Jan 162023
 


James Proudfoot Sun on a House, Dieppe 1937

 

We’re One Tragedy Away From Pitchforks And Torches (Jeftovic)
Temporary Morgues are Being Built Across UK Due to Excess Deaths (GP)
European Parliament Poised To Ban Pfizer Representatives (De Lauzun)
Impeach ‘War Criminal’ Biden Over Ukraine – US Democrat (RT)
The Importance of Being Biden (Turley)
McCarthy Leaves Reporters Silent With Bombshell About Eric Swalwell (TPN)
Destroying American Democracy – An Inside Job (Hoekstra)
Glug Glug, Gurgle Gurgle (Kunstler)
EU Needs ‘War Economy’ – Veteran German Diplomat (RT)
London Rejects Ukraine Helicopters Claim (RT)
NATO Promises More Heavy Weapons For Ukraine (RT)
Zelensky Aide Flip-flops On Apartment Block Blast (RT)
Zelensky Rolls Out New Anti-Russian Sanctions (RT)
Ukrainian Blogger Calls For Genocide Of All Russians (RT)

 

 

 

 

Fasting + ivermectin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1614714917554163713

 

 

 

 

RFKjr – regulators income

 

 

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1614373897067012098

 

 

 

 

Eugenics
https://twitter.com/i/status/1614689938595024896

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s going to take a long time to rebuild public trust and probably not while any incumbents are still in office.”

We’re One Tragedy Away From Pitchforks And Torches (Jeftovic)

We know now via the various Twitter Files dumps that Big Tech has been taking their orders from the government, intelligence agencies and Big Pharma (a.k.a The Pharmatrocracy) all along. Should we just assume the corporate press has been as well? This would explain why instead of undertaking Watergate level investigative reporting into legions of children, athletes and young adults suddenly dropping dead or having heart attacks, strokes and other medical emergencies, live on the air; we’re getting gaslighted about childhood asthma from natural gas stoves. I have been wondering if it is possible that the perceived increase in these reports of sudden deaths is the result of a self-perpetuating loop of increased focus on these events.

A kind of hysteria of its own. This is why since the onset of COVID, I’ve always tried to find numbers and data – then I follow that data where it leads me. Often times it’s not the same place as what I’m seeing on the television screen. Anybody can look at a graph, and provided that the data is kosher, see when something is out of whack. This one is out of Dowd’s book and sourced with CDC data is the aggregate excess mortality rate for millennials since before the pandemic. We know that the survival rate from COVID goes up dramatically as age comes down. The vast majority of COVID fatalities were in our elderly (many of whom were forced into localized outbreaks where they died locked down and alone). Two things stand out: #1) The excess death rates spike higher as the vaccines deploy, reaching their highest when mandates kick in. #2) The trend line is going the wrong direction.


[..] The disconnect between what the average person on the street is seeing happen right before their eyes and what they’re being told is happening (or not happening) by paternalistic fact-checking media propagandists will soon come to a breaking point. The only thing that can stop it is for some policymakers and pundits to start throwing the engine brake and try to get out in front of what will be an inevitable public backlash. My fear is this won’t happen. There is too much invested: the entire regime of Digital IDs and health passports was to be built atop the COVID vaccine deployment. Vaxports were supposed to be the official lubricant of The Great Reset. If it turns out that these things are not only ineffective but harmful, it will set The Fourth Industrial Revolution back decades. It’s going to take a long time to rebuild public trust and probably not while any incumbents are still in office.

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If this is true, it should be happening all over.

Temporary Morgues are Being Built Across UK Due to Excess Deaths (GP)

Now, temporary morgues are being used as overflow space by hospitals in the UK with full morgues. This news broke just days after a nationwide alert about “mortuary capacity issues” was issued by the Human Tissue Authority, the agency in charge of regulating the storage of human remains. These temporary morgues, which consist of large shipping containers, are being set up in public places like office parks, the Mirror reported. According to The Sun, vehicles from hospitals such as Salisbury District Hospital in Wiltshire and Royal Liverpool Hospital delivered bodies to the council gritting yard, which has a refrigeration unit guarded 24/7. Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust said, “We can confirm that we have opened additional mortuary capacity to accommodate an increase in need across the local community.”

“Our mortuary service operates to the national standards treating the deceased and loved ones with dignity and respect at all times regardless of location. All our additional capacity provides privacy and has 24/7 security,” it continued. Meanwhile, two additional units have been set up at Royal Liverpool University Hospital. The Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which operates the Royal Liverpool Hospital, has stated, “It is common practice for mortuaries to have purpose-built temporary systems available. “This ensures that patients continue to be treated with dignity and respect, in facilities which are equivalent to a permanent mortuary, during periods of increased demand. Two of these systems, which meet standards set out by the Human Tissue Authority, have been deployed at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital,” it continued.

It is not just UK. Funeral homes in Norway sound the alarm as they struggle to store all the dead people as a result of Norway’s skyrocketing excess mortality rate. The number of people needing funeral services in Trondheim City, Central Norway, has risen dramatically, according to the local newspaper Dagbladet Trondheim. Lars Svanholm, the fourth-generation general manager of Trondheim’s largest funeral home, Svanholm & Vigdal Gravferd, has said that the funeral home’s century-long history has never seen anything like the current number of deaths. “It is a marked increase, and we have not experienced anything like it in four generations,” Lars Svanholm told Dagbladet. “We have not had such an increase since the company started in 1922,” said Svanholm to local tv.

Sky Excess

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The only thing they can do is fire Ursula. But can they?

European Parliament Poised To Ban Pfizer Representatives (De Lauzun)

The scandal surrounding Pfizer’s contracts with the European Union over COVID vaccines has taken a new turn. The European Parliament’s COVID committee (COVI) approved on Wednesday, January 11th a proposal to ban Pfizer representatives from Parliament because of the company’s repeated lack of transparency. All political groups approved the proposal, with the exception of the EPP and Renew Europe, but their opposition was not enough to prevent the vote. The procedure has a precedent: in 2017, the agrochemical company Monsanto was also denied access to the European Parliament by the Environment Committee (ENVI) because it had refused to comply with the rule of public hearings.

For several months, many MEPs have been trying to obtain clarification on the conditions under which the European Union concluded contracts for the purchase of COVID vaccines in vain. At issue is the lack of transparency regarding the exact content of the contracts and the repeated exchanges of text messages between Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Albert Bourla systematically refused to attend COVI committee meetings in October 2022 and December 2022, triggering protests from committee members. “The EP has a right to full transparency on the details of this spending and the preliminary negotiations that led to it,” tweeted Kathleen Van Brempt, chair of the COVI committee in December.

It was international markets chair Janine Small who finally confronted the parliamentarians of the COVI committee. She assured the MEPs that the contracts were freely available to them—failing to point out that many passages had been deliberately redacted and made illegible. MEPs also had difficulty accessing the text messages exchanged between Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer during the contract negotiation phase. Janine Small said that nothing had been negotiated by SMS, and that the messages in question were simply due to the teleworking phase caused by the pandemic. These explanations did not satisfy the parliamentarians in charge of the case, who pointed to Pfizer’s clear refusal to collaborate. “I think Albert Bourla deliberately did not come, because he did not want to face the controversies,” French MEP and COVI member Véronique Trillet-Lenoir told Euractiv.

