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Debt Rattle March 2 2024

Mar 022024
 
 March 2, 2024  Posted by at 9:51 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  12 Responses »


Camille Corot Study for “The Destruction of Sodom” 1843

 

• Germany Launches Investigation Into Leaked Crimean Bridge Attack Talk (RT)
• France Considering Placing Special Forces In Ukraine – Le Monde (RT)
• Macron’s Idea to Send NATO Troops to Ukraine ‘Made Him Look Very Foolish’ (Sp.)
• NATO Troops Already Deployed to Ukraine, and Getting Killed (SCF)
• Austin: If Ukraine Is Defeated, NATO Will Be At War With Russia (ZH)
• Austin Talking About NATO-Russia War Means US Has A Plan For It – Lavrov (TASS)
• Putin Learned From His Mistakes and Today Gives Us Precious Lessons (Vasco)
• The Blob Quivers (Kunstler)
• The West Is Willing To Destroy Its Financial System To Punish Russia (RT)
• Biden Wants To Give Russian Central Bank Funds To Ukraine, France Resists (ZH)
• The Global South Converges to Multipolar Moscow (Pepe Escobar)
• Haley: Nominating Trump Means ‘Suicide for Our Country’ (RCP)
• Musk Sues ChatGPT Maker Over AI Threat (RT)
• The Truth is a Complete Defense (PO)

 

 

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This makes Germany a direct participant. We see both Germany and France getting more involved, and denying that at the same time.

The forces for forever war appear to be winning. But wait till their people understand this. They certainly don’t want it. Time for a major false flag?!

• Germany Launches Investigation Into Leaked Crimean Bridge Attack Talk (RT)

Berlin’s first reaction to Friday’s revelations that several German generals discussed helping Ukraine attack Russia was to launch an investigation into how the recording got out. RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan first published a transcript of the conversation between senior Luftwaffe officers discussing the matter, followed by a 38-minute audio recording. “We are checking whether communications within the Air Force were intercepted,” a spokesperson for the German Ministry of Defense told the outlet Bild. “We cannot say anything about the content of the communications that were apparently intercepted.” The Federal Office for Military Counterintelligence (BAMAD) has “initiated all necessary measures,” the ministry said in response to an inquiry from the state news agency DPA.

Meanwhile, the Bundeswehr has also resorted to censorship. Multiple accounts on X (formerly Twitter) that distributed the recording were blocked in Germany as of Friday evening. Bild claimed that “it seems obvious” Russian spies “or one of their partners” were behind the recording. The 38-minute audio was dated February 19 and features four officers of the German air force (Luftwaffe), including its head General Ingo Gerhartz and deputy chief of staff for operations, Brigadier-General Frank Graefe. The officers assumed that Germany would send up to 50 Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine and the ways in which the Luftwaffe could provide the Ukrainians with targeting information without appearing to be directly involved in the conflict with Russia.

They also noted the Ukrainians’ obsession with targeting the Kerch Strait bridge, noting its significance was primarily political rather than military. At one point, Gerhartz admitted that the missiles “won’t change the course of the war,” while another officer expressed doubt that even 20 Taurus hits could actually destroy the bridge. The Russian Foreign Ministry and parliament have both announced they would demand an explanation from Berlin. The government of Chancellor Olaf Sholz has not officially commented on the intercepted call.

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“They have, however, always “stopped at the Ukrainian border..”

• France Considering Placing Special Forces In Ukraine – Le Monde (RT)

The French government is mulling sending a small military force directly into Ukraine to serve as instructors for Kiev’s Armed Forces and as a “deterrent” to Moscow, newspaper Le Monde reported on Friday, citing its sources. The paper did not disclose the number of French military ‘instructors’ that could potentially be authorized to cross into Ukrainian territory but reported that their ranks could include some “conventional units.” According to Le Monde, France’s Special Forces were also involved in training Ukrainian soldiers in neighboring Poland and in escorting the nation’s arms deliveries to Kiev. They have, however, always “stopped at the Ukrainian border,” the outlet added. The training France would like to provide to Ukrainians “on the ground” includes handling air defense systems, Friday’s report said.

Kiev’s surface-to-air weapons installations are frequently targeted by Russian forces, it explained, adding that the “presence of French soldiers or [those] of other nations would potentially protect certain areas of the Ukrainian territory.” The French government allegedly views such a troop deployment as a way of posing a “strategic dilemma” for Moscow, the paper said, adding that it could “constrain” Russia’s targeting and strike capabilities. In particular, it may prove to be “essential” ahead of the arrival of US-made F-16 fighter jets, scheduled to take place later this year, the French daily added. So far, France has denied that any of its troops have been present in Ukraine during the conflict, the media outlet said. French President Emmanuel Macron sparked controversy on Monday when he told journalists that a potential NATO troop deployment to Ukraine could not be ruled out in the future.

“There’s no consensus today to send, in an official manner, troops on the ground,” he said. “In terms of dynamics, we cannot exclude anything. We will do everything necessary to prevent Russia from winning this war.” Macron’s comments prompted other members of the US-led bloc, including the US, UK, Germany and Italy, to clarify that they had no such plans. The French president’s remarks were seemingly supported by two Baltic nations – Estonia and Lithuania – who also said that such a move could not be ruled out. Moscow warned in response that deploying NATO forces to Ukraine would make a direct conflict between Russia and the military bloc inevitable. On Friday, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne denied that Paris was planning to send any combat units to Ukraine, adding that it would do “everything” to avoid a war with Russia. The French president himself doubled down on his comments on Thursday by saying his words had been “thought through and measured.”

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“..the Germans were incensed at the cheekiness of Macron to publish a new initiative which can easily lead to [an] escalation of the war and to Germany being targeted by Russian missiles.”

• Macron’s Idea to Send NATO Troops to Ukraine ‘Made Him Look Very Foolish’ (Sp.)

The past few days have seen Western media discuss “open display of discord” between French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. After Macron recently proclaimed that he refuses to rule out sending EU troops to Ukraine, Scholz rejected the idea by emphasizing that “there will be no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there” by European states or NATO members. “There has long been a certain antagonism” between Macron and Scholz, “and the issue of aid to Ukraine has only exacerbated the existing contradictions,” Dr. Gregor Spitzen, German political analyst and independent journalist, said in an interview with Sputnik “France’s ill-considered initiative to send NATO ground troops to Ukraine made Macron look very foolish. The initiative was not even supported by NATO’s main anti-Russian hawks – the UK and Poland. The idea was also viewed negatively in the US,” Spitzen clarified.

He also noted that while “passionate volunteers from the French Foreign Legion are already fighting and dying in Ukraine […], most soldiers in European armies are not eager to take part in modern warfare, where the risk of dying in a rocket attack without even seeing the enemy is high.” Dwelling on the repercussions from Macron’s remarks, Spitzen suggested that “We are likely to see European and American arms deliveries to Ukraine for some time to come.” At the end of the day, however, “the West, seeing that the war is lost, will increasingly tempt Ukraine to make a separate peace,” the analyst predicted. Spitzen was echoed by Gilbert Doctorow, an international relations and Russian affairs analyst, who said that he thinks “the Germans were incensed at the cheekiness of Macron to publish a new initiative which can easily lead to [an] escalation of the war and to Germany being targeted by Russian missiles.”

When asked whether European countries will avoid further confrontation with Russia after Macron’s statement, Doctorow argued they “will likely continue it but in less risky places”, and that if Donald Trump comes to power in the US, they “will have to come to terms with Moscow over a new security architecture for the Continent.” The comments come after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in his state of the nation address that NATO risks a nuclear conflict if it sends troops to support the Kiev regime. “There’s been talk of sending NATO military forces to Ukraine. We remember the fate of those who sent their contingents to our country before and this time the consequences for the potential interventionists will be far more tragic,” Putin said. He urged the US and Europe to acknowledge the fact that Russia possesses weapons capable of targeting their territories and that all this plainly poses the risk of a conflict involving nuclear weapons, and therefore “the destruction of civilization”.

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“..It is estimated that up to 20,000 foreign personnel have joined the so-called “international legionnaires” fighting on the side of the Kiev regime..”:

• NATO Troops Already Deployed to Ukraine, and Getting Killed (SCF)

NATO has been vigorously arming and training the NeoNazi regime that was installed in Kiev since 2014. Even Jens Stoltenberg and other NATO officials have openly admitted that background involvement. In admitting the NATO presence in Ukraine over the past decade that also corroborates Russia’s reasoning of why it was compelled to launch its military intervention two years ago. Of course, the Western powers and their servile media never go as far as conceding that. They prefer to adopt a position of double-think and hypocrisy, claiming that Russia’s military action was “unprovoked aggression”. Macron may have been shot down for now and made to look like a dangling clown. But as so often in the past, controversial NATO ideas are put forward and seemingly rejected out of hand, only to be adopted later.

As Macron pointed out, Germany and other NATO nations were only two years ago reluctant to send military equipment beyond helmets and sleeping bags. Now these same entities have sent battlefield tanks and anti-aircraft missiles and are debating sending long-range weapons to strike deep into Russian territory. US President Joe Biden once remarked on the unfeasibility of supplying fighter jets to Ukraine “because that would mean starting World War Three”. Well, Biden has ended up consenting to the supply of F-16s and his NATO side-kick Stoltenberg asserts that these warplanes could be used to hit deep Russian targets. In other words, Macron’s notions about NATO ground troops going to Ukraine may be rebuffed for now in public. But the inexorable dynamic over the past decade indicates that the idea could well become a reality shortly.

NATO’s involvement in Ukraine is a strategic wedge to attack, weaken, and eventually vanquish Russia. What starts as a thin quantity inevitably grows into a bigger contingency. NATO military personnel are already in Ukraine and have been since at least 2014 when they started training the NeoNazi brigades to terrorize the ethnic Russian populations in Crimea, Donbass, and Novorossiya. Many of these soldiers are deployed unofficially as mercenaries or ostensibly as security details for NATO diplomats. Numerous reports have attested to the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine in one form or another. A Russian air strike near Kharkov in January killed at least 60 French military officers who were reportedly serving as private contractors. Other reports have cited as many as 50 American military killed in action serving in Ukraine.

It is estimated that up to 20,000 foreign personnel have joined the so-called “international legionnaires” fighting on the side of the Kiev regime against Russian forces. A fair assumption is that most of these soldiers of fortune are temporarily “decommissioned” NATO troops. Germany’s Scholz let the cat out of the bag this week when he said he was opposed to sending long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine because that would mean the deployment of German troops to assist with operating the weapons. Scholz misspoke by inadvertently disclosing that the British and French had already dispatched special forces to assist with their missile systems, the Storm Shadow and Scalp, respectively.

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“..the already slim chances of jump-starting serious peace negotiations to end the war are slipping away fast.”

• Austin: If Ukraine Is Defeated, NATO Will Be At War With Russia (ZH)

This is the single most important, dangerous and highly revealing statement from a top defense official in the West in a long time… It also demonstrates the precarious urgency of the moment and the huge stakes going into the November US election. The world truly stands on the precipice of a nuclear nightmare with the following fresh assertion of Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who said before Congress on Thursday: “If Ukraine falls, I really believe that NATO will be in a fight with Russia,” Austin stated. What’s more is that this came the very day that Russian President Vladimir Putin warned things could easily spiral toward nuclear war in the scenario that NATO sends troops to Ukraine. [..] According to the fuller context of the Pentagon chief’s statements, he emphasized that more Washington funding is crucial for Ukraine in order to prevent a situation where “one country can redraw its neighbors’ boundaries and illegitimately take over its sovereign territory.”

“We know that if Putin is successful here, he will not stop. He will continue to take more aggressive actions in the region. And other leaders around the world, other autocrats around the world will look at this and will be encouraged by the fact that this happened and we failed to support a democracy,” he added. “If you are a Baltic state, you are really worried about whether you are next. They know Putin. They know what he is capable of. And, frankly, if Ukraine falls, I really believe that NATO will be in a fight with Russia,” Austin said. What is even more alarming about this statement is that everyone now knows that Ukraine forces are in retreat at this very moment, especially after the Russian capture of the city of Avdiivka, and surrounding villages.

Bloomberg on Thursday issued a report predicting total collapse of the Ukrainian front lines by summer, as the headline suggests (Ukraine Sees Risk of Russia Breaking Through Defenses by Summer): “Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russian advances could gain significant momentum by the summer unless their allies can increase the supply of ammunition, according to a person familiar with their analysis,” the report says. According to more from Bloomberg: “Internal assessments of the situation on the battlefield from Kyiv are growing increasingly bleak as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russian attacks while rationing the number of shells they can fire. Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday that mistakes by frontline commanders had compounded the problems facing Ukraine’s defenses around Avdiivka, which was captured by Russian forces this month. Syrskyi said he’d sent in more troops and ammunition to bolster Ukrainian positions.”

So the consensus narrative and belated mainstream media admission is that Ukraine’s military is a mere months away from clear defeat, and the top US defense chief just said NATO will go to war with Russia “if Ukraine falls”. The conflict has reached a dire and perilously unpredictable moment indeed, and clearly the already slim chances of jump-starting serious peace negotiations to end the war are slipping away fast.

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“..according to Mr. Austin’s open, unambiguous statement, it’s the other way round. We do not have such plans and cannot have them, but the Americans do..”

• Austin Talking About NATO-Russia War Means US Has A Plan For It – Lavrov (TASS)

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, by saying that NATO and Russia could end up fighting each other if Ukraine is defeated, proved that the US has a plan for it, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a diplomatic conference in Antalya. “The meaning of this statement is that if Ukraine loses, NATO will have to go against Russia. In a Freudian slip he blurted out what they had in mind. Before that, everyone was saying: We can’t let Ukraine lose, because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will not stop at this and will take over the Baltics, Poland, Finland. But it turns out, according to Mr. Austin’s open, unambiguous statement, it’s the other way round. We do not have such plans and cannot have them, but the Americans do,” the minister said. According to Lavrov, Europe is currently the main victim of the US policy of “dragging Ukraine into NATO.”

“All major expenses have been shifted to Europe. People are living increasingly worse, energy resouces have rocketed in price manyfold, compared with what it could have been if the Americans had not blown up the Nord Stream gas pipelines,” the minister said. He said the situation around Ukraine was devised by Washington to make sure that the European Union doesn’t become too strong of a rival to the US economy. “And this goal has been achieved. Europe is now no longer a competitor to the US at all. All the main businesses and manufacturing industry are moving to the US, where conditions are completely different and energy is much cheaper,” Lavrov said. Austin earlier said that he believed “NATO will be in a fight with Russia” if Ukraine was defeated. The US Defense Secretary made the statement at a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

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“..By 1998, eight out of ten farms had gone bankrupt and 70,000 state-owned factories had closed. In 1994, a third of Russians lived below the poverty line..”

• Putin Learned From His Mistakes and Today Gives Us Precious Lessons (Vasco)

In his interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, President Vladimir Putin mentioned a fact that, for those – like me – who didn’t follow international politics 20 years ago, seems surreal. The Russian leader referred to a meeting he had with then-American President Bill Clinton in the Moscow Kremlin. “I asked him, ‘Bill, if Russia raised the issue of NATO membership, do you think it would be possible?’” Putin told Carlson. “Clinton replied: ‘It would be interesting, I think so!’” he continued. On the evening of that same day, when the two met again for dinner, Clinton’s opinion had changed radically. “‘I talked to my team. It’s not possible now,’” Clinton told Putin, according to the latter. “If he had said ‘yes’, the process of getting closer would have started, and, in the end, this could have happened if we saw a sincere desire from the partners,” he explained to Carlson.

A few days after this famous interview that went around the world, the BBC aired an interview with a former head of NATO confirming Putin’s intentions to join the military alliance in the early 2000s. “We had a good relationship”, revealed George Robertson. The Putin he met “wanted to cooperate with NATO” and “was very, very different from this almost megalomaniac of today”, recalled the historic member of the British Labor Party, staunch defender of Scotland’s slavery under the English yoke – even though he is Scottish – and who doesn’t realize that he lacks absolute morality to criticize the Russian intervention in Ukraine. With all the arrogance of a British man who still thinks he owns the world, Robertson indicated that the imperialist powers that, under his mandate at the head of NATO, finished attacking Yugoslavia and began the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq did not want to deal with Russia as an equal, but rather as a vassal within the organization.

Putin may not have fully understood the message at the time. He did not yet realize NATO’s expansionist aspirations. He fought against Chechen Muslim separatists, who carried out terrorist attacks on Russian territory. Therefore, he felt the need to support George W. Bush’s infamous “war on terror”. In fact, until then relations between Russia and the West had been relatively good since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin was a darling of the “international community”, as had Gorbachev. But the economic devastation caused by the neoliberal shock did not please an important part of the Russian elite, particularly the military. The political, economic and social crisis was not resolved. By 1998, eight out of ten farms had gone bankrupt and 70,000 state-owned factories had closed. In 1994, a third of Russians lived below the poverty line and, even ten years later, 20% were still in this situation. Russia had lost 10% of its population due to capitalist savagery.

The rates of suicide, murder, alcoholism, drug use, sexually transmitted diseases and prostitution had increased exponentially. Huge street demonstrations expressed the population’s discontent, which almost led to the communist party’s return to power. The country’s president was a drunkard and the Chechen War threatened to spread to other regions and balkanize Russia – the division of Yugoslavia occurred in parallel with the Russian crisis. Putin rose to power as a natural successor to Yeltsin. But the real conditions in Russia (internal and external) forced him to take an opposite path. Internal social pressures were added to the second-class treatment received from Western powers and NATO’s moves towards its border. He began by stabilizing the internal situation. He renationalized key companies in the gas, oil and aviation sectors, such as Rosneft, Yukos (merged into Rosneft), Gazprom and Aeroflot and created RZD to control the transport system.

It also benefited national capitalists (or “oligarchs”, according to the propaganda of international bankers) to the detriment of foreigners. At the same time, he fought the separatists with an iron fist, regained control of the Caucasus, pacified the region and fully unified the country. Despite officially supporting Putin’s war against the Chechens, the U.S. actually had a dual policy. At the same time, it was in the interest of the imperialist powers to divide Russia to weaken it even more than they did with the fall of the USSR. After all, even if the government of a given country is an ally, it is always preferable to imperialism to reduce its territory to facilitate its domination. While they did not accept Russia’s integration, the imperialist powers bought Moscow’s former allies and integrated them into NATO. In 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined the alliance. In 2004, it was the turn of Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania. In 2009, Albania and Croatia.

Macgregor

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“The majority of the voters don’t seem receptive to a replay of this scam but the US government is at war with those voters..”

