arnold: Do explain about the dots in the circles, please.

    #154910
    zerosum
    Participant

    I had forgotten most of the following.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle
    A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is called the radius.
    The Egyptian Rhind papyrus, dated to 1700 BCE, gives a method to find the area of a circle. The result corresponds to
    256/81
    (3.16049…) as an approximate value of π.[3]

    #154911
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    I can’t really see what’s so appealing about RFK Jr’s VP pick Nicole Shanahan Other than being a beautiful billionaire Chinese spy with a successful side hustle of fucking multi-billionaire Tech Tycoons, and who’s grandfather’s family owned Macau, China, she’s just another plain vanilla no-where girl who raised herself up from food stamps and waitressing to become the richest VP Candidate in American history, and the youngest, too, by a healthy spread of 25 years.( Kamala Harris, at age 59 has been the youngest so far).

    Go figure.

    #154912
    John Day
    Participant

    @Zerosum:
    The dot need not be the center of the circle, and circles overlying other circles are still circles. Those did look like circles to my unaided eyes.
    Are they not?

    @DBS: She seems like she has no real applicable experience to be VP, huh? What’s special?
    Money, just money? This is very odd. RFK Jr. needs a VP choice who is also palatable to the Libertarian Party, since he will probably have to be the Libertarian nominee to get on all 50 ballots (at this rate).

    #154913
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The invisible bottleneck in AI is not the hardware and software. It is the data. AI systems require almost incomprehensibly vast streams of data in order to interact with an ever changing real environment. Any exponential increase in AI functionality will of necessity require even MORE exponentially vast increases of raw data input.

    That can’t happen, because the hardware and software requirements for gathering and directing the increased data gathering and processing will always (indeed MUST) become larger and more demanding at a rate that is exponentially faster than the AI hardware and software can grow its ability to manage the increasing data flow.

    I don’t think there’s any way around that math. For example, consider how many TRILLIONS of man hours, dollars and data bits that it has consumed so far, just to reach the pathetically clunky, delicate, error prone and fantastically EXPENSIVE AI/Robotic crap that is SOOOO bad that it can only be “showcased” by stage magicians using heavily edited video and seriously manipulated simulations?

    I call bullshit on the whole AI claptrap dog and pony show. That shit don’t work for shit, and its only getting worse. It’s a scam, folks. A bubble. A con.

    #154914
    zerosum
    Participant

    John Day
    Pretend that you are an ant walking around a shape of your choice.
    Will you be able to always be an equal distance from the center of that shape that you chose?

    #154915
    John Day
    Participant

    Making Assumptions https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/making-assumptions

