Andy Warhol Mick Jagger 1975
Thank you so much for doing our laundry!
Chomsky Trump
Ukraine HRC
@Trevornoah: “In America you have the right to seek the truth and speak the truth, even if it makes people in power uncomfortable.”
Unless your name is Julian Assange, in which case you face a gulag for the rest of your life.
CNN Musk
Twitter thread by “Baron of the Taiga”.
“..this is all ‘Phase 3’ stuff. Ukraine has to make it through Phase 2, and currently, even the most ardent Ukraine supporters who think Russia got battered in Phase 1, don’t think it is going well ..”
• The Balance In Attrition (BoT)
However Russia used artillery in Phase 1, it is now using it several times more effectively, pressing its material and positional advantages in Donbas. It is following a method of wave strikes, taking however long they need to, before troops advance on the destroyed lines. We see Russia making good use of drones now, particularly for artillery correction. It is also locating and destroying more covert resource bases for the Ukrainian Army (like the aluminum plant recently). Russian air power is beginning to support infantry movement with success. On the other side, Ukraine is unable to respond effectively. It has an advantage in prepared fortifications and fallback positions set up well in advance (encirclement, while not impossible, is proving difficult outside a few stunning examples). But it is outgunned.
Whatever was going on in Phase 1, neither side was actually committed to a full-blown war of artillery. It was too slow for Russia’s phase objectives, and Ukraine lacked the equipment for it. It is now an artillery war, and NATO has really failed to equip the UAF to match Russia. Saying “we’re going to give you Dutch howitzers, they’ll be there in a month” is no good to Ukraine. They need top-of-the-line field guns, in Eastern Ukraine, yesterday. And they need a lot of them. The fact they continue to abandon anti-tank weapons in such numbers says a lot. By the time Russian tanks or other armored vehicles enter a settlement, not only have Ukrainian units been obliterated by artillery, but hardened infantry have swept in. Russia has learned its lesson.
If the current state of affairs persists, Russia will continue to decrease Ukraine’s holdings in Donbas. Many will not be encircled and captured, due to the way the defensive lines are set up, but those pushed out the other side will be decimated in terms of numbers. Of course, this plays into Kiev’s only strategy at this point, which is to buy time. It knows it cannot defeat Russia in Donbas, and certainly is not relying on any kind of logistical breakdown for Moscow (only Bellingcat thinks this will happen). Aside from whatever games are being played over Transnistria, the Ukrainian play seems obvious: • Maximize foreign support as much as possible • Reinforce every settlement west of the Dnieper with modern artillery, and at least a somewhat competent army.
If they can make the potential costs so high for Russia to advance on Nikolaev and especially Odessa, they could force a freeze in the battle lines, and then maybe play out some obscene hostage scenario in Tiraspol (unacceptable for Russia). A huge amount can go wrong (and is wrong) with this plan, including the lack of consideration of morale, how losing the east will affect western backing, the quality of any new army they can patch together, and how exhausted Russia might be. But of course, this is all ‘Phase 3’ stuff. Ukraine has to make it through Phase 2, and currently, even the most ardent Ukraine supporters who think Russia got battered in Phase 1, don’t think it is going well.
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Full proxy.
• Ukraine Is Now America’s War, Too (New Yorker)
America has crossed a threshold in Ukraine, both in its short-term involvement and its long-term intent. The U.S. was initially cautious during the fall and winter as Russia, a nuclear country with veto power at the U.N. Security Council, amassed more than a hundred and fifty thousand troops along the Ukrainian border. It didn’t want to poke the Russian bear—or provoke Vladimir Putin personally. Two days after long convoys of Russian tanks rolled across the border, on February 24th, the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, still claimed that America’s goal—backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid—was simply to stand behind the Ukrainian people. The White House sanctioned Russia—initially targeting a few banks, oligarchs, political élites, government-owned enterprises, and Putin’s own family—to pressure the Russian leader to put his troops back in their box, without resorting to military intervention.
