Oct 042024
 


Pablo Picasso Juan-Les-Pins 1920

 

Will Trump Make It to Election? (Jim Rickards)
Trump ‘Resorted To Crimes’ To Overturn 2020 Election: Jack Smith (BBC)
Trump’s Opportunity for a Knockout (RCW)
CISA Chief Says Foreign Interference Won’t Much Alter US Election Results (ET)
Court Refuses to Throw Out Andrew Weissmann Defamation Lawsuit (Turley)
Biden-Harris’ Mysterious Nationwide Migrant Network (ZH)
19 GOP AGs Launch Probe Into ActBlue Over Money Laundering Allegations (AmG)
US Port Workers Agree To End Strike After Accepting 62% Wage Increase (ZH)
Israel Planning Major Attack on Iran (Antiwar)
Lebanon: Nasrallah Agreed To Temporary Ceasefire Just Before Assassination (ZH)
‘Iron Dome Proved to Be a Bust’: Larry Johnson (Sp.)
‘Who Do You Want to Win?’ (Patrick Lawrence)
Musk Slams US Democrats Over Freedom Of Speech (RT)
EU Car Industry Faces ‘Horror Fall’ – Bild (RT)
Another Right-Wing Election Winner Is Sidelined in the EU (Marsden)
Telegram Shares User Details With Governments – Durov (RT)

 

 

 

 

Trump signs

 

 

Butler
https://twitter.com/i/status/1841645637504217376

 

 

Sondland

 

 

Latest death toll: 215. Still hundreds missing.

 

 

Dore

 

 

JD Vance

 

 

Emhoff

 

 

Trump tariffs

 

 

 

 

“We only have to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always.” In other words, the assassination attempts will keep coming.”

Will Trump Make It to Election? (Jim Rickards)

MSNBC and CNN and the rest of corporate media put out these lies about Trump as a form of propaganda. The lies are aimed at a target audience of Trump-haters and progressive lightweights. Routh was the target audience. Corporate media are too cowardly to take direct action against Trump. But by putting out propaganda, they hope to trigger those who are prone to such action. The triggering propaganda was not limited to the media. Kamala Harris said of Trump, “Does one of us have to come out alive? Ha, ha, ha, ha!” Joe Biden said, “It’s time to put Trump in a bull’s-eye.” Tim Walz’s wife, Gwen Walz, said, “Buh-bye, Donald Trump.” Democratic member of Congress Dan Goldman said about Trump, “He is destructive to our democracy and… he has to be eliminated.” I could offer 100 similar quotes but you get the idea. The media class and the political class are calling for Trump to be killed. It’s just a matter of triggering someone to do it. In Routh’s case, he was completely triggered.

Then he picked up his rifle. Just as the USSS are responsible for letting these assassinations happen, corporate media and many Democrats are responsible for triggering unstable individuals to conduct the assassination attempts. It’s not a stretch to say the USSS, corporate media and many Democrats are all out to kill Trump. They simply rely on mentally ill zealots to do their wet work. Routh told the court on Monday, Sept. 16, that he had no material financial assets and owned no property. The court has appointed a public defender to represent Routh. If he has no assets, how was Routh able to afford his move to Hawaii? His travels to Ukraine? How did he finance his recruiting effort while in Ukraine? Where did he get the rifle? How could he afford to travel to Florida to carry out the assassination plan? It seems clear that Routh has a hidden source of financial support. The CIA typically deals in cash while running covert operations. Was Routh a CIA asset turned loose on a rogue mission with a predictable outcome?

I worked for the CIA for 10 years in various capacities, including special operations. Ukraine has been a CIA outpost since 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union and the creation of the Russian Federation. Ukraine is riddled with CIA operatives, bioweapons labs and forward-deployed assets intended to destabilize Russia. It’s impossible that a high-profile American like Routh could run around Ukraine recruiting mercenaries without coming to the attention of the CIA and coming in direct contact with CIA assets. This likely scenario strongly suggests that Routh may have been financed and otherwise assisted by the CIA to carry out his assassination plan. The fact that Routh was using a Russian-designed rifle (which would have been plentiful in Ukraine as Cold War surplus) is another tell. The parallels with Lee Harvey Oswald, who was a U.S. defector to the Soviet Union and who later returned to the U.S. and had contacts with anti-Castro Cubans working for the CIA, are too obvious to ignore.

As for Trump’s so-called protection, why was the golf course not secure? How did Routh set up a sniper’s nest on the sixth hole of the course without being detected until minutes before Trump came into sight? Routh stayed in his sniper’s nest for over 12 hours before he was confronted. Why was that area not swept several times in the period? How did Routh even know Trump would be playing golf there that day without a leak from Trump’s security detail? These and many other questions need to be answered quickly before the cover-up goes much further. The FBI official in charge of the Florida assassination attempt investigation is Jeffrey Veltri, a notorious Trump-hater who was ordered by the FBI director to scrub his social media accounts of anti-Trump posts. One bit of good news is that Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida will be conducting his own state-level investigation with full subpoena power and expert forensics.

The corporate media, Democrat politicians, the USSS and other branches of the deep state are largely to blame for these two assassination attempts because of their constantly repeated lies about Trump’s character, political platform and ostensible “threat to democracy.” Calling Trump “Hitler” (as the media continually do) offers deranged individuals like Routh a license to kill. In Routh’s case he apparently took up the challenge and almost succeeded. Saying the assassination attempt failed is not a source of comfort. One is reminded of the IRA’s near assassination of Margaret Thatcher in the Brighton Grand Hotel bombing in 1984. After the bombing, the IRA boasted to Thatcher: “We only have to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always.” In other words, the assassination attempts will keep coming.

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Guess they will swear this is not election interference… This is one month before the election. DOJ always said 60 days minimum. 165 pages where 45 would be “normal”.

Jack Smith focuses on instances where he thinks he can plausibly claim Trump was not the president, but a private person. Because that’s the “niche” the Supreme Court left open.

Zero Hedge has a longer version on the topic. I stuck with BBC.

Trump ‘Resorted To Crimes’ To Overturn 2020 Election: Jack Smith (BBC)

Donald Trump “resorted to crimes” while trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, and should not escape charges, prosecutors say. A new court filing challenges Trump’s claim that he should avoid a trial thanks to a recent landmark US Supreme Court ruling. This said American presidents should be immune from prosecution when acting in an “official” capacity. Trump was president when the alleged offences were committed – but prosecutors say he was acting in a “private” capacity, not an official one. In response, Trump has repeated false claims that the 2020 vote was “rigged” and suggested the timing of the filing’s release was designed to hurt his 2024 campaign. In an interview with NewsNation, he also criticised Special Counsel Jack Smith, the lead prosecutor in the election interference probe who submitted the filing. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan released the document – filed by Mr Smith last week – with redactions on Wednesday.

This is one of four criminal cases Trump has faced since being voted out in 2020 – another of which led to a historic conviction in New York. He is accused of seeking to illegally block the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, but denies wrongdoing. The new 165-page document presents the clearest view yet of how Mr Smith’s team would pursue their case, having tweaked the wording of their charges after the Supreme Court’s intervention. It gives details of Trump’s alleged scheme, including his actions when his supporters rioted at the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021. It also outlines the efforts of Mike Pence, the vice-president at the time, to talk him down. The issue remains prominent in US politics almost four years later, ahead of the 2024 election in November, which will be contested by Trump and Kamala Harris. It came up in Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, during which JD Vance refused to answer whether Trump, his running mate for 2024, lost in 2020.

The court filing may represent Mr Smith’s last chance to set out his case against Trump. The case has been frequently delayed since charges were filed by the Department of Justice (DoJ) more than a year ago. Trump will not face trial before November’s election – and he may seek to have the case dropped if he wins. Trump’s lawyers fought to keep the latest filing sealed. Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung has called it “falsehood-ridden” and “unconstitutional”. In the newly-released document, Mr Smith and his team try to navigate the summer Supreme Court ruling – which dented their case – by narrowing their scope. The Supreme Court ruling did not apply immunity to unofficial acts. The prosecutors argue that although Trump was still in office when attempting to overturn the 2020 vote, his attempts related to his campaign and his life as a private citizen. They call it a “private criminal effort”.

The court should therefore “determine that the defendant must stand trial for his private crimes as he would any other citizen,” the filing says. The filing lays out several instances in which Pence, expressed doubt about his boss’s voter fraud claims and tried to persuade him to accept he lost the election. In the court document, prosecutors say Trump was not upset when he learned his vice-president had been rushed to a secure location as rioters stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021. “So what?” he allegedly said, when informed of the scenes. Pence would later go public about his falling out with Trump in the wake of the storming of Congress, when some rioters shouted “hang Mike Pence” because the vice-president refused to obstruct the certification of election results.

The filing also alleges that Trump always planned to declare victory no matter the result, and laid the groundwork for this long before election day. It also accuses him of knowingly spreading false claims about the vote that he himself deemed “crazy”. Mr Smith also provides several new details about the Trump campaign’s alleged role in sowing chaos in battleground states, where a large number of mail-in ballots were being counted in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the Democratic stronghold of Detroit, Michigan, when a large batch of ballots seemed to be in favour of Biden, a Trump campaign operative allegedly told his colleague to “find a reason” that something was wrong with the ballots to give him “options to file litigation”.

The filing also claims that Trump and his allies, including lawyer Rudy Giuliani, sought to “exploit the violence and chaos at the Capitol” on 6 January 2021 to delay the election certification. They allegedly did this by calling senators and leaving voicemails that asked them to object to the state electors. Trump said on Wednesday that the case would end with his “complete victory”. A trial date has not been set.

Trump lawsuit
https://twitter.com/i/status/1841569926844477847

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From the home of Tim Walz.

Trump’s Opportunity for a Knockout (RCW)

In a very significant development — I am almost prepared to say the most significant development in the current presidential contest — it has recently been revealed that Brian D. Lozenski, an associate professor of urban and multicultural education at Macalester College and a leader in the development of Minnesota’s proposed ethnic studies curriculum, explicitly called for the “overthrow of the United States.” This goal has demonstrably shaped Minnesota’s ethnic studies standards, according to which students are taught as early as kindergarten that America is evil. The video recording of Lozenski was made two years ago but was taken down the day after it was spotted by Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. This finding is pertinent to the national electorate because Lozenski is one of many anti-American ideologues contributing the “liberated” ingredient to Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s new ethnic studies requirements for public education in Minnesota.

These requirements are decisively shaped by Critical Race Theory (CRT), of which ethnic studies is a variant. As Kurtz aptly puts it, “…Essentially, ethnic studies is a kind of anti-civics in which students are taught to reject and replace America’s system of government.” CRT, of course, is part of the ideology Harris-Walz bring with them from the catastrophes of California and Minnesota straight to every schoolhouse in America. Kurtz has provided a good overview of Walz’s education policies and the Lozenski connection. As Kurtz writes: In a 2020 piece, “The Black Radical Tradition Can Help Us Imagine a More Just World,” Lozenski touts the work of Cedric Robinson and Robin D. G. Kelley — leading thinkers of the radical ethnic-studies movement — as the answer to Minnesota’s education woes. To Lozenski, the George Floyd “uprising” of 2020 presages the “inevitable death” of the current “social order.”

Lozenski oozes contempt for “the egoistic pursuits of U.S. society and its desperate cling to individualism.” Educationally, he adds, transforming the social order requires reforms like agitation for defunding the police and an end to all standardized testing. Shockingly, other than the Center of the American Experiment and Kurtz, this topic has been lightly covered, though the Trump campaign is aware of it. We shall probably know in the upcoming Vance/Walz debate whether the Trump campaign will highlight this issue. If it doesn’t, others must. There is a real danger that this issue will vanish down the memory hole. To make as explicit an assertion as did Lozenski is extremely rare; indeed, I have never seen or heard such an admission. The destructive intent of ethnic studies or CRT has been very apparent and much commented upon for many years by the conservative commentariat.

But Lozenski’s open, cavalier articulation makes the destructive nature of ethnic studies virtually impossible to deny. Defenders of ethnic studies may claim that Lozenski is an outlier, but as he is the leading figure in Minnesota’s ethnic studies movement and the prime mover of Minnesota’s ethnic studies initiative, it will not be possible to sustain such an denial. Although Democrats might try to stonewall until the election, the Republicans and the conservative media must not allow it. Lozenski not only admitted the goal of ethnic studies is American destruction, but also chastised his many fellow travelers for not revealing their purpose. Again, this is no surprise to those who have been paying even the slightest attention.

Lozenski is tethered to Governor Walz. Walz’s Education Department appointed Lozenski to the ethnic studies “implementation framework” committee and ethnic studies is a critical initiative for Walz. In 2021 he introduced what he called his “Due North” education plan, which featured funding for a major ethnic-studies initiative. Speaking about the initiative during his State of the State address, he said: This plan would tackle the racial and geographic opportunity gap by dramatically reforming school financing, expanding access to rigorous coursework, and ensuring our curriculum and teacher workforce better reflect our increasingly diverse student body.

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But but… Hillary, Mueller, Weismann, Adam Schiff!

In reality, it’s not FOREIGN interference that’s the problem.

CISA Chief Says Foreign Interference Won’t Much Alter US Election Results (ET)

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said that America’s election systems are so secure that foreign adversaries will be unable to manipulate the outcome of the 2024 presidential election in a “material” way. Easterly made the remarks in an Oct. 2 interview with The Associated Press, in which she said that foreign powers are actively seeking to influence U.S. voters and sow discord but that they lack the ability to interfere with core election infrastructure such as vote casting and ballot counting. “Malicious actors, even if they tried, could not have an impact at scale such that there would be a material effect on the outcome of the election,” Easterly told the outlet. U.S. intelligence agencies continue to raise concerns about disinformation and influence operations by foreign powers ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

A recent update from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) warned that countries such as Russia, Iran, and China are ramping up the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to shape public opinion in the United States. According to the ODNI report, AI has accelerated foreign influence operations. Russia’s efforts include the use of AI to produce misleading election-related content, from fake audio and videos to fabricated narratives. Iran has focused on generating fake news articles and social media posts to stoke divisions among U.S. voters. China’s efforts have been more indirect, aiming to shape global perceptions of its own policies while amplifying U.S. domestic issues such as illegal immigration and drug policy. Easterly acknowledged these attempts to influence public opinion in the United States, noting that China is “very interested” in swaying the 2024 election. However, she stressed that no cyber activities targeting America’s voting systems had been detected thus far.

“We have not seen specific cyber activity designed to interfere with actual election infrastructure or processes,” Easterly said. Several surveys have pointed to concerns over the integrity of U.S. elections, including doubts about their honesty and openness and the potential impacts of AI or foreign interference. One survey, carried out by the Public Affairs Council found that just 37 percent of Americans believe the 2024 election will be “honest and open.” Another survey from the University of South Florida found that a majority of U.S. voters think the federal government hasn’t done enough to deter foreign actors from interfering with this year’s presidential election. And a survey published in May by the Imagining the Digital Future Center at Elon University found that 78 percent of Americans think the upcoming election will be influenced by “abuses” related to AI-generated content that spreads on social media.

“Many aren’t sure they can sort through the garbage they know will be polluting campaign-related content,” Lee Rainie, director of the Digital Future Center, said in a statement. In March, The Epoch Times reported on the rising influence of political memes on election discourse. At the time, Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, told The Epoch Times that deep fakes—which are realistic images, videos, and audio typically created by generative AI software—can and do effectively fool people Rutledge said that even if the content is obviously fake or of low quality, the messages can still be persuasive if they confirm people’s political biases.

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Andrew Weissmann effectively ran the Mueller investigation. Mueller was just a figurehead.

Court Refuses to Throw Out Andrew Weissmann Defamation Lawsuit (Turley)

We previously discussed the defamation case against NYU Law Professor and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann. He is being sued by lawyer Stefan Passantino after Weissmann said that he coached former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to “lie” to Congress. At the time, I wrote that “it is hard to see how Weissmann can avoid a trial.” U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan apparently agrees. She just rejected Weissmann’s motion to dismiss the case. The controversial former aide to Special Counsel Robert Mueller (and NYU law professor) is being sued after declaring that attorney Stefan Passantino (who represented Hutchinson before Congress) told her to lie. Weissmann’s controversial commentary was not a surprise to many critics.

Many of us questioned Mueller hiring Weissmann given his reputation for stretching legal authority and perceived political bias. Weissmann reportedly congratulated acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she ordered the Justice Department not to assist President Donald Trump on his immigration ban. The Supreme Court would ultimately affirm Trump’s underlying authority, but Yates refused to allow the Justice Department to assist a sitting president in defending that authority. Weissmann gushed in an email to her, writing “I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you so much.” As noted earlier, Weissmann seemed to respond to those criticisms by aggressively proving them true. Weissmann has only become more controversial as an MSNBC analyst. He called on Justice Department officials to refuse to assist in the investigation of abuses in the Russian collusion investigation. While opposing investigations involving Democrats, he has seemingly supported every possible charge against Trump or his associates.