Following the COVI committee vote, a new vote must take place in the CCC (Conference of Committee Chairs), which brings together all committee chairs. Several options are on the table: the duration of the exclusion, whether the sanction will apply only to Bourla or to all Pfizer representatives, or whether it is upheld at all. The final decision should not be taken for another month.

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“There is no way Russia can lose this war and no way Ukraine and NATO can possibly win it..”

Impeach ‘War Criminal’ Biden Over Ukraine – US Democrat (RT)

Geoffrey Young, who is running for governor in the US state of Kentucky, has accused Joe Biden of committing war crimes in Ukraine and other countries, saying the president should be impeached for carrying out an illegal proxy struggle against Russia in the former Soviet republic. “I think Joe Biden (D-war criminal) should be impeached immediately for war crimes in Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, etc.,” Young said in a Twitter post. “Also for continuing the illegal proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. All US presidents since 1945 = war criminals (including Trump),” he added. Young, an MIT-trained economist who has worked as an environmental engineer in state government, made waves last year after winning the Democratic Party’s nomination for Kentucky’s District 6 congressional seat.

He vowed during the campaign to help prevent nuclear war with Russia by pursuing a “reasonable” peace plan with Moscow. He also called the Kiev regime a “Nazi puppet government” and said the CIA should be eliminated because it’s the “worst terrorist organization in the world today.” After Young won Kentucky’s Democratic primary in May, his party declined to support him in the November general election against incumbent Republican congressman Andy Barr. He alienated party leaders with his contrarian views, such as accusing Biden of recklessly provoking China, illegally deploying troops in Syria and Iraq, and making the US vulnerable to attack by becoming a “co-belligerent” with Ukraine against Russia.

Less than a week after the congressional midterms, the 66-year-old Young, who bills himself as a “peace Democrat,” announced his candidacy in Kentucky’s 2023 race for governor. He will try to unseat the incumbent Democrat, Governor Andy Beshear, whom he has accused of being a “not-yet-indicted felon.” Young has called the Ukraine conflict a lost cause for the US and NATO and faulted Biden’s administration for rejecting a peace proposal from Moscow in December 2021. “There is no way Russia can lose this war and no way Ukraine and NATO can possibly win it,” he said last week.

CNN Biden lies

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“There is no record that Joe or Jill Biden have ever sought to meet, let alone embrace, their grandchild..”

The Importance of Being Biden (Turley)

Hunter Biden’s disgraceful treatment of his daughter has long been on display in Arkansas where he long denied being her father, fought paternity, and was threatened with contempt of court over his failure to supply needed documents. After DNA testing was forced by a court, Hunter was found to be the father but he continued to resist efforts to force him to pay child support and supply financial records. Recently, Lunden Roberts sought to have a surname change for her daughter to Biden. Even after his long and abusive treatment of his daughter in court, Hunter Biden’s opposition is breathtaking. He opposes his daughter using his name and says that, if she does, she will never have a “peaceful existence.” Of course, Biden did not feel that way with his other four children. They are all true Bidens and living peaceful existences.

It is only Navy Joan who he does not want to bear the family name. Hunter’s concern for Navy Joan’s peaceful existence is a bit odd since he has reportedly never even seen his daughter after fighting for years to deny his paternal status and child support. While living in a luxurious mansion in Malibu, Hunter continued to fight his obligations under child support and requested in September 2022 to have the payments lowered, bemoaning how his “financial circumstances” were difficult for him. The public pays more for his security in his mansion than he does in monthly support for his daughter. Hunter is asking Circuit Court Judge Holly Meyer to deny Navy Joan the ability to use her father’s surname and claiming that it is in her best interest. The filing is so self-serving and transparently dishonest that it does what was once thought impossible: reach a new low for Hunter.

All of his reported selfies having sex and doing drugs with prostitutes were shocking. His attacks on his former sister-in-law, Hallie Biden, widow of the deceased brother (with whom Hunter later had a romantic relationship), were appalling. However, the craven effort to deny this child his name reaches a level of cad that stands unrivaled. The position of Hunter in court has been disgraceful, but the media has largely ignored the matter. It has also ignored the utter lack of support from President Joe Biden and the First Lady, who tellingly omitted a stocking for Navy Joan as one of their grandchildren. (The dog and cat did receive stockings). There is no record that Joe or Jill Biden have ever sought to meet, let alone embrace, their grandchild. The President has, however, sought to deny the child security protection (despite his son’s concern for her “peaceful existence”).

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Too big a headline without the details. “If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee..”

McCarthy Leaves Reporters Silent With Bombshell About Eric Swalwell (TPN)

On Thursday while speaking with reporters, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy left reporters speechless after he defended his decision to keep California Democrats Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff off of the House Intelligence Committee. “If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy said, leaving reporters silent. This suggests damning bombshell information about Swalwell’s handlings that we will hopefully learn in the coming weeks. “And you’re going to tell me other Democrats couldn’t fill that slot? He cannot get a security clearance in the private sector,” McCarthy said. “So would you like to give him a government clearance?”

McCarthy went on to explain that the last Congress lead by Nancy Pelosi kept Swalwell on the committee even though they were aware of the massive red flag from the FBI. “You’re going to tell me there are 200 other Democrats that couldn’t fill that slot, but they kept him on it? The only way that they even knew it came forward is when they put to nominate him to the Intel committee. And then the FBI came and told the leadership that he’s got a problem, and they kept him on. That jeopardized all of us,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also name dropped Schiff. “Adam Schiff openly lied to the American public. He told you he had proof. He told you he didn’t know the whistle blower,” McCarthy said while referring to false claims made by the California Democrat against former President Donald Trump. “He put America for four years through an impeachment that he knew was a lie.” At the same time, we had Ukraine, the same time we had Afghanistan collapse. Was that the role of the Intel committee? No,” McCarthy said. “So what I am doing with the Intel committee, bringing it back to the jurisdiction is supposed to do forward looking to keep this country safe, keep the politics out of it,” he continued.

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Good questions. But who’s going to ask them?

Destroying American Democracy – An Inside Job (Hoekstra)

The fraudulent efforts by the U.S. government, Clapper, Brennan and the 49 others — along with Hillary Clinton, her campaign committee, the Democratic National Committee and the suppression of the media and social media — to influence the public unfortunately met with some success. For almost two years, the authenticity of the material found on Hunter Biden’s laptop was questioned. Today, its authenticity has been verified; the information is real and damning. As summarized by the New York Post: “Yes that letter from the Dirty 51 had all the classic earmarks of a disinformation operation, all right – one designed to ensure Joe Biden won the presidency. And it was essentially a CIA operation, considering 43 of the 51 signatories were former CIA.”