• The Blob Quivers (Kunstler)

Did the Blob get vaxxed and boosted? Does that explain the severe neurological damage it displays now as its hologram of lies about Ukraine and Russia Russia Russia flickers out in the blinding daylight of reality. First, there was the gigantic New York Times article published last Sunday blowing open the decade-long secret shadow war by the CIA in a sprawling network of underground bunkers on and around the Russian border. The story was a direct feed from Blob Central in Langley, VA, to Times errand boys Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz, longtime RussiaGate hoaxers, and obviously intended to get ahead of the real news that the neo-con project to turn Ukraine into a NATO forward base against Russia has collapsed. Read closely, the Times story appears to be an effort by current CIA chief William Burns to hang-out-to-dry his predecessors John Brennan, Mike Pompeo, and Gina Haspel for the failed eight-year-long operation. Why? Because it looks like Russia is fixing to shut down the war ASAP, before its March 15 presidential election.

As it happened, Russian diplomats and Ukraine President Zelensky took turns visiting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in Saudi Arabia this week, sparking rumors that these were peace talks with MBS playing mediator. The situation is delicate for all concerned. Ukraine itself verges on collapse with its army decimated, its ammo used up, and its coffers empty, awaiting the $60-plus-billion aid package that is stalled in Congress, meaning no salaries for Ukraine govt employees and no pensions. It’s delicate for the US because “Joe Biden” has declared our country won’t negotiate over Ukraine, despite the fact that there is nothing else to do now, or the end of the war will be negotiated without us. And remember, not many days ago Mr. Putin told Tucker Carlson that he was ready to talk to anybody. What this will demonstrate is that America has neither the ability to continue its proxy war nor the will or sense to engage in peace talks — all due to “Joe Biden’s” abject intransigence, and not a good look for someone pretending to run for re-election.

It’s delicate for Russia because such a humiliating loss for America could provoke “JB” and his NATO allies to some reckless and foolish act, say, sending NATO members’ ground troops directly into battle or a missile strike on Russian territory, setting off nuclear war. At the very least, the situation has already prompted the US government propaganda machine to kick-start Russia Russia Russia 3.0, the threadbare narrative that has been the accelerant of Democratic Party hallucinations about Russia interfering in US elections since 2016 — when it has actually been US spooks collaborating with a motley assortment of Ukrainian stooges, plus Marc Elias’s lawfare corps, plus the Intel Blob coercing social media to work its will. The majority of the voters don’t seem receptive to a replay of this scam but the US government is at war with those voters, so anything goes in the struggle to retain power.

While we await news out of those peace talks, a political firestorm rages around illegal immigrants from all over the world swarming across the US border. Nothing about that seems even remotely comprehensible, let alone defensible, anymore, as women fall prey to rape and murder by mutts released on-purpose into the US population, and cities groan under the financial burden of housing and supporting them. And so, it looks like the person directly responsible, Alejandro Mayorkas, might be riding his House impeachment bill into a senate trial — another bad look for the Democratic Party (of Chaos) going into the heart of election season.

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“..a particular type of paradoxical impulse that arises during times of momentous change..”

• The West Is Willing To Destroy Its Financial System To Punish Russia (RT)

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has become the latest to add her voice to the growing chorus of Western officials calling for the seizure of Russia’s $300 billion in frozen foreign-exchange reserves for the benefit of Ukraine. This comes after UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak penned an op-ed over the weekend in which he called for the West to be “bolder” in moving toward confiscating the assets. Notwithstanding the reticence being displayed in some quarters of Europe and various admonitions that such an action would be both blatantly illegal and also detrimental to the integrity of the financial system, the idea seems to be taking on a momentum of its own, particularly in Washington and London. What we are seeing is a vivid example of the type of thinking that places perceived short-term gains ahead of a commitment to preserve the integrity of an institution that derives its potency precisely from widespread confidence in that integrity.

It is also, as we will see, a manifestation of a particular type of paradoxical impulse that arises during times of momentous change. In this case, the institution in question is the Western-led global financial system, at the very heart of which is the US dollar. Outright confiscation of the Russian central bank reserves that have been immobilized since shortly after the Ukraine conflict began in February 2022 would deliver another jolting blow to the credibility of this system. Even as most of the assets are actually held in Europe, there would be no confusion about who was calling the shots and whose credibility is on the line. Of course, views differ about how much integrity the dollar-centric system ever had, and certainly the entire Bretton Woods framework established in the waning days of World War II very much served the interests of the victorious Americans.

But it cannot be disputed that for decades the dollar was widely viewed across the geopolitical spectrum as not just a market-determined reference point and currency for trade but as a safe store of value. As trade became increasingly liberalized, assumptions about a safe and dependable dollar system were built into all manner of economic and trade policies. Such assumptions became part of the very fabric of the global financial system. Where risks related to the dollar were understood to exist, they were largely seen as lying in the realm of interest-rate policy – in other words, these were market risks rather than risks inherent to the system itself. A series of emerging-market crises in the 1980s and ‘90s left many countries chastened about the perils of excessive dollar debt and the dangers that US interest-rate hikes can unleash.

But one of the conclusions that many countries drew from these episodes was the necessity of holding greater dollar reserves as a bulwark against shocks. Between 2000 and 2005, right on the heels of two decades of crises often triggered by rising dollar interest rates, emerging markets actually accumulated dollar reserves at a record pace of about $250 billion per annum, or 3.5% of GDP – a level five times higher than in the early 1990s. In other words, countries responded to shocks emanating from the dollar realm by increasing holdings of dollars. This only underscores the nature of how dollar-related risk was perceived at the time. It simply didn’t occur to anybody that greater exposure to the dollar was itself a risk. The idea that hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of reserves could simply be confiscated if a country found itself at odds with the overseers of the system didn’t factor into any of the equations.

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“This legal basis must be accepted not only by the European countries, not only by the G7 countries, but by all the member states of the world community..”

• Biden Wants To Give Russian Central Bank Funds To Ukraine, France Resists (ZH)

President Biden wants the G7 countries to develop a plan to eventually have Russia’s frozen sovereign assets handed over Ukraine in order to support the war effort, Bloomberg has reported. Bloomberg’s source have also said the US president has privately warned allies that Ukraine’s collapse, and a Russian victory, would signify the international order is effectively destroyed for at least the next half-century. “G-7 officials have been discussing options to use the $280 billion of immobilized Russian Central Bank assets, including using the money as collateral to raise debt or issuing guarantees against the frozen funds, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity,” according to the report. Biden reportedly wants a firm plan proposed by the time of the Italy G7 summit in June. The US has been working behind the scenes to build consensus. The UK and Canada are reportedly on board, but not Germany and France.

Earlier this week France firmly voiced its rejection of seizing the frozen Russian bank funds. “We don’t think this legal basis is sufficient,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said after the G7 finance ministers meeting in Brazil on Wednesday. “This legal basis must be accepted not only by the European countries, not only by the G7 countries, but by all the member states of the world community, and I mean by all the member states of the G20. We should not add any kind of division among the G20 countries.” Opponents, including of course Russian officials themselves, have highlighted that such a act would be outright and brazen theft. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has warned in response, “We have ways to respond. We have also frozen sufficient volumes of financial assets and investments of foreign investors in our securities, all of which transfers we carry out for the owners of our securities.”

Europe has to agree to any US push to freeze banks funds, since the bulk of Russia’s money – about $200 billion – is being held by European banks. In such a scenario Moscow may consider the ‘theft’ to be tantamount to an act of war. Still, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was undeterred when she was in Brazil this week. “It is necessary and urgent for our coalition to find a way to unlock the value of these immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction,” she had said from Sao Paulo, speaking to 20 finance ministers and central bank governors. “I believe there is a strong international law, economic, and moral case for moving forward. This would be a decisive response to Russia’s unprecedented threat to global stability,” she added.

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“..the Collective West has been isolated by the Global Rest. “Global Rest”, incidentally, is a misnomer: Global Majority is the name of the game.”

• The Global South Converges to Multipolar Moscow (Pepe Escobar)

These have been frantic multipolar days at the capital of the multipolar world. I had the honor to personally tell Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that virtually the whole Global South seemed to be represented in an auditorium of the Lomonosov innovation cluster on a Monday afternoon – a sort of informal UN and in several aspects way more effective when it comes to respecting the UN charter. His eyes gleamed. Lavrov, more than most, understands the true power of the Global Majority. Moscow hosted a back-to-back multipolar conference plus the second meeting of the International Russophiles Movement (MIR, in its French acronym, which means “world” in Russian). Taken together, the discussions and networking have offered auspicious hints on the building of a truly representative international order – away from the agenda-imposed doom and gloom of single unipolar culture and Forever Wars.

The opening plenary session in the first day fell under the star power of Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova – whose main message was crystal clear: “There can’t be freedom without free will”, which could easily become the new collective Global South motto. “Civilization-states” set the tone of the overall discussion – as they are meticulously designing the blueprints of economic, technological and cultural development in the post-Western hegemonic world. Professor of International Relations Zhang Weiwei at Fudan University’s China Institute in Shanghai summarized the four crucial points when it comes to Beijing propelling its role as a “new independent pole.” That reads like a concise marker of where we are now: 1/ Under the unipolar order, everything from dollars to computer chips can be weaponized. Wars and color revolutions are the norm. 2/ China has become the largest economy in the world by PPP; the largest trade and industrial economy; and it is currently at the forefront of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 3/ China proposes a model of “Unite and Prosper” instead of a Western model of “Divide and Rule”. 4/ The West tried to isolate Russia, but the Global Majority sympathizes with Russia. Thus, the Collective West has been isolated by the Global Rest.

“Global Rest”, incidentally, is a misnomer: Global Majority is the name of the game. The same applies to “golden billion”; those that profit from the unipolar moment, mostly across the collective West and as comprador elites in the satraps, are at best 200 million or so. Monday afternoon in Moscow featured three parallel sessions: on China and the multipolar world, where the star was Professor Weiwei; on the post-hegemony West, under the title “Is it possible to save the European civilization?” – attended by several dissident Europeans, academics, think tankers, activists; and the main treat – featuring the frontline actors of multipolarity.I had the honor to moderate the awesome Global South session, which ran for over three hours – it could have been the whole day, actually – and featured several stunning presentations by a stellar cast of Africans, Latin Americans and Asians, from Palestine to Venezuela, including Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla. That was the multipolar Global South in full flight – as my imperative was to open the floor to as many people as possible. Were the organizers to release a Greatest Hits of the presentations, that could easily become a global hit.

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“She’s not building a big movement. What she’s doing is lying in wait and hoping for disaster.”

• Haley: Nominating Trump Means ‘Suicide for Our Country’ (RCP)

As Nikki Haley stubbornly clings to life ahead of Super Tuesday, warning that nominating Donald Trump for president a third time would mean “suicide for our country,” some of her closest supporters take solace in the fact that the future is unknowable. Perhaps there is a “fatal landmine” that the former president “could step on at any minute” or a lurking controversy that could “land him deep in the bottom of a well,” speculated Michigan State Rep. Mark Tisdal, who served on Haley’s leadership team for that state. “She is an alternative,” added Utah state Sen. Todd Weiler, who campaigned with Haley earlier this week, “and nobody knows what the future holds with the lawsuits and the age of both of our leading candidates.” Such are the unrealized hopes of the anti-Trump coalition. He will turn 78 in June, just three years younger than President Biden. He faces 91 felony counts in total among his four criminal indictments.

He has swept the first six nominating contests regardless. And Trump has yet to trip into a proverbial well or stumble onto any of the aforementioned landmines. During the primary, that is. Haley has urged the GOP to look to November from the beginning, offering up a well-worn rebuttal to the chorus of party members calling on her to exit. Now she has some data to make that case: “He lost 40% of the primary vote in all of the early states.” An accountant before politics, Haley points to the percentages in her favor as evidence of Trump’s weakness. In Minnesota Monday, she told a crowd, “You can’t win the general election if you can’t win that 40%.” Of course, unless the arithmetic changes in a hurry, Haley can’t win a primary with those numbers, either. As one prominent GOP operative put it to RealClearPolitics, requesting anonymity to speak frankly, “She’s not building a big movement. What she’s doing is lying in wait and hoping for disaster.”

Her campaign rejects outright any suggestion that Haley is waiting for catastrophe, legal or otherwise, to fall on Trump. They point to her dogged cross-country schedule and her seven-figure national ad campaign as evidence she hasn’t adopted a rear-guard strategy. They say Haley plans to win. “There’s a lot at stake this election. Nikki is fighting for the future of the Republican Party and long-standing conservative principles like fiscal discipline and a strong national security,” said spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas. “If we don’t right the ship, Republicans are going to keep losing and that means Democrats and the far left will keep winning.” The substance of Haley’s fight has earned her comparisons to once-beloved Republican presidents. “She certainly represents the values and principal policy positions of a Reagan-Bush coalition,” said GOP strategist Whit Ayers.

But unless things change in a hurry, her campaign could be compared to also-rans such as Pat Buchanan in 1992 and Steve Forbes in 1996, said Ayers, who noted that “there are a lot of people who’ve run for reasons other than simply winning the nomination.” Writing in Politico, conservative columnist Henry Olsen speculated about one of those potential reasons to stay in the race. The more delegates Haley wins, the more influence she will have at the Republican National Convention “to get concessions from Trump on things she cares about, such as U.S. support for NATO.” Speculation is in season, and more than one pundit has already written the Haley obituary. For her part, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations sticks to her argument that if Republicans nominate her old boss, “we will lose. It is that simple.” She brought this message with her to Utah, where the Republican governor, Spencer Cox, argued that if his party nominates Haley, “or literally anyone else, we would win by 10 to 14 points.”

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“..the company ignored its own ban on the use of its technology for “military and warfare” purposes and partnered up with the Pentagon..”

• Musk Sues ChatGPT Maker Over AI Threat (RT)

US billionaire Elon Musk has taken OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research company he once helped to found, to court over an alleged breach of its original mission to develop AI technology not for profit but for the benefit of humanity. OpenAI, founded in 2015 as a non-profit research lab to develop an open-source Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), has now become a “closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world,” Musk’s legal team wrote in the suit filed on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court. The lawsuit claimed that Musk “has long recognized that AGI poses a grave threat to humanity – perhaps the greatest existential threat we face today.” “But where some like Mr. Musk see an existential threat in AGI, others see AGI as a source of profit and power,” it added.

“Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity.” Musk left the OpenAI board of directors in 2018 and has since grown critical of the firm, especially after Microsoft invested at least $13 billion to obtain a 49% stake in a for-profit branch of OpenAI. “Contrary to the founding agreement, defendants have chosen to use GPT-4 not for the benefit of humanity, but as proprietary technology to maximize profits for literally the largest company in the world,” the suit read. The lawsuit listed OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman and president Gregory Brockman as co-defendants in the case, and called for an injunction to block Microsoft from commercializing the tech.

AI technology has improved at a rapid pace over the last two years, with OpenAI’s GPT language model going from powering a chatbot program in late 2022 to performing in the 90th percentile on SAT exams just four months later. More than 1,100 researchers, tech luminaries and futurists argued last year that the AI race poses “profound risks to society and humanity.” Even Altman himself has previously acknowledged that he is “a little bit scared” of the technology’s potential, and barred customers from using OpenAI to “develop or use weapons.” However, the company ignored its own ban on the use of its technology for “military and warfare” purposes and partnered up with the Pentagon, announcing in January that it was working on several artificial intelligence projects with the US military.

https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1763471083838033941

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Sounds interesting, but I don’t quite know what to make of it.

“MASSIVE WIN FOR TRUMP IN PA! Greg Stenstrom and Leah Hoopes won their legal case in Pennsylvania with co-Defendant @realDonaldTrump and can now say there WAS ELECTION FRAUD in 2020. This is big and may reverse not just #J6 and show the intelligence agencies at fault but actually also show Pfizer and all those who failed to sign oaths of office at fault for Pfizer damage and lack of clinical efficacy docuements. STAY TUNED. THINGS ARE DEVELOPING FAST”

• The Truth is a Complete Defense (PO)

WE WON. “NO MAS!” The Truth is a Complete Defense. Our defamation suit in which we were codefendants with President Trump is over, with the exception of a motion for sanctions that we expect will still be heard tomorrow morning in Philadelphia. Plaintiff Savage and attorney J. Conor Corcoran have withdrawn their complaints less than 24 hours before they were scheduled to appear in Court with Leah Hoopes and myself to consider Motion for Summary Judgement in our Favor for our “truth is a complete defense” and our Motion for Sanctions against Savage and Corcoran. As those of you who have been following along know, we have submitted a large volume of filings with the Court in preparation for tomorrows hearing, and a discovery hearing that was scheduled for 25MAR2024, and were beating them to a pulp.

We have also filed similar Motions to Dismiss and for Sanctions against Delaware County and attorneys from Duane Morris LLP and are beating their brains in there too. Duane Morris officially withdrew as attorneys this week for Newsmax in other litigation that we called out in our motions as conflicts and criminal collusion. To our knowledge, this is the only case against President Trump and Rudy Giuliani in the country (in which we were codefendants with them) that they have won, and credit where credit is due, Leah and I did all the heavy lifting. Expect more “wins” in the near future in our march to show that the November 2020 election was stolen and to restore election integrity and transparency in PA. We’re going after Shapiro hard and not going to quit until they all say “No Mas.” Semper Fi.

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Seal safe

 

 

Martis

 

 

Great white

 

 

Lions
https://twitter.com/i/status/1763621701726720013

 

 

 

 

Billy Crystal

 

 

Keef

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 7 2024

Jan 072024
 
 January 7, 2024  Posted by at 9:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  37 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn An Old Scholar Near a Window in a Vaulted Room 1631

 

• In a World Fraught With War and Danger… Signs of Hope (SCF Op-ed)
• Israeli War Cabinet Cracks At The Seams Over Possible 7 October Probe (Cradle)
• Israel Aiming To Derail ICJ Genocide Case – Axios (RT)
• Biden Admin Can Force Israel to Stop Fighting in Gaza But Will Not Do It (Sp.)
• Retired US General on Why American Army Numbers Smallest Since 1940 (Sp.)
• Zelensky Punishes Men And Women Who Refuse Draft (Kominyenko)
• White House Warns Of ‘Dire’ Situation With Ukraine Aid (RT)
• Obama Sends Election Warning To Biden – WaPo (RT)
• Criticism Over Secrecy of Pentagon Chief’s Hospitalization Mounts (Sp.)
• Trump Says He Has ‘More Indictments Than Al Capone’ (RT)
• Epstein, Clintons, Zelenska & Cash (Sp.)
• Epstein Invoked Fifth Amendment 600 Times in 2016 Testimony (Sp.)
• Hunter Biden’s ‘Sugar Brother’ Kevin Morris Plots Gauzy Documentary On First Son
• When Satire Beats You By 18 Months

 

 

 

 

Trump Jan 6

 

 

Tucker Clay Higgins Jan 6 – Revealing -Over 200 FBI assets

 

 

 

 

RFK

 

 

 

 

Orlov

 

 

Ritter

 

 

 

 

“The U.S. and its Western partners are bankrupt in every way, financially, morally and politically. The world can see that as clear as the fable of the naked emperor..”