    Bye-bye Carbon, The Honest Sorcerer
    UK emissions in 2023 fell to lowest level since 1879. But why is that so? Are we on a path to a green Nirvana, or something entirely different is going on?​ …
    Carbon
    ​..Missing entirely from the conversation around both emissions and economic growth is the fact that this is what happens when a country is running out of cheap and easy to access carbon, like easy to mine coal, or oil and gas gushing out from a well. Take a glance at the chart above once again.​..
    ..The sudden rush of oil from the North Atlantic however, could not possibly counterbalance the then already ongoing deindustrialization of the island nation, and thus only made a few people richer. North Sea oil duly produced a smaller secondary peak in emissions, something which eventually fizzled out during the early 2000’s when all the rich pockets of oil started to produce that ominous slurping sound.
    ​ UK emissions are in a free fall ever since. The reasons were the same with coal: energy economics. While there were plenty more hydrocarbons beneath the North Sea, they were found in ever deeper, ever smaller, ever more remote pockets — requiring drilling more wells, more frequently. The energy needed to be invested into (and payed for) obtaining them simply did not, and will not ​be worth it.​..
    ..78% of Britain’s primary energy still comes from fossil fuels, mostly oil and gas. Mind you, it could not possibly be in any other way: “renewables” are an intermittent source of electricity, and thus wholly unable to power agriculture and transportation, let alone the manufacturing of steel, cement, plastics or fertilizers — the four pillars of civilization — which Brits still use in large quantities…
    ..As an iron law of modernity, a fall in CO2 emissions equals a fall in real economic output; leading to the same process what we can observe now all across Europe in general, and Germany in particular. An economic decline, which could be masked only temporarily by globalization, and an overvalued currency propped up by foreign investments in the banking sector, or an increasingly financialized economy. This is why oil consumption has a statistically perfect correlation with GDP​…
    ..Shutting down industry, then importing everything which is necessary to maintain modernity does not solve a thing…
    ​..We are facing a world-wide affordability crisis when it comes to hydrocarbons. Without going into excess debts (which has become all the more expensive with higher interest rates) not even rich nations like the UK could afford to by more oil and gas. Smaller ones are already being bankrupted by these forces, as we speak.​..
    ..It looks like oil majors are playing a game of ‘last man standing’. Instead of investing in oil exploration and expanding production, they are buying up each other’s resources in the Permian (a now maturing shale play) and the Starbroek near the shores of Guyana.​.. In fact, these two plays are rather the exception than the norm; for the rest of the world production struggles to remain flat. The Starbroek and the Permian are the last two remaining areas where oil production could be grown for a relatively modest investment…
    ​..Simply put: we have run out of the easy to access stuff, requiring low to modest energy investments to get.​..
    ..The issue with deep water (as you might have already guessed) ​is that such oil takes much more energy to obtain: cannibalizing most of the gains made by opening such a field…
    ..Not everything is “oil” that is reported as such. Real petroleum production still remains below its all time high reached in November 2018. The additions are coming from natural gas liquids and other products which are absolutely no substitute for oil. It’s like reporting wheat production together with rapeseed harvests: one does not substitute the other…
    ..As easy to drill reserves deplete and are being replaced with ever harder to get resources, the energy cost of oil will keep on rising, and rising, and rising…
    ..So is it good news then, that while traditional petroleum production stagnate, we see a steady increase in ‘liquids’ production…? If you ask me, I see this as a warning sign that we have started to cannibalize our energy production, and turn everything into a liquid fuel to keep the economy from crashing…
    ..I cannot emphasize enough, that without diesel​ [which can only be refined from traditional “oil”] there is absolutely no modern economy — no agriculture, no mining, no transportation — and it has no real substitute.​.. The ever increasing energy inputs going into creating this indispensable fuel — either through the relentlessly increasing energy cost of drilling or blending in more and more synthetic- and biofuels — will eventually lead to peak diesel affordability. This will mean, first of all, less long distance transport and trade, then second, more expensive minerals (making electrification and “renewables” even less possible to achieve), not to mention the innumerable shortages of just about anything from wood to grains, or from microchips to chemical products.​..
    ..It should not come as a surprise then that the much touted “renewable” and nuclear powered green economy remains hopelessly tied to affordable diesel (from mining resources to delivering everything on site), and other fossil fuels powering the creation of all the necessary steel, cement and the plethora of other technologies. These “new” energy resources are nothing but a desperate attempt to buy more time — to watch more cat videos while getting rich on Bitcoin…
    ..The fall in CO2 emissions, while good news for the future of the global climate, signals a turning point in the life of this civilization. The UK, Germany, and Europe in general are just the first canaries to kick the bucket in this rapidly depleting coal mine we call the ‘economy’…
    https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/bye-bye-carbon

    ​ “We’re One Event Away From A 1970s-Style Stagflation Explosion…”
    “The years 2023-2024 look a lot like 1973-1974.”
    ​ The history books remind us,1973’s oil embargo shook the global energy market. It also reset geopolitics, reordered the global economy, and a multipolar world saw energy weaponized. After kissing 6% in 1970, in Q1 of 1973, inflation as measured by CPI danced just below 4%, much like today, central bankers were doing the Michael Jackson moonwalk in celebratory form. Then, in bloodcurdling fashion in late 1974, CPI breached 12%.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/were-one-event-away-1970s-style-stagflation-explosion

    #154916
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ Scott Ritter: Putin’s ‘Dedicated Work’ Added to Reinvigorated Russia
    “Vladimir Putin was a product of the 1990s. He saw the reality of the 1990s and he understood that Russia could never allow itself to go back to those times. He understood that if Russia didn’t break free of the path that it was headed on during the decade of the 90s, there would be no Russia,” Ritter concluded.
    https://sputnikglobe.com/20240317/scott-ritter-putins-dedicated-work-added-to-reinvigorated-russia-1117362285.html