One final example of the Intelligence Community involving itself in domestic politics comes from the recent release of the “Twitter Files.” According to tweet #20 of the third tranche released: “This post about the Hunter Biden laptop situation shows that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.” Tweet #17 states: “executives were also clearly liaising with federal enforcement and intelligence agencies about moderation of election-related content.” Finally, the FBI paid Twitter $3.5 million reportedly to “handle requests from the bureau.” We now know what happened. Twitter suppressed discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop story and suppressed conservative messaging, while at the same time it appears the FBI, DHS and the ODNI had literally had set up shop at Twitter.

The American people should be outraged. This level of collaboration between federal law enforcement and a private sector company on controlling speech is terrifying. Having our Intelligence Community, which is supposed to be focused on foreign intelligence collection, involved is even more terrifying. DNI James Clapper lying to the American people in 2013 about government surveillance of them, the promoting of the Russian hoax theory in 2017 by CIA Director Brennan, DNI Clapper, FBI Director Comey and others, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story by 51 former intelligence professionals, and the close working arrangement between the FBI, DHS and the ODNI in 2020-2022 raises a staggering series of questions:

Can our government, law enforcement, and the Intelligence Community still be trusted? Have those federal government agencies literally weaponized law enforcement and intelligence against political opponents in the U.S.? Has more than one solitary person — former FBI attorney Kevin Clinemith, for altering an email — been held accountable for these egregious abuses of power? Why wasn’t there a more powerful response from the Intelligence Community and the law enforcement community about the disinformation from the 51 former intelligence professionals? Who authorized the cozy relationship between law enforcement, the intelligence community with Twitter? Who in these government agencies reviewed and approved of the output and decisions coming from these joint efforts? Were political appointees in the review loop? Who has the records, notes and decisions that emanated from these groups?

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Good questions. But who’s going to ask them?

Glug Glug, Gurgle Gurgle (Kunstler)

Summon the ghost of James Comey to ‘splain’ the finer points of RussiaGate: how he fell for Hillary Clinton’s Steele Dossier prank; how he used Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman to leak info about confidential meetings with Mr. Trump; whether he ordered Peter Strzok’s sandbagging operation on Gen. Mike Flynn, the FISA court shenanigans, the hiring of CrowdStrike instead of using FBI forensic experts to vet evidence; the run-up to “Crossfire Hurricane” the roles of international men of mystery Stefan Halper and Josef Mifsud in the operations to incriminate Trump appointees, Nellie Ohr’s role as a DOJ-FBI go-between with the Fusion GPS company.

Let’s hear from former CIA director John Brennan about the “17 Intel Agencies” who swore Russia was behind 2016 election interference and then about the 50-odd distinguished intel officers and other high officials who swore that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russia put-on job. Ask former Attorney General Bill Barr to ‘splain’ if he was informed about the Hunter Biden laptop when the FBI got it in 2019. Bring back former AG Jeff Sessions to ‘splain’ how the Mueller Special Counsel’s office was stuffed with Democratic Party activist Lawfare cadres, and how he determined that Mr. Mueller was mentally up to the job. Bring in Mr. Mueller to ‘splain’ how he testified that in the two-year course of his inquiry he never heard of the company Fusion GPS.

Find a special booster chair for Merrick Garland to ‘splain’ how come so many January 6 suspects are being held indefinitely pre-trial in the DC lockup on rinky-dink charges under the harshest conditions (solitary confinement, denial of medical care) in defiance of due process of law, in particular the constitutional right to a speedy trial. Ask Mr. Garland why he’s devoting vast resources of the DOJ to pursue ever more January 6 protesters on Mickey Mouse charges. Ask him to ‘splain’ how it came to pass that he went after parents protesting at school boards about indecent sex ed for little children and racist anti-white indoctrination. Ask him about sending SWAT teams on predawn raids to the homes of investigation targets whose lawyers volunteered to deliver them to the FBI offices. Ask him why he appointed a RussiaGate-involved lawyer, one Robert K Hur, as Special Counsel in the “Joe Biden” classified document matter.

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The EU doesn’t even have time to do this. It would take ten years.

“..in 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin first voiced his concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and warned that a unipolar model was not only “unacceptable, but outright impossible” for the modern world..”

EU Needs ‘War Economy’ – Veteran German Diplomat (RT)

The EU must drastically ramp up the production of ammunition and heavy weapons if it wants to help Ukraine succeed in the conflict with Russia, Wolfgang Ischinger, the former chair of the Munich Security Conference and a veteran German diplomat, said on Saturday. He stressed that Kiev’s supporters would run out of supplies unless they transform their economies. “There is much to suggest that this war is far from over. Therefore, it is necessary for us to plan for the long term,” Ischinger stressed in an interview with Germany’s Welt newspaper. “All the military experts I know are saying that stocks of old Soviet weapons and respective ammunition are running out.” “Ukraine is forced to fire as much ammunition per day as we are producing in half a year. The end of our stocks is in sight. What comes next? Who handles replenishment? A war economy means that we – within NATO and in coordination at a European level – take the initiative and call on European armaments companies to produce more weapons and more ammunition as a result of the war.”

Ischinger said that the supplying and resupplying of Ukraine with heavy weapons, such as tanks, missiles, air defense systems, and drones, should be “controlled and coordinated” by the EU, as well as by the governments of individual member states. He added that regular meetings of Western countries that support Kiev with arms and military equipment at the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany are not enough. “They are certainly very helpful, but we need a political prioritization so the industry would have necessary specifications,” he said. Moscow has repeatedly urged the collective West to stop “pumping” Ukraine with weapons, maintaining that doing so will only prolong the hostilities and the suffering of common Ukrainians, rather than change the ultimate outcome of the conflict.

From 2008 to 2022, Ischinger served as chairman of the Munich Security Conference, the largest annual multinational security policy event of its kind. The conference was the platform where, back in 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin first voiced his concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and warned that a unipolar model was not only “unacceptable, but outright impossible” for the modern world. Now a proponent of even further militarization of Europe, Ischinger previously had a hand in the Ukrainian turmoil as well. In early 2014, he was tapped by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to become its representative tasked with establishing a ‘dialogue’ in Ukraine following the Maidan coup, which toppled the democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich and ushered in the years-long conflict in the country’s east.

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Made up from whole cloth. No Apaches, no Hellfires. Just stories.

London Rejects Ukraine Helicopters Claim (RT)

The British government has denied a media report claiming that it would supply Ukraine with AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, Sky News stated on Sunday. The UK still intends to donate a handful of tanks and artillery guns. In an article that has since been deleted, the Sunday People, an outlet that shares a website with The Mirror, claimed that the arrival of the US-made choppers would be “a major game-changer” for Ukraine’s forces, which recently lost the strategically important Donbass town of Soledar to Russian forces, sustaining horrific losses in the process. Citing an unnamed “senior defense source,” the paper said that “other NATO members will now follow suit” and donate their own helicopters. However, the article was “incorrect,” the Ministry of Defence told Sky News correspondent Deborah Haynes.