• In a World Fraught With War and Danger… Signs of Hope (SCF Op-ed)

The emergence of a multipolar world is a reminder that the world has a lot to be optimistic about – despite the ravages of conflict and manifold perilous tensions. Russia and China’s strength to face down U.S. aggression is one such assurance of a better world taking shape. Out with the old and in with the new. There is an unerring sense that we are witnessing not merely one year giving way to the next. The world is undergoing truly historic changes that are related to the inexorable decline of the U.S.-led Western order and the emergence of a multipolar global order. The United States is still undoubtedly a global power with hegemonic ambitions. Its possession of hundreds of military bases in over 100 countries around the world is a testimony to its formidable military strength.

Nevertheless, the Washington-dominated Western order – or so-called “rules-based order” – is in fateful decline. The emergence of a multipolar alternative order is illustrated by numerous fora, the BRICS with its growing membership, the increasing influence of the G20, and the dynamism of the Eurasian economies. All these developments bear witness to the demise of the Western order. The substantial move away from the U.S. dollar as the premier currency of trade is perhaps the most consequential manifestation of the global shifts in power. Empires rarely expire quietly as millennia of history show. There is always a hard-bitten struggle to maintain privileges and monopoly control. The fading of the U.S. is no different. The empire is going down screaming and kicking.

This would account for the mainspring of tensions and conflict in today’s world. The proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, the eruption of genocidal violence in the Middle East and the incendiary tensions in the Asia-Pacific with China are all related to the U.S. loss of imperial power. Given the appalling violence and danger of these conflicts escalating into a conflagration, we nevertheless conclude the year with hopeful realism. Russia, China, and many other nations are steadfastly refusing to capitulate to U.S. aggression. The American empire is cornered by its own corruption and internal crisis. There was a time in history when Western powers could shoot their way out of trouble by starting wars overseas under all sorts of false pretences.

Those days are over. The U.S. and its Western partners are bankrupt in every way, financially, morally and politically. The world can see that as clear as the fable of the naked emperor. Russia, China and other nations that aspire for a new, fairer world based on respect for international law and the founding principles of the United Nations are not going to pander to the geopolitical blackmail of the U.S. and its dying Western empire. Despite the grim circumstances existing in parts, the world has much to look forward to in terms of achieving international cooperation, development and peace. Signs of hope are all around us. When an empire goes down there is much grinding and gnashing. But it goes down and the world goes on.

Happy New Year to all our readers.

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“What happened yesterday was a politically motivated attack in the middle of a war.” “I have participated in many cabinet meetings. Such conduct has never occurred and must not occur..”

• Israeli War Cabinet Cracks At The Seams Over Possible 7 October Probe (Cradle)

War cabinet minister Benny Gantz says he supports the Israeli Army Chief of Staff’s call for an investigation into the security and intelligence failures of 7 October, the Times of Israel reported on 6 January. During a cabinet meeting on 5 January, several extremist ministers, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, ganged up against Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi for his intention to launch a probe into the army’s shortcomings on 7 October, when Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on military bases and settlements in southern Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly ended the meeting after shouting erupted as some ministers came to Halevi’s defense.

Gantz acknowledged it was appropriate for government ministers to challenge the information provided to them by security chiefs at cabinet meetings but added: “What happened yesterday was a politically motivated attack in the middle of a war.” “I have participated in many cabinet meetings. Such conduct has never occurred and must not occur,” he said. Gantz then defended Halevi’s decision to appoint a panel to probe the military’s failures on 7 October. Netanyahu has insisted that such a probe can only occur after the war. The Chief of Staff explained his reason for opening a probe to Ynet: “Something happened here that the army should learn from. Tomorrow, if an incident happens in another sector, we want to understand what caused the failure in the chain of command. This is an operational investigation that has implications for the fighting in the north.”

Opening an investigation into the events of 7 October is controversial for Israeli leaders as it could affect the political fortunes of many should they be found responsible for an event that Israelis view as the greatest national tragedy since the Holocaust. Numerous reports have also emerged in Israeli media suggesting that the army killed many of their soldiers and civilians on 7 October to stop the Hamas attack. Roughly 1,200 Israeli soldiers and civilians died during the fighting; Israeli authorities typically claim Hamas murdered them all.

Israel deployed tanks, attack helicopters, and armed drones to attack the Israeli settlements infiltrated by Hamas. Troops bombed homes with Hamas fighters and their Israeli captives inside and attacked Hamas fighters near the border as they were taking Israelis captive back to Gaza. As a result, many Israelis were killed in their homes by Israeli tanks and helicopter fire, while others were gunned down near the Gaza border. Any investigation into the army’s conduct on 7 October would provide additional details of how, when, and how many Israelis were killed by friendly fire.

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“A ruling by the court could have significant potential implications that are not only in the legal world but have practical bilateral, multilateral, economic, security ramifications..”

• Israel Aiming To Derail ICJ Genocide Case – Axios (RT)

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has ordered its embassies across the globe to pressure their host countries to reject South Africa’s genocide case against it at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Axios has reported, citing an urgent diplomatic cable. Pretoria addressed the ICJ last week, claiming that Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part” of the Palestinian population. South Africa wants the The Hague-based court to issue an injunction ordering the IDF to suspend its military campaign in the enclave. More than 22,600 people have been killed in Gaza over the past three months, according to the local health ministry.

ICJ
https://twitter.com/i/status/1743520801620480247

The cable, which was sent out by the Foreign Ministry on Thursday, stresses that Israel’s “strategic goals” are for the ICJ to reject South Africa’s request for an injunction, refrain from determining that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and acknowledge that the IDF’s actions in the enclave comply with international law, Axios said in an article on Saturday. “A ruling by the court could have significant potential implications that are not only in the legal world but have practical bilateral, multilateral, economic, security ramifications,” the document, copies of which were seen by the outlet, read. According to the Foreign Ministry, Israeli diplomats must pressure their counterparts and high-level politicians in host countries to issue “immediate and unequivocal public statement along the following lines: To publicly and clearly state that YOUR COUNTRY rejects the outragest, absurd and baseless allegations made against Israel.”

It’s also important for foreign nations “to publicly acknowledge that Israel is working to increase the humanitarian aid to Gaza, as well as to minimize damage to civilians, while acting in self defense after the horrible October 7 attack by a genocidal terrorist organization [Hamas],” the cable read. The Foreign Ministry stressed that Israeli diplomats must urgently work on obtaining such statements so that they come out before the ICJ hearings begin on January 11. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will also send letters to dozens of world leaders, relaying a similar message, it added. Countries like Türkiye, Jordan, and Malaysia have supported South Africa’s cases. However, it was rejected by Israel’s prime backer, the US. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said earlier this week that “we are not seeing any acts that constitute genocide” in Gaza.

Nap Mearsheimer

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“But of course, Blinken is not going to do that. He is a diehard Zionist. He is in on the plot over there with Netanyahu to inflict outright genocide on the Palestinians..”

• Biden Admin Can Force Israel to Stop Fighting in Gaza But Will Not Do It (Sp.)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has undertaken yet another voyage to the Middle East, meeting Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the ongoing hostilities in the Gaza Strip. While media reports this week suggested that Blinken will try facilitate the return of Palestinians displaced by the fighting back to their homes and to urge Israel to increase aid to Palestinians, American human rights lawyer Francis Anthony Boyle argues that the US state secretary is “up to no good.” In an interview with Sputnik, Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois’ College of Law, suggested that Blinken headed to the Middle East to “better coordinate the escalation of conflict” there instead of trying to put an end to bloodshed. “In fact, the Biden administration just needs to order Israel to cease fire immediately, and they will have to do it.

“But of course, Blinken is not going to do that. He is a diehard Zionist. He is in on the plot over there with Netanyahu to inflict outright genocide on the Palestinians,” Boyle said. According to him, the US appears to be “just backing whatever Israel wants to do,” which currently appears to be attempting to to displace over 2 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. “If you look at the countries Blinken is going to, he is going to try to neutralize any opposition to this plan by by Israel and see if they can pull it off,” Boyle remarked. He also argued that the Biden administration is “complicit in Israeli genocide against the Palestinians” by supplying Israel with military hardware and munitions and by providing Tel Aviv with political support.

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“..they’re trying to bring those individuals back into the force, but it’s not happening. They don’t want to come back.”

• Retired US General on Why American Army Numbers Smallest Since 1940 (Sp.)

By the end of 2023, there will be only 452,000 active-duty soldiers in the US Army, the smallest force since 1940, Defense News recently reported. In this vein, the international military news outlet pointed to recruiting shortfalls in the U.S. Army that could result in 3,000 Army Special Operations troops being cut before the end of this year. There are a number of factors that have contributed to the dwindling strength of the [US] armed forces, Paul E. Vallely, a retired US Army major general and chairman of the Stand Up America US Foundation, told Sputnik. First and foremost is the COVID-19 pandemic, in which a number of US soldiers were discharged from the army without pay because they didn’t want to take the vaccine, according to Vallely. “And of course, now they’ve changed that around, and they’re trying to bring those individuals back into the force, but it’s not happening. They don’t want to come back.”

The second factor, Vallely claimed, was “the surrender and withdrawal out of Afghanistan.” He argued that “many future soldiers decided they didn’t want to go into the armed forces with the poor leadership of some of the generals and admirals. “I think the third thing is that based on this racial rather than equity type of performance standards, where they’re going to select you based on race, rather than your ability to fly an airplane or whatever under what we call the critical race theory, that has to do with DEI, [namely] diversity, equity and inclusion.” The retired US Army major general accused the left wing of the American political system of trying “to judge you based on your racial makeup, rather than on your ability and skill to conduct certain actions required in the military.”

“And then you have this diversity trend where they’ve gone LGBTQ, and young American people, for the most part, don’t buy into that. They’re not going to go into the Air Force or the Army or Special Forces if there’s a transgender person next to them or in the shower and so on. So these are the issues that have affected both re-enlistment and the enlistment of new people.” Vallely remained pessimistic about the Pentagon’s hope that putting more money into the recruiting budget will help recruiters bring more people into the Army. “I don’t think it’s going to have any effect,” he remarked. Asked if it’s safe to say that the coming structural changes in the U.S. Army also reflect the challenges America faces abroad and at home, Vallely pointed to the migration crisis, saying, “What the military has to do is protect our [US] southern border.”

“We have thousands coming illegally across our southern border that are financed and supported by the Mexican cartels. So our military has to do something. We can’t depend on police or border patrol with the situation now and that’s going to be a major challenge for the United States to protect its borders. We have people coming in from all over the world,” he added.

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“In October 2023 Zelensky purchased a former Nazi lakeside luxury villa for €8.12 Million in Germany via his offshore company. The “Bogensee House” was a gift from Hitler to the Nazi minister Joseph Goebbels on his 39th birthday. The Egyptian journalist who investigated the purchase of this luxury villa by Zelensky’s mother-in-law was found dead with numerous abrasions, fractures and a severe head injury.”

• Zelensky Punishes Men And Women Who Refuse Draft (Kominyenko)

All Ukranian men aged 25-60 years (including those abroad) who do not report to a recruiting station will be punished. Roughly 6,000 Ukro men flee Ukraine daily, 45% of them in the guise of truck drivers, another 150-200 men as volunteers, the residual are fathers with multiple children and the disabled. Divorcing and taking the kids has become popular some escape by taking the disabled aboard, others have medical certificates of exemption and some change their gender on their passport. Soon it will be a criminal act to flee the country to avoid the draft, justifying the complicit EU countries in their arresting and deporting of Ukrainians to die at the frontline.

A financial crisis is unfolding in Ukraine due to Zelensky’s mass mobilisation plan, Ukraine’s financial system is on the brink of collapse. The threat of drafting another 500,000 Ukrainians is sweeping the country with panic. Zelensky’s punishment; includes isolating people from; their bank accounts, selling property, consular services, renewing ID’s, acquiring power of attorney, access to credit cards. From Jan. 1st, 2024 it is impossible to see a doctor in Ukraine without a military service pass. So much for do no harm! Kiev authorities will serve summonses at checkpoints, law enforcement will also issue summonses to unsuspecting citizens at checkpoints. They are proposing a mechanism to track those eligible for mobilisation, the “international rules based order (NWO)” wet dream. A run on ATM’s in Ukraine has seen USD 1 billion extracted in a single day. They are plundering their accounts and hoarding cash while dumping the banks.

Ukraine is developing a single database listing all potential recruits, this system shall deliver digital conscription notices via phone. The military is using ministerial databases to create it. Antiquated push-button Nokia phones are now the craze in Ukraine, no Internet, no ID, hence nowhere to send friendly military summons. Men are reassigning property to their partners, one man transferred his car and apartment to his wife. In the meantime, Ukraine’s Finance Minister has stated that the country does not have the money to finance the mobilisation of 500,000 cannon fodder. Zelensky needs western cash to continue sacrificing innocents. The West has always known that Ukraine would be decimated by Russia and will probably not survive as a nation-state.

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Note that the GOP has just about offered to support Ukraine aid, if and when the Biden admin promises to secure the border. Also note that they haven’t said even one single word about that. They want to keep the border open. That’s priority no. 1.

• White House Warns Of ‘Dire’ Situation With Ukraine Aid (RT)

The White House desperately needs congressional approval for its major aid package for Ukraine if it hopes to continue supporting Kiev, Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told journalists on Friday. Washington has very few other options left to continue the aid flow, she said, adding that the US is running out of time in this regard. Washington provided Ukraine with a $250 million arms package in late December, deemed the last one due to the lack of funding. According to Young, the administration of President Joe Biden decided to forgo its drawdown authority, allowing it to take weapons from existing US stockpiles and send them to Kiev. These stocks cannot be refilled without the funding that is yet to be approved by Congress.

The Pentagon still has some limited authority to provide the Ukrainian military with weapons, but “that is not going to get big tranches of equipment into Ukraine,” the official added. Earlier this week, Pentagon spokesman Major General Patrick Ryder also said the US Defense Department was running “out of money” for Ukraine. The situation with the aid for Ukraine is nothing short of “dire,” Young admitted, warning of an event when the US would potentially have to stop its assistance to Kiev completely. “Yes, Kiev might have a little time from other donors to make sure they can keep their war footing, keep the civil service, but what happens in the [European Union], in other NATO allies, if the US pulls out their support?” she told journalists at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

The official warned that such a development might also prompt other nations to withdraw their support for Kiev. “What message does that send to the rest of the world? And what will their decisions be if they see the United States not step up to the plate?” Biden urged lawmakers to pass a massive aid package, including some $61 billion for Kiev, in late October 2023. The bill remained stuck in Congress for months amid Republican opposition, which demanded a stricter border protection policy. The legislation was eventually left in limbo after Congress shelved it late last year, postponing discussions until after the holiday break.

At the same time, another major donor – the EU – also saw its major aid package to Kiev delayed due to internal disagreements. A planned four-year scheme worth some €50 billion ($55 billion) was vetoed by Hungary late last year, with deliberations on it pushed into 2024. Amid such developments, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour earlier this week that his nation had no “plan B” without the US military aid. He also reiterated Kiev’s demands for combat drones, long-range missiles, and air defense capabilities, among other gear.

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“..He is not only concerned by Biden’s weak polling number but also by the effectiveness of his unorthodox campaign structure..”

• Obama Sends Election Warning To Biden – WaPo (RT)

Former US President Barack Obama has urged Biden’s advisers to bolster the reelection campaign by engaging top-level decision-makers or empowering those already in place in the headquarters amid the lackluster voter approval that may see Donald Trump return to power in 2024. Obama and Biden discussed the campaign during a previously unreported private lunch at the White House in recent months, the Washington Post reported in an article published on Saturday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The former president reportedly became “animated” while talking about the 2024 elections and the prospect of former president Donald Trump winning the race.

Obama, who served as the 44th president of the US, recalled the success of his 2012 reelection campaign when some of his top aides took charge of the reelection operations on the ground across the country, and criticized Biden’s approach of leaving his advisors in the White House. According to the people, who spoke to the outlet on the condition of anonymity, Obama did not refer to anything specific in the campaign structure but rather suggested that it needs to “move aggressively” as Trump appears to take the lead in the 2024 Republican presidential nominating contest. He did not recommend any specific individuals to be recruited by the campaign but allegedly mentioned his senior strategist David Plouffe, who led Obama’s 2008 race, as an example of who could help.

The Biden campaign and Obama’s spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Post. However, Obama has long worried about Donald Trump’s political strength and warned earlier this year that he could be a more formidable challenger than many Democrats realize. He is not only concerned by Biden’s weak polling number but also by the effectiveness of his unorthodox campaign structure. Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodrigues is based in the campaign’s headquarters in Wilmington. At the same time, the top aides – Anita Dunn, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mike Donilon, and Steve Ricchetti work from the White House, which means that all important decisions need to go through the White House first.

Some Democrats raised their concerns that the campaign may not be able to immediately respond to fast-moving developments. David Axelrod, the former senior presidential advisor, said on Friday that while he cannot comment on Obama’s discussions with Biden, each president approaches his reelection differently. Back in November, Axelrod suggested that Biden should consider dropping out of the 2024 race. Biden’s support rating hit a record low before the year’s end with just 38% of voters approving his performance, according to the polls recently conducted by the Washington Post. Voters, including a majority of Democrats, are particularly concerned about Biden’s age as well as his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

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Weird story. Was he afraid they’d take his powers away? He was in the ICU for four days, but the latest pieces just say “hopitalized”.

• Criticism Over Secrecy of Pentagon Chief’s Hospitalization Mounts (Sp.)

There has been a growing wave of censure over the secrecy that has surrounded the hospitalization of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The Pentagon has been slammed for concealing 70-year-old Austin’s condition for four days after he was admitted on January 1 to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center over “complications following a recent elective medical procedure.” No details have been released as to what the procedure was or what complications ensued. In an effort to smooth the situation over, Lloyd Austin himself released a statement on Saturday taking “full responsibility” for not divulging his condition earlier. “I am very glad to be on the mend and look forward to returning to the Pentagon soon. I also understand the media concerns about transparency and I recognize I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better,” Austin said, adding: “But this is important to say: this was my medical procedure, and I take full responsibility for my decisions about disclosure.”

However, the statement did little to quell the disapproval. “When one of the country’s two National Command Authorities is unable to perform their duties, military families, Members of Congress, and the American public deserve to know the full extent of the circumstances,” said Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a member of the aforementioned committee, said that Austin “must address promptly” why the White House wasn’t informed of his hospitalization until later. The Pentagon Press Association underscored in a letter to the Defense Department that has been shared with the media that amid the current global tensions, it was “particularly critical for the American public to be informed about the health status and decision-making ability of its top defense leader.”