“Direct confrontation between nato and Russia is World War Three, something we must strive to prevent,” President Joe Biden said, in early March. Yet in just over nine weeks, the conflict has rapidly evolved into a full proxy war with Russia, with global ramifications. U.S. officials now frame America’s role in more ambitious terms that border on aggressive. The goal—backed by tens of billions of dollars in aid—is to “weaken” Russia and insure a sovereign Ukraine outlasts Putin. “Throughout our history, we’ve learned that when dictators do not pay the price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and engage in more aggression,” the President told reporters on Thursday. “They keep moving. And the costs, the threats to America and the world, keep rising.”
Having basically run out of appropriated funds, Biden has asked Congress for thirty-three billion dollars—for new military, economic, and humanitarian support—in the latest of several packages for Ukraine. “The cost of this fight is not cheap,” the President acknowledged. (As Politico noted, the new aid is about half the size of the entire Russian defense budget—and also more than half of the U.S. State Department’s annual budget. Over the next five months, U.S. aid to Ukraine will average more than two hundred million dollars a day.) The investment, Biden said, was a small price “to lessen the risk of future conflicts” with Russia.
For Putin, the war in Ukraine always seemed to be, at least in part, a proxy fight with nato and its U.S. leadership. Ahead of his invasion, he publicly expressed deep paranoia about the military alliance and its further expansion into countries once aligned with the Soviet Union. He also brokered a five-thousand-word agreement with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, to form a de-facto alliance of authoritarian regimes. They jointly opposed nato enlargement. Biden tried to resist that framing. At the start of the invasion, the U.S. invoked the principles of sovereignty, a democratically elected government, and territorial integrity. During the past week, however, Ukraine’s existential crisis has increasingly appeared to be America’s war, too. On April 24th, Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin took a train with blacked-out windows into Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and symbolically reinforce American support.
The stealthy trip reflected the increasingly ambitious U.S. goal. “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin told reporters, near the border in Poland. Blinken said, “We don’t know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign, independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene.” On Tuesday, Austin assembled defense leaders from more than forty countries—well beyond the nato framework—at Ramstein, a U.S. base in southwest Germany, to coördinate support for Ukraine. Austin, a retired general involved in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, announced the formation of a new coalition of “nations of good will” that will meet monthly to “intensify” an international campaign to win “today’s fight and the struggles to come.” In appealing for more aid, Biden said, “We have to do our part as well, leading the alliance.”
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“..the Russian military personnel are doing everything in their power to avoid victims among civilians..”
• Lavrov Interview With The Xinhua News Agency (Saker)
[..] the special military operation is proceeding according to plan. Under this plan, the Russian military personnel are doing everything in their power to avoid victims among civilians. Blows are carried out with high-precision weapons, first of all at military infrastructure facilities and places where armoured vehicles are concentrated. Unlike the Ukrainian army and nationalist armed groups that use people as living shields, the Russian army provides the locals with all kinds of assistance and support. Humanitarian corridors open daily from Kharkov and Mariupol to evacuate people from dangerous districts, but the Kiev regime demands that the “national battalions” in control of those areas do not release the civilians. Nevertheless, many are able to leave with the assistance of Russian, DPR and LPR servicemen.
During the special military operation, the hotline of the Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters of the Russian Federation for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine has received requests for assistance in evacuating 2.8 million people to Russia, including 16,000 foreign citizens and employees of UN and OSCE international missions. In total, 1.02 million people have been evacuated from Ukraine, the DPR and LPR, of which over 120,000 are citizens of third countries, including over 300 Chinese nationals. There are over 9,500 temporary accommodation facilities operating in Russian regions. They have space for rest and hot meals, and everything that may be necessary. Newly arrived refugees are provided with qualified medical and psychological assistance.
Russia is taking measures to ensure civilian navigation in the Black and Azov seas. A humanitarian corridor opens daily, a safe lane for ships. However, Ukraine continues to block foreign ships, creating a threat of shelling in its internal waters and territorial sea. Moreover, Ukrainian naval units have mined the shore, the ports and territorial waters. These explosive devices disconnect from their anchor lines and drift into the open sea, so they pose a serious danger to both the fleets and the port infrastructure of the Black Sea countries.
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Obvious and abject nonsense from day 1. But it fits the overall coverage.