What Weissmann often lacked in precedent, he made up for in hyperbole. That signature is at the heart of the current lawsuit. On September 13, 2023, Weissmann was referring to Judy Hunt and noted on Twitter (now X) that “Hunt also is Cassidy Hutchinson’s good lawyer. (Not the one who coached her to lie).” In making this claim against Passantino, Weissmann actually triggered the “per se” defamation standard twice. These are categories that have been treated as defamatory per se. The allegation against Passantino would not only constitute criminal conduct but also unethical professional conduct. Passantino denounces the statement as an “insidious lie” and “smear.” AliKahn noted that “At her fifth deposition, Ms. Hutchinson discussed a line of questioning from her first deposition about the January 6 incident in the Presidential limousine,” AliKhan wrote.

“She explained that, during a break after facing repeated questions on the topic, she had told Mr. Passantino in private, ‘I’m f*****. I just lied.’ Mr. Passantino responded, ‘You didn’t lie. . . . They don’t know what you know, Cassidy. They don’t know that you can recall some of these things. So you [sic] saying ‘I don’t recall’ is an entirely acceptable response to this.’” Hutchinson repeatedly confirmed that Passantino “never told me to lie,” “didn’t tell me to lie,” and “He told me not to lie.” While Judge AliKhan on Monday tossed out the second count in the complaint as lacking foundation for the claim of financial harm, she refused to dismiss Passantino’s defamation claim and moved the case forward toward trial. That could prove embarrassing as Passantino’s team searches for evidence of malice in his emails and other communications.

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There’s a lot of money in illegals these days. “I don’t want to say it’s a gold rush, but business is very good.”

Biden-Harris’ Mysterious Nationwide Migrant Network (ZH)

Large staffing companies that thrived during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars under the Bush-Obama years retooled their business models as the US involvement and war funding in the Middle East wound down. Now, these staffing firms seem to be profiting off the Biden-Harris administration’s open-border migrant invasion by providing essential services, such as private security, transportation, and many other services, to ensure the fed’s migrant network nationwide operates smoothly. These companies are likely awarded handsome federal contracts, paid for by the US taxpayer. Bussing and housing millions of illegal and legal aliens is big business for staffing companies and non-profits. Americans have to realize their tax dollars are paying for all of this while the migrants displace and replace blue-collar workers in small-town factories nationwide.

The folks in Springfield, Ohio, and Charleroi, Pennsylvania, know firsthand just how devastating globalist open border policies can be for them. Real America’s Voice host Ben Bergquam posted on X, “More breaking footage of the Democrats harboring illegals in Chicago. Now using unmarked brand new hotels like this Holiday Inn at [XXXXXXX] to disguise Kamala and Biden’s illegal invasion operations.” Bergquam’s video of the Holiday Inn filled-migrant hotel in the Chicago metro area is very intriguing. First, the security guards appear to be sourced from staffing firm GardaWorld.

Second, a person who seems to be another worker said the Holiday Inn is “federal property.” The focus should be on industrial-sized staffing companies that provide security and other services to keep the fed’s migrant network operational. But let’s take a step back and realize that some of these staffing companies could be part of the DC swamp that profited off the endless wars in the Middle East. In 2012, the head of GardaWorld told Reuters that Middle East conflicts had kept the staffing firm “busier than ever and has never been greater,” adding, “I don’t want to say it’s a gold rush, but business is very good.” Sticking with the staffing companies, just recently, Muckraker’s Anthony Rubin dropped a bombshell in a report titled “Finding The Feds’ Missing Children | CHILD TRAFFICKING IN AMERICA.” He provided intel that MVM, a private security contractor with ties to the CIA, NSA, FBI, and Homeland Security, was caught moving unaccompanied migrant children around the country.

[..] when the war funding dried up in the Middle East, like GardaWorld, MVM pivoted to catering to the federal government’s next big globalist idea: profiting off the migrant invasion by providing migrant solutions. Their website reveals their ‘Mission Solutions,’ which include “Transportation and care for vulnerable populations [migrants].” MVM has operated a migrant bus network nationwide. Even though we cited only two large staffing companies that profited off Middle East wars and pivoted to providing domestic migrant solutions to the Biden-Harris administration, smaller staffing companies are operating nationwide, providing transportation for migrants, and even some firms are providing housing solutions. Taxpayers must realize the feds are funneling their monies to support open borders and operate a complex network of transportation and housing for millions of migrants. Blue-collar workers across the country are waking up to the fact that the feds are perfectly okay with displacing and replacing them with low-cost migrants at factories across small town America.

CBP One

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James O’Keefe has been on top of this. “..millions of dollars in campaign donations to Act Blue that have been laundered through unwitting small donors..”

19 GOP AGs Launch Probe Into ActBlue Over Money Laundering Allegations (AmG)

A coalition of 19 Republican state attorneys general have launched a criminal investigation into the Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue over allegations of money laundering. As American Greatness reported in April, multiple independent investigative journalists, including O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) and Election Watch have uncovered what appears to be illegal activity involving millions of dollars in campaign donations to Act Blue that have been laundered through unwitting small donors. The process of breaking up large donations and submitting them under the names of small donors to cover up illegal contributions has been dubbed “smurfing.” Suspicions that ActBlue routinely engages in this type of illicit fundraising have dogged the outfit since at least Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020.

The Committee on House Administration, chaired by Congressman Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.), launched an investigation into Act Blue in November of 2023 to look into reports that the fundraising giant was skirting campaign donation laws and allowing rampant fraud on the site. The committee widened its probe in August 2024. In a letter sent to top officials on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on August 5, Steil urged them to “immediately initiate an emergency rulemaking to require political campaigns to verify the card verification value (‘CVV’) of donors who contribute online using a credit or debit card, and to prohibit political campaigns from accepting online contributions from a gift card or other prepaid credit cards.”

In September, Steil sent letters to five states, urging them to launch criminal investigations into ActBlue’s alleged illicit activities, citing three specific areas of concern:
– Donations significantly disproportionate to an individual’s net worth or previous giving history.
– Uncharacteristic donations from party-affiliated registered voters suddenly contributing to candidates of the opposing party.
– Unusually frequent donations from elderly individuals or first-time donors.

The number of GOP AGs involved in the effort has since swelled to 19. On Tuesday, the 19 Republican Attorney’s General sent a letter to ActBlue CEO and President Regina Wallace-Jones demanding information and explanations regarding the suspicious donations.

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“This is the first strike in 50 years—these people know how to get to yes,” Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said Thursday [..] “They just need to get to yes.”

US Port Workers Agree To End Strike After Accepting 62% Wage Increase (ZH)

Late on Thursday, 45,000 striking dockworkers at US East and Gulf coast ports agreed to return to work after port operators sweetened their contract offer, ending a three-day strike that threatened to disrupt the American economy. The International Longshoremen’s Association and port operators, in a joint statement, said they had reached a tentative agreement on wages and union members would return to work. They said the agreement would extend the prior contract, which expired at the start of this week, through Jan. 15, 2025 while the two sides negotiate on other issues, including automation on the docks. The breakthrough came after port employers offered a 62% increase in wages over six years, the WSJ reported citing people familiar with the matter. The new offer, up from an earlier proposed raise of 50%, came after the White House privately and publicly pressed the large shipping lines and cargo terminal operators who employ the longshore workers to make a new offer to the union.

The agreement ends a strike that had closed container ports from Maine to Texas and threatened to disrupt everything from the supply of bananas in supermarkets to the flow of cars through America’s factories, and cost the US economy billions each day in lost commerce. The latest offer would raise the base hourly rate for ILA port workers to $63 from $39 over six years. One of the people said the offer is being made on the condition that dockworkers go back to work and agree to efficiency gains. The offer is less than the union demand for an increase of 77% over the term of the contract but a far larger increase than most major labor contracts, including a contract reached last year covering the separate union representing West Coast longshore workers. Many U.S. dockworkers currently earn more than a $100,000 a year, with baseline hourly wages boosted by work rules and overtime requirements.

The strike came about five weeks from a presidential election where both main candidates are wooing working-class union voters. Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have voiced support for the workers, stressing that the carriers are mostly foreign-owned. Top White House aides have been in frequent contact with the employers, reiterating that Biden doesn’t plan to use his federal power to break the strike. “This is the first strike in 50 years—these people know how to get to yes,” Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said Thursday, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One. “They just need to get to yes.” The walkout had shut down some of the country’s main gateways for imports of food, vehicles, heavy machinery, construction materials, chemicals, furniture, clothes and toys. Many manufacturers and big retailers, with their busy fall shopping season just starting to kick in, said they could withstand a short strike because they brought in products earlier than usual this year and diverted other cargoes to West Coast ports.

But executives said a walkout lasting a week or longer would push up shipping costs and might trigger product shortages. The International Longshoremen’s Association said it had agreed to extend the contract until Jan. 15 and work will resume. Container ports from Houston to Miami and up to Boston have been closed since the labor contract between the ILA and the US Maritime Alliance, which represents terminal operators and shipping lines, expired on Tuesday. Dozens of ships carrying containers and autos have anchored off the coast of major trade hubs including New York, South Carolina and Virgina over the past few days. It remains to be seen if other US labor union will also go on strike hoping to repeat the staggering wage gains that were just handed to the Longshoremen. If so, watch as the color drains out of Powell’s face as wage inflation hits double digits in the coming months.

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“..G7 leaders agreed to impose new sanctions on Iran, which will have little impact since Iran is already under so many.”

Israel Planning Major Attack on Iran (Antiwar)

Israel is planning to launch a “significant retaliation” attack against Iran over the Iranian missile barrage that targeted Israel on Tuesday, which was a response to several Israeli escalations in the region. Israeli officials acknowledged to Axios that the situation could lead to a full-blown regional war, which would involve the US. According to the Axios report, Israel could target oil production facilities inside Iran or other strategic sites. Israeli officials say that if Iran hits back, then all options will be on the table, including strikes on Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. “We have a big question mark about how the Iranians are going to respond to an attack, but we take into consideration the possibility that they would go all in, which will be a whole different ball game,” an Israeli official told Axios. Other options being considered are attacks on Iran’s air defenses or targeted assassinations. Israel has a history of killing people inside Iran, including the July 31 assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.

Israel would likely need US military support to launch significant strikes on Iranian territory, and the Israeli officials speaking to Axios say they are coordinating with the Biden administration. Israel wants more US support if it provokes another Iranian attack. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that the US would work with Israel to ensure Iran faces “severe consequences.” President Biden has also said he is working with Israel on a response but said Wednesday that he wouldn’t support strikes on Iran’s nuclear facility. “All seven of us agree that they have a right to respond, but they have to respond proportionally,” he said, referring to the Group of Seven nations. He said G7 leaders agreed to impose new sanctions on Iran, which will have little impact since Iran is already under so many.

Israel acknowledged on Wednesday that Iranian missiles made an impact on several military bases but claimed there was no significant damage. Israel is also claiming there were no major casualties, with only two Israelis suffering minor injuries. One Palestinian was killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when shrapnel from an intercepted missile hit him. Iran fired about 180 ballistic missiles at Israel in response to the Israeli assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran and the Israeli killing of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Abbas Nilforoushan, an IRGC commander who was killed alongside Nasrallah.

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The US plays dumb: “..it was never communicated to us..” Not credible. It was their own proposal. Communication lines were open.

Lebanon: Nasrallah Agreed To Temporary Ceasefire Just Before Assassination (ZH)

In hugely surprising remarks given on American television this week, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has stated that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah issued his agreement to a US and French-proposed 21-day ceasefire with Israel just before Israel killed him by targeting a secretive meeting in south Beirut last Friday. Habib revealed the agreement in a PBS interview. He told PBS/CNN host Christiane Amanpour that “They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this, and so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that. And, you know what happened since then.” An incredulous-looking Amanpour asked: “are you saying that Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a ceasefire just moments before he was assassinated?” “He agreed, he agreed–yes, yes. We agreed completely.”

The top Lebanese diplomat then followed with: “The Lebanese House Speaker, Mr Nabih Berri, consulted with Hezbollah and we informed the Americans and the French about the agreement. They told us that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu also agreed to the statement issued by both presidents.” This is all in reference to a Sept.25th joint statement by the US, France, the European Union, Saudi Arabia and other nations urging an immediate 21-day ceasefire during which a more permanent diplomatic solution would be worked out. CNN writes of the interview: “White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein was then set to go to Lebanon to negotiate the ceasefire, Habib continued. “They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this and so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that and you know what happened since then,” the foreign minister added.”

If the Lebanese government account is true, this would have huge implications. However, no specific further evidence that Nasrallah agreed to ceasefire has yet emerged. Reuters’ top foreign correspondent, Idrees Ali, has called the revelation “Pretty stunning.” Further reporting from CNN could point to the accuracy of FM Habib’s statements: “A Western source familiar with the negotiations also said Hezbollah had agreed to the temporary truce shortly before the US released the proposal last week. The source didn’t say whether the decision had come directly from Nasrallah, but said that for the movement to agree, they would have needed his approval. A second source familiar with the talks agreed that the US was aware that Hezbollah was agreeing to the ceasefire.”

But on an official level, the White House is denying all of this. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller didn’t rule it out entirely, but said that the Hezbollah chief agreeing to a deal is “not something we have heard before. If true, [it] was never communicated to us.” “I can’t speak to whether he ever agreed to it and told somebody inside Lebanon. Obviously, that could be something that happened that we wouldn’t be aware of. I can tell you that, if that’s true, it was never communicated to us in any way shape or form,” Miller said in a Thursday press briefing. Critics of Israel have accused PM Netanyahu of deliberately sabotaging efforts at peace in his drive to decimate Hamas, Hezbollah, and ultimately to weaken archnemesis Iran – all while prolonging his power and rule at home.

Read more …

“Israel is not in a position to fight a multi-front war and it does not have the strategic depth to fight wars of attrition. And that’s exactly what it’s got itself into now..”

‘Iron Dome Proved to Be a Bust’: Larry Johnson (Sp.)

Iran launched a significant retaliatory attack against Israel late Tuesday night, ending months of speculation about how or whether the country would strike back after its provocative killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. The United States reportedly provided Iran with assurances after the attack against Haniyeh in July that Israel and the US would move constructively towards the establishment of a Palestinian state, ending Israel’s military aggression against its neighbors and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where over 42,000 have died according to figures reported by the territory’s health ministry. Tel Aviv’s deadly attack against Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon last week dashed hopes of a cessation of violence as Israel claims it is preparing for a broader invasion of Lebanon. “I’ve seen the videos and you can see the missiles continue to rain down and hit targets. Israel is imposing a news blackout,” former CIA analyst Larry Johnson said.

“They don’t want the knowledge out there about what happened. But Iran made sure that it was not going to hit and run the risk of killing hundreds or thousands of Israeli civilians.” “They were not going to act like the Israelis,” the analyst claimed. “They really consider themselves, if you will, more humane, more honorable, and by virtue of their action, I think they can make that case.” Johnson claimed Iran was forced to strike Israel after false assurances from the United States that Israel would cease attacks on its neighbors after its killing of Haniyeh. Iran previously launched a retaliatory attack on Israel in April after Tel Aviv’s bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria killed two Iranian generals. The codename Operation True Promise was announced for the strike. Iran’s Tuesday attack, dubbed Operation True Promise II, appears significantly more substantial than April’s strike in which the vast majority of Iranian missiles, rockets and drones were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome.

Iran was reportedly able to successfully strike Israeli military targets Tuesday, including an Israeli air base where multiple US-provided F-35 aircraft were hit. Johnson claimed Israel’s attack against Nasrallah would’ve been launched from an F-35; the fighter jet would be key to any Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The commentator compared Israel’s Iron Dome to the US Patriot missile system, claiming the US is unable to replenish the defense system rapidly enough to allow Israel to fight a long war of attrition.
“Lockheed Martin… can make about one and a half, one and a quarter [missiles] a day,” said Johnson. “I think Israel’s in a similar situation… [Iran] put Israel on notice, ‘If you launch any further strikes against us in any retaliation, we’re going to hit you harder next time and with more lethality.’ So this right now has a chance to really get out of control.”

“I cannot rule out that Israel is going to try to launch some conventional weapons at Iran, but I think they’re going to be defeated,” Johnson claimed. “Israel may be tempted to try to use a nuclear device against an Iranian target,” he warned. “If that happens then we’re going to really be into another dimension, and this is going to get very, very serious. It’s already a serious situation, but it will get absolutely dangerous.” The analyst suggested Israel would not be able to support military engagement against multiple enemies, even with the United States backing it up. “Israel is not in a position to fight a multi-front war and it does not have the strategic depth to fight wars of attrition. And that’s exactly what it’s got itself into now,” Johnson pointed out. “It’s not going to be able to finish off Hezbollah in a week. It couldn’t even finish off Hamas in 12 months. It’s not going to be able to finish off Syria, finish off the Houthis or finish off Iran… That’s what Israel fails to understand.

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“..symptomatic of logical deficiencies—deficiencies encouraged by those shaping and executing the West’s collective foreign policies—such that most of us have very little grasp of the world in which we live..”

‘Who Do You Want to Win?’ (Patrick Lawrence)

A friend in England, a dweller in bucolic Somerset along with the Black Angus herds and the sheep, forwards a piece by a Times of London columnist that merits careful consideration. Matthew Syed, who has distinguished himself as a ping–pong champion, titles his commentary, “Israel–Hezbollah conflict hinges on a crude question: Who do you want to win?” Syed, who has also done well writing high-end self-help books (You Are Awesome, 2018; Dare to Be You, 2020) has posed a crude question. He is right about this, if little else. And because it is crude, an essentially unserious question, we must take it seriously. As I read Syed’s column it seemed to me symptomatic of logical deficiencies—deficiencies encouraged by those shaping and executing the West’s collective foreign policies—such that most of us have very little grasp of the world in which we live. Ours is a world, so we are urged to think, divided eternally into two.