According to the nonprofit Military Reporters and Editors (MRE), the decision to keep the hospitalization under wraps for days was “in the worst traditions of obfuscation and opacity.” “This is a violation of the intent and spirit of the Pentagon’s own Principles of Information, and it fails to meet the standards of public disclosure for senior government officials unable to exercise their duties,” MRE said in a statement. On January 4, the Defense Department spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced that Lloyd Austin had been hospitalized since New Year’s Day, with his deputy, Kathleen Hicks, taking over some of his duties. On January 5, Austin reportedly resumed full duties while still remaining in hospital.

However, the hospitalization was purportedly kept secret even from senior Pentagon officials and congressional lawmakers until Ryder’s press release. The “vast, vast majority of leaders were unaware,” one US official was cited as saying. When questioned why it took days for the Pentagon to notify the public about Austin’s hospitalization, Ryder said: “This has been an evolving situation in which we had to consider a number of other factors.” He added that Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks was “prepared to act for and exercise the powers of the Secretary, if required.”

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“..I was being indicted so fast we didn’t know where in the hell they were coming from. If I flew over a blue state, the next day I’d get served with a subpoena..”

• Trump Says He Has ‘More Indictments Than Al Capone’ (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has dismissed the multiple criminal cases against him, telling supporters that he’s been prosecuted more harshly than infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone. He made his comments at a rally in Iowa ahead of the first contest of the election year. “I’ve got more indictments than Al Capone, did you ever hear of Al Capone?” Trump asked supporters in Mason City on Friday. “The great Alphonse Capone…but I’ve got it worse than Al Capone and he’s about as bad as you get,” he continued. “This was never in my plan…I was being indicted so fast we didn’t know where in the hell they were coming from. If I flew over a blue state, the next day I’d get served with a subpoena,” he exclaimed, to laughter from the crowd.

With eleven months to go until the 2024 presidential election, Trump is facing more than 90 criminal counts in two federal cases – concerning his alleged instigation of the January 2021 riot on Capitol Hill and his alleged mishandling of classified documents – as well as two state-level cases and a multitude of civil suits. He has dismissed the federal indictments as a “pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election.” Trump held two rallies in Iowa on Friday, during which he implored residents of the Hawkeye State to turn up at next week’s Republican caucuses and support his bid for the presidency. The Iowa caucuses are the first contest of the primary season, and recent polling shows him with a commanding 32-point lead over his nearest Republican rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Nevertheless, Trump urged his supporters not to get complacent. “Bad things happen when you sit back,” he said, adding that “you have to get out and vote because it sets the tone. It even sets the tone, frankly, for November.”

Hours before Trump spoke in Iowa, President Joe Biden delivered a speech of his own in Pennsylvania, in which he claimed that American democracy was “nearly lost” when Trump’s supporters rioted at the Capitol three years ago. Trump argued that Biden is the real “threat to democracy,” citing the indictments against him and the harsh sentences handed down to non-violent participants in the Capitol riot. “Joe Biden’s record is an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption, and failure,” Trump told the crowd at the first rally of the evening. “That’s why Crooked Joe is staging his pathetic fearmongering campaign event in Pennsylvania today.” Despite the Biden campaign’s efforts to frame the 2024 election as a referendum on democracy itself rather than on his own record, most recent polls show the incumbent Democrat losing to Trump.

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Where the Clintons typically find their money.

• Epstein, Clintons, Zelenska & Cash (Sp.)

Unsealed court filings over accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein named over a hundred of rich and powerful people connected to the billionaire pedophile — including former US President Bill Clinton and his aide Doug Band. Ironically, back in 2003, Doug Band helped kick off now-famous Clinton Foundation international initiatives with the aim of rehabilitating Bill’s post-presidential image, marred by sex scandals, and turning the ex-president into “the world’s philanthropist in chief,” writes Vanity Fair. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), one of the foundation’s international projects, was supposedly started in league with Jeffrey Epstein — who died in Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial — late in 2004-early in 2005, according to Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst who has been investigating the Clinton Foundation’s alleged fraud for several years.

Ortel said the Clinton Foundation and its numerous offshoots were nothing but a vehicle to transform the once-broke presidential family into mega-multi-millionaires and help their associates to get rich too. The Wall Street analyst is highly skeptical about the Clintons’ new joint endeavor with the Zelenskys, who have also been mired in corruption allegations. “By the time Hillary Clinton commenced work with Ukraine’s First Lady, the Clinton family had more than twenty years of experience breaking key charity laws, especially in New York City and State which, to date, have targeted Donald Trump and his family for charity frauds, but allowed Clinton charity frauds to expand in scope, scale, and international breadth,” Ortel told Sputnik. “In fact, ‘Clinton Global Initiative’ and ‘The Clinton Foundation’ have not complied with laws concerning ‘public charities’,” the Wall Street analyst continued. “These laws require that such entities be controlled by truly independent boards of directors, bar creation of ‘private gain’ through their operation, and forbid partisan political activities.”

The Zelenska Foundation was founded in 2022 with the declared aim of attracting foreign businesses, funds and donors to “restore Ukraine’s human capital”. The Foundation’s public launch took place on September 22, 2022 at a charity event in New York during the opening of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly. The event was attended by former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, then-British foreign secretary James Cleverly, actor Matt Damon and “a wide circle of diplomats and businessmen”, according to the Ukrainian president’s official website. Around that time Hillary Clinton started wooing the Ukrainian first lady, who received the Hillary Rodham Clinton Award for exceptional leadership in December 2022 and the 2023 Clinton Global Citizen Award in September 2023. Hillary and Olena’s partnership, which started in 2022, resulted in the CGI Ukraine Action Network announced by the Clintons in September 2023, according to The Independent.

Ortel noted that the Clintons have a long record of collaborating with the Ukrainian elites, including oligarch Viktor Pinchuk and his wife Olena — daughter of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. Like Zelenskaya, Olena launched a foundation, this one to raise funds to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ukraine, and cooperated closely with the Clintons. Her husband is well known as one of the most generous donors to Clinton charities. “The Clinton family began operating in association with various persons in Ukraine by 2003 even though the original purported Clinton charity – The William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation never legitimately obtained approvals to operate outside Little Rock, Arkansas for any charitable purposes other than housing Presidential Records for Bill Clinton’s period as President (20 January 1993 through 20 January 2001) and allowing interested parties to perform research on these records at the Presidential Center,” explained Ortel.

“Without complying with applicable state, federal and foreign laws, Bill Clinton and his cohort of co-conspirators then ostensibly raised money for a raft of ‘charitable’ projects, including in Ukraine, for which there has never been proper accounting. If Ukraine maintains legal records on charities (an open question), there should be filings available to investigators that might allow authorities to compare claims made by Bill Clinton concerning his work there with apparent legal reality,” he continued. According to Ortel, “as during the Clinton years as Secretary of State, there is no oversight of monies flowing towards Ukraine from donors who believe they might be helping Ukraine repel Russia’s special military operation.”

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“..conspiracy theorists continue to wonder if Epstein was murdered..”

• Epstein Invoked Fifth Amendment 600 Times in 2016 Testimony (Sp.)

Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein invoked the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution about 600 times in 2016 while testifying for a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by one of his victims, Virginia Giuffre, according to a court filing. The Fifth Amendment states that a person has the right against self-incrimination. Epstein’s reluctance to testify against his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwel, was revealed during Friday’s filing in Manhattan federal court involving a new batch of unsealed documents related to the billionaire financier’s sexual abuse of teenage girls. According to the court filing, Epstein routinely answered “Fifth” to about 500 substantive questions posed by Giuffre’s attorneys during a September 2016 deposition.

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and felony solicitation of prostitution. The 66-year-old billionaire financier was later released under a plea deal, only to be charged with sex trafficking in July 2019. In August of that year, he was found dead in his New York City jail cell, with officials declaring his death a suicide. The cause of his death remains controversial, however, as conspiracy theorists continue to wonder if Epstein was murdered to prevent him from testifying against his high-profile friends, including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew.

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“..he has given me back my dignity. He has been a brother to me…”

• Hunter Biden’s ‘Sugar Brother’ Kevin Morris Plots Gauzy Documentary On First Son

First son Hunter Biden’s so-called “sugar brother,” Hollywood attorney Kevin Morris, is backing a soft-focus documentary on the disgraced and indicted presidential offspring. While the first son’s life as viewed through his now-infamous laptop resembles a Quentin Tarantino film — with plenty of not-so-tasteful nudity — the untitled Morris project would show a more gentle Hunter “painting, selling his art, raising his son, and navigating everyday life as a sober adult with ongoing criminal investigations and in the crosshairs of [former President Donald] Trump and his supporters,” the Los Angeles Times credulously reported this week. A film crew has been trailing Hunter, 53, for years and was most recently spotted recording the first son publicly defying a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee to sit for a deposition Dec. 13.

The Post has also noted the presence of cameras around the Biden scion, including when Hunter cozied up to one of our reporters at a December 2022 showing off his surprisingly pricey work at Soho’s Georges Berges gallery. The crew also popped up at the same gallery in the fall of 2021, at the very first public showing by the world’s most well-compensated amateur artist. Morris even took his cameras all the way to Serbia, where the crew crashed the set where filmmaker Phelim McAleer was shooting “My Son Hunter,” a flick mocking the Biden family that was distributed by Breitbart in September 2022. The Ireland-born McAleer told the LA Times he allowed Morris and his crew to film on their set for a few days and even went out to dinner with his adversary. At one point, the director said, Morris began asking him questions along the lines of “What was the history of the laptop? What did I know about the history of the laptop?”

“He was out there looking for information and evidence for his client while he was pretending to be something he was not,” McAleer claimed. There is no current release date for the flick, but if it ever does show up at a theater or streaming service near you, it may be among the costliest openings in history. Morris, of the powerhouse entertainment law firm Barnes & Morris — now known as Yorn Levine Barnes Krintzman Rubenstein Kohner Endlich & Gellman after he left the practice in 2021— made his bones repping “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone before cultivating a client list for the firm that included Matthew McConaughey, Scarlett Johansson and Will Ferrell. Professional expertise and political opportunity converged when Morris met Hunter at a November 2019 Southern California fundraiser for then-candidate Joe Biden.

Over the following three years, according to IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler, Morris gave Hunter $4.9 million — covering expenses including overdue tax bills, legal fees, housing, and car payments. At least one loan to Hunter from Morris, for at least $1.2 million in 2020, carried interest and requires repayment beginning in 2025. Vexed by an onslaught from federal prosecutors and congressional Republicans, the younger Biden has stepped up the public defenses of his conduct over recent months. He sued Ziegler and another IRS whistleblower, Gary Shapley, in September, accusing them of trying to “target and “embarrass” him.

Hunter has also repeatedly and petulantly accused the GOP of weaponizing his drug and alcohol addiction and other personal struggles. The friendship with Morris — who has his own history of alcohol addiction and also grew up in an Irish-Catholic family outside of Philadelphia — appears part of the first son’s own spin on rehabilitation. “I don’t know where I would be if not for Kevin,” Hunter Biden told the LA Times. “And I don’t mean just because he has loaned me money to survive this onslaught, I mean because he has given me back my dignity. He has been a brother to me.

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Word for word. Does the Biden Admin follow Babylon Bee?

The article is Babylon Bee, Jul 27, 2022 : “‘You Can’t Be Pro-Insurrection And Pro-American,’ Says President Of Nation Founded By An Insurrection”

• When Satire Beats You By 18 Months

The president shot back at what he called “Super Duper Ultra MAGA Turbo Titans” Monday as he claimed “you can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-American” despite being the commander in chief of a nation founded by an insurrection. “Can you imagine Thomas Jefferson calling for the blood of tyrants? What if John Adams refused to pledge fealty to King George? England would’ve nuked us to oblivion. It would’ve been total malarkey anarchy!” said the unblinking Biden, unflinching in the face of a citizenry increasingly questioning whether he is fit to be president.

“Look, here’s the deal, these Capitol insurrectioneserutes are traitors to American ideals because they wanted to challenge the results of an election,” Biden confirmed. “I know this for a fact because a traitor is everyone who does not agree with me.” “We saw what happened,” he continued, referring to the events of January 6. “Law enforcement agencies were speared with terrorist javelins dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage.” “These are all things that actually happened that I am not making up,” he added. At publishing time, White House officials had advised the president to stop saying “we saw what happened” in regards to the January 6 capitol riots because he keeps describing events that never took place.

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Elephant

 

 

Norwegian
https://twitter.com/i/status/1743537552764576104

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 12 2023

Apr 122023
 
 April 12, 2023  Posted by at 8:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  44 Responses »


Ceiling painting from the palace of Amenhotep III, New Kingdom ca. 1390–1353 B.C.

 

• US Will ‘Turn Over Every Rock’ Until Source Of Document Leak Found (G.)
• Pentagon Chief Grilled Over Leaks (RT)
• Putin Believes He Can Grind Down Ukraine: CIA Director Burns (Az.)
• Pentagon Leak Shows Western Special Forces On The Ground In Ukraine (BBC)
• US Has Doubts About Ukrainian ‘Counteroffensive’ – Pentagon Leaks (RT)
• Imperial Washington – The New Global Menace (David Stockman)
• Private Armies Are Making A Killing (Fazi)
• Manhattan Prosecutor Sues Trump’s Chief House Ally Jim Jordan (RT)
• Europe Warming Up To Macron’s ‘Strategic Autonomy’ Push Away From US (Pol.eu)
• Switzerland Refuses To Freeze More Russian Assets (RT)
• Trump Weighs In On Nord Stream Sabotage (RT)
• BRICS Nation South Africa To Clarify Russia Stance With Washington (RT)
• The Taliban Did In One Year What Washington Couldn’t In 20 (Marsden)
• Kremlin Pours Cold Water On Unblocking Twitter (RT)
• Australian, UK Politicians Call on US to Drop Julian Assange Extradition (ET)
• Democrats Urge Biden To Drop Julian Assange Charges (RT)

 

 


In June ’23 UK gov plans to jab vulnerable Children from 6 months old with the unsafe & ineffective Pfizer ‘vaccine’, despite data proving unprecedented harms including death.

 

 

RFKjr Bioweapons

 

 

 

 

Nap Ritter

 

 

 

 

Tucker USD

 

 

MiG-41

 

 

Tucker Trump

 

 

RFKjr Fauci

 

 

Sudden death among EU athletes is up tenfold since the advent of the #covidvaccines in 2021.
– Peter McCullough

 

 

 

 

This is from a “live” thread in the Guardian. I wanted to use it, with the next 2 articles, to point out the nonsense spouted by the CIA director and the Defense Secretary.

• US Will ‘Turn Over Every Rock’ Until Source Of Document Leak Found (G.)

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday said the United States will investigate the recent purported leak of classified documents until the source is found. “We will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it,” Austin said during a press conference at the state department. Investigators are working to determine what person or group might have had the ability and motivation to release the intelligence reports. The leaks could be the most damaging release of US government information since the 2013 publication of thousands of documents on WikiLeaks.

Milancy Harris, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, is leading the Pentagon’s review to assess the potential impact of the leaked documents, a U.S. official told Reuters. Some of the most sensitive information is purportedly related to Ukraine’s military capabilities and shortcomings, and one document mentions the small number of western special forces troops in the country. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the disclosure of the documents.

Russia ‘risks becoming economic colony of China’ as isolation deepens, says CIA director
Russia risks becoming an “economic colony” of China as its isolation from the West deepens after the invasion of Ukraine, CIA Director William Burns said on Tuesday. “Russia is becoming more and more dependent on China and, in some respects, runs the risk of becoming an economic colony of China over time, dependent for export of energy resources and raw materials,” Burns said at an event at Rice University in Houston.

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“Well, they were somewhere in the web, and where exactly and who had access at that point we don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point..”

• Pentagon Chief Grilled Over Leaks (RT)

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said he was not made aware of a major leak of classified intelligence documents until more than a month after they first appeared online, raising questions about the government’s response as the Pentagon and Justice Department scramble to determine the origin of the breach. Speaking at a Tuesday press briefing alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a senior official from the Philippines, Austin took an aside to address the document leak, which has dominated headlines since they were noticed by US media last week. Stating the government takes the disclosures “very seriously” and had ordered an “urgent cross-department” probe, the Pentagon head also revealed that he was first briefed on the leaks on the morning of April 6 – weeks after the sensitive files first appeared online.


Asked by a reporter how the documents could have been freely accessible online for “at least many weeks… before US intelligence knew they were in the public domain,” Austin was unable to provide a clear answer, instead reiterating that officials would conduct a thorough investigation. “Well, they were somewhere in the web, and where exactly and who had access at that point we don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point,” he said. “I will tell you that we take this very seriously and we will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it.” A similar query addressed to Secretary Blinken was also met with a Glomar response, with the senior diplomat stating “I’m certainly not going to comment on these purported documents.”

Austin

The batch of sensitive documents appeared online in early March on the chat platform Discord, but the first media reports on the leaks did not emerge until last week. The document trove is made up of dozens of classified pages containing information about US and NATO war planning in Ukraine, including timelines for training and arms deliveries, data on ammunition expenditures, the structure of Ukrainian combat units, estimated Russian and Ukrainian losses, and information regarding foreign special forces on the ground. Other material related to US counter-terrorism efforts, as well as its policies in the Middle East and China, is also reportedly included in the files. However, so far officials have declined to confirm the accuracy of their contents, saying only that they are looking into the leak and working to remove the documents from the internet.

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“Real countries fight back.” He doesn’t realize he describes Russia.

• Putin Believes He Can Grind Down Ukraine: CIA Director Burns (Az.)

The CIA assesses that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not serious about negotiations at this stage” of the war in Ukraine and it is “Ukrainian progress on the battlefield that is most likely to shape prospects for diplomacy” to end the ongoing conflict, CIA Director Bill Burns said on Tuesday, Report informs, citing CNN. Speaking publicly for the first time, at Rice University, since leaked classified US military documents appeared online, Burns stressed the importance of Ukraine’s planned offensive, saying “a great deal is at stake in the coming months.” “Instead of backing down, he has doubled down,” Burns said about Putin, adding the Russian president believes he can grind down Ukraine and the West. “Real countries fight back,” Burns said on Tuesday, adding that Ukraine and its president have done just that. “Putin was profoundly mistaken” in his assumptions about Ukraine before the war, Burns added.

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It IS Russia vs NATO.

• Pentagon Leak Shows Western Special Forces On The Ground In Ukraine (BBC)

The UK is among a number of countries with military special forces operating inside Ukraine, according to one of dozens of documents leaked online. It confirms what has been the subject of quiet speculation for over a year. The leaked files, some marked “top secret”, paint a detailed picture of the war in Ukraine, including sensitive details of Ukraine’s preparations for a spring counter-offensive. The US government says it is investigating the source of the leak. According to the document, dated 23 March, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow Nato states Latvia (17), France (15), the US (14) and the Netherlands (1). The document does not say where the forces are located or what they are doing.