While the Ukrainian military will not get its hands on the Apaches, the UK still intends to ship a squadron of 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Kiev “in the coming weeks,” as well as “around 30” AS-90 self-propelled artillery guns. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office confirmed the arms package on Saturday, and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to announce further details on Monday. Ukraine has yet to receive any Western-designed combat aircraft from its NATO backers, despite repeated pleas from Kiev for fighter jets in particular. Aside from the challenge of training Ukrainian pilots to fly the machine, the Apache is noted for “frequent failures of key components and high demands for maintenance,” according to a US government report. The report found that in order to keep the Apache flying in combat environments, the US military “relied heavily on contractors” to “keep up with the maintenance burden.”

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“Further weapons packages will likely be announced after the US-led ‘Defense Contact Group’ meets on Friday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany..”

NATO Promises More Heavy Weapons For Ukraine (RT)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Saturday that Ukraine would receive more “heavy warfare equipment” from the West in “the near future.” The UK has already pledged tanks to the country, and Germany is under pressure to follow suit. A US-led ‘contact group’ for arming Ukraine will meet on Friday. “We are in a crucial phase of the war,” Stoltenberg told Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper on Sunday, days after Ukraine lost the strategically important Donbass town of Soledar to Russian forces. “We are experiencing heavy fighting,” the NATO chief continued. “It is therefore important that we equip Ukraine with the weapons it needs to be able to win.” Recent weeks have seen a dramatic escalation in the equipment promised to Ukraine by NATO’s largest powers.

The US, France, and Germany simultaneously announced at the beginning of the month that they would donate infantry fighting vehicles to the Ukrainian military, while the UK officially confirmed on Saturday that it would send fourteen Challenger 2 main battle tanks. “The recent pledges for heavy warfare equipment are important, and I expect more in the near future,” Stoltenberg told Handelsblatt. Further weapons packages will likely be announced after the US-led ‘Defense Contact Group’ meets on Friday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. This panel of nearly 50 countries has met seven times already since Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began last February, with each meeting followed by fresh pledges of military aid from America and its allies.

One of the first meetings in May was followed by deliveries of anti-ship missiles from Denmark, helicopters from the Czech Republic, and artillery systems from Italy, Greece, Norway, and Poland. The group’s last meeting in November came as the US announced a $400 million aid package, including surface-to-air missiles. Although Stoltenberg insists that he does not want “a full-blown war between NATO and Russia,” Moscow has repeatedly warned the West that its continued arms deliveries will only prolong the conflict in Ukraine, while making the Western powers de-facto participants. Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the conflict as one between Russia and “the entire Western military machine,” but said on Saturday that the progress of Moscow’s military operation is “positive,” with the battlefield situation “developing within the framework of the Defense Ministry’s and the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s plan.”

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“..Arestovich retracted his apology shortly after, stating he re-watched his interview and deemed it to be carefully-worded and vague enough..”

Zelensky Aide Flip-flops On Apartment Block Blast (RT)

The partial destruction of a residential building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnepr has triggered a bitter spat between the country’s top officials, struggling to explain the exact causes of the incident. The scandal was prompted by the assessment offered by Aleksey Arestovich, a senior advisor to President Vladimir Zelensky, who said that the Russian missile might have been brought down by Ukrainian troops and ended up hitting the building. The site was heavily damaged on Saturday, with some 25 civilians killed and 73 injured, according to Ukrainian authorities. “It was shot down. It apparently fell on the [apartment] block. But it exploded when falling,” Arestovich said in a YouTube interview.

The assessment immediately came under fire, with Arestovich ending up accused of discrediting Ukraine’s military and assigning blame for the incident on it. The mayor of Dnepr, Boris Filatov, got particularly enraged by his statements, branding the presidential aide “a narcissistic animal and a foul mouth,” and urging the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and counterintelligence to “react.” The spat prompted the country’s military to provide its own explanation of the incident, with the Ukrainian Air Force command identifying the Russian projectile that allegedly hit the building as a Kh-22, a supersonic air-launched cruise missile. The military bizarrely claimed in an official statement that it has no weaponry to bring down the missiles of the type altogether, with more than 210 Kh-22s making it through the country’s air defenses amid the ongoing conflict.

Separately, the spokesman for the Air Force, Colonel Yury Ignat, admitted on Facebook that earlier reports of Ukrainian forces shooting down Kh-22 missiles might have been inaccurate. The barrage of criticism made Arestovich offer an apology over his statements, with the official claiming he got the information from his acquaintance, a retired anti-aircraft officer, who purportedly witnessed the incident. Zelensky’s aide said he should have stated more explicitly that his assessment was merely a “version” rather than the ultimate truth. However, Arestovich retracted his apology shortly after, stating he re-watched his interview and deemed it to be carefully-worded and vague enough. He also blamed the forced explanation by the military on his critics, who preferred to rage over his remarks rather than highlight “Russia’s guilt.”

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Most of these people have family and friends “on the other side”.

“I have not formed any particular opinion on the matter, except for what I have already said: I observe with compassion the tragic events in my beloved Ukraine,” Konchalovsky said.”

Zelensky Rolls Out New Anti-Russian Sanctions (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree on Sunday, imposing personal sanctions on some 198 Russian nationals. The new list includes multiple prominent artists, journalists and other public figures. Kiev targeted award-winning director Andrey Konchalovsky and former governor of Moscow Region Boris Gromov, as well as several RT journalists and multiple bloggers. Commenting on getting on the blacklist, Konchalovsky told the RIA Novosti news agency that a “historical dazzle of large masses of people” was nothing new, but an eventual awakening of them was inevitable. “I have not formed any particular opinion on the matter, except for what I have already said: I observe with compassion the tragic events in my beloved Ukraine,” Konchalovsky said.

The restrictions imposed for a 10-year period include freeze of assets, travel and visa bans, stripping of Ukrainian state awards, and some other measures. The move comes one week after Zelensky decreed personal sanctions against 119 Russian public figures, including opera star Anna Netrebko, Oscar-winning film director Nikita Mikhalkov and pop singer Philipp Kirkorov. The Ukrainian president also targeted Russian journalists, including RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and Dmitry Kiselyov, the head of the Rossiya Segodnya media group. Kiev has repeatedly sanctioned Russian nationals amid the ongoing conflict with Mosciw, blacklisting hundreds of people.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.” Shortly before the hostilities broke out, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Last September, Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, were incorporated into Russia following referendums.

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“It’s absolutely fair for me to wish for all Russians and Russia to be wiped off the face of the Earth,” Podoliak tweeted. “It’s not hate speech, it’s not horrible of me, it’s just FAIR.”

Ukrainian Blogger Calls For Genocide Of All Russians (RT)

Ukrainian blogger Melania Podoliak, a prominent guest on Western news channels, has demanded that Russia and its people be “wiped off the face of the earth.” Podoliak issued her call for genocide on Saturday after her own country’s air defense supposedly caused a Russian missile to hit an apartment block. “It’s absolutely fair for me to wish for all Russians and Russia to be wiped off the face of the Earth,” Podoliak tweeted. “It’s not hate speech, it’s not horrible of me, it’s just FAIR.” Podoliak shared an image of an apartment block in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnepr, which she said was destroyed “after [a] Russian missile attack.” While Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that the building was hit by a Russian missile, his adviser, Aleksey Arestovich, admitted afterwards that the missile was shot down by a Ukrainian anti-air weapon, which caused it to hit the building.