There are good guys and bad, the benevolent and the malevolent—democrats and autocrats in the Biden regime’s terms. And so there must be winners and losers, just as Matthew Syed supposes. It is hopeless, or nearly. Such a view of our world misses the point most of humanity, 24 years in, wishes to make about the 21st century. Two points, actually. One, the 20th century, a century of binary enmities, is indeed over. We must finally leave it behind. Two, the thought of winners and losers is beyond retrograde. In our time we will all win or we will all lose. Matthew Syed is wholly representative of those who simply cannot grasp these realities. Israel must win, Hezbollah must lose. And as Israel’s long-running hostility toward Iran drifts toward the war the Zionist state has long sought, the Israelis must win, the Iranians lose. To dispense quickly with a minor matter of logic, the intensifying conflict between terrorist Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party and armed resistance movement, does not hinge in the slightest on which side you or I want to emerge the victor.

The outcome depends on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli and Lebanese forces, the wisdom or otherwise of their political leaders, the sense or otherwise of their military and diplomatic strategies, and, not least, the extent to which either side has the support of other powers. To suggest the great “you” Matthew Syed addresses will determine how Israel’s regional confrontations will turn out is the very height of narcissism. And the narcissism prevalent in the West is one of the problems Syed’s commentary requires us to confront. Syed is unambivalently a clash-of-civilizations man. And like others of this persuasion, he does not think we ought to look at matters too closely. He proposes we consider Israel’s barbarities—in Lebanon, Gaza, the Occupied Territories, who knows where next—as another case of the West against the rest.

Russia will invade Europe when it finishes in Ukraine. China is “an ancient and impressive civilization now run by a totalitarian clique.” Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. This is all we need to know as we address the question Syed’s headline poses, who do we want to win? He writes: “So perhaps you’ll forgive me for saying something that doesn’t get into the details of any single dispute, doesn’t opine on the precise logic of Israel’s killing of Hassan Nasrallah or its broader response to the October 7 attacks, doesn’t get into the weeds of Western policy over Ukraine; instead, it makes a simpler but, I hope, not simplistic point. In the conflagration that is coming, I back Israel 100 per cent, the West 100 per cent, civilization 100 per cent, progress 100 per cent. “There are hinge moments in history,” Syed writes to round off his point, “where simplicity is an asset.”

Read more …

They don’t see the benefit to themselves. Of the Constitution, SupremeCourt, democracy…

Musk Slams US Democrats Over Freedom Of Speech (RT)

Tech mogul Elon Musk has accused the US Democratic Party of trying to stifle free speech in the country by claiming to combat hate speech and misinformation. The billionaire made the comment following Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate between Democratic candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Donald Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, where they discussed a number of issues, including free speech and censorship. Walz stated during the debate that he does not believe that hate speech, threatening language or misinformation is protected under the First Amendment, which grants US citizens the right to free speech. “You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, that’s the Supreme Court test,” Walz said, referring to a 1919 quote from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Writing on X on Wednesday, Musk, a self-described free speech absolutist, warned that “the Democratic Party openly wants to take your freedom of speech under the guise of what THEY deem to be ‘hate.’” During the debate, Vance argued that censorship, which was being carried out by Big Tech companies and supported by Kamala Harris and US President Joe Biden, was a “much bigger threat to democracy than anything we’ve seen in the last four years,” including the January 6 Capitol Hill riots, which the Democratic Party has repeatedly cited as proof of the threat to democracy posed by Trump. “We do have a threat to democracy […] It’s big technology companies silencing their fellow citizens, and it’s Kamala Harris saying that rather than debate and persuade her fellow Americans, she’d like to censor people who engage in misinformation,” Vance said.

The Republican VP hopeful also accused the Biden-Harris administration of trying to get Americans banned from platforms like Facebook for criticizing government mask mandates for toddlers amid the Covid-19 pandemic. “That’s not yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, that is criticizing the policies of the government, which is the right of every American,” Vance argued. Back in August, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the Biden administration had pressured Facebook to “censor” some Covid-19 content, and that the FBI had ordered the platform to suppress a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

Read more …

“The company management did not specify how many of the company’s 120,000 employees in Germany would be laid off.”

EU Car Industry Faces ‘Horror Fall’ – Bild (RT)

EU automakers are facing their worst months since the Covid-19 pandemic, the German tabloid Bild reported on Thursday, citing a prominent industry expert. Car sales within the bloc have fallen by 200,000 vehicles in the first eight months of 2024 compared to the same period last year and things are set to get worse, Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer told the outlet. Dudenhoeffer is the founder and former director of the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) – a private institute specializing in industry analysis and transport policy. Sales of electric cars are down 8.3% from last year, the economist pointed out, with 140,000 fewer models sold through August. ”Important large car markets such as Germany and Italy were already slightly down in the first eight months of the year,” he noted, warning that things “are not getting better.”

According to Dudenhoeffer, car manufacturers are now seeking to compensate for their losses by increasing prices. The 20 most popular gasoline-powered car models are already approximately 10% more expensive, he told Bild. “The next few months will be very difficult for the industry. Worse than it was during [the Covid-19 pandemic],” he predicted. Germany is about to be hit particularly strongly, according to the expert, with the market not expected to recover before 2026. Last month, the EU’s biggest carmaker – Volkswagen – announced that it would consider plant closures or layoffs in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history. The company also announced it would be forced to end its employment security program, which had been set up to postpone all job cuts until at least 2029.

In early September, Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume called the situation the automobile market was facing “highly challenging and serious,” adding that the possibility of “plant closures are no longer excluded.” The company management did not specify how many of the company’s 120,000 employees in Germany would be laid off. Germany had already suffered a recession in late 2023. Europe’s largest economy also contracted in the second quarter of this year, according to official statistics. Weakness in the automotive sector became the main driver behind the decline in the country’s industrial production in July, Reuters reported in September, adding that the nation could face another recession.

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“..see it as their duty to defend democracy by ensuring that the party that gets the most votes gets completely sidelined. Why? Because, Hitler. Duh.”

Another Right-Wing Election Winner Is Sidelined in the EU (Marsden)

The elites in Austria, like elsewhere in Europe, see it as their duty to defend democracy by ensuring that the party that gets the most votes gets completely sidelined. Why? Because, Hitler. Duh. According to the Associated Press, Austria’s Freedom Party secured the “first far-right national election win since World War 2.” And we all know which famous Austrian is synonymous with the Second World War. How subtle. “EU rocked as far-Right party founded by Nazi WW2 veterans storms to victory,” noted one British tabloid, the Express. “Herbert Kickl’s Freedom Party is on for a huge victory in Austria according to early projections.” Interesting how Nazi history is omitted entirely when Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov movement runs around with Nazi symbol flags and tattoos to kudos from the same establishment.

For those looking for a different way to smear Austrian voters other than comparing them to Hitler, there’s apparently also the opportunity here to compare them to the Führer’s World War 2 enemies: Russia. NBC is calling this “far-right” vote by average Austrians fed up with the establishment’s antics a “boost for Putin.” Looks like all the “bad guy” bases are covered across the entire spectrum of Western establishment propaganda. So how did this party actually win? The former Austrian minister who took the helm of the Freedom Party in 2021 constantly spoke of the average citizen suffering from an inability to pay for basic life necessities, like electricity and food. Doesn’t he understand that if Austrians are able to put food on the table, then Putin wins? Apparently not. And it doesn’t seem like voters get it either. And since this this guy and his party are increasingly resonating with voters’ objective reality while the elites dissociate from it, it’s translating into electoral wins.

It’s as simple as voters taking a look around at their lives and coming to the conclusion that his assessment aligns with their own more than the version presented by the establishment parties. Another big issue for Austria has been the large number of refugees per capita, one of the highest in Europe, with the issue resonating through incidents like the Islamic State threats to the Taylor Swift concert in Vienna over the summer, police raids ahead of the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US, and refugee riots on Halloween a couple of years ago. The asylum issue in particular is one that Kickl, the former interior minister who now leads the Freedom Party, would be well-positioned to tackle. What exactly about his past could possibly qualify him for that in the minds of voters?

Maybe the fact that he was forced to step down from the job in 2019 for saying that he wanted to test the parameters of European human rights rules that “prevent us from doing what’s necessary” with asylum seekers – a subject that even the establishment left had to admit was an issue, but only saying that they’d merely reduce asylum applications. There’s considerable daylight between the positions of “we’re full” and “get out”, with the latter already being the actual position staked out by the so-called bleeding heart leftists, who only managed to get 21% of the vote.

Obviously a large number of Austrians didn’t clutch their pearls at Kickl’s remarks like the Austrian establishment did, awarding him nearly 29% of the popular vote. Kickl has called Ursula Von der Leyen, the unelected European Commission president, a warmonger. And, well, Austrian voters also handed his Freedom Party the most votes in the European parliamentary elections earlier this year. Nice little throne-warming gift, there. The party’s mandate from voters seems clear: to take on the national and European establishments that have made such a mess of things. Just like everywhere else in Europe where anti-establishment parties have been surging, particularly on the right. So who are they going to form a government with, in respect of the people’s choice? According to the establishment-right chancellor, no one. Because, well, screw them.

Read more …

The picture changes. You can no longer trust Telegram.

Telegram Shares User Details With Governments – Durov (RT)

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov revealed on Wednesday that the messenger service has been complying with privacy policies in several countries and has been disclosing information about criminals to authorities for the past six years. The Russian tech billionaire has remained unable to leave France after he was arrested in Paris in late August and charged with multiple offenses, such as operating a platform used for organized crime and refusing to cooperate with French authorities. Last month, Durov, who is also a co-founder of the company, announced an update to the platform’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which he said would make it clear that IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate the messenger’s rules “can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests.”

In a follow-up post on his Du Rove’s Channel on Wednesday, the Telegram CEO noted that the new policy does not constitute a “major shift” in how the platform works and that it had already been sharing with relevant authorities the details of criminals abusing it. “Since 2018, Telegram has been able to disclose IP addresses/phone numbers of criminals to authorities, according to our Privacy Policy in most countries,” Durov explained, noting that whenever the platform received a “properly formed legal request via relevant communication lines,” it would verify it and disclose the IP addresses/phone numbers of dangerous criminals. Durov revealed that in Brazil, for example, Telegram had disclosed data for over 200 legal requests since the start of the year, and nearly 7,000 in India over the same period.

He also noted that there has been an uptick in the number of “valid legal requests” in Europe in recent months, suggesting that this could be attributed to the fact that more EU authorities have started to use the correct communication line for such requests. Durov explained that the recent update to the platform’s privacy policy was only meant to streamline and unify it, and stressed that Telegram’s core principles have not changed. “We’ve always strived to comply with relevant local laws – as long as they didn’t go against our values of freedom and privacy,” he said, adding that Telegram was built to “protect activists and ordinary people from corrupt governments and corporations” and has never allowed criminals to abuse the platform or evade justice.

Durov was detained after landing at a Paris airport in late August and released on bail several days later. He was charged on 12 counts, including complicity in distributing child porn, drug dealing and money laundering. The charges stem from the accusation that Telegram’s lax moderation rules allow for the widespread misuse of the messenger service. The businessman has vehemently denied the accusations, stressing that Telegram has always strived to work with state regulators to establish “the right balance between privacy and security.” He also noted that the platform takes down “millions of harmful posts and channels every day,” and publishes “daily transparency reports” about actions taken against the dissemination of illegal content.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1841651197264199766

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cow

 

 

Cat win
https://twitter.com/i/status/1841588065321591132

 

 

Cat yoga

 

 

Shells

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 032023
 
 February 3, 2023  Posted by at 3:26 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  6 Responses »


Johannes Vermeer The glass of wine c 1658-1660

 

 

Andrew Korybko approached me a few days ago asking if we could share some of his work. I don’t view the Automatic Earth as a publishing platform, and given all the censorship of the past 2-3 years (it’s expensive!), I will be very cautious about letting anyone in. But I like Andrew’s writing, so I said: let’s give it a go.

Then I had to transfer his Word file to the simple text editor I have been using for many years, but that only took half an hour … I don’t like Word. Or Bill Gates. Here’s Andrew:

 

 

Andrew Korybko: The “official narrative” surrounding the Ukrainian Conflict has flipped in recent weeks from prematurely celebrating Kiev’s supposedly “inevitable” victory to nowadays seriously warning about its likely loss. It was therefore expected in hindsight that other dimensions of the information warfare campaign waged by the US-led West’s Golden Billion against Russia would also change. As proof of precisely that, the New York Times (NYT) just admitted that the West’s anti-Russian sanctions are a failure.

In Ana Swanson’s article about how “Russia Sidesteps Western Punishments, With Help From Friends”, she cites Western experts who concluded that “Russia’s imports may have already recovered to prewar levels, or will soon do so, depending on their models.” Even more compelling, she references the IMF’s latest assessment from Monday, which “now expected the Russian economy to grow 0.3 percent this year, a sharp improvement from its previous estimate of a 2.3 percent contraction.”

Neither the NYT, the Western experts that Swanson cites, nor the IMF can credibly be accused of being “Russian-friendly”, let alone so-called “Russian propagandists” or even “Russian agents”, which thus confirms the observation that this dimension of the Golden Billion’s infowar has also decisively shifted. The fact of the matter is that the West’s anti-Russian sanctions failed to catalyze the collapse of that targeted multipolar Great Power’s economy, which continues to remain impressively resilient.

The timing at which this narrative changed is also important because it extends credence to the more widely known new narrative that’s nowadays seriously warning about Kiev’s likely loss in NATO’s proxy war on Russia. After all, if the sanctions achieved the goal that they were supposed to and which the US-led West’s Mainstream Media (MSM) hitherto lied that they supposedly had, then it naturally follows that Kiev would “inevitably” win exactly as they claimed would happen up until mid-January.

With this in mind, the most effective way to “reprogram” the average Westerner after brainwashing them over the past 11 months into expecting Kiev’s supposedly “inevitable” victory is to also decisively change the supplementary narratives that artificially manufactured that aforesaid false conclusion. To that end, the order was given to begin raising the public’s awareness about the failure of the Golden Billion’s anti-Russian sanctions, ergo the NYT’s latest piece and the specific timing thereof.

What’s left unsaid in that article is the “politically incorrect” but nevertheless heavily implied observation that the jointly BRICS– & SCO-led Global South of which Russia is a part has defied the Golden Billion’s demands to “isolate” that multipolar Great Power. No MSM outlet will ever admit it, at least not yet, but their de facto New Cold War bloc has limited sway outside the US’ recently restored “sphere of influence” in Europe, whose countries are the only ones suffering from these sanctions.

The NYT’s latest piece might inadvertently make many members of their public conscious of that, however, and they might therefore increasingly object to their governments scaling up their commitment to NATO’s proxy war on Russia under American pressure. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic recently joined Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in condemning this campaign and raising wider awareness of just how counterproductive it’s been for Europe’s objective interests.

As Europeans come to realize that they’re the only ones suffering from the anti-Russian sanctions that their American overlord coerced them into imposing and that their sacrifices haven’t adversely affected that targeted multipolar Great Power’s special operation, massive unrest might follow. It’s unlikely to influence their US-controlled leaders into reversing course, remembering that the German Foreign Minister vowed late last year never to do so, but could instead catalyze a violent police crackdown.

The reason behind this pessimistic prediction is that a reversal or at the very least lessening of the presently rigid anti-Russian sanctions regime would represent an unprecedentedly independent move by whichever European state(s) does/do so. Seeing as how that didn’t even happen in the eight years prior to the US’ successful reassertion of its unipolar hegemony all across 2022, the likelihood of that happening nowadays under those much more difficult conditions is practically nil.

The US’ “Lead From Behind” subordinate for “managing” European affairs as part of its new so-called “burden-sharing” strategy, Germany, has more than enough levers of economic, institutional, and political influence to several punish any of those lower-tier American vassals who get out of place. It’s therefore unrealistic to expect any single EU member to unilaterally defy the bloc’s anti-Russian sanctions that their own government previously agreed to.

Considering this reality, those leaders who want to remain in power or at least not risk the US’ German-driven Hybrid War wrath against their economies are loath restore a semblance of their largely lost sovereignty in such a dramatic manner. Instead, their most pragmatic course of action is to not participate in the military aspect of this proxy war by refusing to dispatch arms to Kiev exactly as the emerging Central European pragmatic bloc of Austria, Croatia, and Hungary have done.

The population of those countries are thus unlikely to protest against the sanctions even after being made aware of the facts contained in the NYT’s latest piece and naturally coming to the conclusion that the anti-Russian sanctions have only harmed their own economies and not that targeted Great Power’s. Folks in France, Germany, and Italy, however, could very well react differently, especially considering their tradition of organizing massive protests.

In such a scenario, their governments are expected to order a violent police crackdown under whatever pretext they concoct, whether it’s falsely accusing the protesters of employing violence first or accusing them all of being so-called “Russian agents”. Regardless of how it happens, the outcome will be the same whereby Western European countries will slide deeper into liberal-totalitarian dictatorship, which will in turn contribute to further radicalizing their population towards uncertain ends.