The numbers of personnel may be small, and will doubtless fluctuate. But special forces are by their very nature highly effective. Their presence in Ukraine is likely to be seized upon by Moscow, which has in recent months argued that it is not just confronting Ukraine, but Nato as well. In line with its standard policy on such matters, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has not commented, but in a tweet on Tuesday said the leak of alleged classified information had demonstrated what it called a “serious level of inaccuracy”. “Readers should be cautious about taking at face value allegations that have the potential to spread misinformation,” it said.

It did not elaborate or suggest which specific documents it was referring to. However, Pentagon officials are quoted as saying the documents are real. One document, which detailed the number of casualties suffered in Ukraine on both sides, did appear to have been doctored. UK special forces are made up of several elite military units with distinct areas of expertise, and are regarded to be among the most capable in the world. The British government has a policy of not commenting on its special forces, in contrast to other countries including the US.

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“Doubts”? Ha ha.

• US Has Doubts About Ukrainian ‘Counteroffensive’ – Pentagon Leaks (RT)

Documents said to have been leaked from US intelligence paint a bleak picture for Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive, according to the Washington Post. If genuine, they raise doubts about Kiev’s ability to field the manpower and ammunition needed to sustain major combat operations over the coming months. Parts of the leaked trove began circulating online last month. Files labeled ‘top secret’ reveal American reservations about the upcoming counter-attack, warning that a lack of troops and ammunition could mean that Ukraine will fall short of its ambitious goals to retake lost ground over the spring, the Post reported on Monday.

“Enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive,” the document says, going on to cite Russia’s sturdy network of defensive installations across the southern Kherson Region and Kiev’s ongoing “force generation and sustainment shortfalls.” The document also suggests Ukrainian forces will aim to capture territory in the south and east, apparently hoping to cut off Russian troops advancing from Crimea. However, the intelligence assessment predicts only “modest” success in those goals. A separate classified briefing prepared by the National Intelligence Council, seen by only select lawmakers on Capitol Hill, concluded that Kiev’s counter-offensive is unlikely to be as successful as operations last fall, which did result in some regained ground, according to sources cited by the Post.

Yet another leaked document citedby the Wall Street Journal on Sunday also warned that Ukraine faces a “looming air defense crisis,” which could prevent its military from massing the frontline forces needed for the counteroffensive. The assessment predicts that, at the current rate of consumption, Kiev will have exhausted its supply of Buk air defense missiles sometime this week, and all of its S-300 ammunition by May 3, leaving its skies largely undefended. While the full scope of the leak – as well as the veracity of the documents, some of which appear to have been doctored – remains unclear, Pentagon spokesman Chris Meagher has acknowledgedthat the files “appear… to contain sensitive and highly-classified material.”

During a Monday briefing, he said both the Pentagon and Justice Department are probing the matter, and that a criminal investigation was underway to determine the source of the unauthorized disclosures. A previous report in the New York Times indicated that more than 100 pages had been leaked in total. The document trove contains a wealth of information about US and NATO war planning in Ukraine, including timelines for training and arms deliveries, data on ammunition expenditures, the structure of Ukrainian combat units, estimated Russian and Ukrainian losses, and, apparently, information regarding foreign special forces on the ground. Officials have declined to confirm the accuracy of their contents, however, saying only that they are investigating the leak.

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“George H. W. Bush should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and their neocon pack of jackals to come to power — even if he eventually denounced them in his doddering old age..”

• Imperial Washington – The New Global Menace (David Stockman)

There is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington — not Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or the rubble of what remains of Raqqa. Imperial Washington has become a global menace owing to what didn’t happen in 1991 (when the USSR collapsed). At that crucial inflection point, Bush the Elder should have declared “mission accomplished” and parachuted into the great Ramstein Air Base in Germany to begin the demobilization of America’s war machine. So doing, he could have slashed the Pentagon budget from $600 billion to $250 billion (2015 $); demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; reduced the United States’ standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican predecessors during the 1920s.

Unfortunately, George H. W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even middling intelligence. He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who singlehandedly blew the peace when, in the very year the 77-Years’ War ended with the demise of the Soviet Union, he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the gluttonous emir of Kuwait. But that was none of George Bush’s or America’s business. Furthermore, George H. W. Bush should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and their neocon pack of jackals to come to power — even if he eventually denounced them in his doddering old age. Alas, upon his death, Bush the Elder was deified, not vilified, by the mainstream press and the bipartisan duopoly.

And that tells you all you need to know about why Washington is ensnared in its Forever Wars and is the very reason there is still no peace on earth. Even more to the point, by opting not for peace but for war and oil in the Persian Gulf in 1991, Washington opened the gates to an unnecessary confrontation with Islam and nurtured the rise of jihadist terrorism that would not haunt the world today save for forces unleashed by George H. W. Bush’s petulant quarrel with Saddam Hussein. We will momentarily get to the 52-year-old error that holds that the Persian Gulf is an American lake and that the answer to high oil prices and energy security is the Fifth Fleet.Suffice it to say here that the answer to high oil prices everywhere and always is high oil prices — a truth driven home in spades by the oil busts of 2009, 2015 and 2020, and the fact the real price of oil today (2022 $) is no higher than it was in the mid-1970s.

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PMSCs = private military and security companies. “The largest PMSC in the world, UK-based G4S, alone employs more than 500,000 people and is present in more than 90 countries.”

• Private Armies Are Making A Killing (Fazi)

Crucially, the UN report acknowledges that the private security and military industry is a global and growing phenomenon. While today’s focus is on Wagner, the real mercenary boom occurred during the US-led military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, the US relied heavily on PMSCs such as DynCorp and Blackwater (now known as Constellis). Indeed, at points, the number of contractors on the ground actually outnumbered American troops. By 2006, there were estimated to be at least 100,000 PMSC employees in Iraq working directly for the US Department of Defense.

And like Wagner today, these were involved in several human rights abuses in the country. Blackwater, for example, the most high-profile PMSC in Iraq, was involved in the massacre of 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007 (which led to the conviction of four Blackwater employees), while other PMSCs were involved in the Iraq Abu Ghraib prison scandal (though none faced prosecution) and were alleged to have participated in the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” programme — the kidnapping and forced removal of individuals to places known to torture. Despite these obvious failures, by the summer of 2020, the US had more than 20,000 contractor personnel in Afghanistan — roughly twice the number of American troops. Before that, in 2017, Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, had proposed to fully privatise the war effort there.

What could possibly inspire such chutzpah? Well, although the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts are generally considered to have been a strategic blunder for the US, not to mention a humanitarian tragedy, they were a boon for the PMSC sector: up until 2016, the US State Department spent $196 billion on PMSC contracts for the Iraq war, and $108 billion for the Afghan war. And business hasn’t slowed: in 2022, the PMSC sector — whose largest businesses are now American or British — was valued at $260 billion and is projected to reach a value of around $450 billion by 2030. The largest PMSC in the world, UK-based G4S, alone employs more than 500,000 people and is present in more than 90 countries.

Should we be surprised? Ultimately, the growth of the PMSC sector is just another example of how economic transformations in recent decades have blurred the boundary between the public and private-corporate sphere to the point of making it indistinguishable. The result has been the rise of a state-corporate Leviathan which has gobbled up every sector of the economy — healthcare, banks, energy, tech — and has now taken over the field of warfare as well, at the expense of democratic control and oversight. This applies to Russia just as much as it applies to Western countries. If the conflict in Ukraine has taught us anything, it’s that war today is a bigger business than it’s ever been. No wonder peace — in Ukraine or elsewhere — seems constantly out of reach.

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“Sen. John Kennedy reacts to the news that DA Alvin Bragg is suing Rep. Jim Jordan: “I have read his indictment … it looked to me like, as a legal product, someone knocked over a urine sample.”

• Manhattan Prosecutor Sues Trump’s Chief House Ally Jim Jordan (RT)

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, seeking to quash what it describes as a “transparent campaign to intimidate and attack” Bragg and derail his prosecution of former president Donald Trump. The suit seeks to block enforcement of Jordan’s subpoena for testimony from Mark Pomerantz, who previously worked as a senior prosecutor in Bragg’s office, and to stem the flow of demands for “confidential documents and testimony from the district attorney himself as well as his current and former employees and officials” emanating from the Republican’s office.

Describing Jordan’s requests as a “constitutionally destructive fishing expedition” that threatens “federalism and the sovereign interests of the State of New York,” Bragg complains that the Republican’s demands have “no legitimate legislative purpose” as Congress lacks jurisdiction over state and local cases. Even if the “unprecedentedly brazen and unconstitutional attack” did have a legitimate legislative purpose, the suit argues, the material Jordan is seeking is protected by attorney-client, work product and other privileges. Responding to Bragg’s lawsuit, Jordan tweeted, “First, they indict a president for no crime. Then, they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they used to do it.” Bragg has denied Jordan’s claim that $5,000 in federal funds used to investigate Trump gives Congress legitimate grounds to request information – despite his office previously stating it would comply with requests for information about the use of those funds.

Trump was arraigned last week on 34 felony charges, becoming the first US president ever to face criminal prosecution. The case centers on his alleged payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels to remain silent about their purported affair ahead of the 2016 election. While falsifying business records is typically charged as a misdemeanor, Bragg had the charges bumped up to felonies, meaning that if Trump is found guilty, he could be prohibited from running in the 2024 election. The former president, who has seen his popularity soar since the indictment, has denounced the charges as politically-motivated persecution, denying having an affair with Daniels or knowingly paying her off and insisting “this fake case was brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election.”

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Charles Michel is a disease. Like Ursula and Borrell.

• Europe Warming Up To Macron’s ‘Strategic Autonomy’ Push Away From US (Pol.eu)

European leaders are becoming increasingly favorable toward French President Emmanuel Macron’s push for “strategic autonomy” away from the United States, European Council boss Charles Michel said Tuesday. As controversy swells around Macron’s comments that Europe should resist pressure to become “America’s followers,” Michel suggested that the French politician’s position was not isolated among EU leaders. While Macron spoke as the French president, his views reflect a growing shift among EU leaders, Michel said. “There has been a leap forward on strategic autonomy compared to several years ago,” Michel told French television show La Faute à l’Europe (which has a partnership with POLITICO) in an interview set to air on Wednesday.

“On the issue of the relationship with the United States, it’s clear that there can be nuances and sensitivities around the table of the European Council. Some European leaders wouldn’t say things the same way that Emmanuel Macron did … I think quite a few really think like Emmanuel Macron.” Following a trip last week to China with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Macron told POLITICO and French newspaper Les Echos that Europe had to limit its dependency on the United States and avoid getting pulled into “crises that are not ours.” “There is indeed a great attachment that remains present — and Emmanuel Macron has said nothing else — for this alliance with the United States. But if this alliance with the United States would suppose that we blindly, systematically follow the position of the United States on all issues, no,” Michel said.

Michel also addressed recent controversies about his use of private jets to go to U.N. climate talks and growing budget for international trips. “The order of magnitude of the number of chartered air taxis is similar to those used by the Commission. I would note that people seemed to be moved about this for one case, but less so for the other,” he said. He also said there was “absolutely nothing lavish” about his transportation budget, which is meant to ensure the EU can participate on the international stage. “It is moreover the wish of the heads of state and governments to have the European Council engage more with the rest of the world,” he said. “When [Russian] Minister Sergey Lavrov goes to Africa to spread Russia’s falsehoods, it’s important to counter fire.”

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“..such a move would violate ownership rights and would be illegal from the point of view of the Swiss legal system.”

• Switzerland Refuses To Freeze More Russian Assets (RT)

The Swiss government will not block more Russian assets – apart from the funds already frozen – due to a lack of evidence they fall under sanctions, Director of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) Helene Budliger Artieda said in a Tuesday interview in the German newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Her comments came in response to earlier claims by US Ambassador to Switzerland Scott Miller, who criticized SECO last month for not doing enough to implement sanctions against Russia, saying that Bern could block a further 50 to 100 billion Swiss francs in Russian assets and use them to help restore Ukraine. “The figure of 50 to 100 billion francs was initially circulated as a possible estimate of Russian funds under [Swiss] management, but it was not an estimate produced by Switzerland. Not all Russians are subject to sanctions – only a small minority,” Budliger Artieda told the NZZ.

Bern has frozen 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($8.3 billion) worth of Russian assets since the EU imposed sanctions on Moscow in connection with its military operation in Ukraine. According to the SECO chief, the blocked funds equate to around “a good third” of the €21.5 billion ($23.4 billion) frozen across the European Union, but further asset freezing would require evidence that the funds were connected with sanctioned entities or individuals. “We keep telling the US and all partner countries, if you have any valuable leads, give them to us. We will follow these up. To this day we have not received any from the Americans,” she stated. When asked whether the frozen assets could be confiscated to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine, the official reiterated earlier statements by Swiss authorities that such a move would violate ownership rights and would be illegal from the point of view of the Swiss legal system.

“The confiscation of private assets is not permitted in Switzerland if they are of lawful origin and have no proven criminal background. Their confiscation would be contrary to the Federal Constitution and the applicable legal system and violate Switzerland’s international obligations,” she stated, adding that the Swiss government is also unlikely to pressure the country’s financial institutions to stop serving Russian clients. “We do not dictate to any bank or company who it has to maintain customer relationships with,” she said. While the notion of seizing frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine has been discussed by Western countries for some time, no actual steps have been taken so far, as many fear it could create a dangerous precedent in the global legal system. Russia has repeatedly warned against taking such actions, claiming they essentially constitute theft.

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“I don’t want to get our country in trouble so I won’t answer it.”

• Trump Weighs In On Nord Stream Sabotage (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has dismissed the claims that Russia was behind the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year, but said that speculating on the true perpetrator might “get our country in trouble.” Speaking to Fox’s Tucker Carlson for an interview set to air in full later this week, Trump was asked for his thoughts about “who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline,” which was hit by multiple blasts under mysterious circumstances last September. “I don’t want to get our country in trouble so I won’t answer it. But I can tell you who it wasn’t, was Russia. How about when they blamed Russia. They said ‘Russia blew up their own pipeline.’ You got a kick out of that one, too. It wasn’t Russia,” he told the Fox News pundit.

While the US and other Western governments have so far offered few details about ongoing investigations into the sabotage, a February report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh stated that US President Joe Biden had personally ordered the bombing as a way to persuade Germany to ramp up support for Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia. Washington has vocally denied the report, which relied on anonymous sources, and insisted it had no role in the bombings. “It’s a completely false story. There’s no truth to it. Not a shred of it,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told Fox in February. Ukrainian officials have similarly denied any involvement in the Nord Stream sabotage, and subsequent reporting by the New York Times has claimed that an unnamed “pro-Ukrainian group” was behind the attack.


It is unclear how the group could have accomplished the bombing from a small pleasure yacht as reported, however, as the operation would have required military-grade explosives and experienced divers, among other things. Hersh has rejected the Times’ account as part of a “cover-up” staged by US intelligence agencies, as the outlet has largely cited unnamed intelligence officials to support its story. Moscow has also voiced skepticism about the “pro-Ukrainian group,” with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov arguing the story was deliberately circulated by Western media outlets to distract from the revelations purportedly uncovered by Hersh.

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“..Putin is scheduled to visit South Africa in August for the 15th BRICS Summit..”

• BRICS Nation South Africa To Clarify Russia Stance With Washington (RT)

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that he will dispatch an envoy to Washington to clarify Pretoria’s stance on Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin. According to Obed Bapela, Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, the move comes in response to criticism of South Africa’s “non-participant” and “non-aligned” position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the country’s longstanding relationship with Moscow. President Putin is scheduled to visit South Africa in August for the 15th BRICS Summit — and concerns have been expressed about whether Pretoria intends to act on the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant issued against the Russian leader for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

The South African Communist Party, in an April statement, asserted that the timing of the arrest warrant, issued just before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia in March, indicated a political motivation and historical inconsistency. “Unfortunately, imperialist powers continue to manipulate this multilateral institution and use it for judicial imperialism,” the SACP wrote in a statement, according to local outlet News24. The party added that “despite many calls, and ample evidence, the ICC has consistently refused to charge the likes of Netanyahu, Bush, Clinton, Blair and Obama who have destroyed countries and killed thousands of people.”

In 2017, the ICC found South Africa in breach of its obligations by failing to arrest former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir when he visited the country in 2015 for an African leaders’ summit. As a signatory to the Rome Statute establishing the court, Pretoria has sought legal advice on how to deal with the ICC order against Putin. According to the presidency, the planned visit to Washington, which is not a member of the ICC, will allow South Africa to “engage and persuade” regarding its Russia position. Although the identity of the envoy heading the delegation has not been revealed, Bapela said that its members will be highly experienced and may include former ministers.

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How the CIA makes money that doesn’t need to be declared or justified.

• The Taliban Did In One Year What Washington Couldn’t In 20 (Marsden)

It’s been nearly a year since the Taliban banned Afghan poppy farming used for the production of opioids. The impact of the move is set to hit global markets sometime soon, given the delay from farm to customer. You’d think that would bring a welcome sigh of relief. Apparently not. Reports are now suggesting that a lack of Afghan heroin on the global market and a reduction of available natural opioids like heroin could lead to increased use of synthetic opioids like fentanyl. If that’s the case, then it’s only because Washington and the West are about as competent at curtailing skyrocketing drug overdose deaths as they were at tackling the cultivation of Afghan opioids back when they had control of the country. Synthetic opioids from China and Mexico are increasingly being used, as are those procured through prescriptions within America’s own healthcare system.

Over the course of the US-led Global War on Terror that kicked off in Afghanistan in 2001, heroin overdoses in the US and elsewhere spiked. Despite having control over the country and its government for two decades, Washington not only failed to curtail farming and exports of Afghan opium, but oversaw an increase. In February 2004, then US Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Robert Charles, outlined a new policy for countering “narcoterrorism” in Afghanistan before Congress. He cited a desire to assist the US-backed Afghan government with its objective “to eliminate opium poppy cultivation and trade in 10 years.” The project would involve deploying CIA-linked USAID to poppy-growing areas to help find alternative farming solutions.

But there have always been strong doubts over the sincerity of such efforts. A US Department of Justice policy paper from 1991 accused the CIA of “complicity in the narcotics trade” in Afghanistan, underscoring that “covert CIA operations in Afghanistan, for example, have transformed South Asia from a self-contained opium zone into a major supplier of heroin for the world market.” The CIA would certainly be in a position to know, having backed Mujahideen jihadist fighters against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the Cold War while the trafficking occurred right under its nose. Apparently old habits die hard.In 2010, Former Director of the Federal Drug Control Service of Russia, Viktor Ivanov, met with NATO officials to request a mandate for destroying the poppy fields, citing 30,000 opium-related deaths in Russia.

“We cannot be in a situation where we remove the only source of income of people who live in the second poorest country in the world without being able to provide them with an alternative,” NATO spokesman James Appathurai replied, according to Reuters.Clearly, they just weren’t that interested. It now seems that the US and NATO counter insurgency mission served in part as cover for safeguarding and protecting the opium fields from destruction – which the Taliban had already gone about doing before the 2001 US invasion. Propping up Western proxies doesn’t come cheap, and some things simply aren’t fit for the accounting books back home. It’s no secret that the CIA has a history of using narcotic trafficking to support US interests abroad while simultaneously accusing the local opposition of doing just that – from Nicaragua and Haiti to Southeast Asia, Indochina, and even France.