Commenters on Twitter hammered Podoliak for being “pro-ethnic cleansing,” but the Ukrainian blogger stood by her statement, responding to critics with expletives. In a follow-up tweet on Sunday, she described Arestovich as “a f**king moron.” Before calling for the deaths of 143 million people, Podoliak was lauded in the West. A former staffer in Ukraine’s parliament, she has been featured on NBC News as a “political activist” demanding the West send heavy weapons to Kiev, and on Fox News as a “media consultant” calling for sanctions on Moscow. On her YouTube channel, she offers viewers links to donate money to the Ukrainian military. Russia’s defense ministry said on Sunday that Saturday’s missile barrage targeted “the military command and control system of Ukraine and associated energy facilities.” Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians, stating that the missile campaign was launched against Ukrainian military and infrastructure targets in response to Ukraine’s “terrorist” attacks on its own infrastructure, including the Crimean Bridge.

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White deer

 

 


«A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness»
—Albert Einstein

 

 

 

 

Calf

 

 

 

 

Dog scoop
https://twitter.com/i/status/1614440440341712896

 

 

Dog slide

 

 

 

 

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Jan 152023
 


Dorothea Lange Kern County, California 1938

 

Europe and the Legitimization of Deception (Patrick Lawrence)
Help! The Beatles to Save America? (Batiushka)
More Classified Documents Found At Biden’s Delaware Home (ZH)
Nunes Worries Biden Special Counsel May Be Biased (WFB)
Hunter Biden Lived At Delaware Home Where Classified Docs Were Kept (NYP)
Hunter Biden Paid $50,000 a Month in Rent for Home Where Docs Were Stored (TPN)
Nord Stream Must Be Repaired – German State Official (RT)
UK To Send Challenger 2 Tanks To Ukraine, Rishi Sunak Confirms (Az.)
UK To Send Apache Helicopters With Deadly Hellfire Missiles To Ukraine (Az.)
Almost All Hungarians Oppose Sanctions On Russia (RT)
Hungary Can’t Replace Russian Oil And Gas – Official (RT)
COVID-Narrative Dissenters File Antitrust Action Against Legacy Media (ET)
Feds Swing Between Pushing Boosters, Fueling Vax Hesitancy (JTN)
Moderna ‘Withheld Trial Data’ On Booster Shot To Win $5bn Contract (DM)

 

 

 

 

Dowd

 

 

 

 

Miscarriages

 

 

Kelly Victory
https://twitter.com/i/status/1612346904452505600

 

 

Bridgen

 

 

 

 

Russia can no longer trust any European voice. That is new. Peace talks are no use anymore.

Europe and the Legitimization of Deception (Patrick Lawrence)

The U.S., having no need of or gift for statecraft, has long practiced what I’ve taken to calling the diplomacy of no diplomacy. You can’t expect much from bimbos such as Antony Blinken or Wendy Sherman, Blinken’s No. 2 at the State Department. All they can do is roar, even if they are mice next to any serious diplomat. But have the European powers now followed along? I fear to ask because I fear the answer. But I must, given recent events. Early last year, when Petro Poroshenko stated publicly that the post-coup regime in Kyiv had no intention of abiding by diplomatic commitments it made in 2014-15 to a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis, a few eyebrows arched, but not over many.

[..] The betrayal of Russia and its president will go without saying. It is a matter of record that Vladimir Putin, who participated directly in the Minsk talks, worked long, long hours in the cause of a settlement that would leave Ukraine stable and unified, a freestanding post–Soviet republic on the Russian Federation’s southwestern order. Here I will remind readers of the animosity Putin expressed in his New Year’s address, three days after Hollande described the Franco–German sting operation in detail: “The West lied to us about peace while preparing for aggression, and today, they no longer hesitate to openly admit it and to cynically use Ukraine and its people as a means to weaken and divide Russia.”

This, a clear reference to the Merkel and Hollande interviews, leaves us with clear and obvious questions. Did Berlin and Paris give Moscow any alternative but to intervene in Ukraine militarily when they sabotaged peace negotiations? While Moscow remains open to talks to end the war, how seriously is it supposed to take any such prospect? Volodymyr Zelensky is forever slamming the door to negotiations with the Russians, but the Ukrainian president is late to the gate: The Germans and French got this done years ago. To betray the diplomatic process as Germany and France have done is also to betray trust as a necessary condition of orderly state-to-state relations. Nations may not fully trust one another but must be able to trust the diplomatic process—to trust the word given in the process of a negotiation.

In this way the core European powers have condemned all of us to an unstable, dangerous world—and so are guilty of betraying all of us—our security, our futures, our desire for a stable, peaceable world order. There are, of course, the Ukrainians. The majority of them wanted a peace deal from the start. Poroshenko was roundly defeated in Ukraine’s 2019 elections because he failed to deliver one. You would never know this from the Western press, but Zelensky succeeded him with a 70–odd percent majority of the vote precisely because he promised to negotiate a settlement in direct talks with Putin. Now the nation lies in ruins, its economy having cratered by 30 percent last year, 30 million of its people displaced, and its war dead to be counted in the tens of thousands. I see no argument against counting this a major consequence of the Franco–German design of deception.

Read more …

“And so now Russia has to demilitarise all NATO ground forces..”

Help! The Beatles to Save America? (Batiushka)

The West has lost the Battle of Soledar. 25,000 Ukrainian and western mercenaries lie dead. Artemovsk is about to fall with all its fortifications. Where next? A limited policing operation all started with the Russian wish to protect its people in two Russian provinces in the far east of the Ukraine. This soon had to be extended to four Russian provinces, two more added from the south-east of the Ukraine, so linking up with the much-persecuted Crimea. That had been Russian until 1954, just as all the east of the Ukraine was Russian until 1922 and the far west Polish, Hungarian and Romanian until 1939 – the Ukraine is a uniquely Communist creation. And then there was the Russian wish to prevent the Ukraine from becoming an American base, specifically for its ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and also to protect the many Russian speakers elsewhere in the Ukraine from hate-filled Nazi persecution of them. The project and the aim were all relatively modest.

Then it all changed: “If the West continues to pump the Ukraine full of weaponry out of impotent rage, or a desire to exacerbate the situation…then that means our geographical tasks will move even further from the current line.” -Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Minister of Russia. So it all became an operation, forced on Russia by the aggressiveness of Washington, to take back, directly or indirectly, more or less the whole of the Ukraine. This was not because Russia is fighting against the Ukraine, or against the EU, or against NATO, or against ‘the West’, or even against the USA, but against the neocons, who pull the money-strings, in Washington. And so now Russia has to demilitarise all NATO ground forces (cowardly NATO naval and air forces are hiding) and ultimately to denazify the whole Western world. It is actually on its way to doing that. Certain types of NATO equipment are in short supply.