Returning back to the NYT’s piece, it represents a remarkable reversal of the “official narrative” by frankly admitting that the West’s anti-Russian sanctions are a failure. This coincides with the decisive shift of the larger narrative driven by American and Polish leaders over the past month whereby they’re nowadays seriously warning about Kiev’s likely loss in NATO’s proxy war on Russia. It remains to be seen what other narratives will change as well, but it’s predicted that more such ones will inevitably do so.

 

 

 

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Sep 232022
 
 September 23, 2022  Posted by at 8:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  117 Responses »


Max Ernst The Angel of the home or the Triumph of Surrealism 1937

 

Nuclear War Is Possible – US Commander (RT)
Ex-US General Warns Russia Of ‘Devastating Strike’ (RT)
Serbian President Warns of “Great World Conflict” Within Two Months (SN)
Medvedev Responds To Military Threat From Ex-US General (RT)
Von der Leyen Is Completely Wrong About anti-Russia Sanctions (Timofeev)
EU To Impose New Sanctions On Moscow – Borrell (RT)
Brussels’ Sanctions Caused Crisis – Orban (RT)
Austria To Reject Russian Gas Ban – FM (RT)
Ukraine: 5-Year Prison Sentence For Anyone Voting In “Sham Referendums” (ZH)
Ukraine Perfect Testing Ground For New US Weapons – Kiev (RT)
Lavrov Puts Spotlight On ‘Impunity’ In Ukraine (RT)
Jamie Dimon: Stopping Oil And Gas Production ‘Road To Hell’ For US (NYP)
A Greek Watergate Threatens the West (Varoufakis)
‘He’s Done’: How Donald Trump’s Legal Woes Have Just Gotten A Lot Worse (G.)

 

 

Poster seen in Amsterdam

 

 

“There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.”

 

 

 

 

Matt Walsh

 

 

CO2

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..the Kremlin would “without a doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people..”

Nuclear War Is Possible – US Commander (RT)

Navy Admiral Charles Richard, commander of US Strategic Command, declared on Wednesday that for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the US faces the possibility of nuclear war with a peer-level opponent. Speaking at an Air Force-organized conference in Maryland, Richard claimed that the US would have to prepare to escalate quickly against possible opponents, including to defend the United States itself. “All of us in this room are back in the business of contemplating…direct armed conflict with a nuclear-capable peer,” he said, according to a Pentagon summary of his comments. “We have not had to do that in over 30 years.”

“Russia and China can escalate to any level of violence that they choose in any domain with any instrument of power worldwide,” he continued. “We just haven’t faced competitors and opponents like that in a long time.” In the eyes of Moscow, the US is currently locked in a proxy conflict with Russia in Ukraine, and has steadily escalated its commitment of weapons, intelligence and financial assistance to Kiev since Russian troops entered Ukraine in February. Russia’s current nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nuclear weapons in the event of a first nuclear strike on its territory or infrastructure, or if the existence of the Russian state is threatened by either nuclear or conventional weapons. American doctrine allows for a nuclear first strike in “extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated this position on Wednesday, declaring that the Kremlin would “without a doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people,” should Russian territory be threatened. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also warned that the US was “teetering on the brink” of becoming a direct party in the Ukraine conflict, with Washington risking “a direct collision between nuclear powers.” Similar warnings have come from within the US too, most notably from former President Donald Trump, who declared on Wednesday that the conflict, which he said “should have never happened,” could “end up being World War III.”

Read more …

These people appear to think they live in the 1960’s.

Ex-US General Warns Russia Of ‘Devastating Strike’ (RT)

The US could destroy Russia’s Crimea-based Black Sea Fleet or its bases on the peninsula if Moscow resorts to using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the former commander of the US Army in Europe, Ben Hodges, has said. In an interview with the Daily Mail on Wednesday, Hodges described the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering the deployment of nukes as “very unlikely.” Putin will not do so because “he knows the US will have to respond if Russia uses a nuclear weapon,” he claimed. “The US response may not be nuclear… but could very well be a devastating strike that could, for example, destroy the Black Sea Fleet or destroy Russian bases in Crimea,” Hodges, who was in charge of the US forces in Europe between 2014 and 2018, said.


“So, I think President Putin and those around him will be reluctant to draw the US into the conflict directly.” The comments were made in response to Putin’s address earlier that day, in which he said Russia is fighting “the entire Western military machine” in Ukraine, citing the lavish assistance in lethal aid and intelligence provided to Kiev by the US, UK, EU and others. “If the territorial integrity of our nation is threatened, we will certainly use all the means that we have to defend Russia and our people,”he warned. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration took Putin’s words “seriously,”but insisted that it was “irresponsible rhetoric for a nuclear power to talk that way.”

Scott Ritter

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“..nuclear war between the United States and Russia would cause two-thirds of the planet to starve to death within two years..”

Serbian President Warns of “Great World Conflict” Within Two Months (SN)

The President of Serbia has warned that the planet is entering into a “great world conflict” that could take place within the next two months. Aleksandar Vucic made the alarming comments during the first day of the UN General Assembly session in New York. “You see a crisis in every part of the world,” Vucic told the Serbian state broadcaster RTS. “I think realistic predictions ought to be even darker,” he added. “Our position is even worse, since the UN has been weakened and the great powers have taken over and practically destroyed the UN order over the past several decades.” The Serbian leader cautioned that the war between Russia and Ukraine had moved on to a far deadlier phase.

“I assume that we’re leaving the phase of the special military operation and approaching a major armed conflict, and now the question becomes where is the line, and whether after a certain time – maybe a month or two, even – we will enter a great world conflict not seen since the Second World War,” he said. Vucic’s remarks were made on the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an immediate “partial mobilization” of troops amounting to 300,000 soldiers. In a public address to the nation, Putin warned that he wasn’t bluffing and that he was prepared to use “all the means at our disposal” to protect Moscow’s territorial integrity. “Now they (the West) are talking about nuclear blackmail,” said Putin. “The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was shelled and also some high positions – representatives of NATO states – who are saying there might be possibility and permissibility to use nuclear weapons against Russia,” he added.

Putin ominously asserted that western powers should “be reminded that our country also has various weapons of destruction, and with regard to certain components they’re even more modern than NATO ones.” As we highlighted last month, a study conducted by Rutgers University found that nuclear war between the United States and Russia would cause two-thirds of the planet to starve to death within two years. 5 billion people would perish, primarily as a result of nuclear detonations causing huge infernos that inject soot into the atmosphere which blocks out the sun and devastates crops. One wonders how a generation that thinks words are “violence” and misgendering someone is stochastic terrorism will react to an intercontinental nuclear war. The mind truly boggles.

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“retired idiots with generals’ stripes” should not attempt to intimidate Moscow..”

Medvedev Responds To Military Threat From Ex-US General (RT)

Moscow may use nuclear weapons to defend its territory, including the Donbass republics and Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, should they decide to join Russia, former president, Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday. He also warned that “retired idiots” in the Western military should not contemplate strikes on Moscow’s naval bases in the Black Sea. Writing on Telegram on Thursday, Medvedev stressed that the referendums, planned for between September 23 and 27, would definitely take place, and “the Donbass republics and other territories would be admitted to Russia.” The former president went on to say that the Russian military would “significantly reinforce” the defenses of all incorporated territories.

He added that to defend its territories, Russia may use “not only its mobilization capabilities, but also any Russian weapons, including strategic nuclear weapons.” Without naming names, Medvedev cautioned that “retired idiots with generals’ stripes” should not attempt to intimidate Moscow by claiming that NATO could attack Crimea, a peninsula that overwhelmingly voted to unite with Russia in 2014 following a coup in Kiev. “Hypersonic [missiles] are sure to hit targets in Europe and the US much faster,” he warned, adding that “the Western establishment and NATO citizens need to understand that Russia has chosen its own path” and there is “no way back.”

On Wednesday, Ben Hodges, the former commander of the US Army in Europe, said that Washington could destroy Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, that’s based in Crimea, or its bases on the peninsula if Moscow resorts to using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. He noted that it’s “very unlikely” that Russian President Vladimir Putin would order to deploy nukes. Last week, Medvedev accused Western “half-wits” from “stupid think tanks” of leading their countries down the road of nuclear Armageddon with their hybrid war against Moscow. He also warned that the “unrestrained pumping of the Kiev regime with the most dangerous types of weapons,” could prompt Russia to move its military campaign to the next level.

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Ivan Timofeev, Valdai Club Programme Director & one of Russia’s leading foreign policy experts.

Von der Leyen Is Completely Wrong About anti-Russia Sanctions (Timofeev)

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has, as could be expected, called for new sanctions against Russia in connection with the forthcomingreferendums in Donbass and two regions of Ukraine. These concern the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics – which have been de-facto self-governing since 2014 – and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. In her opinion, the penalties already imposed on Russia are having an impact.”The sanctions have been very successful. If you look at the Russian economy, its industry is in tatters,” the politician asserted. Let’s allow ourselves to argue a little with Ms. von der Leyen. The key measure of the effectiveness of sanctions is whether they change the political course of the target country.

This criterion has been well researched in both academic and applied literature and few people have any doubts about its veracity. However, Russia has not changed its political course in Ukraine under the influence of the large-scale sanctions of the EU, US and other initiators. Moreover, its position is hardening, as evidenced by this week’s announcements of both a partial mobilization and the referendums. Thus, we can say that the measures are actually having a negative effect in terms of what they are supposed to be doing. Apparently, Ms. von der Leyen links effectiveness to the amount of pain inflicted. In other words, she believes that the greater it is, the better. There are problems here, too. The damage is indeed large. But we are not just sitting still and feeling sorry for ourselves. We are adapting very energetically.

Now, you can criticize Russia’s domestic financial policy and question import substitution as much as you like. And they will not, of course, make ‘everything as it was.’ But it is clear that the economy is shrinking much less than expected, that inflation has, at least so far, been brought under control, and that adaptations in sourcing, helped by domestic production, are mitigating the effects of the sanctions. The economy is simply becoming different. It is changing in terms of focus and quality. In a number of sectors it will “run slower” or limp along. But Russiawill continue to live. Of course, we have already heard the words “the Russian economy is in tatters,” from US President Barack Obama. That was in 2015. Seven years ago.

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10,000 sanctions. A silly game.

EU To Impose New Sanctions On Moscow – Borrell (RT)

The EU has agreed to slap new sanctions on Russia “as soon as possible” over plans to hold referendums in the Donbass republics and Russian-controlled regions in Ukraine on whether to unite with Russia, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said on Wednesday. Speaking after an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers, Josep Borrell said that the bloc had made a “political” decision to impose new sectoral and individual sanctions on Russia. “These restrictive measures would be brought forward as soon as possible against Russia in coordination with partners,” he said. While he did not clarify the details of the new sanctions, he hinted that they would hit the Russian economy, especially the technology sector, while the EU would also blacklist a number of individuals.


He also noted that the bloc would provide Ukraine with security assistance for “as long as it takes.” “Today it’s clear that we will continue to increase our military support and continue to provide arms to Ukraine,” he added. Borrell also commented on recent developments in the Ukraine conflict, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of “trying to destroy Ukraine” and organizing partial mobilization to support what he called “illegal referenda.” On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization which calls on 300,000 reservists to take part in the conflict with Ukraine. The move comes a day after the two Donbass republics and Russian-controlled Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions decided to hold referendums from September 23 to 27, on whether to unite with Russia.

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Waiting for the first threats to throw him out.

Brussels’ Sanctions Caused Crisis – Orban (RT)

The EU leadership caused a continent-wide crisis by imposing sanctions on Russian energy, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. The Eurosceptic politician criticized Brussels on his Facebook page on Wednesday evening as he announced a meeting with members of the ruling coalition in the parliament. According to local media, during the closed-door gathering, he blamed EU bureaucrats for the hardships that member states, including Hungary, currently face. Orban told MPs from his Fidesz party and the allied Christian Democrats (KDNP) that if the EU’s sanctions on Russia were dropped, gas prices would go down by one-half, and as a result, inflation would also decline, Magyar Nemzet daily reported.

The Hungarian PM said the EU leadership promised in early summer that the sanctions would hurt Russia’s economy, not people in the EU, but the opposite has occurred, according to the report. Orban predicted that dropping the sanctions would allow the EU to avoid a recession. In November, there will be a meaningful opportunity for the EU to reconsider the restrictions on trading with Russia, Orban reportedly said, and the ruling Hungarian coalition should work hard to have them lifted by the end of the year. The prime minister also lashed out at the Hungarian opposition, accusing them of backing Brussels’ policies without giving a second thought to the damage they are causing to the country, Magyar Nemzet said.

He also outlined a number of measures, such as energy subsidies, which the Fidesz–KDNP government is taking to alleviate the effects of the skyrocketing prices, the newspaper reported. Orban, who was re-elected in a landslide victory in April, is an outspoken critic of the EU leadership. He has called the bloc the main loser in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in which it sided with Kiev. The sanctions were imposed by Brussels in retaliation for Russia’s decision to send troops into Ukraine in late February.

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Hungary, Serbia, Austria. Next!

“in case of further steps, primarily in the energy sector, with regard to gas, there will be a clear ‘no’ from Austria.”

Austria To Reject Russian Gas Ban – FM (RT)

Vienna will say an emphatic ‘no’ to proposals of a ban on Russian natural gas imports, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said on Thursday, noting that the already adopted EU sanctions packages are comprehensive and may require clarification. “I have said in the past that we should discuss this [possible tightening of sanctions] in an appropriate way, namely behind closed doors, but yes – we have already adopted six large-scale sanctions packages, and now we can think about closing the loopholes,” the FM told ORF while answering a question on whether Vienna’s position has changed regarding the possible strengthening of sanctions against Russia. Schallenberg added that “in case of further steps, primarily in the energy sector, with regard to gas, there will be a clear ‘no’ from Austria.”


Austria, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy and sources around 80% of natural gas from Russia, has been opposing the EU’s plan to restrict imports from Moscow. The Federation of Austrian Industries earlier warned that the suspension of Russian gas supplies would be “a serious blow” to the welfare of the Austrian people as it threatens some 300,000 jobs. According to the president of the federation, Georg Knill, almost the entire food industry depends on the supply of the “blue fuel.” He stated in May that he saw danger not so much in the fact that Russia could “turn off the taps,”but in the decision of the European Union to stop importing Russian gas. In March, the EU rolled out a plan to reduce dependence on Russian gas by two thirds before the end of the year. The proposal is part of a wider plan to become independent from all Russian fossil fuels “well before 2030.”

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Voting Sep 23-27. Percentages predicted run from 80% to 95%, depending on the region. Russia will annex them.

Ukraine: 5-Year Prison Sentence For Anyone Voting In “Sham Referendums” (ZH)

Starting last month Ukrainian lawmakers began seeking to implement severe consequences for those participating in Russia-sponsored referendums in occupied territories of Ukraine. For example, a law is being pushed through parliament which criminalizes obtaining a Russian passport in temporarily occupied territories, Ukrainian sources reported last week, according to Yahoo News. Proposed possible punishments have included losing Ukrainian citizenship, or even lengthy jail sentences. But other officials have argued for a more compromising approach given the necessity of survival in occupied areas. But now the Ukrainian government has reiterated its willingness to impose steep penalties for even participating in any Kremlin-sponsored vote to join the Russian Federation.

Russian President Putin’s Wednesday morning address announcing partial mobilization also affirmed plans to move forward with referendums in the LPR, DPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. Ukraine has responded by warning its citizens that any official who promotes or organizes the voting faces a “prison term of five to ten years” – as well as possible asset seizure by the state, and being barred from employment in select positions for up to 15 years. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk announced this week that a five year prison term is currently being considered for anyone caught participating in “sham referenda” by government authorities:

“Some lawyers believe that those actions fall under Article 110 part 1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, ‘Infringement on Ukraine’s territorial integrity,’ punishable with a prison term of up to five years,” she told the Strana portal on Tuesday. She further called on citizens currently in occupied to territories to “leave, if possible.” Vereshchuk was cited further as follows according to a Russian media translation of her words: “This [may] mean imprisonment for up to five years. So, once again I strongly advise residents of the temporarily occupied territories: do not take a [Russian] passport, do not go to referendums, do not cooperate with the occupiers and leave, if it’s possible,” the official stated.

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Come test them on my country!

Ukraine Perfect Testing Ground For New US Weapons – Kiev (RT)

US defense companies should send their new weapons to Ukraine so they can be tested in actual combat against Russian forces, Kiev’s deputy defense minister, Vladimir Gavrilov, has said. Gavrilov made the suggestion during a speech before hundreds of American defense industry representatives and military acquisitions personnel at the Future Force Capabilities Conference and Exhibition in Austin, Texas on Wednesday. “If you have some ideas, or some pilot projects to be tested before mass manufacturing, you can send it to us and we will explain how to do it. And in the end you will get the stamp, proved by the war in Ukraine. You will sell it easy,” he said, as cited by the Military Times.

According to the deputy defense minister, startup companies, including those involved in anti-drone and anti-jamming equipment, have already brought new technologies to the Ukrainian battlefield. “And they come back with a product that is competitive in the market now because it was tested in a combat zone,” Gavrilov said, without revealing the companies that have worked with Ukraine in this capacity. His comments were made on the day Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization, which he said is necessary because Russia has been fighting “the entire Western military machine” in Ukraine. Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu later stated that around 300,000 reservists are planned to be called up.