    ​ German Lawmaker In Blistering Ukraine Speech To Parliament: “Have You All Lost Your Minds?”
    ​ Sa​hra Wagenknecht was long well-known as one of the leading members of the Left Party (Die Linke), but currently she’s head of the recently formed Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice. She recently gave a stirring and rare, courageous speech warning against the German government being on the warpath with Russia, also as a handful of European leaders, with France’s Macron leading the way, even contemplating sending Western troops to Ukraine as a viable ‘option’.
    ​ “Have you all lost your minds?” she questioned members of the Bundestag. She said in the speech: “The Scholz government has already crossed one red line after the other. In the meantime we reached the point where German Air Force officers calmly debate how to destroy Russian targets with German cruise missiles…” She continued, “The scandal is that we have reached a point where it has become normal to have such debates.”
    ​ Wagenknecht went on: “Our grandiose military experts from the Greens have been telling us for two years now what ‘game changer’ we have to deliver next so that Ukraine can win this war.” The hawks “dream” about using German missiles to “destroy ministries in Moscow,” she said. “And when the pope speaks out against this madness, saying that Kiev should negotiate rather than drive the country to suicide, he was called a ‘Putin troll’.”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/german-lawmaker-blistering-ukraine-speech-parliament-have-you-all-lost-your-minds

    ​ US is not a democracy – Putin
    ​ The US has become a global laughing stock by criticizing democratic processes in other nations while suppressing a presidential candidate in its own election, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has claimed.
    Speaking to journalists in Moscow early on Monday morning, shortly after preliminary results indicated he would be reelected with 87% of the vote in the Russian presidential election, Putin stated that the “whole world is laughing at what is happening” in the US.
    “We are behaving with more restraint than their opponents in other countries, but this is just a catastrophe, not a democracy – that’s what it is,” the Russian leader added.
    Putin claimed that the current US administration is using all its resources to attack a candidate for this year’s presidential election, seemingly referring to Donald Trump.
    https://swentr.site/news/594400-putin-us-elections-democracy/

    ​ 7/31/15 , Jimmy Carter: U.S. Is an ‘Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery’
    The 39th president said the ‘Citizens United’ ruling ‘violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system’
    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-63262/

    ​ ‘Burden to Democratic Ticket’: Kamala Harris Urged to Step Down Ahead of 2024 Election​ [So ​Hillary goes in? What ​will Harris be offered for that move?​]
    A Washington Post editorial called on the US vice president to step aside as she has become a “burden” to the Democratic ticket.
    https://sputnikglobe.com/20240317/burden-to-democratic-ticket-kamala-harris-urged-to-step-down-ahead-of-2024-election–1117389568.html

    #154917
    John Day
    Participant

    UNICEF Says Israel Has Killed Over 13,000 Children in Gaza
    The agency says many are suffering from malnutrition and do not ‘even have the energy to cry’

    UNICEF Says Israel Has Killed Over 13,000 Children in Gaza

    ​ Human Rights Watch called for international sanctions on “Israel” due to its non-compliance with ICJ orders to prevent genocide.
    ​ “States must impose sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel, to compel it to comply with the order issued by the International Court of Justice,” the organization wrote, noting that “Tel Aviv” has failed to comply with the court’s orders and has not worked to deliver aid and basic services to Gaza’s residents.
    https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/human-rights-watch-calls-for-sanctions–arms-embargo-on–isr

    ​ Israeli PM adamant on invading Rafah despite world pressure
    ​ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he would keep on with the military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, where aid agencies say famine is looming, while ceasefire talks were set to resume.​ Netanyahu told a Cabinet meeting that Israel would push into Rafah.
    https://www.arabnews.com/node/2478181/middle-east

    ​ Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi said Sunday his country will not allow the forced displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.​ (“Not allow” how?)
    Sisi held talks with European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the sidelines of an Egyptian-European summit in Cairo.
    “Egypt rejects the forced displacement of Palestinians to its lands and will not allow it,” the Egyptian leader said as cited by a presidential statement.
    Sisi also underlined the need for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/egypt-says-won-t-allow-forced-displacement-of-palestinians-from-gaza/3166847

    ​ Archbishop Viganò: ‘The Globalist Cabal Want To Establish the Kingdom of the Antichrist on Earth’
    ‘These murderers will soon find themselves answering for their crimes, if not before the tribunal of the world, then certainly before God,’ Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò wrote.