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“..it has a list of around 1,300 Twitter posts which are in breach of Russian law..”

• Kremlin Pours Cold Water On Unblocking Twitter (RT)

Any proposal to lift Russia’s ban on Twitter is a matter for the national media regulator, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. A senior member of the State Duma’s Committee on Information Policy recently proposed lifting restrictions on the platform. MP Anton Gorelkin suggested that the Twitter ban, which was imposed more than a year ago, could be lifted after a recent policy shift by the social media giant. Twitter has stopped hiding posts by official Russian accounts in its search results, and has added labels to Western state-affiliated news outlets, Gorelkin noted. Even so, Peskov expressed skepticism about removing the restrictions on Twitter in Russia when commenting on Tuesday.

“The relevant agency, Roskomnadzor, is the competent party on the matter. It will decide whether its conditions have been met. So far, there is plenty of material which does not comply with the requirements,” said the Kremlin spokesman. Roskomnadzor expressed similar sentiment on Monday, stating that it has a list of around 1,300 Twitter posts which are in breach of Russian law. The regulator banned Twitter in early March 2022 at the request of the prosecutor general’s office. It accused the platform of discrimination against Russian news outlets and a failure to police disinformation about Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

Previously, Roskomnadzor said Twitter had failed to delete content prohibited in Russia, such as child pornography, advice on the consumption of narcotics, and calls for illegal acts. On Sunday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk was accused of “not abiding by sanctions” over his refusal to crack down on the account of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Musk argued in response that “all news is to some degree propaganda,” and claimed that had been told that Russian President Vladimir Putin “called me a war criminal for helping Ukraine, so he’s not exactly my best friend.” Peskov was asked to comment on that particular accusation, responding that the billionaire must have been “misinformed” and that the Russian leader had never made remarks of that nature.

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Julian had been in Belmarsh for 4 years on April 11. Where were you guys all that time?

• Australian, UK Politicians Call on US to Drop Julian Assange Extradition (ET)

Politicians from Australia and the UK, from all political leanings, have asked U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland to end all extradition attempts for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In an open letter, 48 Australian parliamentarians from the government, opposition, and crossbench said extradition would set a “dangerous precedent” for freedom of the press and be “needlessly damaging” for the United States as a world leader in freedom of expression. “If the extradition request is approved, Australians will witness the deportation of one of our citizens from one AUKUS partner to another—our closest strategic ally—with Mr Assange facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison,” the letter reads.

The MPs and senators noted that Assange has been “effectively incarcerated” for over a decade, while the person who leaked the classified information, Chelsea Manning, has “been able to participate in American society since 2017.” “A clear majority of Australians consider that this matter has gone on for far too long and must be brought to a close,” the letter says. “We implore you to drop the extradition proceedings and allow Mr Assange to return home.” Assange’s father, John Shipton, previously said that his son’s incarceration was “excoriating and scarring” for him and his family. “After 14 years, you no longer use the term hope,” he said in March. But he was heartened at the growing support for his release from across the political spectrum.

“The incoming tide is now turning into a tsunami of support,” he said. “You don’t need to be a weatherman to see which way the wind’s blowing.” Similarly, 35 UK MPs and Lords from six parties have written to Garland requesting that the attorney general uphold the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and drop the extradition proceedings to allow Assange to return to Australia. “This April 11 marks the fourth anniversary of Mr Assange, an award-winning journalist and publisher, being detained in His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh in London, where he awaits a decision on extradition to the United States of America,” the letter says.

[..] Greg Barns, the spokesperson for the Australian Assange Campaign, told the AAP that legislators from around the world were eager for the case’s conclusion. It was especially critical for Washington to understand the level of support for Assange among Australian MPs for the extradition proceedings to an end. “There has been bipartisan support for a long period of time, but what this letter says in print is the extent of that diversity,” Barns said. “That is a reflection of the Australian community [because] a lot of people think no matter what Assange has done, enough is enough.” He noted that he was unaware of anyone else subject to “inhumane” conditions while yet to be formally charged with a criminal offence.

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The Squad for Assange.

• Democrats Urge Biden To Drop Julian Assange Charges (RT)

Several Democrats in the House have penned a letter calling for the immediate release of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, urging the Department of Justice to drop its charges against the publisher and halt extradition proceedings aiming to bring him to the United States to face prosecution under the World War I-era Espionage Act. The group of progressive lawmakers, frequently dubbed ‘the Squad,’ addressed their letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday to mark the fourth anniversary since Assange’s 2019 arrest, saying the charges against him represent a serious threat to the free press. “We write you today to call on you to uphold the First Amendment’s protections for the freedom of the press by dropping the criminal charges against Australian publisher Julian Assange and withdrawing the American extradition request currently pending with the British government,” the lawmakers said.

They went on to cite warnings from a long line of human rights, civil liberties and press freedoms groups – among them the ACLU, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Defending Rights and Dissent and Human Rights Watch – which have argued Assange’s case poses “a grave and unprecedented threat to everyday, constitutionally protected journalistic activity.” Assange was arrested by British authorities in 2019 after losing political asylum status at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he was holed up for more than seven years for fear of prosecution by the United States due to WikiLeaks’ publication of large amounts of classified material. Under President Donald Trump, the US Department of Justice unsealed a multi-count indictment against Assange on April 11, 2019 – the same day of his arrest – slapping him with 17 charges under the Espionage Act, which can potentially carry the death penalty.

He has been held at the UK’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison in the years since, as Washington presses an extradition request to bring Assange to the US to face his charges. The publisher’s legal team has appealed a prior ruling in favor of extradition on the grounds of Assange’s declining health, a process which continues to play out in the British courts. The Democratic lawmakers argued that Assange’s prosecution would “greatly [diminish] America’s credibility” as a defender of human rights around the globe and set a dangerous legal precedent “whereby journalists or publishers can be prosecuted.”“In the future the New York Times or Washington Post could be prosecuted when they publish important stories based on classified information. Or, just as dangerous for democracy, they may refrain from publishing such stories for fear of prosecution,” they continued. Assange’s charges stem from the 2010 publication of a massive trove of classified documents obtained by US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, including material suggesting US forces committed war crimes in Iraq and elsewhere. Manning was charged and sentenced to 35 years in prison, but was later released after President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence.

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With 891,163 km2 of wetlands, Canada has about 25% of the world’s freshwater – the largest wetland area in the world. Plus it is surrounded by 3 oceans, and has over 2 million lakes

 

 

GOAL!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1645793930456473604

 

 


Pareidolia makes us see shapes even in the weirdest place, even faces in unusual shark photos

 

 

Caterpillar
https://twitter.com/i/status/1645771534630363136

 

 


Mount Etna erupting at night creating the spectacular illusion of a Phoenix rising over the Sicilian port city of Catania in 2019.

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 25 2022

Apr 252022
 
 April 25, 2022  Posted by at 8:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Andy Warhol Ingrid Bergman 1984

 

• US Announces New Military Aid To Ukraine After Blinken, Austin Visit (DW)
• Putin Has ‘Lost Interest’ In Diplomacy (ZH)
• NATO Provocation Looms in Ukraine (PK)
• Where Will Azov Regroup? (George Webb)
• Russia Investigates Media Report on British SAS Special Forces in Ukraine (R.)
• EU Says Pay for Russian Gas in Euros to Avoid Breaching Sanctions (R.)
• EU’s Borrell: Not Enough Support For Total Embargo On Russian Oil, Gas (R.)
• Innate Immune Suppression By SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccinations (SD)
• SARS-CoV-2 vAccination Can Elicit a CD8 T-cell Dominant Hepatitis (SD)
• Trudeau Government Targets Grain Growers As Worst Emissions Offenders (TNC)
• Ratcliffe: Still-classified Documents Will Blow Durham Inquiry Wide Open (WE)
• Joe Biden Met With Hunter Biden Business Partner At The White House 19 Times (NYP)
• Wikipedia Kills Entry for Hunter Biden’s Investment Company (Turley)
• Are Democrats and Joe Biden Up To Their Old Election Tricks? (Devine)
• Twitter Board ‘Seriously’ Starts Considering Musk’s Bid Offer (WG)

 

 

Genius IQ test:

fi yuo cna raed tihs yuo hvae a graet mnid too. I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulacity uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt. Yuo’er a gneius too.

Lvoe yuo, Kim

 

 

500,000 people

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, Austin was on the board of Raytheon until recently…

• US Announces New Military Aid To Ukraine After Blinken, Austin Visit (DW)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a press conference following a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Russia has been “failing” when it came to its war aims in Ukraine, while Kyiv is “succeeding.” “Russia has sought as its principal aim to totally subjugate to totally subjugate Ukraine,” Blinken said. “That has failed.” Blinken said that Russia’s military was underperforming and its economy was “in shambles” due to sanctions and a mass “exodus” from the country. “A sovereign, independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin’s on the scene,” Blinken said, adding that US support for Ukraine will continue until Kyiv sees “final success.” Blinken said that Washington was committed to the return of American diplomats to Ukraine starting next week, and that US President Joe Biden intended to nominate a new ambassador to the country.

[..] The United States will provide Ukraine with $322 million in foreign military financing and has approved a $165 million sale of ammunition to the war-ravaged country. The announcement came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday. It was the highest-level visit by an American delegation since the start of the war. The US officials also pledged further assistance worth $713 million in foreign military financing for Ukraine and 15 allied and partner countries, with the $322 million earmarked specifically for Kyiv. The new money brings the total amount of US military assistance to Ukraine to $3.7 billion since the invasion, officials said. The two returned overland to Poland after their meeting. While Blinken was returning to Washington, Austin would head to Ramstein in Germany, for a meeting Tuesday of NATO defense ministers and other donor countries.

[..] The European Union is preparing “smart sanctions” against Russian oil imports, the UK newspaper The Times reported. Quoting the European Commission’s executive vice president, Valdis Dombrovskis, the paper reported that the precise details of the oil sanctions had not yet been agreed but could include a gradual phasing-out of Russian oil or imposing tariffs on imports beyond a certain price cap. “We are working on a sixth sanctions package, and one of the issues we are considering is some form of an oil embargo. When we are imposing sanctions, we need to do so in a way that maximizes pressure on Russia while minimizing collateral damage on ourselves,” Dombrovskis said.

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The FT article cited tells me nothing about Putin, but a lot about FT. Not sure Tyler should present it in this way.

• Putin Has ‘Lost Interest’ In Diplomacy (ZH)

Vladimir Putin is no longer open to diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine, which suggests he’s focusing on a ‘land-grab’ strategy instead, according to the Financial Times, citing three people briefed on conversations with the Russian President. The Russian president was said to have been seriously considering a peace deal in the wake of several battlefield setbacks last month. Early peace talks faltered following a meeting in Istanbul in late March, after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Kremlin of committing war crimes against civilians in Mariupol and Bucha. According to Putin, peace efforts were at a “dead end,” and was particularly upset over the sinking of the Russian Black Sea flagship, Moskva, according to two of FT’s sources.

“There was hope for a deal. Putin was going back and forth. He needs to find a way to come out of this a winner,” said one source, who added that when the Moskva sank, “Putin was against signing anything. [ . . . ] after the Moskva he doesn’t look like a winner, because it was humiliating.” According to a relatively new narrative, Putin has a ‘distorted’ view of the war due to his own generals, and Russian television, painting a victorious picture – which has led the Russian president to insist that civilians were not targeted during the attacks. “Putin sincerely believes in the nonsense he hears on [Russian] television and he wants to win big,” said one source.

Intermediaries such as Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, European Council president Charles Michel and billionaire Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich have been trying to convince Putin to meet Zelensky in hope they can break the deadlock. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have placed most other issues on the back burner while trying to thrash out a deal on guarantees for Kyiv’s security if it declares neutrality and abandons its drive to join Nato. But Putin told Michel in a call on Friday that the talks had run aground because Ukraine “put up a wall” and said it “was not the right time” to meet Zelensky, according to a person briefed on that conversation. -FT

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Expect it soon.

• NATO Provocation Looms in Ukraine (PK)

Having lost to Moscow’s SMO — along with failed sanctions war — the empire of lies and NATO vassals intend to falsely accuse Russian forces of using chemical, biological and/or tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. On Saturday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova explained the diabolical plot, saying: “Information by the Russian Defense Ministry published today clearly proves” the following: Hegemon USA “in close coordination with (its subservient) NATO (vassals) moved on to a final stage of plotting provocations in Ukraine which should convince the global community that ‘Russia is using poisonous combat substances and biological agents,’ ” adding: Initial plans to make Russia’s economy scream “didn’t work out.”

“Now (the empire of lies) is moving on to involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD)…” “If this happens, there will be uncountable victims.” “And each one of them (will be) on the conscience of (Biden regime) strategists in the White House, the State Department…the Pentagon, (the CIA), and on the conscience, if there is anything left of it, of their puppets in Kiev.” Russia’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) explained the diabolical plot as follows, saying: The empire of lies prepared 3 scenarios: Most probable Scenario No. One: A false flag — what Merriam-Webster calls a “deliberate gross distortion of the truth used especially as a propaganda tactic.” Their use has been a US tradition since at least the mid-19th century. 9/11 was the mother of all US false flags to that time — until all things flu/covid way surpassed its pure evil intent with mass extermination in mind worldwide.

Scenario Two: “(C)overt use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in small volumes.” Least probable Scenario Three: “(O)vert use of (WMDs in) a combat area” with intent to produce mass combatant and civilian casualties. Developed, locked and loaded, Russia’s MOD has clear evidence of the plot, what could happen at any time anywhere in Ukraine where Russia’s SMO is ongoing. Zakharova also explained “shocking details of illegal cooperation between the US and (Kiev) in the field of creating bacteriological weapons” — what’s “been revealed to the world,” adding: “And (knowing the) inevitability detect(ing) their criminal activities,” the empire of lies “began to prepare in advance” to counter indisputable facts when revealed.

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“The key question now will be will the Russians find evidence of bioagents in the weapons cache.”

• Where Will Azov Regroup? (George Webb)

When armies are out of ammunition, they usually flee or surrender. When they have a monstrous amount of ammunition, and they still flee, that means things aren’t going well. If you recall, I said Igor Kolomoisky’s Kramatorsk steel plant was the most likely forward operating base for the ethnic cleansing of the Dombas in the last eight years of war. Recently, I was a guest on Canadian television Justice TV where I stated the strategic capture point would be the forward base at Kramatorsk. I turned out to be exactly correct a week ago when the fight did indeed pivot to Kramtorsk. The gigantic ammunition depot was recently captured by the Russians near Kramatorsk soon after this strategic objective was taken. With no place to hide, there is no way to resupply without giving away the ammo dump.

Apparently, the Russian have suspected Balakliya as a weapons depot for a long time, hitting the same location in 2017. The key question now will be will the Russians find evidence of bioagents in the weapons cache. Barbara Cloutier of DTRA and General Cloutier of NATO were suspected of storing bioagents in Azovstal, the Ukrainian Billionaire Ahkmetov’s steel plan to the south. So far, no evidence of bioagents at Balakliya, but we will keep you posted on the Russian findings. We believe there are bioagents secrets still to be revealed in Ukraine with the Cloutiers and NATO. One thing we know for sure, is that top Azov Battalion leaders have fled the country, and they are going somewhere to regroup.

A3OB

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Is NATO getting involved directly?

• Russia Investigates Media Report on British SAS Special Forces in Ukraine (R.)

Russia’s top state investigative body said on Saturday it was looking into a Russian media report alleging that sabotage experts from Britain’s SAS special forces have been deployed to western Ukraine. The Special Air Service is an elite military force trained to conduct special operations, surveillance and counter-terrorism. Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency on Saturday quoted a Russian security source as saying about 20 SAS members had been sent to the Lviv region. In a statement, the Investigative Committee said it would follow up the report that they had been sent in “to assist the Ukrainian special services in organizing sabotage on the territory of Ukraine.”


A spokesperson for the British Ministry of Defence said: “We do not comment on Special Forces.” Britain said it sent military trainers to Ukraine earlier this year to instruct local forces in using anti-tank weapons but the British government said on Feb. 17 – a week before Russia’s invasion – that it had pulled out all troops except those needed to protect its ambassador. It was not clear what steps the Investigative Committee planned to take in response to any SAS involvement in Ukraine. But the fact of the investigation into the possible presence of forces from a NATO country is significant, given that Russia has issued warnings to the West not to get in the way of its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

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From the top article: The European Union is preparing “smart sanctions” against Russian oil imports.

Is this the “smart” part of it?

• EU Says Pay for Russian Gas in Euros to Avoid Breaching Sanctions (R.)

EU companies may be able to work around Russia’s demand to receive gas payments in roubles without breaching sanctions if they pay in euros or dollars which are then converted into the Russian currency, the European Commission said on Friday. The companies would also need to seek additional conditions on the transactions, such as a statement that they consider their contractual obligations complete once they have deposited the non-Russian currencies. Moscow has warned Europe it risks having gas supplies cut unless it pays in roubles. In March it issued a decree proposing that energy buyers open accounts at Gazprombank to make payments in euros or dollars, which would then be converted to roubles.

The Commission said companies should continue to pay the currency agreed in their contracts with Gazprom – 97% of which are in euros or dollars. “Companies with contracts stipulating payments in euros or dollars should not accede to Russian demands. This would be contrary to the sanctions in place,” a Commission spokesperson said. In an advisory document sent to member states on Thursday, the Commission said Russia’s proposal risked breaching EU sanctions since it would put the effective completion of the purchase – once the payments are converted to roubles – into the hands of the Russian authorities.

However, Moscow’s decree does not necessarily prevent a payment process that would comply with EU sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict, the Commission said. Brussels said in the document that there were options that could allow companies to continue lawfully paying for gas. “EU companies can ask their Russian counterparts to fulfil their contractual obligations in the same manner as before the adoption of the decree, i.e. by depositing the due amount in euros or dollars,” the document said.

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“Russia is Europe’s biggest oil supplier, providing just over a quarter of EU oil imports in 2020..”

• EU’s Borrell: Not Enough Support For Total Embargo On Russian Oil, Gas (R.)

There is insufficient support from European Union member states for a complete embargo or punitive tariff on Russian oil and gas imports, the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell was quoted as saying by German newspaper Die Welt on Monday. “At the moment, we in the EU do not have a unified position on this question,” Borrell told the newspaper. Oil exports are the Kremlin’s main source of foreign currency and many within the EU have called for an end to oil payments because they effectively finance the war in Ukraine, which Russia calls a “special military operation”. Some EU countries are pushing for a sixth sanctions package on Russia and Brussels is preparing a full impact assessment of an oil ban as part of possible further measures.