In view of this shift in Russia’s tactics, Kiev will require more counter-drone and electronic warfare technologies, armored vehicles, and long-range anti-tank and precision fire weapons, Gavrilov said. Ukraine is now almost entirely dependent on weapons supplied by the US, UK, EU, and other nations, according to Shoigu, as most of the Soviet-made hardware it had before the fighting began in late February has been destroyed by Russian forces.

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8 years, not 6 months.

“..he may be a son of a b*tch, but he is our son of a b*tch,”

Lavrov Puts Spotlight On ‘Impunity’ In Ukraine (RT)

The current crisis in Ukraine was brought about by the West systematically covering up the crimes of the Kiev government since the 2014 coup, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the UN Security Council on Thursday. Lavrov noted that “impunity” is a good term for what has been happening in Ukraine, not since February but since 2014, when US-backed nationalists and neo-Nazis seized power by force. No one has ever been held responsible for the murders on the Maidan, the burning of peaceful protesters in Odessa, or the assassinations of dissidents, he pointed out. Civilians of Donbass have been bombed mercilessly for years and dubbed terrorists and even subhuman, simply for refusing to accept the results of the coup and insisting on their basic human right to speak Russian, Lavrov said.

The Russian foreign minister presented a long list of human rights violations by Kiev that went ignored by various European and global human rights groups, from “burning books, just like in Nazi Germany” to using banned ‘petal’ land mines against civilians this summer. “Such outrages became possible and remain unpunished due to the fact that the US and its allies, with the connivance of international human rights institutions, have been systematically covering up the crimes of the Kiev regime for eight years, basing their policy towards [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky based on the well-known American principle: he may be a son of a b*tch, but he is our son of a b*tch,” said Lavrov.

This was a reference to an apocryphal quote attributed to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and thought to apply either to Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua or Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic – both US-backed dictators. Lavrov also accused the Ukrainian armed forces of using civilians as human shields and said that Russia and the Donbass republics are fighting against the “Western military machine” in Ukraine, with the US and its allies perilously close to being overt participants in the conflict. Moscow has shared evidence demonstrating that the West has sought to turn Ukraine into a forward outpost that could threaten Russia’s security, Lavrov told the UN. “I can assure you, we will not let that happen.”

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Tlaib literally has no idea what she’s talking about. You can’t “save the climate” by bankrupting your economy.

Jamie Dimon: Stopping Oil And Gas Production ‘Road To Hell’ For US (NYP)

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said slamming the brakes on new oil and gas production “would be the road to hell for America” after Rep. Rashida Tlaib asked him to divest in oil. Dimon’s comments came during a House hearing where the far-left Michigan Democrat asked him and other top bank execs if they would commit to no longer investing funds into oil and gas companies to slow down climate change. “Please answer with a simple yes or no, does your bank have a policy against funding new oil and gas products,” Tlaib asked, with Dimon up first. “Absolutely not and that would be the road to hell for America,” Dimon shot back.


Tlaib then slammed JPMorgan-Chase and circled back to criticism Dimon leveled against President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student debt during the hearing. She encouraged people to cancel their accounts with the major bank. “Sir, you know what, everybody that got relief from student loans — has a bank account with your bank — should probably take out their account and close their account,” an irritated Tlaib said. “The fact that you’re not even there to help relieve many of the folks that are in debt, extreme debt, because of student loan debt and you’re out there criticizing it,” Tlaib said before moving on to the next bank executive on the panel, Citi CEO Jane Fraser, who offered a more diplomatic response.

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Note: this case would be non-existant if the politician who was tapped was not also a European parliament member.

A Greek Watergate Threatens the West (Varoufakis)

The sequence of events leading to the exposure of Greece’s Watergate scandal began in July 2019, immediately after Mr Mitsotakis won the last general election on behalf of New Democracy, our conservative party. One of the very first decrees he issued, as incoming Prime Minister, was one that gave his office direct control over and responsibility for EYP. “Why on earth is the PM taking over the supervision of EYP?”, I remember a parliamentary colleague asking me that very day. It was, indeed, a curious move. Our trepidation only grew following two personnel choices. First, Mitsotakis appointed a nephew of his, Grigoris Dimitriadis, to oversee EYP on his behalf. Secondly, he chose as EYP’s new head Panagiotis Kontoleon, the CEO of the Greek franchise of the private security firm G4 — a man with no record of public service, and whose appointment Mitsotakis could only complete after amending the relevant law to remove the prerequisite that the EYP chief holds a postgraduate degree.

Given his concerted and very public efforts to take complete control of the state intelligence agency, something no other PM had ever done, it became impossible to shift blame to some other minister once the faeces hit the proverbial fan. Of the more than 17,000 wiretaps that EYP admits it has placed during the last year alone, two cases are at the heart of the current scandal. The first is that of Thanasis Koukakis, an investigative journalist who dared look into Greek shipowners’ loans that had been illegally written off by the Bank of Piraeus (one of the banks that Greek taxpayers have had to repeatedly bailout). It turns out that Koukakis was one of EYP’s “subjects of interest”, an outrage that would have probably gone unnoticed without the second, higher profile, case.

It was this case that broke the camel’s back: an investigation begun by the European Parliament’s IT department accidentally revealed that Nikos Androulakis, an MEP belonging to PASOK (the formerly dominant party in Greek politics), was being phone-tapped by EYP. It was explosive news because, at the time his phone was tapped, Androulakis was contesting the leadership of PASOK — a contest that he, eventually, won. The significance of that contest cannot be understated, since its outcome mattered a great deal to Mitsotakis and his governing New Democracy party. Since the middle of the pandemic, opinion polls have persistently suggested that the next election, which must take place by July 2023, will result in a hung parliament. While Mitsotakis’ New Democracy seemed likely to remain the largest party, it was not even close to an absolute majority. PASOK, in third place, was therefore positioned as kingmaker: whoever the party chose to side with would end up in government.

The stakes of PASOK’s leadership race suddenly seemed very high. Of the three main candidates, the one that would almost certainly choose to back New Democracy and Mitsotakis to form a government was Andreas Loverdos — an MP and former minister who had served gladly in New Democracy-PASOK coalition governments between 2011 and 2015. Every newspaper, radio and television station supporting Mitsotakis was rooting for Loverdos to beat Androulakis in the PASOK leadership primary. Is it any wonder that the revelation of EYP’s surveillance of Androulakis was big news? In a period during which the ruling party was rooting for Androulakis’s opponent, the nation’s spy agency — which ruling party’s leader and his nephew controlled and supervised to the full — was tapping Androulakis’ phone!

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Let’s turn to the Guardian for the real news.

Letitia James ran on “get Trump” and then spent her entire tenure as NY AG trying to “get Trump”, already the most investigated and prosecuted person in the history of the US. She will fail just like the others.

Meanwhile: why did James make this a civil, not a criminal case?

And: if Trump defrauded banks and pension funds, why did none of them ever file a case?

‘He’s Done’: How Donald Trump’s Legal Woes Have Just Gotten A Lot Worse (G.)

Donald Trump’s legal perils have become insurmountable and could snuff out the former US president’s hopes of an election-winning comeback, according to political analysts and legal experts. On Wednesday, Trump and three of his adult children were accused of lying to tax collectors, lenders and insurers in a “staggering” fraud scheme that routinely misstated the value of his properties to enrich themselves. The civil lawsuit, filed by New York’s attorney general, came as the FBI investigates Trump’s holding of sensitive government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and a special grand jury in Georgia considers whether he and others attempted to influence state election officials after his defeat there by Joe Biden.

The former US president has repeatedly hinted that he intends to run for the White House again in 2024. But the cascade of criminal, civil and congressional investigations could yet derail that bid. “He’s done,” said Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University, in Washington, who has accurately predicted every presidential election since 1984. “He’s got too many burdens, too much baggage to be able to run again even presuming he escapes jail, he escapes bankruptcy. I’m not sure he’s going to escape jail.” After a three-year investigation, Letitia James, the New York attorney general, alleged that Trump provided fraudulent statements of his net worth and false asset valuations to obtain and satisfy loans, get insurance benefits and pay lower taxes. Offspring Don Jr, Ivanka and Eric were also named as defendants.

At a press conference, James riffed on the title of Trump’s 1987 memoir and business how-to book, The Art of the Deal. “This investigation revealed that Donald Trump engaged in years of illegal conduct to inflate his net worth, to deceive banks and the people of the great state of New York. Claiming you have money that you do not have does not amount to ‘the art of the deal’. It’s the art of the steal,” she said. Her office requested that the former president pay at least $250m in penalties and that his family be banned from running businesses in the state. James cannot bring criminal charges against Trump in this civil investigation but she said she was referring allegations of criminal fraud to federal prosecutors in Manhattan as well as the Internal Revenue Service.

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Phone vs life
https://twitter.com/i/status/1573015092828180480

 

 

 

 

Correa
https://twitter.com/i/status/1572883525451370501

 

 

Monarchs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1573185623036420096

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Apr 112022
 


Edward Hopper Le Bistro or The Wine Shop 1909

 

Austrian Chancellor To Meet Putin In Russia (G.)
Russia Threatens Legal Action If Forced Into Sovereign Debt Default (R.)
Finland Poised To Request NATO Membership As Early As May (Fox)
NATO to Engage in Asia-Pacific to Counter China (ET)
Biden Schedules Meeting With India Prime Minister (CTH)
Bioweapons Expert Speaks Out About US Biolabs in Ukraine (BIN)
Ukraine’s Crop Harvest Could Be Halved (ZH)
Rising Food Costs Push Arab World’s Vulnerable to Breaking Point (BBG)
Dems Ignore Food Crisis, Fixate On ‘Tesla Charging Stations’ – Cammack (JTN)
The Spike Protein Pathogenic Algorithm (Chesnut)
Fauci Admits Covid Won’t Be Eliminated, Advises People To Calculate Risk (JTN)
China Brutalizes Citizens In Quest To Achieve ‘Covid Zero’ (Mosher)
Macron To Face Off Against Marine Le Pen Again (JTN)

 

 

 

 

Dore Maté Zelensky NATO
https://twitter.com/i/status/1513210890908225541

 

 


..about 40% of Ukraine’s armed forces – 102,000 fighters – were Paramilitary, aka the far-right, Nazis, and foreign mercenaries..

 

 

 

 

Time for the Guardian’s main propagandist on everything from Assange to Putin. Here’s Luke Harding.

Austrian Chancellor To Meet Putin In Russia (G.)

Austria’s chancellor is set to meet Vladimir Putin on Monday, the Russian president’s first face-to-face meeting with an EU leader since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, amid warnings of a fresh offensive and shelling in the east. Karl Nehammer said the meeting would take place in Moscow and that Austria had a “clear position on the Russian war of aggression”, calling for humanitarian corridors, a ceasefire and full investigation of war crimes. On the ground, Russian forces pounded targets in eastern Ukraine with missiles and artillery on Sunday, and Ramzan Kadyrov, the powerful head of Russia’s republic of Chechnya, said there would be an offensive not only on the besieged southern port of Mariupol but also on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

“Luhansk and Donetsk – we will fully liberate in the first place … and then take Kyiv and all other cities,” Kadyrov said in a video posted on his Telegram channel. The US has warned that the appointment of a new general in command of Russia’s military campaign is likely to usher in a fresh round of “crimes and brutality” against civilians. Alexander Dvornikov, 60, came to prominence at the head of Russian troops in Syria in 2015-16, when there was particularly brutal bombardment of rebel-held areas, including civilian populations, in Aleppo. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser in Washington, said: “This particular general has a résumé that includes brutality against civilians in other theatres – in Syria – and we can expect more of the same” in Ukraine.

Nehammer met Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Saturday – the same day as the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, who promised to give Ukraine 120 armoured vehicles and anti-ship missile systems. Washington has also pledged to give Ukraine “the weapons it needs” to defend itself against a new Russian offensive. Russia has failed to take any major cities, but Ukraine says it has been gathering its forces in the east for a major assault and has urged people to flee. Russian forces fired rockets into Ukraine’s Luhansk and Dnipropetrovsk regions on Sunday, officials said. Missiles completely destroyed the airport in the city of Dnipro, said Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region. Russia’s defence ministry said high-precision missiles had destroyed the headquarters of Ukraine’s Dnipro battalion in the town of Zvonetsky.

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The one country that has very little foreign debt: “Russia faces its first sovereign external default in more than a century..”

Russia Threatens Legal Action If Forced Into Sovereign Debt Default (R.)

Russia will take legal action if the West tries to force it to default on its sovereign debt, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper on Monday, sharpening Moscow’s tone in its financial wrestle with the West. “Of course we will sue, because we have taken all the necessary steps to ensure that investors receive their payments,” Siluanov told the newspaper in an interview. “We will present in court our bills confirming our efforts to pay both in foreign currency and in roubles. It will not be an easy process. We will have to very actively prove our case, despite all the difficulties.” Siluanov did not elaborate on Russia’s legal options.

Russia faces its first sovereign external default in more than a century after it made arrangements to make an international bond repayment in roubles earlier this week, even though the payment was due in U.S. dollars. Last week, Siluanov said Russia will do everything possible to make sure its creditors are paid. “Russia tried in good faith to pay off external creditors,” Siluanov said on Monday. “Nevertheless, the deliberate policy of Western countries is to artificially create a man-made default by all means.” Siluanov said Russia’s external liabilities amount to about 20% of the total public debt, which stood at about 21 trillion roubles ($261.7 billion). Of that, about 4.5-4.7 trillion roubles were external liabilities.

Russia has not defaulted on its external debt since the aftermath of its 1917 revolution, but its bonds have now emerged as a flashpoint in its economic tussle with Western countries. A default was unimaginable until recently, with Russia rated as investment grade in the run up to its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation” and which on Sunday intensified in eastern Ukraine. “If an economic and financial war is waged against our country, we are forced to react, while still fulfilling all our obligations,” Siluanov said. “If we are not allowed to do it in foreign currency, we do it in roubles.”

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Finland, Sweden, Austria?!

Finland Poised To Request NATO Membership As Early As May (Fox)

The Finnish government is poised to formally apply for NATO membership “before midsummer” and potentially as early as May. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin stated Friday that the country would vote “before midsummer” on sending an application to join NATO. Former Prime Minister Alexander Stubb says the vote will likely happen as early as May, according to Agence France-Presse. “We will have very careful discussions but not taking any more time than we have to,” Marin said during a press conference. “I think we will end the discussion before midsummer.” Stubb, however, was more specific in his prediction, telling the AFP on Saturday the government would likely vote on the issue before the end of May, just in time for NATO’s June summit in Madrid.

“The Finns think that if Putin can slaughter his sisters, brothers and cousins in Ukraine, as he is doing now, then there is nothing stopping him from doing it in Finland. We simply don’t want to be left alone again,” Stubb told AFP. While the Finnish public has traditionally been opposed to joining NATO, polls showed a seismic shift on the issue following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February. Finland shares an 830-mile border with Russia, and support for joining NATO jumped from 26% to 60% following the invasion. Finland has remained wary of its eastern neighbor since the Winter War of 1939, when Soviet forces attempted to invade at the start of World War II. Finish forces famously delivered a resounding defeat to the Soviets. Finland lost 26,000 soldiers compared at least 126,000 dead or missing for the USSR. NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg has stated that Finland would certainly be approved should it apply to join the alliance.

Some Russian lawmakers are already offering hostile language regarding a potential NATO-allied Finland. Russian lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov stated that joining the alliance would be a “strategic mistake” for Finland, adding that the country would “become a target.” “I think it [would be] a terrible tragedy for the entire Finnish people,” Dzhabarov said, adding that with such an action, “the Finns themselves will sign a card for the destruction of their country.”

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“North Asia-Pacific Treaty Organisation”?

NATO to Engage in Asia-Pacific to Counter China (ET)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has announced that it will begin engaging in the Asia-Pacific region both practically and politically in light of Beijing’s growing influence and coercion and its unwillingness to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Speaking following the meetings of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs on April 7, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the global implications of the Ukrainian conflict had propelled the organisation to step up its engagement with Asia-Pacific partners for the first time. “We have seen that China is unwilling to condemn Russia’s aggression. And Beijing has joined Moscow in questioning the right of nations to choose their own path,” Stoltenberg said. “This is a serious challenge to us all. And it makes it even more important that we stand together to protect our values.”


NATO and its Asia-Pacific partners—Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea—met in Brussels to discuss international support for Ukraine. Stoltenberg said the gathered foreign ministers agreed that NATO’s next Strategic Concept briefing, expected to be finalised for the Madrid Summit in June, must deliver a response on how they relate to Russia in the future and how, for the first time, they take into account that their security is affected by China’s growing influence and coercive policies. “NATO and our Asia-Pacific partners have now agreed to step up our practical and political cooperation in several areas, including cyber, new technology, and countering disinformation,” he said. “We will also work more closely together in other areas such as maritime security, climate change, and resilience. Because global challenges demand global solutions.”

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‘Nice country of 1.5 billion hungry people you got there Modi. With all this talk of global famine going around, it’d be a shame if you couldn’t feed them.’