    ‘The Globalist Cabal Want To Establish the Kingdom of the Antichrist on Earth’

    #154918
    John Day
    Participant

    UK Advises Ukraine to Stay on Defensive in East and Focus on Targeting Crimea
    British soldiers are in Ukraine helping fire Storm Shadow missiles, which can hit targets deep inside Crimea

    UK Advises Ukraine to Stay on Defensive in East and Focus on Targeting Crimea

    ​ Ukrainian forces have ramped up attacks on the Russian city of Belgorod, across the border from Kharkov/Kharkiv, using western missiles with cluster bombs on civilians, to force Russia to attack in the northeast, not in the Odessa region, which would land-lock Ukraine.
    Putin allowed the creation of a sanitary zone in Ukraine due to attacks on the border area
    ​ President Vladimir Putin admitted that, given the “tragic events” associated with the shelling of border regions, Russia “at some point” will have to create a sanitary zone in Ukraine. This is how he answered the question of whether he considers it necessary to annex the Kharkov region to the Russian Federation in order to ensure the security of the Belgorod region.
    ​ Vladimir Putin said that he is not ready to talk about plans to annex certain territories. “It may become necessary to create a security zone, which will be quite difficult to overcome using the weapons that the enemy uses, primarily foreign-made,” Mr. Putin told reporters.
    https://www-kommersant-ru.translate.goog/doc/6578669?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

    ​Dane Wigington, Geoengineering Watch:
    ​ “Severe storms bring heavy snow to the Rockies and baseball-sized hail to the Midwest” (NBC News). Chemical ice nucleation cloud seeding operations are a core component for unstable air masses and massive hail. Late this week snow was also falling in Arizona at above freezing temperatures while it was raining in north eastern Canada. Does that make any sense from a meteorological perspective? The short answer is no, it doesn’t, unless geoengineering is considered. “Fruit chaos is coming”, that new headline from the Atlantic is referring to the crop crushing effect of record warm temperatures immediately followed by freak flash freezes. This devastating scenario is occurring all over the world. Is it just the result of nature? Or something else altogether?​ …
    ​..During the build-up of coalition troops in Saudi Arabia the Air Force flew tankers at high altitudes over Iraq (shortly after taking out most of their ground to air missile defenses), and they created record shattering torrential rain in that desert nation, by tapping into a previously re-directed atmospheric river. The Republican Guard armored units were caught off-guard with traditional sand tracks on their tanks and sand tires on their artillery pieces. Plus, they were all hidden from view as they sat in massive dug-out trenches facing the Saudi Arabian front lines. Those trenches became flooded and most of their armored units became bogged down and could not move quick enough to defend against the well-planned coalition offensive.
    ​ Mainly because, the coalition forces moved under the cover of their heavy rain makers and GPS/radar jamming AWACS planes. Allowing them to attack from the rear of the dug-in Republican Guard forces. Their tanks and artillery units had also been modified with mud tracks and tires that scooped off the wet, heavy clogging sand masses and allowed them to move with incredible agility.
    ​ The largest tank and artillery battle in history was won by the Coalition Army (even though they were outnumbered ten to one), because climate engineering paved the way for a history making showdown in the deserts of Iraq.