Russia is Europe’s biggest oil supplier, providing just over a quarter of EU oil imports in 2020, according to data from the bloc’s statistics office Eurostat. Borrell said the topic will be discussed at the next EU summit due at the end of next month and that he did not expect any decision on the matter before then. “A final proposal for an embargo on oil and gas is not yet on the table,” he said. The EU Commission will probably make proposals for a sixth package of sanctions to the member states this week, Die Welt said, without citing sources.

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“We believe a comprehensive risk/benefit assessment of the mRNA vaccines questions them as positive contributors to public health.”

• Innate Immune Suppression By SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccinations (SD)

Abstract: The mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were brought to market in response to the public health crises of Covid-19. The utilization of mRNA vaccines in the context of infectious disease has no precedent. The many alterations in the vaccine mRNA hide the mRNA from cellular defenses and promote a longer biological half-life and high production of spike protein. However, the immune response to the vaccine is very different from that to a SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this paper, we present evidence that vaccination induces a profound impairment in type I interferon signaling, which has diverse adverse consequences to human health.


Immune cells that have taken up the vaccine nanoparticles release into circulation large numbers of exosomes containing spike protein along with critical microRNAs that induce a signaling response in recipient cells at distant sites. We also identify potential profound disturbances in regulatory control of protein synthesis and cancer surveillance. These disturbances potentially have a causal link to neurodegenerative disease, myocarditis, immune thrombocytopenia, Bell’s palsy, liver disease, impaired adaptive immunity, impaired DNA damage response and tumorigenesis. We show evidence from the VAERS database supporting our hypothesis. We believe a comprehensive risk/benefit assessment of the mRNA vaccines questions them as positive contributors to public health.

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Lots of reports of hepatitis in children (and others).

• SARS-CoV-2 vAccination Can Elicit a CD8 T-cell Dominant Hepatitis (SD)

Background & Aims: Autoimmune hepatitis episodes have been described following SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination but their pathophysiology remains unclear. Here, we report the case of a 52-year-old male, presenting with bimodal episodes of acute hepatitis, each occurring 2-3 weeks after BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination and sought to identify the underlying immune correlates. The patient received first oral budesonide, relapsed, but achieved remission under systemic steroids.

Methods: Imaging mass cytometry for spatial immune profiling was performed on liver biopsy tissue. Flow cytometry was performed to dissect CD8 T cell phenotypes and identify SARS-CoV-2-specific and EBV-specific T cells longitudinally. Vaccine-induced antibodies were determined by ELISA. Data was correlated with clinical labs.

Results: Analysis of the hepatic tissue revealed an immune infiltrate quantitatively dominated by activated cytotoxic CD8 T cells with panlobular distribution. An enrichment of CD4 T cells, B cells, plasma cells and myeloid cells was also observed compared to controls. The intrahepatic infiltrate showed enrichment for CD8 T cells with SARS-CoV-2-specificity compared to the peripheral blood. Notably, hepatitis severity correlated longitudinally with an activated cytotoxic phenotype of peripheral SARS-CoV-2-specific, but not EBV-specific CD8+ T cells or vaccine-induced immunoglobulins.

Conclusions: COVID19 vaccination can elicit a distinct T cell-dominant immune-mediated hepatitis with a unique pathomechanism associated with vaccination induced antigen-specific tissue-resident immunity requiring systemic immunosuppression.

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With world hunger predicted, impeccable timing.

• Trudeau Government Targets Grain Growers As Worst Emissions Offenders (TNC)

A Trudeau government report is putting farmers next on the carbon emissions chopping block, using UN data that accuses Canadian grain growers of producing crops with the highest “emissions intensity” in the world. A new “discussion document” released by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada titled “Reducing emissions arising from the application of fertilizer in Canada’s agriculture sector” singles out wheat, barley and other cereal producers for emission reductions. The report outlines a framework to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2020 climate plan target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the agriculture sector by 30% below 2020 levels within ten years.

“The fertilizer target’s objective is to contribute to lower GHG emissions from the agriculture sector, building on and leveraging public and private programs and initiatives,” Agriculture Canada writes. “The target applies to both direct (following fertilizer application) and indirect (from nitrogen leached from fields and volatilized to the atmosphere as ammonia) emissions from the application of fertilizer.” Agriculture Canada goes on to accuse cereal farmers of having “one of the highest levels of emissions intensity” among exporting countries. The claim refers to data gathered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that puts Canada at the top of the list. “Available data show that Canadian cereal production likely has one of the highest levels of emissions intensity (amount of GHGs emitted per unit of product) amongst major exporting countries,” Agriculture Canada claims.

“Canada’s emission intensity for cereals in 2017 is higher than those reported for the United States, the European Union and (other regions).” Industry leaders including President of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Gunter Jochum have disputed the federal government’s claim about the greenhouse gas output of farmers. In an interview with True North, Jochum questioned the validity of the data, saying there has yet to be any reliable measurement of emissions on fertilizer use by farmers in Canada. “I would like to know where they got their facts from,” said Jochum. “I believe those facts were entirely made up because in Canada we don’t even have a baseline as to what the true emissions are.”

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“Durham has obtained only a single guilty plea..”

• Ratcliffe: Still-classified Documents Will Blow Durham Inquiry Wide Open (WE)

A great deal more Russiagate intelligence remains shrouded from public view and will stun the nation, according to former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. The Trump-era spy chief expounded upon his expectation that there will be many more indictments in special counsel John Durham’s criminal inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Russia investigation. “I expect there to be a lot more indictments to be forthcoming from John Durham besides the ones that have trickled out so far. And that’s based upon documents, some of which — many of which are not yet declassified,” Ratcliffe said during a recent episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

Ratcliffe, a former Republican congressman from Texas who oversaw the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies in the latter part of the Trump administration, announced in October 2020 that he had handed over nearly 1,000 pages of materials to the Justice Department to assist Durham, who is revealing more secrets as he takes people to court. Durham has two active prosecutions, including a case against the main source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier and a case against former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, whose trial is scheduled to begin next month. Durham has obtained only a single guilty plea, which came from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted to altering an email about a Trump campaign aide under government surveillance.

“The coordinated effort here that took place in 2016 was wide and broad. I think it involved folks in the Clinton campaign, in the Democratic national party, elected officials, media officials, folks that coordinated — intelligence community officials, and on down the line,” Ratcliffe said. “I’m not saying that every single one of those folks have criminal liability or exposure. I’m just saying this was a very coordinated effort and the more and more the public finds out about the things that I’ve seen that remain classified, they’ll be more and more appalled by those efforts in 2016.”

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“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings..”

• Joe Biden Met With Hunter Biden Business Partner At The White House 19 Times (NYP)

Hunter Biden’s closest business partner made at least 19 visits to the White House and other official locations between 2009 and 2015, including a sitdown with then-Vice President Joe Biden in the West Wing. Visitor logs from the White House of former President Barack Obama reviewed by The Post cast further doubt over Joe Biden’s claims that he knew nothing of his son’s dealings. Eric Schwerin met with Vice President Biden on November 17, 2010 in the West Wing, when he was the president of the since-dissolved investment fund Rosemont Seneca Partners. The logs also reveal that Schwerin met with various close aides of both Joe and Jill Biden at key moments in Hunter’s life when he was striking multi-million dollar deals in foreign countries, including China.


Yet President Biden has long insisted he had no involvement in his son’s foreign affairs. “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” he said in 2019. ”Not everyone gets to meet the Vice President of the United States in the White House. The press should be asking why Hunter Biden’s business associates — like Eric Schwerin — had that privilege and were given access to the Obama White House,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin). “This is additional evidence that Joe Biden lied when he said he never discussed Hunter’s foreign business dealings. It’s well past time for the corporate media to demand the truth from Joe Biden. The corruption of Biden Inc. must be exposed.” Of all Hunter Biden’s business associates, Schwerin had the most intimate access to the vice president’s personal finances.

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For pete’s sake!

• Wikipedia Kills Entry for Hunter Biden’s Investment Company (Turley)

Wikipedia editors are under fire this week for removing the entry for Rosemont Seneca Partners, the investment company connected to Hunter Biden and his alleged multimillion dollar influence peddling schemes. The site bizarrely claimed that the company was “not notable.” The timing itself is notable given the new disclosure that Hunter Biden’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, made at least 19 visits to the White House and other official locations between 2009 and 2015. That included a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden despite Biden’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings. Schwerin was the president of Rosemont Seneca. Wikipedia has been accused of raw bias in removing the entry at a time when interest in the company is at its peak, including the possibility of an indictment of Hunter Biden over his financial dealings.

Rosemont Seneca is one of the most searched terms for those trying to understand the background on the Biden business operations. Yet, an editor known only as “Alex” wrote that the company was simply “not notable” — an absurd claim reminiscent of the recent claim by Atlantic Magazine’s writer Anne Applebaum that she did not cover the scandal because it simply was “not interesting.” Alex wrote: “This organization is only mentioned in connection with its famous founders, Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz.” That itself is an odd statement. It is mentioned as one of the key conduits of alleged influence peddling money. Alex added that “keeping it around” ran the risk of the page becoming “a magnet for conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.”

Any Wikipedia page could be a magnet for conspiracy theories, including the page on Hunter Biden himself. The fact is that this is a real company with real dealings that are the subject of a real criminal investigation. Indeed, various Republican members have already pledged to conduct investigations into this and other companies if they secure either house of Congress after the midterm elections. So Wikipedia killed it just as a United States Attorney is drilling down on financial dealings of Hunter Biden, including money received from foreign sources through Rosemont Seneca. The bias in the reference to the “conspiracy theories” is glaring. While some clearly misstate the facts of the Hunter Biden dealings (on both sides of the controversy), the central role of the company in these dealings is no conspiracy theory.

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Seems a bit repetitive, perhaps, but there’s a “new” element. Mules. “True the Vote bought three trillion geo-location signals from cellphones that were near drop boxes and also near election nonprofits..”

• Are Democrats and Joe Biden Up To Their Old Election Tricks? (Devine)

There were lots of ways Democrats tried to tilt the playing field in their favor, some more successfully than others. Their pals in Big Tech censoring The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop coverage before the election was one triumph. Now pesky evidence is starting to emerge of systematic schemes to subvert the electoral process — which must not be allowed to happen again if we are to restore faith in elections. The most compelling evidence to date has emerged in “2000 Mules,” the upcoming documentary by conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, who draws on research by election integrity group True The Vote to expose suspicious ballot harvesting.

Using cellphone geotracking and surveillance video, it shows a network of “mules” in battleground states busily collecting ballots from get-out-the-vote NGOs and stuffing them, a few at a time, into multiple drop boxes in the dead of night. The extent of the operation is jaw-dropping. True the Vote bought three trillion geo-location signals from cellphones that were near drop boxes and also near election nonprofits, from Oct. 1, 2020, through to the election on November 3. In Georgia the end date covered the Jan. 6, 2021, run-off. Then they went searching for “mules,” operatives who picked up ballots from election NGOs — such as Stacey Abrams’ outfit, “Fair Fight Action” — and then carried them to different drop boxes, depositing between three to 10 ballots in each box before moving to the next.

Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, chose the term “mule” because “it felt a lot like a cartel, it felt like trafficking . . . This is in its essence ballot trafficking . . . You have the collectors. You have the stash houses, which are the nonprofits. And then you have the mules that are doing the drops.” Data analyst Gregg Phillips set a threshold for each mule to visit at least 10 drop boxes within a defined area and at least five visits to one or more NGOs. For example, in the Atlanta-metro area they drew a line around 309 drop boxes and bought all the cellphone data of people that had been near those drop boxes and NGOs. That narrowed the search to 2,000 mules.

Then they went looking for public surveillance camera footage of those drop boxes. In all they found 4 million minutes across the country. The results are stunning. When a mule is matched with video, you can see the scheme come to life. A car pulls up at a drop box after midnight. A man gets out, looks around surreptitiously, approaches the box, stuffs in a handful of ballots and hightails it out of there. Then he goes to the next box, again and again. After Dec. 23, 2020, Phipps noticed mules in Georgia started wearing gloves. He pinpoints the change to an indictment for ballot stuffing handed up in Arizona on December 22. “The way the FBI nailed them was fingerprints.” After that, mules started wearing gloves.

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Shareholders complained. They fear losing billions.

• Twitter Board ‘Seriously’ Starts Considering Musk’s Bid Offer (WG)

“Never say never,” they say. Well, it doesn’t take time for people to change their minds. Usually, the revelation of a new perspective does the trick. However, at times, external pressure triggers a stance flip. As a matter of fact, something similar has been happening in the Musk-Twitter saga. While it was initially perceived that Musk’s bid to acquire Twitter would not see sunlight, latest developments show that the doors remain to be wide open. Per recent reports, Twitter kicked off deal negotiations with Elon Musk on Sunday after he “wooed” many of the social media company’s shareholders with financing details on his $43 billion acquisition offer. In fact, per Wall Street Journal, they could finalize a deal as soon as this week itself.

Per Reuters, the company’s decision to engage with Musk does not essentially give the surety that it would accept his $54.20 per share bid. It just means that, the microblogging and social networking platform is now exploring whether or not a sale of the company to Musk is feasible on attractive terms. Well, it wouldn’t be wrong to claim that Musk is a people’s person. Time and again he has voiced out his opinion on n number of subjects on social media. Over the past few days, however, the Tesla exec has has been meeting Twitter shareholders, seeking support for his bid IRL. As a result, many shareholders have reached out to the company after Musk chalked out a detailed financing plan for his bid on Thursday and urged it not to let the opportunity for a deal slip away.


Per Reuters, Musk’s insistence that his bid for Twitter is his “best and final” has emerged as a hurdle in the deal negotiations. The report added, “Nevertheless, Twitter’s board has decided to engage with Musk to gather more information on his ability to complete the deal, and potentially get better terms… The company has not yet decided if it will explore a sale to put pressure on Musk to raise his bid” Here it is also worth noting that the social media giant wants to know more about any active investigations by regulators into Musk that could potentially be a risk to the deal. It is simultaneously also looking into whether regulators in any of the major markets it operates would object to Musk owning the company.

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Debt Rattle March 20 2021

Mar 202021
 
 March 20, 2021  Posted by at 9:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  26 Responses »


Gilles Mostaert Sodom and Gomorrah 1597

 

• Joe Biden’s Dire Opening Chapter On The World Stage (Kimball)
• Biden And Blinken’s Unprovoked Attacks On Russia And China Backfire (Ritter)
• SecDef Austin Warns North Korea: US “Ready To Fight Tonight” (ZH)
• Moscow Snubs Biden At UN, Only Sends Junior Diplomat To Virtual Summit (RT)
• Putin Challenges Biden To Stair-Climbing Contest (BBee)
• Erdogan Says Biden Comments On Putin ‘Unacceptable’ (R.)
• Erdogan Fires Second Central Bank Chief In 4 Months (ZH)
• Fauci Claims Babies, Toddlers Need To Be Vaccinated For Herd Immunity (SN)
• Drugmakers Promise Investors They’ll Soon Hike Covid-19 Vaccine Prices
• ONS Admits Ignoring Manufacturer Instructions in PCR Testing (LDS)
• The ‘Independent’ Report Claiming Uyghur Genocide (CN)
• UK Government Borrowing Hits February Record (BBC)
• Toxic Chemicals, Plummeting Sperm Counts, Shrinking Penises (Erin Brockovich)

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I am not sure whether air-sickness bags were deployed. It was Alaska, after all, so maybe they just opened the window.”

• Joe Biden’s Dire Opening Chapter On The World Stage (Kimball)

Consider, to take a very recent example, the exchange between the United States secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the Chinese director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi, known to admirers and lackeys as ‘Tiger Yang’. The venue was Anchorage, Alaska, where Messrs. Blinken and Yang, along with assorted colleagues and retainers, met for a free and frank exchange of views. On the run up to the meeting, Blinken talked tough. ‘This is an important opportunity for us to lay out in very frank terms,’ he said, ‘the many concerns we have with Beijing’s actions and behavior that are challenging the security, prosperity and values of the US and our allies.’ Very frank. It was the first high-level meeting between members of the Biden administration and their Chinese counterparts. To say that it was a public relations disaster for the US is to understate the case.

Blinken and his sidekick, Jake Sullivan, a Hillary Clinton factotum who is now national security adviser, sat down to read China the riot act. It was not a success. Blinken emitted carefully polished clichés about our ‘deep concern’ over Chinas actions with regard to Hong Kong, Taiwan and other hot spots, its bullying of various European countries, and its campaign of cyber attacks against the US. This behavior, said Blinken, consulting that great compendium of diplomatic nostrums he learned in school, threatens ‘the rules-based order that maintains global stability’. I am not sure whether air-sickness bags were deployed. It was Alaska, after all, so maybe they just opened the window. Yang, speaking through a translator, shot back: ‘You can’t blame this problem on somebody else.’ Blinken went on to say that now, under Joe Biden, the United States was ‘back’ (where did it go, Tony?) and was ‘reengaging’ with its allies on the world stage.

Here’s where that short imperative I mentioned came in. The United States, said Yang, in one of the most dismissive diplomatic rejoinders I have ever heard, does not have the ‘qualifications’ to address China ‘from a position of strength’. F, my dear Blinken, you. [..] The Anchorage outrage was not an isolated incident. On the contrary, though it is early days yet in the Biden-Harris (or Harris-Biden) administration, a pattern of contempt for America and its leaders seems to be taking hold. In the course of a ‘what-flavor-is-your-milkshake’ valen- er, interview with George ‘I <3 Hillary’ Stephanopoulos, Biden was asked if he thought Russian president Vladimir Putin was a ‘killer’. He answered yes, in response to which Putin said he wished Biden the best of health and suggested they livestream a debate. Can you imagine what that would be like?

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It’s not fully impossible that they got what they wanted.

• Biden And Blinken’s Unprovoked Attacks On Russia And China Backfire (Ritter)

In attacking the moral character of Russia’s president and China’s human rights record, the Biden administration opened the door for a critical examination of America’s own troubled history.President Joe Biden has defined his administration with the mantra of “America is back,” hinting at a return to what he and his supporters believe to be the halcyon days of President Barack Obama’s two-term tenure as president, as well as a sharp departure from the policies and practices of the man who usurped Hillary Clinton’s bite at the presidential apple, Donald Trump. In an effort to “build back better,” as Biden is wont to exclaim, his administration has embraced an ambitious agenda that aggressively seeks to both promote and install America as the world’s indispensable nation.

And yet, in the span of less than 24 hours, the president and his primary foreign policy advisor, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, managed to undermine the very policies they sought to promote through a combination of narcissistic posturing and plain diplomatic incompetence. By labeling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “soulless killer,” Biden put US-Russian relations in their worst posture since the Cold War. And Blinken, during the Biden administration’s initial meeting between the US and China, managed to unleash the ire and rage of Beijing by forgoing any pretense at diplomatic norms and aggressively calling out China on a host of issues which touched upon its sovereignty. The collapse of what passed for a coordinated position of diplomatically confronting both Russia and China has left the US scrambling to navigate through the detritus of its own policy shipwreck.