Biden Schedules Meeting With India Prime Minister (CTH)

Against the backdrop of increased Russia-India trade {link}, and the BRICS discussions about new trade payment mechanisms to avoid being shackled to the dollar {link}, it would appear the people behind the White House operation to create/maintain conflict with Russia are scheduling a stern conversation with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. WHITE HOUSE – ” President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will meet virtually with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India on Monday, April 11 to further deepen ties between our governments, economies, and our people. President Biden and Prime Minister Modi will discuss cooperation on a range of issues.” … “President Biden will continue our close consultations on the consequences of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine and mitigating its destabilizing impact on global food supply and commodity markets.”

The message from the White House will likely be akin to: ‘Nice country of 1.5 billion hungry people you got there Modi. With all this talk of global famine going around, it’d be a shame if you couldn’t feed them.’ Oh, and by the way, did you happen to catch what just rolled out in Pakistan? Imagine that – what with common borders and such… For those unfamiliar, it appears the DoS/CIA were up to their old tricks again, because Pakistan was favorable to the position of China and Russia in the Ukraine conflict and would not take sides with NATO and western allied leaders. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted through a majority parliamentary no-confidence vote early Sunday, that smells identical to the way Obama/Biden DoS/CIA ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

(VOA) – […] Khan is the first prime minister to be ousted by a no-confidence vote in Pakistan, but no democratically elected prime minister has served a full five-year term since the founding of the country in 1947. The repeatedly delayed no-confidence vote against Khan was held after the country’s Supreme Court ruled last week he had acted unconstitutionally when he previously blocked the no-confidence vote, and subsequently dissolved parliament. The embattled Pakistani leader had defended his blocking of the vote, alleging that the no-confidence motion was the result of the United States meddling in his country’s politics. Washington rejected the charges, saying there was “no truth” to them.

[..] (VIA ABC) – […] Khan has claimed the U.S. worked behind the scenes to bring him down, purportedly because of Washington’s displeasure over his independent foreign policy choices, which often favor China and Russia. He has occasionally defied America and stridently criticized America’s post 9/11 war on terror. Khan said America was deeply disturbed by his visit to Russia and his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 24, the start of the devastating war in Ukraine. The U.S. State Department has denied his allegations.

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“The Pentagon does not do missionary work,” he says. “They kill people, and that’s why they are there.”

Bioweapons Expert Speaks Out About US Biolabs in Ukraine (BIN)

According to bioweapons expert Francis Boyle, Russia’s accusation that Ukraine is conducting U.S.-funded bioweapons research appears to be accurate If true, everyone involved is subject to life in prison under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989. According to Boyle, the U.S. government and Pentagon have had a “comprehensive policy” to “surround Russia with biological warfare laboratories” and “preposition biological weapons” there for use against them The problem with trying to make a distinction between “biodefense” and “biowarfare” is that, basically, there is none. No biodefense research is purely defensive, because to do biodefense work, you’re automatically engaged in the creation of biological weapons, and all dual use research can be used for military purposes. SARS-CoV-2 may be the result of such dual use research

Boyle believes we can hold the culprits behind the SARS-CoV-2 bioweapon accountable by asking local prosecutors to convene a grand jury to seek the indictment of those responsible for the pandemic for murder and conspiracy to commit murder In the video above, “InfoWars” host Owen Shroyer interviews Francis Boyle, Ph.D., a Harvard educated lawyer and bioweapons expert with a Ph.D. in political science, about the biolabs in Ukraine, which Russia claims are engaged in U.S.-funded bioweapons research. For decades, Boyle has advocated against the development and use of bioweapons. In fact, he was the one who called for biowarfare legislation at the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972. He then went on to draft the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act, which was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by then-president George Bush Sr. in May 1989.

While the U.S. has vehemently denied Russia’s accusations, Boyle says that based on what he’s discovered so far, the labs in Ukraine are all conducting biological warfare research — including ethnic-specific biological weapons — at the behest of the U.S. Pentagon, just as Russian authorities are claiming. “The Pentagon does not do missionary work,” he says. “They kill people, and that’s why they are there.” He also points out that everyone involved is subject to life in prison under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which explains the mad scramble to project these labs as something other than what they are.

DR FRANCIS BOYLE start at 5 min.

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2023 will be worse.

Ukraine’s Crop Harvest Could Be Halved (ZH)

Ukraine is one of the world’s top exporters of corn, sunflower oil, and wheat. Disruptions stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have stoked fears the war-torn country could experience a 50% decline in crop output this year, according to Bloomberg. Forecast data from ag expert UkrAgroConsult show Ukraine’s corn output could be as low as 19 million tons, about half of last year’s 41 million tons. UkrAgroConsult’s pessimistic outlook follows huge production uncertainties as farmers experience shortages of diesel and fertilizer and bombed-out infrastructure.

The outlooks of two other ag firms aren’t as gloomy. Black Sea research firm SovEcon expects Ukraine’s 2022 corn harvest to be 27.7 million tons, and Barva Invest’s outlook is 29.5 million tons. Both a far below 2021 totals. Maxigrain analyst Elena Neroba warned if farmers don’t have diesel, they “can’t plant huge hectares.” “Some farmers still don’t have access to seeds and fertilizers. Even if they already paid for them, the delivery supply chain doesn’t work as well as it should,” Neroba said. Regardless of how much the conflict impacts output, global food prices have never risen so fast and have never been so high in anticipation of food shortages worldwide. In March, global food prices jumped a stunning 12.64% MoM – almost double the previous record monthly surge…

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The CIA won’t mind another Arab Spring at all.

Rising Food Costs Push Arab World’s Vulnerable to Breaking Point (BBG)

Seated around the dining table, the family of four stares blankly at pictures of food sketched on the tablecloth. “Tonight,” the father says, “we’re coloring for dinner.” The scene in a cartoon in a Moroccan newspaper speaks to the predicament facing the kingdom’s 37 million people and their peers across North Africa as the Muslim world marks Ramadan. Normally characterized by abstention broken by plentiful sunset feasts, the holy month for many this year is a confrontation with painful economic reality. Global foods costs are up more than 50% from mid 2020 to a record and households worldwide are trying to cope with the strains on their budgets. In North Africa, the challenge is more acute because of a legacy of economic mismanagement, drought and social unrest that’s forcing governments to walk a political tightrope at a precarious time.

The Middle East and North Africa region’s net food and energy importers are especially vulnerable to shocks to commodity markets and supply chains resulting from Russia’s war on Ukraine, according to the International Monetary Fund. That’s in countries where the rising cost of living helped trigger the Arab Spring uprisings a little over a decade ago. “Just how much more do we have to take?” asked Ahmed Moustafa, a 35-year-old driver and father of three in Cairo. He already had to sell some appliances to keep food on the table and cover other expenses, he said. “We keep being asked to cut and cut and cut, but there’s not much left to cut from.”

Home to large, mainly urban populations and lacking oil wealth, governments in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia are struggling to maintain subsidies for food and fuel that have helped keep a lid on discontent. The World Food Programme has warned that people’s resilience is at “breaking point,” while the United Arab Emirates moved to help ally Egypt, the world’s largest buyer of wheat, to shore up its food security and ward off potential instability. Egypt is also seeking IMF help.

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“.. they will have missed an entire season. There will be no harvest next year.”

Dems Ignore Food Crisis, Fixate On ‘Tesla Charging Stations’ – Cammack (JTN)

Amid warnings of an upcoming food crisis, Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee are prioritizing the installation of “Tesla charging stations” in rural America, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) lamented this week. The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) released a report Monday titled “Unprecedented Needs Threaten a Hunger Catastrophe.” “The world cannot afford another conflict as is happening today in Ukraine,” the report warned. “The war is a catastrophe, compounding what is already a year of destructive hunger.” “Ukraine and Russia account for a third of the global wheat supply, and over half of WFP’s supply of the grain,” the report explains. “The crisis in the breadbasket of Europe is driving up the price of wheat as well as maize, sunflower oil and crude oil — with dramatic fallouts for food security worldwide.”

If the Russian invasion continues beyond April, “an additional 47 million people” will experience acute hunger, up “from a prewar baseline of 276 million people,” WFP noted in another report, released on Wednesday. “Altogether, this means that up to 323 million people could become acutely food insecure in 2022,” the report added. On Friday, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said the invasion of Ukraine is causing a 17.1% increase in prices for grain, which includes wheat, oats, barley and corn. On the John Solomon Reports podcast on Wednesday, Cammack warned of the approaching food crisis as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, preventing the latter country from planting crops.

“Ukraine should be planting right now,” she said. “They are not planting. So while this would be a typical growing season and a planting season, tractors are being used for the war effort, fuel is being used for the war effort — that is going to be a major, major issue as we move into the fall and the winter, because they will have missed an entire season. There will be no harvest next year.” There will be a “700% increase in fertilizer costs,” Cammack predicted. “And when you compound that with fuel prices — it was $5.19 a gallon for diesel in my district just this past weekend. You factor in the regulatory environment that is squeezing our producers to death. This administration has thrown more red tape on them and the threat of new taxes and regulations on producers, and then you basically put a bow on it with a pretty scarce labor market, it’s looking pretty grim.”

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“..spike protein inhibits DNA damage repair by hindering DNA repair protein recruitment..”

The Spike Protein Pathogenic Algorithm (Chesnut)

THE SPIKE PROTEIN PATHOGENIC ALGORITHM – DUAL PATHS TO TERMINAL SYSTEMIC FIBROSIS: IMMEDIATE FOR THOSE WITH SIGNIFICANT COMORBIDITIES, INDUCED FOR THOSE WITHOUT. The Spike Protein is inducing terminal systemic fibrosis of all organs, including the blood, via two principal mechanisms. The first is a direct, immediate path via binding to RGD-binding integrins, which includes several TGF-β-activating integrins. This activates Myofibroblasts which induces Fibrosis. Indeed, in autopsies of COVID-19 patients with advanced disease, 38% collagen deposition was found in their lungs. This is a rapid and certainly fatal circumstance. But, this is not limited to the lungs. In a series of cardiac autopsies conducted in Washington state, the most common changes observed were fibrosis in 14 (100%) patients and myocyte hypertrophy in 13 (93%) patients.

Let that sink in. In 100%. In EVERY SINGLE CARDIAC AUTOPSY, FIBROSIS WAS OBSERVED. The other mechanism is via DNA Double Strand Breaks and Impaired DNA Repair Mechanisms. This induces fatal systemic fibrosis in those who do not succumb to the initial assault. In mice that have their DNA Repair Mechanisms genetically deleted (this kind of mouse was developed to study Alzheimer’s) they experience The same level of DNA Damage as normal type mice. However, they accumlate DNA lesions faster due to their impaired DNA repair response. What is the effect of this? THEIR AGING IS ACCELERATED 6-FOLD OVER NORMAL TYPE MICE. What happens to these mice? They develop conditions common in elderly humans such as osteoporosis, pulmonary fibrosis, chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, muscle wasting, peripheral neuropathy, hepatic fibrosis, urinary incontinence, intervertebral disc degeneration, cognitive decline, and loss of hearing and vision.

Sounds like Long COVID, doesn’t it? How does this happen? SARS–CoV–2 full–length spike protein inhibits DNA damage repair by hindering DNA repair protein recruitment. Why should this happen in some faster than others? Let us look at Diabetics. Diabetes-induced, persistent DNA damage is associated with organ fibrosis. Non-diabetics are accumulating DNA damage lesions, which will result in terminal fibrosis, but Diabetics are accumulating them FASTER as they already experience HIGHER LEVELS OF DNA DAMAGE, WHICH IS ALSO NOT. BEING. REPAIRED.


Let us look at Obesity. Altered DNA repair; an early pathogenic pathway in Alzheimer’s disease and obesity. In an inverted mechanism to Diabetes, the Obese already have an impaired DNA Repair Response, so, their DNA Repair Response becomes DYSREGULATED INCREASINGLY FASTER than those without this common comorbidity. What is the ultimate point of the Spike Protein’s inhibition of DNA repair Loss of the DNA repair potential results in persistent DNA damage signaling, senescence, SASP, fibrosis, and organ failure.

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You’re on your own. But not really.

Fauci Admits Covid Won’t Be Eliminated, Advises People To Calculate Risk (JTN)

White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted on Sunday that COVID-19 will not be eliminated and that people will have to calculate their own level of risk that they are willing to take with the virus. “This is not going to be eradicated and it’s not going to be eliminated,” Fauci told Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week.” “What’s going to happen is that we’re going to see that each individual is going to have to make their calculation of the amount of risk that they want to take in going to indoor dinners and in going to functions, even within the realm of a green zone map of the country where you see everything looks green but it’s starting to tick up,” he said.


As of Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has placed most of the United States at green, or at a “low” level of community transmission, and the 7-day moving average for cases sits at less than 27,000. “We’re going to have to live with some degree of virus in the community,” Fauci said, adding, “The best way to mitigate that, Jon, is to get vaccinated.” Fauci urged Americans ages 50 and older as well as immunocompromised people to get the fourth COVID-19 vaccine. He also warned that Americans could be required to mask-up again if cases rise. “We may need to revert back to being more careful and having more utilizations of masks indoors. But right now we’re watching it very, very carefully. And there is concern that it’s going up,” he said. “But hopefully we’re not going to see increased severity.”

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“Yet the homebound are the lucky ones.”

China Brutalizes Citizens In Quest To Achieve ‘Covid Zero’ (Mosher)

For over two weeks the financial capital of China, Shanghai, has been locked down tight. Some 26 million people languish in their apartments, staring at their now-empty refrigerators, unable to set foot outside to forage for food for fear of arrest and incarceration. Foreigners are in the same predicament, as one complained on Twitter: “Day 16 of our COVID lockdown in Shanghai today and food is the key thing on people’s minds. We aren’t allowed to leave home so delivery is the only way I was up at 6 am yesterday trying to get any kind of delivery but nothing was available all day. So far, same results today..” Yet the homebound are the lucky ones.

The unlucky ones are those who test positive for COVID each day, like the 17,077 Shanghainese who did on Wednesday. Symptomatic or not — and nine out of 10 show no signs of illness — they are hauled off to hastily erected quarantine camps. The Shanghai lockdown, the largest since the first Wuhan lockdown two years ago, is China’s latest attempt to achieve COVID Zero. An army of health care workers, some 38,000 in all, have been sent to Shanghai, with instructions to completely stamp out the coronavirus within the city. They are frantically testing and retesting everyone. Unable to protest their lock-up any other way, people have taken to venting their anger by yelling out of their apartment windows. Most of their complaints have to do with food. “We have no food to eat,” they scream. “We haven’t eaten in a very long time. We are starving to death.”

One starving lockdowner found a quieter way to protest his growling stomach. He rolled his refrigerator onto his balcony and opened its doors. The inside is completely empty. Other protests have taken more tragic forms. As they did in Wuhan two years ago, people are once again jumping off the balconies of high-rise apartment buildings. One video circulating in China shows a couple falling to their deaths. The husband was said to be distraught because the lockdown had cost him his business. Those desperate enough to venture outside in their search for food are hunted down by “Big Whites” — members of the security forces who owe their nickname to the white hazmat suits they wear. Patrolling the streets day and night, the “Big Whites” arrest and jail anyone caught breaking quarantine, who often get beaten in the process.

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He won’t lose.

Macron To Face Off Against Marine Le Pen Again (JTN)

French President Emmanuel Macron will face off against hard-right leader Marine Le Pen later this month in a runoff election. With 97% of the votes in, the incumbent Macron won 27.35% of the vote while Le Pen came in second at 23.97%, according to the French Interior Ministry. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, received less than 2% of the vote. Macron, of The Republic On the Move Party, has served as president since 2017. “Make no mistake, nothing is decided,” he told supporters on Sunday evening, according to the BBC. Le Pen celebrated Sunday’s results on Twitter. “I call on all French people, of all sensitivities, to join this great national and popular gathering that I am carrying!” she wrote.


Le Pen has surged in popularity following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the cost of living increased, the Financial Times reported. She has been accused of being far-right for her anti-Islam views. Le Pen has said that she would limit immigration and forbid the Muslim veil in public. “That’s not us,” Macron said. “Make no mistake. This contest is not finished, and the debate we’ll have in the next two weeks will be decisive for our country and for Europe … I want a France rooted in a strong Europe.” Le Pen has also been skeptical of the European Union and NATO. If she wins, the founder of the National Rally Party promised to restore France’s “prosperity and grandeur.” Left-wing Jean-Luc Melenchon, who came in third at less than 22%, urged his followers Sunday evening, “You must not give a single vote to Marine Le Pen,” according to the BBC. He did not, however, endorse the current president.

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George Webb Azov-Metabiota

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Mar 102022
 


Johannes Vermeer The art of painting 1666-8

 

Doug Casey: U.S. Empire Collapsing, Greatest Danger in World Today (G&E)
A Recession Unlike Any Other (Pento)
Deutsche Bank Has Lost 38% of Its Market Value in a Month (Martens)
Revenge of the Putin-Nazis! (CJ Hopkins)
Victoria Nuland: Ukraine Has “Biological Research Facilities” (Greenwald)
US: Russia Could Launch Biological or Chemical Attack in Ukraine (Antiwar)
The Documents the US Embassy in Ukraine Scrubbed on Biolabs (BN)
US Won’t Give Poland’s Jets to Ukraine (ET)
Ukraine Bans Exports Of Wheat, Oats And Other Food Staples (AP)
Iraqis Protest Rise In Food Prices, Officials Blame Ukraine War (AlJ)
Dems Drop Covid-19 Funds, Clear Way For OK Of $13.6b Ukraine Aid (AP)
Bad News from Hong Kong (Chudov)
Austria Scraps Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate (RTE)
Bolshoi Conductor Resigns Over Free Speech Controversy (Turley)
Wales Bans Tchaikovsky (SD)

 

 

 

 

Plenary
https://twitter.com/i/status/1501673748151390214

 

 

 

 

Assange

 

 

“We could be looking at real chaos over the next decade or two.”