    Geoengineering Watch Global Alert News, March 16, 2024, #449

    ​ Niger Severs Ties With US Military After Alarm Raised Junta Will Supply Uranium To Iran
    ​ Last year’s coup saw a military-led government come to power, which from the start signaled rough and uncertain times ahead for US-Niger relations. A Saturday statement by Nigerien junta spokesman Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane said, “Niger regrets the intention of the American delegation to deny the sovereign Nigerien people the right to choose their partners and types of partnerships capable of truly helping them fight against terrorism.”
    ​ This charge of the US not respecting the West African nation’s sovereignty comes in reaction to recent Western intelligence claims that Niger has been engaged in secret talks and deal-making to grant Iran access to its uranium. US officials have also bitterly complained about Niger cozying up to Moscow.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/niger-severs-ties-us-military-after-alarm-raised-junta-will-supply-uranium-iran

    ​ Don’t drive a car that’s a snitch, right? And don’t look at your phone while you drive! Thanks Red. Smart Cars Reporting to Govt – Insurance Rates up 26% YoY
    ​ Car insurance rates in the US have spiked by around 26% overall in the past year. The government has been pushing for everyone to go electric and trade, spending tens of thousands more for an electric vehicle, which always comes equipped with monitoring software. Even older cars with basic features like OnStar have tracking devices that report your driving behavior to the manufacturers who share your data with insurance companies and, ultimately, the government.

    Smart Cars Reporting to Govt – Insurance Rates up 26% YoY

    #154919
    John Day
    Participant

    The Public Bank That Wasn’t: New Jersey’s Excursion into Public Banking​ , Ellen Brown [Risky private banks are blocking the formation of ​this public comp​etit​or.]
    ​ In 2017, Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, made the establishment of a public, state-owned bank a centerpiece issue during his run for New Jersey governor. He regularly championed public banking in speeches, town halls and campaign commercials. He won the race, and the nation’s second state-owned bank following the stellar model of the Bank of North Dakota (BND) appeared to be in view.​..
    ..The report recommends creation of a public bank as a successor to the SIIF but asserts that the public bank should not be a depository institution. This recommendation is repeated throughout the report.​ Many authorities confirm that a financial institution is not a “bank” unless it takes deposits…
    ​..Experienced bankers make its loans free from board or political influence and from conflicts of interest. BND’s principal depositor, the state of North Dakota, by law must keep its funds in the bank, thus protecting BND from a run on its deposits. The Standard & Poor’s credit rating for the BND is A+/stable. The S&P report states, “BND has one of the highest risk-adjusted capital (RAC) ratios for rated U.S. banks.”
    ​ BND’s profitability has helped strengthen community banks and credit unions in North Dakota by making loans in partnership rather than in competition with them. In the Great Recession, it also bought loans from stressed local banks to prevent bank failures and keep the economy running smoothly. BND operates with very low overhead and stresses productive and local lending rather than lending to buy existing assets. The latter is the sort of speculative, nonproductive, bubble-creating lending engaged in by the giant commercial banks from which Gov. Murphy originally sought to divest. North Dakota’s revenues are safer in its own bank than in the largest Wall Street banks, which “insure” their capital with interconnected derivatives backed by rehypothecated collateral, a practice that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has declared to be “unsafe and unsound.”​…
    ​..Whether the final stage of New Jersey’s efforts will be a true public bank, as advocated by Gov. Murphy in 2017, remains to be seen. Meanwhile other states and cities are making impressive progress toward that goal. For updates, see the Public Banking Institute newsletter.

    The Public Bank That Wasn’t: New Jersey’s Excursion into Public Banking

    ​ Meryl Nass MD works to simplify the intentionally complex WHO Pandemic Treaty changes and International Health Regulation changes, which hand unchecked supranational global power to an unelected bureaucrat.
    ​ The WHO Director-General is about to become the World Health Dictator, unless we stop him!
    The WHO’s 194 member nations are being asked to vote on two documents this May that will transfer unprecedented powers to the WHO. Here’s what is happening:
    ​ A new Pandemic Treaty is being proposed that would legalize worldwide use of experimental, liability-free vaccines, impose health censorship and much more.
    Major amendments to the International Health Regulations are being proposed that give the WHO the power to impose worldwide lockdowns, vaccine mandates and much more.
    ​ If either one passes it will be a massive attack on our civil rights, Constitutions, and our national sovereignty and individual autonomy.
    https://merylnass.substack.com/p/okay-editors-what-about-this-simplified