And despite strict Western censorship, more and more Western people are realising that the Ukraine, the most corrupt country on earth, is simply not worth a penny of their taxes, let alone billions, let alone living in hunger or cold: ‘Eat or heat’, as they say in the strikebound UK. What the Western world, which is ruled over by a bunch of neocons in Washington, has never understood, is that this is an existential war for Russia and therefore Russia will fight to the end, if the neocons force it too. And although the neocon elite likes to consider that this is an existential war for the US, it is not, let alone for the peoples of Western Europe. Find a single ordinary Western person who is voluntarily willing to die for the Ukraine. You will not find a single one. (Western mercenaries die only for money, not for the Ukraine). This Western crusade is existential only for the neocon fantasy ideology, that ‘The West is Best’ and that ‘History Has Ended’ (with our triumph). And here there is a problem.

Read more …

“Joe Biden said he would be the most transparent president in American history…”

More Classified Documents Found At Biden’s Delaware Home (ZH)

Another day, another report of President Biden having classified documents scattered all over the place – as opposed to a safe at Mar-a-Lago. And of course as vice president when he took them, he had no authority to declassify – unlike a president. In the latest ‘document-gate’ development, the New York Times reports that ‘additional pages of classified information’ were found at President Biden’s Delaware home on Thursday, hours after a White House statement acknowledging that a classified document was found in a storage area ‘adjacent to the garage’ of his Wilmington home, which Biden’s aides reportedly discovered the night before. The news comes after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel this week to investigate Biden’s handling of classified materials.

The Biden camp has pushed back against accusations that their failure to disclose the document find the day before the 2022 midterms amounts to election interference. “They also defended their decision not to be fully forthcoming about the matter. The White House has been criticized over its public disclosures, including why it did not reveal the discoveries much earlier, and why, when it acknowledged on Monday that some classified files had been found at Mr. Biden’s office on Nov. 2, it had not indicated that more had been found at his house the next month. Mr. Biden’s lead personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, said in a statement on Saturday that Mr. Biden’s legal team had tried to balance being transparent with “the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation’s integrity.” -NYT”

According to Biden’s lead lawyer, DOJ investigators needed ‘time’ to complete their inquiry, and revealing certain details publicly before more information emerged could cause earlier statements to be “incomplete.” “That’s your version of events,” said White House spox Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday when asked if the White House did not disclose the original findings until they were reported by CBS News earlier this week. “Look, I want to very clear: There’s a process here, we are going to respect that process,” she added. What a load of horseshit.

“The timing of the revelation of the document discovery is indeed curious,” said former Rep. Chris Carney (D-PA), a longtime Biden ally and former intelligence officer, per The Hill. “President Biden must be accountable and accept responsibility for this awkward episode. The most important thing here is not preventing political embarrassment, it’s protecting our nation’s security.” “Look, this happened Nov. 2nd. Joe Biden said he would be the most transparent president in American history. Why are we just now learning this? CBS did a great job uncovering this or we would never know,” said Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) in a CBS interview earlier this week.

Read more …

“Hur looks like a fixer for the Democrats and the Deep State..”

Nunes Worries Biden Special Counsel May Be Biased (WFB)

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday praised Robert Hur, the special counsel he appointed to investigate President Joe Biden’s handling of classified records, as an “even-handed” prosecutor with a “long and distinguished career.” But a top Republican who dealt with Hur during his last stint at the Justice Department has a much less glowing opinion. In 2018, Hur was part of the Justice Department team that worked to stifle a House Republican probe of the agency’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s links to Russia. According to Justice Department emails reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, Hur, who served as principal associate deputy attorney general, helped draft a letter to Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee in January 2018 to block a report—the so-called Nunes memo—that poked holes in the government’s investigation of the Trump campaign.

Hur’s work to shut down the memo, which years later has been largely vindicated, casts doubt on his ability to impartially investigate Biden, according to the memo’s Republican author, former House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes. “Hur looks like a fixer for the Democrats and the Deep State,” Nunes told the Free Beacon. Justice Department officials mounted an aggressive campaign to block the release of the Nunes memo, claiming it would have a “damaging impact” on national security. They also dismissed allegations that investigators had abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, saying they were “unaware of any wrongdoing related to the FISA process.” Emails show that Hur proposed edits and other changes to the Justice Department’s letter to House Republicans.

Garland appointed Hur, who now works in private practice, to investigate “the possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records” discovered at Biden’s home in Delaware and at his former think tank office in Washington, D.C. Garland said he was “confident that Mr. Hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner.” But according to Nunes, it’s hardly clear that the special counsel will maintain neutrality. “Before Hur even begins as special counsel, Congress should use a subpoena to force him to explain his role in obstructing the House Intelligence Committee’s FISA abuse investigation, targeting our staff and my lawyers, and helping to write an utterly false letter trying to stop the release of the Nunes memo,” said Nunes.

Read more …

Anything Hunter is crazy.

Hunter Biden Lived At Delaware Home Where Classified Docs Were Kept (NYP)

Disgraced first son Hunter Biden lived off and on at the Delaware home where classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president were found last month — giving him unrestricted access to America’s secrets while he was addicted to drugs, hammering out shady foreign business deals and under federal investigation. The now-52-year-old began listing the Wilmington home as his address following his 2017 divorce from ex-wife Kathleen Buhle — even falsely claiming he owned the property on a July 2018 background check form as part of a rental application. Hunter also listed the home as the billing address for his personal credit card and Apple account in 2018 and 2019, respectively, Fox News Digital reported Friday after reviewing emails from his abandoned laptop.

During the same period, the now-first son was in the grip of a crack cocaine addiction costing thousands of dollars. At one point in August 2018, Hunter was recorded begging his sister-in-law-turned-lover, Hallie Biden, to let him use his credit card points to pay for a stay in rehab. Another former girlfriend of Hunter’s, Zoe Kestan, testified to a federal grand jury in February of last year that the couple stayed for a month in 2018 at the notorious Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles, where — the younger Biden wrote in his 2021 memoir — he “learned how to cook crack” before being “blacklisted” from the property over complaints tied to his drug use. Hunter also frequented prostitutes during this time, dropping more than $30,000 on sex workers between November 2018 and March 2019 alone — making him a possible target for blackmail.

On Thursday, President Biden confirmed that sensitive papers had been found in the locked garage of the home, where he also keeps his vintage 1967 Corvette Stingray. “My Corvette is in a locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” the defensive president told reporters when asked about the discovery. On Monday, the White House disclosed an initial batch of classified documents had been uncovered on Nov. 2 by the president’s personal lawyers while clearing Biden’s former office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington. sIt’s unclear whether the documents found in Wilmington on Dec. 20 were shipped directly to Biden’s home upon his leaving the vice presidency in January 2017 or if they were initially stored elsewhere rather than given to the National Archives as required by federal law.

Read more …

How many crack addicts pay that kind of money?

Hunter Biden Paid $50,000 a Month in Rent for Home Where Docs Were Stored (TPN)

On Monday, classified documents from his time as vice president were found in President Joe Biden’s private office at UPenn. Days later, more classified documents were found stashed in Biden’s garage next to the president’s corvette at his Delaware home which triggered Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel. “Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to take over the investigation into President Joe Biden’s potential mishandling of classified documents,” CNN reported. “The special counsel is Robert Hur.” There seems to be however, that more is going on than what meets the eye. According to a “Background Screening Request” form that was filled out by Hunter Biden in 2018, the president’s son claimed he owned the Delaware residence where the classified documents were found.