[..] If Biden and Psaki believed that US-Russian relations would return to square one following Biden’s undiplomatic insult, Putin quickly put that notion to bed. “The US authorities in general seek certain relations with us but only in areas the US is interested in, and on their own terms,” Putin said. “They think that we are just like them but we aren’t. Our genetic, cultural and moral codes are different. However, we know how to protect our interests. We will work with them [the US], but only in areas we are interested in and on terms we find favorable. They will have to take it into account, despite attempts to stop our development, sanctions and insults. We will be guided by our national interests when boosting relations with all countries, including the United States,” he concluded.

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The plan: Biden does Putin, Blinken does China, Austin does North Korea. Coincidence?

• SecDef Austin Warns North Korea: US “Ready To Fight Tonight” (ZH)

In an unusually blunt threat and warning even for the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that US forces are ready to “fight tonight” in comments aimed at North Korea after an angry Pyongyang denounced the resumption of joint military exercises between the US and South Korea. “Our force remains ready to fight tonight, and we continue to make progress toward the eventual transition of wartime Operational Control to a [Republic of Korea]-commanded, future Combined Forces Command,” Austin said on Thursday.

He issued the words from Seoul at the tail end of his Asia trip this week alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken and South Korean leaders. Secretary Blinken had continued his denuclearization of the peninsula message, saying, “We are committed to the denuclearization of North Korea, reducing the broader threat the DPRK poses to the United States and our allies, and improving the lives of all Koreans, including the people of North Korea who continue to suffer widespread and systematic abuses at the hands of their repressive government.”

Pyongyang on Thursday slammed what DPRK first vice foreign minister Choe Son Hui called a “lunatic” and “hostile” policy. The senior North Korean diplomat said of the question of denuclearization talks that there will be no contact with Washington “unless the US rolls back its hostile policy towards the DPRK.” She said further: “Therefore, we will disregard such an attempt of the US in the future, too.” The “new regime” in the US, she added, had only put forward a “lunatic theory of ‘threat from north Korea’ and groundless rhetoric about ‘complete denuclearisation'”. The Biden administration has reportedly been attempting to reach out to the North via various diplomatic channels since mid-February, but to no avail.

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“Russia’s diplomatic mission was the only one that did not send its top figure to greet the American president.”

• Moscow Snubs Biden At UN, Only Sends Junior Diplomat To Virtual Summit (RT)

Russia was the only nation that refused to send its top UN representative to talks with US President Joe Biden on Thursday, electing instead to dispatch a junior envoy, as a diplomatic row between Moscow and Washington worsens. President Biden had invited permanent representatives from the United Nations Security Council, on which Moscow has continuous representation, to discuss his country’s “commitment to values-based global leadership.” In addition, the president called for action on crises in regions across the world, including Myanmar, Ethiopia, Syria, and Yemen. However, Dmitry Polyanskiy, second-in-command to Russia’s permanent representative, Vassily Nebenzia, confirmed on Friday that neither had attended the meeting.


Instead, he revealed, Anna Evstigneeva, one of three more junior deputies, had joined the talks with Biden in their place. She reportedly made no remarks. RIA Novosti reports that Russia’s diplomatic mission was the only one that did not send its top figure to greet the American president. The decision comes amid a week in which Biden and his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, have traded barbs in the press. In an explosive interview with ABC earlier this week, Biden was asked whether he thought Putin was a killer. “Mmm hmm, I do,” Biden replied. On Thursday, the Russian leader responded, arguing that judging other countries is often “like looking in a mirror.” “When I was a kid, when we were arguing with each other in the playground, we used to say, ‘Whatever you say [about others] is what you are yourself,’” Putin said.

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“The winner of the contest will gain control of the other country.”

• Putin Challenges Biden To Stair-Climbing Contest (BBee)

Vladimir Putin has challenged Joe Biden to a contest of wits, strength, and cunning: a stair-ascending contest. The winner of the contest will gain control of the other country. “Stair-ascending contest, me and you, right now, let’s go,” said Putin as he met with the American president. “He who wins become supreme glorious leader forever of other puny weak man.” Biden agreed to the contest, though it wasn’t clear he knew who this man was or where they were. “3… 2… 1… climb!” shouted the referee before firing off a pistol. Biden got off to a rocky start as he was startled by the gunshot and scurried off in the wrong direction. Putin, meanwhile, just walked up the stairs.


Biden started gaining on him as his handlers corralled him and pointed him in the right direction, but he kept falling over and tumbling down the stairs. It all looked good for Russia until Putin had to stop a few times to sign execution papers for journalists who criticized him, squandering his lead. Finally, Biden jumped in a stair lift and started to close the gap, but it was too little, too late, and Putin emerged at the top of the 30-step staircase victorious. Well, thanks to Biden losing the stair contest, we are now part of Russia. We also just want to say that Vladimir Putin is one fine fellow and a fantastic man, and he deserved to win and we welcome him as our new leader for life.

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Easy.

• Erdogan Says Biden Comments On Putin ‘Unacceptable’ (R.)

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Joe Biden’s comments about Russia’s Vladimir Putin, in which he said he thought he was a killer, were “unacceptable” and unfitting of a U.S. president. In a TV interview broadcast on Wednesday, Biden said “I do” when asked if he believed Putin was a killer, prompting U.S.-Russia ties to sink to a new low. Putin later responded that “he who said it, did it.” “Mr. Biden’s statements about Mr. Putin are not fitting of a president, and a president coming out and using such remarks against the president of a country like Russia is truly unacceptable, not something that can be stomached,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.


“In my opinion, Mr. Putin has done what is necessary by giving a very, very smart and elegant answer,” he added. Ties between Ankara and Washington, NATO allies, have been strained over a host of issues in recent years including Turkey’s record on human rights and freedoms, its acquisition of Russian defence systems and policy differences in Syria. The United States, which along with other western allies has accused Ankara of straying from NATO and the western bloc, last year imposed sanctions on Turkey over the Russian defences. Turkey called that a “grave mistake”.

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Not so easy. Erdogan still wants to control what he can’t.

• Erdogan Fires Second Central Bank Chief In 4 Months (ZH)

On Thursday, moments after the Central Bank of Turkey unexpectedly hiked rates by a whopping 200bps – double the consensus expectation – to 19% from 17%, the highest rate since the country’s panicked scramble to contain the collapse of the Turkish lira during the economic turmoil of 2018, we said that “unfortunately for Turkey – whose economy will now grind to yet another halt – it had no choice: inflation had accelerated for a fifth month in February as oil rallied and the impact of last year’s lira weakness lingered, while capital outflows soared. The upward trend fueled expectations the central bank would try to rein in prices by raising interest rates… but nobody had expected a 200 bps rate hike.”

Also in our kneejerk response to the rate hike decision, we said that the relatively new CBRT head, Agbal, “was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t: on one hand the lira was plunging angering Erdogan, so he had to stabilize it… on the other the only way to do so was by hiking rates, which would anger Erdogan even more.” We also quoted from the CBRT’s decision, noting that the bank has decided “to implement a front-loaded and strong additional monetary tightening,” explicitly stating that this “statement is guaranteed to enrage Turkey’s dictator.” Bottom line: Erdogan would be furious either way.

Finally, we quoted SocGen EM strategist Phoenix Kalen who tried to justify the rate hike with some lofty sleight of logic by saying that “in a challenging context of domestic business and political pressure against further interest rate hikes, the CBRT has stepped up to the plate and delivered a resounding home run to underline its commitment to an inflation-targeting framework.” Kalen then said that the move “will go a long way toward bolstering both retail and foreign investor confidence that the CBRT under Governor Agbal will stay engaged in addressing deterioration in inflation expectations.” While we were impressed with Kalen’s attempt to make 5-D chess out of what was basically total chaos, our take was far more cynical Maybe… or maybe it will just force Erdogan to replace yet another CBRT governor.

Two days later, our cynical view proved correct again, because shortly after midnight on Saturday, and just two days after the larger than expected rate hike, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired the country’s third central bank governor in less than two years and replaced him with a fan of lowering interest rates. Naci Agbal, Turkey’s former finance minister who was appointed central bank chief last November, was fired by Erdogan and was replaced with Sahap Kavcioglu, according to a decree published after midnight on Saturday in the Official Gazette. Agbal’s abrupt termination is a clear retaliation by Erodgan for last week’s unexpectedly big rate hike, one which does not fit within the absurd confines of “Erdoganomics” whereby lower rates are somehow needed to fight inflation.

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How scary would you like it?

• Fauci Claims Babies, Toddlers Need To Be Vaccinated For Herd Immunity (SN)

Dr Anthony Fauci has claimed that in order for herd immunity against coronavirus to be reached in the US, children and even babies will have to be vaccinated. Speaking during a Senate hearing, the chief medical adviser to the Biden administration said “I think we should be careful about wedding ourselves to this concept of herd immunity because we really do not know precisely, for this particular virus, what that is.” “We don’t really know what that magical point of herd immunity is, but we do know that if we get the overwhelming population vaccinated, we’re going to be in good shape. We ultimately would like to get and have to get children into that mix,” Fauci added. Appearing later on CBS News, Fauci outlined plans to vaccinate children as young as six month old babies early next year.


On Wednesday, Fauci dismissed concerns that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines could impact children’s genetics. “We’re going to be looking at multiple aspects of safety,” Fauci told reporters, adding “There is really no biological reason at all to indicate or even predict that you would even see any modification of a genetic profile when you’re dealing with mRNA, which has no way of integrating into the genome of a cell.” Vaccine manufacturers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are both currently running tests of their mRNA vaccines in children. Moderna has also revealed that it has a study underway in children under 12 that will eventually include those as young as six month old babies. CDC figures show that of almost 400,000 US deaths counted as from COVID-19, just 93 were children 4-years-old and younger.

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“As this shifts from pandemic to endemic, we think there’s an opportunity here for us..”

• Drugmakers Promise Investors They’ll Soon Hike Covid-19 Vaccine Prices (IC)

THE U.S. pharmaceutical firms behind the approved coronavirus vaccines — Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer — have quietly touted plans to raise prices on coronavirus vaccines in the near future and to capitalize on the virus’s lasting presence. While the companies have enjoyed a boost in goodwill from the rush to develop vaccines, drug industry executives have noted, the public is still sensitive to drug pricing and the reputational risk has, so far, curtailed their ability to reap large financial rewards. But that environment, they hope, will change once the pandemic ends: a date that drugmakers themselves reserve the right to declare. Pharmaceutical officials, speaking at recent conferences and on calls with investors, say they expect the virus will linger, morphing from a pandemic into a perennial endemic.

And as Covid-19 mutations continue to spread and booster shots may be required on a regular basis, leaders from the three companies are enthusiastic about cashing in. “As this shifts from pandemic to endemic, we think there’s an opportunity here for us,” said Frank D’Amelio, the chief financial officer for Pfizer, at a conference. Additional factors, such as the need for booster shots, present “a significant opportunity for our vaccine from a demand perspective, from a pricing perspective, given the clinical profile of our vaccine.” Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have also pledged affordability for their vaccines for the duration of the pandemic but have indicated to investors that they plan to return to more “commercial” pricing as early as later this year.

The vaccines are already poised to be some of the most lucrative drugs of all time. The companies are expecting to bring in billions in profit this year alone, and all the major drugmakers with approved coronavirus vaccines received investments and backorders from government agencies. The U.S. government has fully financed the research and development of several coronavirus vaccines, including those produced by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, to the tune of over $2 billion. The U.S. has also provided nearly $2 billion in payments to secure doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, which was developed in partnership with BioNTech, a company that received nearly $500 million in development assistance from the German government.

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“..it has been reporting PCR tests as positive when only a single coronavirus gene is detected..”

“Between a quarter and two thirds of positive results were affected..”

• ONS Admits Ignoring Manufacturer Instructions in PCR Testing (LDS)

The Office for National Statistics has admitted that in its Covid infection survey it has been reporting PCR tests as positive when only a single coronavirus gene is detected, despite this being contrary to the instructions of the manufacturer that two or more target genes must be found before a positive result can be declared. According to a rapid response in the BMJ this week by Dr Martin Neil, a statistics professor at the University of London, targeting only a single gene in this way massively increases the risk of a false positive because of the possibility of cross-reactivity with other coronaviruses as well as prevalent bacteria or other contamination. Digging into the detail of the methods followed by the lighthouse laboratories which process the tests for the ONS, Professor Neil writes:

“The kit used by the Glasgow and Milton Keynes lighthouse laboratories is the ThermoFisher TaqPath RT-PCR which tests for the presence of three target genes from SARS-COV-2. Despite Corman et al originating the use of PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 genes there is no agreed international standard for SARS-COV-2 testing. Instead, the World Health Organisation (WHO) leaves it up to the manufacturer to determine what genes to use and instructs end users to adhere to the manufacturer instructions for use. The WHO’s emergency use assessment for the ThermoFisher TaqPath kit includes the instruction manual and contained therein is an interpretation algorithm describing an unequivocal requirement that two or more target genes be detected before a positive result can be declared.

The latest revision of ThermoFisher’s instruction manual contains the same algorithm. The WHO have been sufficiently concerned about correct use of RT-PCR kits that on January 20th 2021 they issued a notice for PCR users imploring them to review manufacturer instructions for use carefully and adhere to them fully. The ONS’s report of December 5th 2020 lists SARS-CoV-2 positive results for valid two and three target gene combinations and the report of December 21st does the same, for samples processed by the Glasgow and Milton Keynes lighthouse laboratories. However, it also lists single gene detections as positive results.” Between a quarter and two thirds of positive results were affected, Professor Neil found.

“Over the period reported the maximum weekly percentage of positives on a single gene is 38% for the whole of the UK for the week of February 1st. The overall UK average was 23%. The maximum percentage reported is 65%, in East England in the week beginning October 5th. In Wales it was 50%, in Northern Ireland it is 55% and in Scotland it was 56%. The full data including averages and maxima/minima are given in.”

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We need more questions for this narrative.

• The ‘Independent’ Report Claiming Uyghur Genocide (CN)

The report relies most substantially on the “expertise” of Adrian Zenz, the far-right evangelical ideologue, whose “scholarship” on China has been demonstrated to be flawed, riddled with falsehoods and dishonest statistical manipulation. The reliance on the voluminous but demonstrably fraudulent work of Zenz is not surprising, given that the report was financed by the Newlines Institute’s parent organization, the Fairfax University of America (FXUA). FXUA is a disgraced institution that Virginia state regulators moved to shut down in 2019 after finding that its “teachers weren’t qualified to teach their assigned courses”, academic quality was “patently deficient,” and plagiarism was “rampant” and ignored.

Just days before the Newlines Institute published its “expert” report accusing China of genocide, an advisory board to the U.S. Department of Education recommended terminating recognition of FXUA’s accreditor, placing its license in jeopardy. The Newlines report presents no new material on the condition of Uyghur Muslims in China. Instead, it claims to have reviewed all of “the available evidence” and applied “international law to the evidence of the facts on the ground.” Rather than conducting a thorough and comprehensive review of “the available evidence,” the report restricted its survey to a narrow range of flawed pseudo-scholarship along with reports by U.S. government-backed lobbying fronts for the exiled Uyghur separatist movement. It was upon this faulty foundation that the report applies legal analysis related to the UN Genocide Convention.

Newlines’ report relies primarily on the dubious studies of Zenz, the U.S. government propaganda outlet, Radio Free Asia, and claims made by the U.S.-funded separatist network, the World Uyghur Congress. These three sources comprise more than one-third of the references used to construct the factual basis of the document, with Zenz as the most heavily relied upon source – cited on more than 50 occasions. Many of the remaining references cite the work of members of Newlines Institute’s “Uyghur Scholars Working Group,” of which Zenz is a founding member and which is made up of a small group of academics who collaborate with him and support his conclusions.

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Well, well. Get your MMT at the BBC.

• UK Government Borrowing Hits February Record (BBC)

Ultimately, if it’s consistently spending much more than it has in the past, the state has to raise more money in taxes. But the key word there is “ultimately”. There is no urgency to repaying the government’s debt. More urgent are the debts of small businesses and poorer households. Ordinary households rightly fear getting into too much debt because if interest rates rise, lenders can close in and deploy lawyers and bailiffs with all the attendant unpleasantness. But it is profoundly wrong and misleading to infer that it’s like that for governments who issue their own sovereign currency. Unlike households, governments controlling their own currency can borrow without limit money that they have freshly created.


They therefore can’t go bankrupt. Because almost all of the money borrowed by the government in this financial year (by issuing gilts) will be owed to another public sector body, the Bank of England, it’s nothing like a household borrowing from a bank. And in fact, as the government tacitly acknowledged in its recent Budget, it makes sense in the midst of an economic contraction for the government to spend more, not less – not least because other parts of the economy (households and businesses) aren’t spending anything like what they normally would. Without the additional government spending the economic contraction would, without a shadow of a doubt, be worse.

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We’ll defeat ourselves yet.

• Toxic Chemicals, Plummeting Sperm Counts, Shrinking Penises (Erin Brockovich)


The end of humankind? It may be coming sooner than we think, thanks to hormone-disrupting chemicals that are decimating fertility at an alarming rate around the globe. A new book called Countdown, by Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, finds that sperm counts have dropped almost 60% since 1973. Following the trajectory we are on, Swan’s research suggests sperm counts could reach zero by 2045. Zero. Let that sink in. That would mean no babies. No reproduction. No more humans. Forgive me for asking: why isn’t the UN calling an emergency meeting on this right now? The chemicals to blame for this crisis are found in everything from plastic containers and food wrapping, to waterproof clothes and fragrances in cleaning products, to soaps and shampoos, to electronics and carpeting.

Some of them, called PFAS, are known as “forever chemicals”, because they don’t breakdown in the environment or the human body. They just accumulate and accumulate – doing more and more damage, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. Now, it seems, humanity is reaching a breaking point. Swan’s book is staggering in its findings. “In some parts of the world, the average twentysomething woman today is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35,” Swan writes. In addition to that, Swan finds that, on average, a man today will have half of the sperm his grandfather had. “The current state of reproductive affairs can’t continue much longer without threatening human survival,” writes Swan, adding: “It’s a global existential crisis.” That’s not hyperbole. That’s just science.

As if this wasn’t terrifying enough, Swan’s research finds that these chemicals aren’t just dramatically reducing semen quality, they are also shrinking penis size and volume of the testes. This is nothing short of a full-scale emergency for humanity. Swan’s book echoes previous research, which has found that PFAS harms sperm production, disrupts the male hormone and is correlated to a “reduction of semen quality, testicular volume and penile length”. These chemicals are literally confusing our bodies, making them send mix messages and go haywire.

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