Doug Casey: U.S. Empire Collapsing, Greatest Danger in World Today (G&E)

Doug Casey talks Great Reset, says we’re in for a tough time, that trends in motion tend to stay in motion, and fears the stage is being set for some authoritarian leader to rise to power. He feels the people who love liberty (e.g. libertarians) are an anomaly or rounding error compared to the rest of society. He gives his thoughts on being an international man in the brave new world where air travel has collapsed and authority has become more digital and centralized. We discuss Ukraine…he believes the Russians are on the right side of all this. The U.S. Government is a collapsing empire and has become the greatest danger in the world today. We could be looking at real chaos over the next decade or two. He gives us some tips on surviving the apocalypse.

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“..the government’s debt to GDP ratio soaring to 125 percent. For perspective, that ratio was just 53 percent back in 1960, and only 58 percent as recently as 2000..”

A Recession Unlike Any Other (Pento)

The U.S. economy is already deteriorating due to the humongous fiscal and monetary cliffs. These cliffs are now being compounded by the war in Eastern Europe and near record-high inflation. And, the Fed’s “PUT” is much lower and smaller in size than Wall Street believes. The war in Ukraine will exacerbate the negative supply shocks that are already in place due to COVID-19. Worsening bottlenecks will combine with rising inflation to produce a contraction in global growth. Russia produces 12 percent of the world’s oil supply and exports 18 percent of the world’s wheat consumption. Ukraine accounts for 25 percent of global wheat production. Sanctions and war will serve to slow the economy further and send prices for these vital commodities even higher.

But the upcoming recession will be extraordinarily unique. Not only will it occur while inflation is at a multi-decade high, it will be the first U.S. economic contraction to take place while the Federal Reserve had its target interest rate at or near zero percent. For comparison, look at how much room the Fed had to reduce borrowing costs during previous economic contractions. The following historical data indicates the level of the Fed Funds Rate just prior to the outset of all 10 U.S. recessions since WWII: 1957 3.5 percent, 1960 4.0 percent, 1969 10.5 percent, 1973 13.0 percent, 1979 16.01 percent, 1981 20.61 percent, 1989 10.71 percent, 2000 6.86 percent, 2007 5.31 percent, and 2019 2.45 percent.

In addition, the swoon in GDP will occur after the Fed has just finished printing $4.5 trillion over the past two years and with the national debt vaulting over $30 trillion due to the massive increase in government deficits in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such borrowing helped send the government’s debt to GDP ratio soaring to 125 percent. For perspective, that ratio was just 53 percent back in 1960, and only 58 percent as recently as 2000. Inflation is destroying real wages, and rising borrowing costs are destroying consumers’ ability to consume. Consumption is 70 percent of GDP, and that means the rate of economic growth is set to plunge. This would normally spur the government into remediative action. But the fact remains that the ability of the Treasury and Federal Reserve to turn around a recession expeditiously by borrowing trillions of dollars and having that debt monetized by the Fed has become greatly fettered this time around.

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$35.4 trillion in notional derivatives..

“derivative weapons of mass destruction”

Deutsche Bank Has Lost 38% of Its Market Value in a Month (Martens)

Deutsche Bank closed at $16.50 on the New York Stock Exchange on February 10 of this year. It closed at $10.23 yesterday – a decline of 38 percent in a month’s time. That’s a big problem because Deutsche Bank is heavily interconnected to Wall Street banks via derivatives. According to Deutsche Bank’s most recent annual report, as of December 31, 2020, it held $35.4 trillion in notional derivatives. (Notional means face amount.) Deutsche Bank, a large German bank, was among the global banks bailed out by the Fed during the financial crash of 2008 as well as during the (still unexplained) liquidity crash that saw the Fed pump trillions of dollars in cumulative loans into global banks from September 17, 2019 through July 2, 2020.


In June 2016, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report with a finding that Deutsche Bank posed the greatest threat to global financial stability than any other bank because of its interconnections to Wall Street mega banks and large banks in Europe. The largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, was shown as one of the banks with the largest amount of exposure. Despite that finding by the IMF in 2016, Deutsche Bank has been allowed by regulators in Europe and the U.S. to continue engaging in high-risk Over-the-Counter derivatives. It also has an uncomfortable history of suicides and rogue behavior. See a sampling of its history since 2014 below. Yes, President Joe Biden’s administration has a lot on its plate. But if it doesn’t get serious about reforming Wall Street and its derivative weapons of mass destruction, it will have a lot more to deal with eventually.

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“Return of the Putin-Nazis! Revenge of the Putin-Nazis! Return of the Revenge of the Bride of the Putin-Nazis!”

Revenge of the Putin-Nazis! (CJ Hopkins)

And they’re back! It’s like one of those 1960s Hammer Film Productions horror-movie series with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee … Return of the Putin-Nazis! Revenge of the Putin-Nazis! Return of the Revenge of the Bride of the Putin-Nazis! And this time they are not horsing around with stealing elections from Hillary Clinton with anti-masturbation Facebook ads. They are going straight for “Democracy’s” jugular! Yes, that’s right, folks, Vladimir Putin, leader of the Putin-Nazis and official “Evil Dictator of the Day,” has launched a Kamikazi attack on the United Forces of Goodness (and Freedom) to provoke us into losing our temper and waging a global thermonuclear war that will wipe out the entire human species and most other forms of life on earth!

I’m referring, of course, to Putin’s inexplicable and totally unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, a totally peaceful, Nazi-free country which was just sitting there minding its non-Nazi business, singing Kumbaya, and so on, and not in any way collaborating with or being cynically used by GloboCap to menace and eventually destabilize Russia so that the GloboCap boys can get back in there and resume the Caligulan orgy of “privatization” they enjoyed throughout the 1990’s. No, clearly, Putin has just lost his mind, and has no strategic objective whatsoever (other than the total extermination of humanity), and is just running around the Kremlin shouting “DROP THE BOMBS! EXTERMINATE THE BRUTES!” all crazy-eyed and with his face painted green like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now … because what other explanation is there?

Or … OK, sure, there are other explanations, but they’re all just “Russian disinformation” and “Putin-Nazi propaganda” disseminated by “Putin-apologizing, Trump-loving, discord-sowing racists,” “transphobic, anti-vax conspiracy theorists,” “Covid-denying domestic extremists,” and other traitorous blasphemers and heretics, who are being paid by Putin to infect us with doubt, historical knowledge, and critical thinking, because they hate us for our freedom … or whatever. Let’s take a quick look at some of that “Russian disinformation” and “propaganda,” purely to inoculate ourselves against it. We need to be familiar with it, so we can switch off our minds and shout thought-terminating clichés and official platitudes at it whenever we encounter it on the Internet. It might be a little uncomfortable to do this, but just think of it as a Russian-propaganda “vaccine,” like an ideological mRNA fact-check booster (guaranteed to be “safe and effective”)!

OK, the first thing we need to look at, and dismiss, and deny, and pretend we never learned about, is this nonsense about “Ukrainian Nazis.” Just because Ukraine is full of neo-Nazis, and recent members of its government were neo-Nazis, and its military has neo-Nazi units (e.g., the notorious Azov Battalion), and it has a national holiday celebrating a Nazi, and government officials hang his portrait in their offices, and the military and neo-Nazi militias have been terrorizing and murdering ethnic Russians since the USA and the Forces of Goodness supported and stage-managed a “revolution” (i.e., a coup) back in 2014 with the assistance of a lot of neo-Nazis … that doesn’t mean Ukraine has a “Nazi problem.” After all, its current president is Jewish!

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Sort of new for us, but the Russians have known this all along.

“..if a biological attack were to occur, everyone should be “100% sure” that it was Russia who did it..”

Victoria Nuland: Ukraine Has “Biological Research Facilities” (Greenwald)

Self-anointed “fact-checkers” in the U.S. corporate press have spent two weeks mocking as disinformation and a false conspiracy theory the claim that Ukraine has biological weapons labs, either alone or with U.S. support. They never presented any evidence for their ruling — how could they possibly know? and how could they prove the negative? — but nonetheless they invoked their characteristically authoritative, above-it-all tone of self-assurance and self-arrogated right to decree the truth and label such claims false. Claims that Ukraine currently maintains dangerous biological weapons labs came from Russia as well as China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry this month claimed: “The US has 336 labs in 30 countries under its control, including 26 in Ukraine alone.”

Nuland

The Russian Foreign Ministry asserted that “Russia obtained documents proving that Ukrainian biological laboratories located near Russian borders worked on development of components of biological weapons.” Such assertions deserve the same level of skepticism as U.S. denials: namely, none of it should be believed to be true or false absent evidence. Yet U.S. fact-checkers dutifully and reflexively sided with the U.S. Government to declare such claims “disinformation” and to mock them as QAnon conspiracy theories. Unfortunately for this propaganda racket masquerading as neutral and high-minded fact-checking, the neocon official long in charge of U.S. policy in Ukraine testified on Monday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and strongly suggested that such claims are, at least in part, true.


Yesterday afternoon, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), hoping to debunk growing claims that there are chemical weapons labs in Ukraine, smugly asked Nuland: “Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?” Rubio undoubtedly expected a flat denial by Nuland, thus providing further “proof” that such speculation is dastardly Fake News emanating from the Kremlin, the CCP and QAnon. Instead, Nuland did something completely uncharacteristic for her, for neocons, and for senior U.S. foreign policy officials: for some reason, she told a version of the truth. Her answer visibly stunned Rubio, who — as soon as he realized the damage she was doing to the U.S. messaging campaign by telling the truth — interrupted her and demanded that she instead affirm that if a biological attack were to occur, everyone should be “100% sure” that it was Russia who did it. Grateful for the life raft, Nuland told Rubio he was right.

Tucker Carlson – Bio-Weapons Labs in Ukraine

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Yeah, right.

US: Russia Could Launch Biological or Chemical Attack in Ukraine (Antiwar)

On Wednesday, the White House claimed without evidence that Russia might use chemical or biological weapons to create a false flag operation in Ukraine. The White House also dismissed Moscow’s accusations that the US is involved in biological weapons research in Ukraine even though there are Pentagon-linked labs in the country. On Twitter, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said to be on the lookout “for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them.” She said Russia’s claim of the US having biological weapons labs in Ukraine is “preposterous.” Psaki’s denial comes a day after Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland said there are “biological research facilities” in Ukraine the US is concerned Russian forces might seize.

Nuland made the comments after being asked if there are bioweapons in Ukraine and said the US is working with the Ukrainians to keep “research materials” out of Russia’s hands. The Russian military has claimed that it uncovered 30 biological laboratories in Ukraine linked to the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia has documents that show Ukraine ordered the destruction of samples of plague, cholera, anthrax, and other pathogens before Russia launched its attack on February 24. According to a February 25 article from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the US government has worked with 26 biological research facilities in Ukraine. The article quoted Robert Pope of the DTRA’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, who warned some of the labs could have Pathogens leftover from the Soviet Union’s bioweapons program.

Lavrov biological weapons

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The US is insane.

The Documents the US Embassy in Ukraine Scrubbed on Biolabs (BN)

Russian accusations of a U.S.-funded and administered ‘biowarfares’ laboratory research program in Ukraine has led to rampant speculation about the nature of these Pentagon-funded laboratories. The Russians’ insistence that it has evidence of such a bioweapons program has become a major hurdle at the diplomatic negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Belarus. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov charged at a press conference last week that “the Pentagon built two biowarfare labs and they have been developing pathogens there in Kyiv and in Odessa.” Lavrov also compared the presence of the laboratories to the United States’ Weapons of Mass Destruction program allegations that led it to invade Iraq in 2003 and topple dictator Saddam Hussein.


Leonid Slutsky, head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs and a member of the Russian delegation at the talks with Ukraine, argued that the purported development of biological weapons components “confirm that the Russian Federation had good reasons for conducting a special military operation to demilitarize Ukraine.” Major General Igor Konashenkov, an official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, charged on Sunday that “components of biological weapons were being developed in Ukraine, in close proximity to Russian territory.” Amid the Russians’ accusations, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine has scrubbed a number of documents related to the Ukrainian “Biological Threat Reduction” program. Those documents have been retrieved and can be read below. The documents show both the locations of the Ukrainian laboratories and the Department of Defense’s listing as a “donor” to the program.

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They were fine with Poland handing them over directly. That way nobody could point at the US. It would still have been WWIII. And Poland didn’t fall for that trap.

US Won’t Give Poland’s Jets to Ukraine (ET)

The United States won’t act on a proposal from Poland to take fighter jets from the ally and transfer them to Ukraine because of concerns Russian officials would view the move as “escalatory,” a U.S. official said March 9. “The intelligence community has assessed the transfer of MiG-29s to Ukraine may be mistaken as escalatory, and could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” John Kirby, the U.S. Department of Defense’s spokesman, told reporters in Washington. Based on the assessment, with which Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin concurs, the military assesses the transfer as “high-risk” and will not carry it out, at least for now.

The proposal from Poland was Polish officials would transfer jets to the United States, which could then send the jets to Ukraine. Poland’s government also called on NATO allies to send jets to U.S. bases. But U.S. officials quickly rejected the proposal, though they had not detailed the intelligence assessment until Wednesday. Kirby also framed the decision as in Ukraine’s best interests, arguing that Ukraine would benefit more in the conflict with Russia by receiving anti-armor and air defense weapons. While Russia’s air force has significant capabilities, air assaults have been met with resistance in the air and on the ground, according to U.S. officials. Additionally, the Ukrainian Air Force was also said to have several squadrons of fully capable aircraft already, and a U.S. assessment concluded “giving them more is not likely” to make a big impact, according to Kirby.

Austin conveyed the position to Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak in a call and also spoke with a top Ukraine official about similar matters. U.S. officials had previously said Poland was welcome to transfer planes to Ukraine directly and Kirby said each nation “can decide for themselves what they want to do.” Ukraine’s public position is that getting fighter jets would help tremendously against Russia, which invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24. “That’s absolutely the way we see it,” Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, said on Sky News on Wednesday when asked if jets would give Ukraine the advantage it needs.

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“..stabilize the market..”

Ukraine Bans Exports Of Wheat, Oats And Other Food Staples (AP)

Ukraine’s government has banned the export of wheat, oats and other staples that are crucial for global food supplies as authorities try to ensure they can feed people during Russia’s intensifying war. New rules on agricultural exports introduced this week also prohibit the export of millet, buckwheat, sugar, live cattle, and meat and other “byproducts” from cattle, according to a government announcement. The export ban is needed to prevent a “humanitarian crisis in Ukraine,” stabilize the market and “meet the needs of the population in critical food products,” Roman Leshchenko, Ukraine’s minister of agrarian and food policy, said in a statement posted on the government website and his Facebook page.


It’s the latest sign that the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens the food supply and livelihoods of people in Europe, Africa and Asia who rely on the farmlands of the Black Sea region — known as the “breadbasket of the world.” Russia and Ukraine together supply nearly a third of the world’s wheat and barley exports, which have soared in price since the invasion. The products they send are made into bread, noodles and animal feed around the world, and any shortages could create food insecurity in places like Egypt and Lebanon. The export ban will likely reduce global food supplies just when prices are at their highest level since 2011.

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The start.

Iraqis Protest Rise In Food Prices, Officials Blame Ukraine War (AlJ)

Protests have erupted in Iraq’s impoverished south over a rise in food prices that officials attributed to the conflict in Ukraine. For about a week, the price of cooking oils and flour have skyrocketed in local markets as government officials have sought to address growing anger with various statements and measures. More than 500 protesters gathered on Wednesday in a central square in the southern city of Nasiriya – a flashpoint of anti-corruption protests that gripped the country in 2019. “The rise in prices is strangling us, whether it is bread or other food products,” retired teacher Hassan Kazem told AFP news agency. “We can barely make ends meet.” On Tuesday, the Iraqi government announced measures to confront the increase in international prices.


These included a monthly allowance of about $70 for pensioners whose incomes do not exceed one million dinars (almost $700), as well as civil servants earning less than 500,000 dinars ($343). The authorities also announced the suspension of customs duties on food products, basic consumer goods and construction materials for two months. Trade ministry spokesman Mohamed Hanoun attributed the rise in cooking-oil prices to the conflict in Ukraine. “There’s a major global crisis because Ukraine has a large share of [the world market in cooking] oils,” he said. On Tuesday, a protester was seriously injured in a demonstration in the central province of Babil that was marred by violence, a security source said. The interior ministry announced it had arrested 31 people accused of “raising the prices of food commodities and abusing citizens”. A protester in Nasiriya on Wednesday denounced the “greed of traders who manipulate prices”.

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“This is the beast that Putin is,” Pelosi said.