• How Ukraine’s ‘Ghost Of Kyiv’ Legendary Pilot Was Born (BBC)
Ukraine’s fighter pilots are vastly outnumbered by the Russians, and have become legendary – thanks in part to the story of an alleged flying ace called the “Ghost of Kyiv”. This hero is said to have downed as many as 40 enemy planes – an incredible feat in an arena where Russia controls the skies. But now the Ukraine Air Force Command has warned on Facebook that the “Ghost of Kyiv is a superhero-legend whose character was created by Ukrainians!”. “We ask the Ukrainian community not to neglect the basic rules of information hygiene,” the message said, urging people to “check the sources of information, before spreading it”. Earlier reports had named the ace as Major Stepan Tarabalka, 29. The authorities confirmed that he was killed in combat on 13 March and honoured with a Hero of Ukraine medal posthumously.
Now, the air force stresses that “Tarabalka is not ‘Ghost of Kiev’, and he did not hit 40 planes”. It describes the “Ghost of Kyiv” as “a collective image of pilots of the Air Force’s 40th tactical aviation brigade, who defend the sky over the capital”, rather than a single man’s combat record. For weeks, Ukrainians did not have a name to go with the “Ghost of Kyiv” – but that did not stop the story going viral on social media. It was used as a marketing brand by a Ukrainian model aircraft manufacturer, while Ukrainian Iryna Kostyrenko showed off a military badge inspired by the legend. And the defence ministry tweeted a video celebrating Tarabalka’s heroism. Military experts told the BBC they doubted that one pilot could have downed as many as 40 Russian planes.
Ukrainian military historian Mikhail Zhirohov described the Ghost of Kyiv story as “propaganda for raising morale”. Speaking to the BBC from Chernihiv, he said that early on in the war the Russians dominated Ukrainian airspace, so a Ukrainian pilot “could only shoot down two or three”. “It’s essential to have this propaganda, because our armed forces are smaller, and many think we can’t be equal to them [the Russians]. We need this in wartime,” he said.
Took just 2 days…
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Russis has kept it running.
• Russia Will Quit The International Space Station Due To Sanctions (DM)
Russia is set to pull out of the International Space Station and will no longer work with NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), according to the head of its space programme. General Director of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin told Russian state TV earlier today that Moscow will no longer co-operate with its international partners aboard the ISS, confirming that the decision to withdraw has already been taken. He said Roscosmos is not required to give an exact date of its withdrawal, but affirmed the Russian space programme will adhere to the stipulated year-long notice period. ‘The decision has been taken already, and we are not obliged to discuss it publicly, Rogozin told Rossiya 24 – though on Friday he said Russia would continue to work on the ISS ‘according to the time frame set out by our government, until at least 2024.’
It comes after Rogozin posted a storm of since-deleted tweets earlier this month in which he slammed Western sanctions imposed on Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine. ‘I believe that the restoration of normal relations between partners in the International Space Station and other joint projects is possible only with the complete and unconditional lifting of illegal sanctions,’ the space chief tweeted. Space is one of the last remaining areas of cooperation between Moscow and Western nations, and Russia has for decades carried American astronauts to and from the ISS on board its Soyuz rockets, but ceased to do so in 2020.
The U.S. and Russia were conducting negotiations for a resumption of shared flights in February, but the invasion of Ukraine put paid to the plans and triggered a wave of unprecedented sanctions on Russian state-linked entities. NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei shared a Russian ride back to Earth in late March after a U.S. record 355 days at the ISS alongside two Russian cosmonauts, and suggested the relations between the crew aboard the ISS had remained unaffected by the war in Ukraine. ‘About my relationship with my Russian crewmates, they were, are and will continue to be very dear friends of mine,’ the American Vande Hei said during a press conference earlier this month.
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When was the last time the US tried a color revolution in Belarus? Two years ago?
• Belarus Opposition Seeks US Technology Help (F24)
The leader of Belarus’ opposition said Friday that the United States is looking at stepping up technological assistance in the struggle against strongman Alexander Lukashenko. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who along with Western observers says she won a 2020 election against Lukashenko, spoke with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior US officials and lawmakers on a trip to Washington. “I was assured of full support for the Belarusian democratic movement,” she told the State Department Correspondents’ Association. “We also spoke about providing Belarusian journalists and activists with equipment and technology,” she said. She said that she discussed ways to circumvent regime disinformation including broadcasts of forced confessions.