“The now-52-year-old began listing the Wilmington home as his address following his 2017 divorce from ex-wife Kathleen Buhle — even falsely claiming he owned the property on a July 2018 background check form as part of a rental application,” the New York Post reported. On the “Monthly Rent” portion of the form, Hunter Biden claimed he paid $49,910 in rent each month. Town and Country magazine estimates the Delaware home is worth about $2 million which would suggest that if Hunter Biden is truly paying nearly $600,000 a year in rent, he is overpaying by a lot. “In 2018 Hunter Biden claimed he owned the house where Joe Biden kept classified documents alongside his Corvette in the garage ,” reported journalist Miranda Devine.

Was this Hunter Biden’s way of funneling the money he earned with his father’s political connections back to his father? After Hunter’s divorce was finalized in May of 2017, he was included in an email from his business partner James Gilliar about a venture with Chinese state-funded energy company CEFC China Energy. The email stated that Hunter and his partners would receive 20% of the shares in the new business, with 10% going to Hunter’s uncle James Biden and the other 10% being “held by H for the big guy.” Tony Bobulinski, another one of Hunter’s former business partners, claims that he had a meeting with Joe Biden regarding the CEFC venture on May 2, 2017, and that the president was the individual referred to as the “big guy” in Gilliar’s email. Additionally, Gilliar himself confirmed that Joe Biden was the “big guy” mentioned in a message found on the laptop.

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“We’re running out of time. If the damage is not repaired, Nord Stream will become unusable for a long time.”

Nord Stream Must Be Repaired – German State Official (RT)

The governor of the German state of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, has called for the repair of the sabotaged Nord Stream pipelines, arguing that operators are running out of time before the vital gas link becomes unusable. In an interview with Germany’s Funke Media Group on Saturday, Kretschmer said that while “the issue of Russian gas is not on the table” as long as the conflict in Ukraine is ongoing, Germany must preserve the option to “buy something other than expensive liquefied natural gas after the war.” Therefore the Russian-German consortium responsible for Nord Stream “must ensure that the pipeline can be repaired.” “We’re running out of time. If the damage is not repaired, Nord Stream will become unusable for a long time.”

Germany began importing Russian gas via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in 2011, until deliveries were halted by Russia’s Gazprom in September after it said EU sanctions were impeding vital maintenance. Its sister pipeline, Nord Stream 2, was due to come online this year, but its certification was indefinitely suspended by Berlin in February, days before Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine. Both lines were rocked by explosions in late September. Ukraine blamed the blasts on Russia and several Western leaders suggested that Moscow carried out the sabotage. sThe Kremlin dismissed the idea that it would sabotage its own pipelines – which were lucrative sources of revenue and leverage over Europe – as “stupid.” President Vladimir Putin blamed the explosions on “the Anglo-Saxons,” a Russian colloquialism for the US-UK transatlantic alliance, arguing that the US in particular benefited from the attack due to its position as a supplier of LNG to Europe.

Western officials privately acknowledge that Russia was unlikely to blame for the sabotage, according to recent reports. Kretschmer’s position on Nord Stream is not a new one. Back in October he declared that while Germany should pursue long-term LNG contracts “from the USA, Qatar and other Arab countries,” it should also “use gas from Russia again” in the future. The governor is a member of former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party. Both Nord Stream lines were constructed under Merkel’s leadership, but Germany’s current ruling coalition of Social Democrats and Greens has ruled out a return to Russian gas, despite soaring energy prices and the looming prospect of “de-industrialization.”

Read more …

Who’s going to operate them?

UK To Send Challenger 2 Tanks To Ukraine, Rishi Sunak Confirms (Az.)

The UK is to send Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine to bolster the country’s war effort, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said, Report informs via BBC. He spoke to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in a call on Saturday, during which he confirmed he would send the equipment and additional artillery systems, No 10 said. Downing Street said the move shows “the UK’s ambition to intensify support.” The BBC understands the initial commitment is for 14 tanks. Around 30 AS90s, which are large, self-propelled guns, are also expected to be delivered. President Zelensky has thanked the UK, saying that the decision to send the tanks “will not only strengthen us on the battlefield, but also send the right signal to other partners”.


He said the UK’s support was “always strong” and was “now impenetrable”. No 10 said that during the call, Sunak and Zelensky also discussed also recent Ukrainian victories, as well as the “need to seize on this moment with an acceleration of global military and diplomatic support”. Sunak said the Challengers, the British Army’s main battle tank, would help Kyiv’s forces “push Russian troops back”. Built in the late 1990s, the Challenger tank is more than 20 years old, but it will be the most modern tank at Ukraine’s disposal. The tanks will provide Ukraine with better protection, and more accurate firepower.

Read more …

Any pilots?

UK To Send Apache Helicopters With Deadly Hellfire Missiles To Ukraine (Az.)

Britain will send attack helicopters armed with deadly Hellfire missiles to Ukraine in a move hailed as a “game-changer”, Report informs via Mirror. The Apache choppers will bolster the country’s desperate fight against Russian invaders, now entering its 11th month. The new package of support, to include tanks, was confirmed yesterday by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Read more …

“97% of Hungarians reject sanctions that cause serious damage..”

Almost All Hungarians Oppose Sanctions On Russia (RT)

The overwhelming majority of Hungarians are opposed to sanctions the West has imposed on Russia over Ukraine and believe that they are detrimental to the economy, the nation’s government said on Saturday, citing the results of a countrywide questionnaire, or “consultation.” In a Facebook post, the Hungarian government revealed that “97% of Hungarians reject sanctions that cause serious damage,” adding that “The message is clear: the Brussels sanctions policy must be reviewed.” Szentkiralyi Alexandra, a government spokeswoman, said that the restrictions the EU had imposed on Russia over Ukraine had failed to stop the conflict, but caused a lot of economic issues for Europe. In this vein, Hungarians tend to reject oil restrictions and planned gas sanctions, she noted.

“The people taking part in the consultation say a clear ‘no’ to sanctions that further increase food prices or place additional burdens on European tourism,” Szentkiralyi added. The spokeswoman pointed out that Hungary is the first EU country to poll its citizens about the sanctions’ impact. She also described the consultation as “a guideline for Hungarian public actors,” with the results set to be delivered to EU authorities in Brussels. “This is quite necessary because they want to introduce new sanctions instead of revising the sanctions policy,” Szentkiralyi explained. She went on to thank about 1.4 million people that took part in the survey, noting that detailed results would be released in the near future.

The consultation on the matter was launched in mid-October and included seven questions about sanctions on the oil, gas, raw materials export, and nuclear and tourism spheres. In recent months, the sanctions the West imposed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict have exacerbated Europe’s energy crisis, causing fuel prices and costs of living to surge. Hungary, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy, has long been critical of EU sanctions policy. On Friday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that by promoting sanctions in the bloc, German politicians had “miscalculated,” but do not have the courage to admit that. Last month, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that the sanctions were taking a heavy toll on the European economy. He also claimed the US was the only nation benefiting from them, since it has been selling liquified natural gas to Europe at lucrative prices.