    ​ Cancer deaths in the United States spiked in 2021 and 2022 among 15-44 year-olds “in large excess over trend,” marking jumps of 5.6% and 7.9% respectively vs. a rise of 1.7% in 2020, according to a new preprint study from deep-dive research firm, Phinance Technologies.
    ​ The report, which relies on data from the CDC, paints a troubling picture.
    ​ “We show a rise in excess mortality from neoplasms reported as underlying cause of death, which started in 2020 (1.7%) and accelerated substantially in 2021 (5.6%) and 2022 (7.9%). The increase in excess mortality in both 2021 (Z-score of 11.8) and 2022 (Z-score of 16.5) are highly statistically significant (extreme events),” according to the authors.
    ​ That said, co-author, David Wiseman, PhD (who has 86 publications to his name), leaves the cause an open question – suggesting it could either be a “novel phenomenon,” Covid-19, or the Covid-19 vaccine.​ [One ​cause is innumerably more likely than the other two, though.]
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/extreme-events-us-cancer-deaths-spiked-2021-and-2022-large-excess-over-trend

    Concerns regarding Transfusions of Blood Products Derived from Genetic Vaccine Recipients and Proposals for Specific Measures
    https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202403.0881/v1

    ​ Psychoactive drug ibogaine effectively treats traumatic brain injury in special ops military vets​ (Rewiring the human brain is disorienting and exhausting, though.)
    Stanford Medicine researchers find that ibogaine, a plant-based psychoactive compound, safely led to improvements in depression, anxiety and functioning among veterans with traumatic brain injuries.
    https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2024/01/ibogaine-ptsd.html#:~:text=Ibogaine%20is%20a%20naturally%20occurring,in%20spiritual%20and%20healing%20ceremonies.

    #154920
    John Day
    Participant

    @Zerosum: So you contend that there are no circles?
    In that case there are no dots within circles depicted, but there appear to be circles, so one takes it at face-value or not.

    #154921
    Oroboros
    Participant

    .

    #154922
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Color me Shocked

    .

    #154923
    Oroboros
    Participant

    NATO in the Process of Dying – Larry C. Johnson – Nima

    Hurrah!

    The fish fish rots from the head down

    #154924
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Why does the U.S. Government want Jewish-faith-based individuals to exercise Corporate Governance over Tik-Tok the company?

    What could possibly be the benefit to shareholders, monopolists, bank “agents” or the consumer public in such an arrangement between Tik-Tok and an exceptionally narrow segment of the world’s population?

    Do the Amish not have the buying power and leadership/management acumen under recently acknowledged successful foray into capitalist endeavors?

    Asking for a friend

    #154925
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Putin says U.S. is a Joke with No Democracy at All

    Amen Brother!

    I just like hearing it said out loud by a real world leader and historic figure

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/YFzeQvCT8Gwk/

    #154926
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @JohnDay

    Re Nicole Shanahan

    That girl is a straight-up honey pot hot stuff ho-spy (albeit a high class good looking one) of the Cabal (Zionist, CCP, CIA). Based on her resume’ and statistics I reckon that she’s one their best, too. And not just hot stuff, either. Dangerous stuff. If RFK, Jr does choose her then he’s as good as compost if he gets elected. Those Kennedys better up their game if they keep insisting on playing in the Bigs with their eyes closed. What will the score be when Bobby Jr meets an untimely end? Cabal 5 Kennedy’s 0 ?

    #154927
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Dr. D said

    I just said. Stop participating. If 85% of owners said they need registered in their name, they’d be run over. If they refused, the market would be discredited. No one will even ask.

    I agree in principle but in practice that would not be easy.

    Looking back on how we got here, I see all the trouble starting with Reagan (USA) and Thatcher (UK) who were around at the introduction of electronic trading, Nasdaq then NYSE and LSE, and who took that opportunity to deregulate finance, resulting in a huge expansion of the investment industry. Their problem was that they did not do a good job and the result is what we have now, a finance industry that is gambling on steroids, attracts the greediest brains, produces nothing of real value but is a huge GDP contributor, has been growing while the uncool manufacturing sector was exported to China.

    I remember towards the end of the Thatcher years we were starting to see “outrage” at the massive increases in remuneration that some CEOs were being awarded by their shareholders. Why was this happening, why was a CEO who used to earn 500k per year suddenly worth 30 million a year? It was a trend but it was not the man in the street who was voting for this, something else was going on and it continues to this day.