Franak Viacorka, a senior advisor to Tikhanovskaya, said pro-democracy forces have also spoken to US technology companies to seek an end to lumping Belarus into the “Russian media ecosystem,” which is closely censored. Lukashenko, who has grown closer to Moscow as he cracks down on dissent following the 2020 election, has been one of the main international supporters of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Tikhanovskaya said she shared with US officials evidence of Lukashenko’s support for the war as well as a list of companies and countries that help circumvent Western sanctions on the regime. “We spoke about making sanctions more effective, closing remaining loopholes, freezing Lukashenko’s assets and blocking the money given to him by the IMF,” she said.
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“The board [of Twitter] must be sure that if it operates in Europe it must fulfil the obligations..”
• UK, EU Tell Elon Musk Free Speech Will Not Be Allowed on Twitter (DE)
Firms that fail to comply with British censorship after the passage of the Online Harms Bill would likely face fines of up to 10% of their global revenue, with executives facing consequences that include jail time if they refuse to placate Big Brother. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has also called for further regulation on social media sites in the name of preventing “prejudice.” “Free speech can’t imply a free go for hatred,” the mayor wrote online after information of the acquisition emerged. “We should not overlook the impacts of online hate speech, which followers the flames of prejudice and results in appalling and tragic real-world violence.” “Social media corporations should do extra, not much less, to guard their communities,” he additionally wrote.
While Britain has some of the most high-profile censoring regimes in the Western World, it is far not the only nation where lawmakers have been taking aim at the idea of unfettered social media discourse. Thierry Breton, the European Union’s Tsar for the Internal Market, has asked that Musk follow all of the EU’s laws and regulations, including those governing the censoring of unpopular ideas. “Elon, there are guidelines,” the Monetary Instances stories Breton is saying. “You’re welcome however these are our guidelines. It’s not your guidelines which are able to apply right here.”
“Anybody who desires to profit from this market must fulfil our guidelines,” the EU bigwig reportedly continued. “The board [of Twitter] must be sure that if it operates in Europe it must fulfil the obligations, together with moderation, open algorithms, freedom of speech, transparency in guidelines, obligations to adjust to our personal guidelines for hate speech, revenge porn [and] harassment.” “If [Twitter] doesn’t adjust to our regulation, there are sanctions — 6 per cent of the income and, in the event that they proceed, banned from working in Europe,” the EU bureaucrat went on to threaten.
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Pfizer won’t be allowed to market the Paxlovid brand until full FDA approval”
• Pfizer TV Ad Recommends People Take IVM, HCQ, Z-Pak, Fluvoxamine (Kirsch)
See that pill? They are OBVIOUSLY promoting ivermectin, HCQ, Z-Pak, fluvoxamine, zinc, and vitamin D! Finally! Pfizer thinks they are promoting Paxlovid, but we all know what they are really promoting 🙂
“Pfizer said in its full-year earnings announcement last month that it expects Paxlovid sales worth an enormous $22 billion for 2022. Getting the word out now is a clear strategy to get antiviral treatments to patients. [..] Pfizer won’t be allowed to market the Paxlovid brand until full FDA approval. That explains why its COVID pill ad serves more as an awareness campaign of oral treatments in general.”
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Interesting Twitter thread by Sheldon Yakiwchuk.
• 8,607 Unreported Vaccinated COVID Deaths In Canada (Yakk)
There are currently 8,607 Unreported Vaccinated COVID deaths in Canada. This is up from 7994 from last month – average 20/day COVID mortalities missing. Why isn’t Health Canada Reporting them? If you visit the COVID tracker by Health Infobase Canada – PHAC, you will find the following chart. The chart indicates that From December 14, 2020 to April 10, 2022 that there were 15,775 (green) COVID mortalities.
In this, 9511 Unvaccinated have Died (60.3%) and 6264 (39.7%) from the various stages of vaccinated COVID deaths. What’s important about this is how many deaths are reported in this time. 15,775 – Dec14, 2020-Apr10, 2022. A look back to December 14, 2020 shows that on this day, there were 13,553 deaths. Vaccinations hadn’t rolled out in Canada yet, so these were 100% unvaccinated.
April 10, 2022 – due to delays in reporting, there were 37,935 COVID deaths – as of April 8th, 2022.