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“..Orban has repeatedly suggested that if Brussels does not change its sanctions policies, they will inevitably backfire on the bloc’s economy and energy security…”

Hungary Can’t Replace Russian Oil And Gas – Official (RT)

Hungary will not be able to replace the oil and natural gas it gets from Russia in the short term, member of parliament and State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Tamas Menczer, told M1 TV channel on Friday. Menczer said the two fundamental conditions for Hungarian energy security were continued crude imports from Russia and the smooth operation of the Turkish Stream pipeline through which the country receives most of its annual supply of natural gas. “Russian gas accounts for 85% of Hungary’s gas consumption and 65% of oil demand. This cannot be changed overnight,” he explained. According to the official, Hungary is constantly looking for opportunities to diversify supplies, but all the options currently under consideration have drawbacks.


“Experts see three possibilities for diversification: we could increase the capacity of the LNG terminal in Croatia…second thing is to start production in the Romanian Neptun gas field…Thirdly, we could import gas from Azerbaijan,” Menczer stated, adding that all three “require much money, time and serious infrastructural developments, so Russian gas cannot be replaced at the moment.” He noted that the rate of filling Hungarian gas storage is approximately twice as high as the average European rate due to long-term contracts with Russian gas exporter Gazprom. Since the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine in late February, the EU has imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow’s energy exports, including a price cap on seaborne oil deliveries, which took effect last month. Budapest demanded and received some exemptions from the embargo. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has repeatedly suggested that if Brussels does not change its sanctions policies, they will inevitably backfire on the bloc’s economy and energy security.

Read more …

Interesting case. Old vs new media.

COVID-Narrative Dissenters File Antitrust Action Against Legacy Media (ET)

A coalition of outspoken critics and skeptics of the mainstream narratives on COVID-19 has brought an antitrust lawsuit against some of the world’s largest news organizations, accusing them of working in collaboration to suppress dissenting voices surrounding the pandemic. The lawsuit (pdf), filed on Tuesday in a federal court in Texas, targets The Washington Post, the British Broadcasting Corp (BBC), The Associated Press (AP), and Reuters—all of which are members of the “Trusted News Initiative (TNI),” a self-described “industry partnership” formed in 2020 among legacy media giants and big tech companies.

“By their own admission, members of the TNI have agreed to work together, and have in fact worked together, to exclude from the world’s dominant internet platforms rival news publishers who engage in reporting that challenges and competes with TNI members’ reporting on certain issues relating to COVID-19 and U.S. politics,” the complaint reads. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a critic of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccination policies, led the lawsuit. He is joined by Creative Destruction Media, Trial Site News, Truth About Vaccines founders Ty and Charlene Bollinger, independent journalist Ben Swann, Health Nut News publisher Erin Elizabeth Finn, Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft, Dr. Joseph Mercola, and Ben Tapper, a chiropractor.

The plaintiffs, the lawsuit alleges, are among the many victims of the TNI’s “group boycott” tactic, defined as a coordinated effort to facilitate monopoly by cutting off the competitors’ access to supplies and necessities. In this case, the TNI members are accused of engaging in group boycott—in concert with their big tech partners—against small, independent news publishers by denying them access to internet platforms they need to compete and even survive in the online news market. “As a result of the TNI’s group boycott, [the plaintiffs] have been censored, de-monetized, demoted, throttled, shadow-banned, and/or excluded entirely from platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Linked-In,” the lawsuit states.

Read more …

Can’t get that genie back in the bottle.

Feds Swing Between Pushing Boosters, Fueling Vax Hesitancy (JTN)

Less than two days after FDA Commissioner Robert Califf credited bivalent COVID-19 boosters with “significant” and “clinically meaningful” reductions in hospitalization and death “in all populations examined,” his own agency gave a new boost to vaccine hesitancy. The CDC and FDA announced an “additional investigation” Friday afternoon into a possible “safety concern for ischemic stroke” in recipients of Pfizer’s bivalent who are 65 and older, even while stating twice in bold that “no change” was recommended “in vaccination practice.” They said the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink provoked their “rapid-response investigation,” which “raised a question” about whether stroke was more likely within 21 days of boosting versus 22-44 days.

The decision recalls the agencies’ recommended “pause” in Johnson & Johnson’s traditional COVID vaccine in April 2021 following six dangerous blood clots in women. While the VSD signal is “very unlikely” to represent a “true clinical risk,” the agencies said they notified the public in the interest of transparency. Their prior failure to share bivalent data is partially responsible for an unexpected wave of skeptical media coverage this month, which has questioned the effectiveness of boosters that now-outdated Omicron subvariants as well as the reliability of official statistics on COVID. Several outside vaccine advisers, including the editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, told CNN Wednesday the agencies hid unfavorable results from them when they were considering whether to recommend Moderna’s bivalent booster for approval.

The U.S. is drastically overcounting COVID deaths and hospitalizations by conflating incidental infections with those that played a meaningful role, former Baltimore public health commissioner Leana Wen wrote in The Washington Post Friday. Tufts Medical Center epidemiologist Shira Doron told Wen that hospitalizations due to COVID “were as low as 10 percent of the total number reported” on some days, while attending physician Robin Dretler at Emory Decatur Hospital estimated 90% of those hospitalized with COVID are there “for some other illness.”

Read more …

“..3.2 percent of study participants who got the updated bivalent vaccine became infected – compared to just 1.9 percent of those who received the original booster…”

Moderna ‘Withheld Trial Data’ On Booster Shot To Win $5bn Contract (DM)

Moderna and the Food and Drug Association (FDA) have been accused of concealing data during the approval process for the pharma giant’s bivalent Covid booster. Vaccine advisors who signed off on the updated shot late last year claim they were not shown trial data that indicated the booster was actually less effective at preventing Covid than the older vaccine it was meant to replace. While the early trial results had substantial limitations, ‘disappointed’ and ‘angry advisors say its omission from panel discussions shows a remarkable lack of transparency. US taxpayers ended up shelling out nearly $5billion on the new booster, which was intended to enhance immunity against new variants.

For new vaccines to be approved, both the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must convene their advisory boards and make presentations to a panel of advisors. This panel of objective reviewers then votes on whether or not to recommend its approval. It is these independent advisors – including infectious disease experts and vaccinologists from Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard – who are now raising concerns about the partial information shown to them during approval discussions for the bivalent booster. At both an FDA meeting in June and a CDC advisory panel in September, experts were shown reams of information suggesting that the new bivalent vaccine was more effective than its predecessor.


These results were based on lab tests in which blood taken from bivalent vaxxed people were exposed to omicron and then compared to samples from people vaxxed with the older shot, in order to gauge how well each elicited Covid-fighting antibodies. Other data from the same study was not presented to the panels, however, which looked at actual infections – who caught Covid-19 and who did not. The withheld data indicated that 3.2 percent of study participants who got the updated bivalent vaccine became infected – compared to just 1.9 percent of those who received the original booster.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water man

 

 

Ducklings
https://twitter.com/i/status/1614250672668508162

 

 

 

 

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