    Now all CEOs are receiving 500 times the pay of a lifetime shopfloor worker (the people who do stuff and live the consequences of their bad decisions) and 40 times the pay of the deputy CEO. After the Thatcher years we started to see that CEOs were starting to bounce between companies, loyalty to the company was now not a thing, these were not lifelong workers in the factory who had reached the top, no, some supermarket CEO had moved to some vehicle manufacturing company for more pay. Why was this happening, why were helicopter CEOs being put at the tops of these companies and who was voting for this, certainly it was not the little guy in the street.

    The huge increases in transaction volumes mean’t that loads of people were making money out of finance fees, but the traders seemed to not care any more about p/e, instead it was all about price and the superstar CEOs were the ones who got the stock high, whether by lying in their reports (with the aid of their accountants) or through buybacks. Of course, during this time you will always attract more people into the now-huge financial industry, hence the rise of hedge funds and all sorts of dubious vehicles. As money became cheaper the price/earning disappeared entirely and it became all about the crowd and today’s headlines.

    The operation of the company does not matter to the shareholders any more because the shareholders are gambling on a horse, at the end of the race they do not care whether the horse dies, only that it won the race and made them money. Companies are slow moving objects yet their stock prices can fly all over the place on a daily basis, not because they are earning less, but because the price is not attached to the performance of the company.

    And guess what? The CEO’s remuneration is not tied to the earnings of the company, they are tied to the stock price. All CEOs these days are paid in stock options, they have huge salaries because that has put them in the pockets of the huge investment firms – Blackrock et al – and will do whatever they need to do to cash in on their luck. Running an excellent company does not matter any more, the company has to be good enough to keep people thinking it is as solid as it was before Reagan and Thatcher, but more importantly it has to be seen to be trendy with the crowd.

    Musk is a genius CEO, not because he is able to build stuff with all that government money, but because he can play this game all day everyday. I remember Dr D once asking how does Musk manage so many companies and also have so much time for X? Well the answer is simple, his job is writing on X, his job is to keep his shares prices up there, he hires other people to setup and run the companies, he does not do that himself, his job is pure share marketing, making his brand popular so that the share price is obsurdly high. That way he is able to bring in funding for his companies and is able to build a loyal following of people looking for somewhere cool to park their money.

    #154928
    aspnaz
    Participant

    John Day said

    @Zerosum: So you contend that there are no circles?
    In that case there are no dots within circles depicted, but there appear to be circles, so one takes it at face-value or not.

    Dr John, I shall put you out of your misery. Read the title on the image very carefully …

    How many circles contain the black dots

    None of the circles contain all the black dots, so the answer is none.

    I am just assuming this is Zerosum’s logic.

    #154929
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Dr D said

    Everything is somebody else’s problem. Everything is somebody else’s fault. And this isn’t at you, Aspnaz, it’s like burrowing out and expanding a detail we all say daily.

    Exactly. When I say that Americans fucked up America – you had a good thing going now look at it – I am not expecting any one, such as yourself, to fix it, what I am saying is that Americans fucked it up, nobody else did it. Kind of an obvious statement, but it is true despite people seeming to deny that they did anything. If people had demanded voting rights with their shares then manufacturing would almost certainly still be a big thing in the USA and CEOs would be earning something less than theft-level remuneration. What-ifs don’t fix it, but we cannot deny what has happened and hopefully learn from it.

    #154930
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    JDay, Moderna is expanding because MRNA is now going into everything, a dental shot to numb your gums has it. Transhumanism via jewpharma. Musk, like Gates did’nt do shit, installed frontmen, well paid actors. playing a role. Intel agencies and the bankers that run them set up and run these companies. We are all in a theatrical illusion. The script written 100 years ago.

    #154931
    TAE Summary
    Participant

    How many circles contain the black dots

    * In reality there are no circles, only approximations of circles.

    * And there is no black only and approximation of black.

    * Is it even a question? There’s no punctuation. It could mean “How many circles? contain the black dots!”

    * Which brings us to its real meaning: “How many circles built by black pixels for the benefit of mostly white pixels have a token black dot in them to assuage their white circle guilt!”

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