37,935 – 13,553 = Total Deaths in this Time period = 24, 382. Where as the Current Dashboard (top image) only shows 15,775 or a difference of 8,607 – unreported deaths. Having a 60/40 split on vaccinated deaths in this time is shocking in itself…but what if those missing deaths are all in various stages of being Vaccinated? We’d be adding the unreported 8,607 to the reported 6,264 given a possible total of 14,871 Vaccinated deaths. 14,871/24,382 ->61% of the deaths in Vaccinated. 9,511/24,382 -> 39% of the COVID reported Deaths in the Unvaccinated Camps – Completely reversing the reported Statistics. Which is even more shocking than a 60/40 split of unvaccinated to vaccinated.
Problem is…even as bad as these statistics look – having been corrected…a closer look actually reveals that in the last week over week comparison of these, 81% of deaths are in the vaccinated 55% are in the boosted. Moving from 40% of mortality to 60% is insane…moving that to 81% of COVID Mortalities being in the Vaccinated Community can no longer support the safe and effective, especially seeing as 55% of these ->greater than unvaccinated are in the fully boosted population. And the problem with the Health Canada Reporting of this, is that these deaths are: 1. Not being accurately recorded as Vaccine Injuries. 2. This problem has grown by over 600 deaths in the last Month.
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“The IMF, the BIS, World Bank, The UN, the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Economic Forum, Bank of America and even Biden himself are all predicting a major food crisis in the near term..”
• Food Shortages In Six Months (Alt-M)
A week ago there was a torrent of press releases from global institutions all mentioning the same exact same concern: Food shortages within the next 3 to 6 months. These statements line up very closely with my own estimates, as I have been warning regularly about impending dangers of inflation leading to food rationing and supply chain disruptions. The IMF, the BIS, World Bank, The UN, the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Economic Forum, Bank of America and even Biden himself are all predicting a major food crisis in the near term, and it is not a coincidence that the policies of these very institutions and the actions of puppet politicians that work with them are causing the crisis they are now predicting. That is to say, it’s easy to predict a disaster when you created the disaster.
The claim is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the primary cause, but this is a distraction from the real issue. Yes, sanctions against Russia will eventually lead to less food supply, but the globalists and the media are purposely ignoring the bigger threat, which is currency devaluation and price inflation created by central banks pumping out tens of trillions of dollars in stimulus packages to prop up “too big to fail” corporate partners. In 2020 alone, the Fed created over $6 trillion from nothing and air dropped it into the economy through covid welfare programs. Add that to the many trillions of dollars that the Fed has printed since the credit crash in 2008 – It has been a nonstop dollar destruction party and now the public is starting to feel the consequences. Lucky for the central bankers that covid struck and Russia invaded Ukraine, because now they can deflect all the blame for the inflationary calamity they have engineered onto the pandemic and onto Putin.
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That energy transition they talk about? It will never happen.
• Food Shortages: Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste (Fox)
A top Biden official said Sunday that the global food shortage crisis would push farmers toward relying on more green energy. “Never let a crisis go to waste,” U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Chief Samantha Power told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.” Speaking of the global consequences of Russia’s war with Ukraine, the Biden official said that fertilizer shortages would provide farmers the opportunity to “hasten” their “transition” from fertilizer to more “natural” resources. “Fertilizer shortages are real now because Russia is a big exporter of fertilizer. Even though fertilizer is not sanctioned, less fertilizer is coming out of Russia,” she explained. “As a result we’re working with countries to think about natural solutions like manure and compost and this may hasten transitions that would have been in the interest of farmers to make eventually anyway. So never let a crisis go to waste.”
Power added that the administration was still asking Congress to pass more relief. Last week, President Biden requested an additional $33 billion from Congress for military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine. “But we really do need this financial support from the Congress to be able to meet emergency food needs, so we don’t see the cascading deadly effects of Russia’s war extend into Africa and beyond,” she said. President Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm made similar remarks back in March, pushing for Congress to use this crisis to pass “clean energy” legislation and to “wean off” fossil fuels. “This crisis in Europe, and the crisis our allies are facing and the reduction of supply of natural gas and oil from Russia creates a moment that we should be acting,” she said at a clean energy summit.
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Philadelphia
Tulsi Obama
https://twitter.com/i/status/1520713806086696960
Dogs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1520682823010721792
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