Dems Drop Covid-19 Funds, Clear Way For OK Of $13.6b Ukraine Aid (AP)

The House approved a massive spending bill Wednesday night that would rush $13.6 billion in U.S. aid to battered Ukraine and its European allies, after top Democrats were forced to abruptly drop their plan to include fresh funds to battle COVID-19. Passage of the Ukraine aid and the $1.5 trillion government-wide legislation carrying it let both parties lay claim to election-year victories for their priorities. Democrats won treasured domestic initiatives, Republicans achieved defense boosts, and both got their imprint on funds to counter Russia’s brutal invasion of its western neighbor. Senate approval was assured by week’s end or perhaps slightly longer.

Hours earlier, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had to abandon the bill’s $15.6 billion for combating the pandemic, a decision she called “heartbreaking” and that spelled defeat for a top priority of President Joe Biden and party leaders. The money was mostly to bolster U.S. supplies of vaccines, treatments and tests and battle the disease around the world, but a Democratic revolt over Republican-demanded state aid cuts to cover the new initiatives’ costs forced her to scrap that spending. “We’ve got a war going on in Ukraine,” Pelosi told reporters, explaining the urgency Democrats felt in making concessions in bargaining with Republicans. “We have important work that we’re doing here.” She said with her party in the 50-50 Senate needing at least 10 GOP votes to pass legislation, Democrats “are going to have to know there has to be compromise.”

The House approved the overall bill in two separate votes. The measure’s security programs were overwhelmingly approved by 361-69, the rest by 260-171, with most Republicans opposed. The Ukraine aid included $6.5 billion for the U.S. costs of sending troops and weapons to Eastern Europe and equipping allied forces there in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion and bellicose threats. There was another $6.8 billion to care for refugees and provide economic aid to allies, and more to help federal agencies enforce economic sanctions against Russia and protect against cyber threats at home. Biden had requested $10 billion for Ukraine.

Pelosi said she talked to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for 45 minutes Wednesday. She said they discussed the weapons and other assistance his country needs and “the crimes against humanity that Putin is committing,” including a Russian airstrike that destroyed a maternity hospital. “This is the beast that Putin is,” Pelosi said. While enmity toward Putin and a desire to send assistance to the region is virtually universal in Congress, lawmakers have had a harder time finding unity on other steps. In one area where both parties were eager to demonstrate action, the House voted 414-17 to banning Russian oil imports, a prohibition that Biden imposed this week.

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“..the case fatality rate in Hong Kong is 16 times HIGHER than in the US..”

Bad News from Hong Kong (Chudov)

Something very strange is happening in Hong Kong. I am not the first to write about it, but I wanted to do a good job compiling the information and informing my readers so this post is somewhat complete. I will include additional reading below. Hong Kong’s stringent “Zero Covid” policy, stopped to work in mid-February and a “wall of cases” curve exploded in the territory. Now, we have seen such “walls of cases” before, but nothing close ever happened to deaths. You can see that deaths per million in Hong Kong are basically three TIMES the highest death rate in the US or Israel. Cases between Feb 13-Feb 17: 18,493 Deaths between Feb 28-March 4: 895 Calculated Case Fatality Rate: 4.83%

The relevant case fatality rate in the US for our recent Omicron peak is roughly 0.3%, or 16 TIMES lower. Slow down and let it sink in: the case fatality rate in Hong Kong is 16 times HIGHER than in the US. That should make you curious. Hong Kong is vaccinated just as much as the United States or Israel, sitting closely between them. Clearly, something else is in play and not the vaccine. Just as cases and deaths in HK skyrocketed, a new sub-variant called “BA.2 + S:I1221T” has taken over. Not much is known about that variant, other than it is minimal elsewhere. Every Hong Konger who is diagnosed with Covid must be taken away and isolated for 21 days in a very bleak and sad place called “Penny Bay”, where they do not even have working wi-fi.

This, naturally, creates an incentive to NOT report a case of Covid and hide out at home with working wi-fi, for those lucky enough to be able to do it. This creates a bias of healthy people with mild cases not being reported, and may explain a part of high mortality. Here in the West, most people already had exposure to Covid. It is a mystery who gets infected first and why some people do not get Covid until later in the pandemic. It is possible that here in the US or UK, the least healthy people already caught Covid and some, sadly, died. Thus, subsequent waves seem to be less deadly, partly because several waves of Covid already went through the population, and some immunity already exists. Not so in HK, where everyone is now vulnerable.

While, so far, I have not seen any evidence of ADE affecting anyone, it is possible that such incredibly high mortality rates are due to ADE from this new variant. The S:i1221T mutation does change a spike amino acid and it is possible that vaccine spike antibodies are assisting infection instead of suppressing it. While it is still speculation, such a possibility need not be dismissed. Overall, Hong Kong is a story worth watching.

Remdesivir kills 26.9% of patients

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Hmmm .. what changed so dramatically? The polls?

Austria Scraps Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate (RTE)

Austria said it is suspending mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations for all adults saying the pandemic no longer poses the same danger, just weeks after the law took effect in an EU first. The Alpine nation of nine million people was among few countries in the world to make jabs against the coronavirus compulsory for all adults. The law took effect in February and called for fines up to €3,600 from mid-March for those who do not comply. But minister Karoline Edtstadler said the law’s “encroachment of fundamental rights” could no longer be justified by the danger posed by the pandemic. “After consultations with the health minister, we have decided that we will of course follow what the (expert) commission has said,” Ms Edtstadler told reporters after a Cabinet meeting.


“We see no need to actually implement this compulsory vaccination due to the (Omicron) variant that we are predominantly experiencing here.” The highly-contagious variant is widely believed to be less severe than previous strains of the virus, and so far Austrian hospitals have been able to cope with a surge in cases. This has led to the government to drop most coronavirus restrictions in recent weeks. The government has stressed it needs to act flexibly in line with the epidemiological situation. “Just like the virus keeps on changing, we need to be flexible and adaptable,” Ms Edtstadler said. The decision to suspend the law will be reviewed in three months, said Johannes Rauch, who took over as health minister this week as the third since the start of the pandemic.

Synthetic RNA

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“..in both cities he regularly invited Ukrainian singers and conductors because “we never even thought about our nationalities. We were enjoying making music together.”

Bolshoi Conductor Resigns Over Free Speech Controversy (Turley)

Now that assault on free speech has reached the highest levels of ballet after Tugan Sokhiev, the chief conductor at Bolshoi Theatre and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, resigned rather than be coerced into such public statements. The Munich Philharmonic also dismissed chief conductor Valery Gergiev after he failed to condemn the invasion. Sokhiev is one of the most celebrated and respected conductors in the world. He also happens to be Russian. For many, his musical contributions became secondary when he failed to publicly condemn Putin. They demanded that he speak or resign. He resigned. Sokhiev wrote on Facebook “during last few days I witnessed something I thought I would never see in my life. In Europe, today I am forced to make a choice and choose one of my musical family over the other.”

As we previously discussed, it is during wartime and periods of social discord that the greatest abuses can occur for those with dissenting or unpopular views. Despite my strong support for Ukraine and condemnation of Putin, it is important for advocates of civil liberties and free speech to stand against such blacklisting and compelled speech. For many, this is hardly a new movement. For years, powerful politicians, academics, and even some in the media have demanded more censorship. This move against Russian performers and athletes may draw the unwitting into this anti-free speech movement. The response to those of us who are raising concerns is the same and predictable. You are called an apologist for Putin or a traitor to the cause. It is an effort to create a glacial chilling effect on dissenting voices.

Once again, it is important to address the rationalization on the left for attacks on free speech in recent years: the First Amendment only protects speech from government crackdowns. The First Amendment is not the full or exclusive embodiment of free speech. It addresses just one of the dangers to free speech posed by government regulation. Many of us view free speech as a human right. Corporate censorship of social media clearly impacts free speech, and replacing Big Brother with a cadre of Little Brothers actually allows for far greater control of free expression. As I have noted earlier, while liberal writers and artists were blacklisted and investigated in the 1950s, liberal activists have succeeded in censoring opposing views to an unprecedented degree in recent years. Rather than burn books, they have simply gotten stores to ban them or blacklist the authors, athletes, and artists.

Figures like the great singer Paul Robeson found themselves barred from performances due to their refusal to condemn others or Russia. Some, however, are not intimidated but rather incensed by the attack on free speech. In the meantime, at least one opera lover is boycotting the Met after it cancelled another great Russian artist for not publicly reciting the official line against Putin. I recently received the attached letter from a donor at the Met who stated that he was changing his will over the controversy involving soprano Anna Netrebko. He would no longer leave his estate to the Met and pledged to stop his regular contributions to the institution. As for Sokhiev, he noted that in both cities he regularly invited Ukrainian singers and conductors because “we never even thought about our nationalities. We were enjoying making music together.”

The response from the mayor of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc, was particularly telling. While denying that they demanded that Sokhiev “make a choice between his native country and his beloved city of Toulouse,” the mayor added: “However, it was unthinkable to imagine that he would remain silent in the face of the war situation, both vis-à-vis the musicians and the public and the community.” It is not “unthinkable.” He may support the invasion or fear for himself or his family in opposing this tyrant. It does not matter his reasons. He should have a right to hold opposing views or to remain silent. What is unthinkable is that artists are being blacklisted for refusing to recite political statements like some reeducation camp in the Cultural Revolution. It is a curious way to fight tyranny by denying free speech.

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It’s like a cartoon now.

Wales Bans Tchaikovsky (SD)

The Cardiff Philharmonic has cancelled an all-Tchaikovsky programme as ‘inappropriate at this time’. The concert included his decidedly apolitical second symphony, known as the Little Russian. The orchestra says: ‘: In light of the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra, with the agreement of St David’s Hall, feel the previously advertised programme including the 1812 Overture to be inappropriate at this time. The orchestra hope you will continue to support them and enjoy the revised programme.’


This is unutterably stupid. At the start of the First World War, the Proms conductor Sir Henry Wood informed the British government that he would continue performing Wagner and other Germans. The same rule prevailed in the Hitler war. Only the Nazis ever banned Tchaikovsky. Welcome to Cardiff 2022.

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Elon Musk tweet

 

 

Nate Hagens Human superorganism

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Jan 312022
 


Pablo Picasso Women running on the beach 1922

 

1 in 5 Canadians May Never Be Comfortable Without Masks, Vaccine Mandates (I.)
Did Justin Trudeau Pick the Wrong Fight With Canadian Truckers? (Bridge)
Unvaccinated and Undeterred: Austria Holdouts Dig In Despite New Law (Y!)
Concern As Republicans Push To Make Dubious Covid Cures Easier (G.)
University of Minnesota Ivermectin Trial Nearing Completion (Star T.)
Japan’s Kowa Says Ivermectin Effective Against Omicron In Phase III Trial (R.)
University Offers Help To Students ‘Affected By A Free Speech Event’ (DM)
US Close To Approving ‘Mother Of All Sanctions’ Against Russia (G.)
EU Threatens To Halt Nord Stream 2 & Cut Russia Off From SWIFT (RT)
Year in Review 2021 Part 3 – Rise of Global Authoritarianism (Dave Collum)
Biden Promises To Replace Tom Brady With A Woman Of Color (BBee)

 

 

Joe Rogan

 

 

We are standing at the battle line.

 

 

U turn

 

 

 

 

Mass formation.

1 in 5 Canadians May Never Be Comfortable Without Masks, Vaccine Mandates (I.)

As we approach the second anniversary of the declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic and viral case loads continue to break records, it’s not surprising that many Canadians are wary about “returning to normal.” A new Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Global News shows that while one in five (18%) Canadians feel things are normal now, the same proportion (19%) say they’re not sure they’ll ever be ready to live without masks or vaccine mandates. Regardless of when Canadians feel the new normal will materialize, two thirds (64%) agree (27% strongly, 37% somewhat) that governments are not doing enough to facilitate the return to normal, a figure that is higher among Albertans[..].


How will we reach the new normal? Four in ten (38%) Canadians think mandatory vaccination is the most effective means of getting COVID-19 under control. This opinion is stronger among men (42% vs. 34% women) and Boomers (50% vs. 37% Gen X, 29% Millennials, 27% Gen Z). The use of border closings and rapid tests in the workplace are also both favoured by 14%. Relatively few Canadians believe that removing all public health measures and allowing COVID-19 to spread more quickly (10%), penalizing people who don’t get their vaccines (i.e. a tax, further restrictions, etc.) (9%), or shutting down all non-essential businesses (8%) would be the most effective way to get the pandemic under control.

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“This is, perhaps, the greatest act of cowardice from a sitting Canadian PM in this nation’s history..”

Did Justin Trudeau Pick the Wrong Fight With Canadian Truckers? (Bridge)

Since Jan. 15, unvaccinated truckers entering Canada are required to be tested and quarantined for 15 days; the U.S. mandated similar restrictions on Jan. 22. Naturally such regulations made their job impossible to perform. Thus, the mandates have removed some 20-25% of the estimated 175,000 cross-border American and Canadian truckers due to noncompliance in both countries. But these sidelined workers are not leaving their jobs without a fight, and it seems that many Canadians support the cause.


While mainstream media and social media has largely been able to control the flow of information that Canadians receive with regards to Covid and the vaccination mandates, the trucker convoy has given the public a chance to really express themselves. Judging by early indications it doesn’t look particularly good for the Trudeau administration. Telegram, the censorship-free messenger application, is chockfull of videos and photographs of overpasses near Toronto loaded with placard-waving supporters as the convoy grinds its way towards Ottawa to the east. Other platforms showed the local residents of small towns handing out meals to the truckers despite the frigid temperatures.

Undoubtedly the most influential advocate of the truckers’ cause thus far has been Elon Musk, who tweeted a three-word message that certainly did not sit well with Justin Trudeau: “Canadian truckers rule.” Speaking of Trudeau, the 50-year-old leader of the Labor Party announced just this week that he had been “exposed to Covid-19,” and would therefore be isolating at home for five days. That announcement sparked a small riot on social media, with many suggesting that the Canadian leader had used the excuse of Covid to hopefully avoid the truckers. Keean Bexte, a journalist with Counter Signal, suggested in a tweet that a new variant of “Coward-19” was detected.


“This is, perhaps, the greatest act of cowardice from a sitting Canadian PM in this nation’s history,” Bexte wrote in an accompanying article. “When Canadians finally take a stand, finally take real action, Trudeau merely waves it away, practically flipping them the bird through a single Tweet, ending it with “please get vaccinated” to rub salt in wounds he’s opened.” This is the problem when the media and government refuses to permit any sort of formal debate on a serious issue that affects millions of people on so many different levels. Trudeau has given his countrymen just one option, and that is to get the vaccination or essentially become second-class citizens in their own country. Unlike other effected industries, however, truckers have the option of putting their machines to use for a very effective form of protest, and one that promises to cause severe logistical problems as far as transport goes.

Sikh
https://twitter.com/i/status/1487882022844448769

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“..there is already this parallel community. It’s already being built. There is already everything,”

Unvaccinated and Undeterred: Austria Holdouts Dig In Despite New Law (Y!)

Despite vaccination against Covid-19 becoming mandatory in Austria on Friday, musician Katharina Teufel-Lieli insists she won’t bow to pressure to get the jab. “I have the right to decide over my body… to simply say ‘no,'” the harpist told AFP at her home in Neumarkt-am-Wallersee, not far from the western city of Salzburg. Austria this week becomes the first European Union country to make Covid-19 vaccination legally compulsory for adults. Under the new law, those holding out against the jab can face fines of up to 3,600 euros ($4,100) from mid-March after an introductory phase. Teufel-Lieli, 49, is one of tens of thousands to have joined massive demonstrations against the law and other coronavirus-related measures since November, when plans for the legal change were announced.

The mother of six said that she used to be “apolitical” but the state is “overstepping the mark” by “attacking people” through this act of “totalitarianism”. Access to certain services has already been restricted since last year under government-imposed measures. Entry to restaurants, hairdressers, hotels, non-essential shops, sports and cultural venues has only been permitted since November to those who are vaccinated or recently cured. This has sparked complaints within the retail sector about staff having to act as “an auxiliary police” in checking vaccine passes in shops. Frustrations since the beginning of the pandemic have also led opponents to create a new political party, known by its acronym, MFG which stands for People, Freedom, Fundamental Rights.

One of three MFG representatives to have already won a state legislature seat, Dagmar Haeusler, said that she just did not see the point of compulsory Covid vaccination. “If there was a valid reason, as with smallpox which has a mortality rate of 20 to 30 percent, we could talk about mandatory vaccination, which would benefit everyone. “But in the case of Covid-19, I don’t see the point,” the 38-year-old biomedical scientist and MFG co-founder told AFP. Demonstrators and other opponents say the measures just create a “parallel society” — with the unvaccinated forced to do things under the radar. According to Teufel-Lieli, there are already hairdressers willing to cater to those not vaccinated or cured, while people still have coffee together in private meet-ups, mostly organised over social networks. “In fact, there is already this parallel community. It’s already being built. There is already everything,” she said.

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“..legislation that they say keeps the government from interfering with doctors..”

Concern As Republicans Push To Make Dubious Covid Cures Easier (G.)

Republican state lawmakers across the United States have proposed – and in some cases passed – legislation that they say keeps the government from interfering with doctors who want to prescribe ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to help prevent and treat Covid-19. But those treatments have not proven effective at preventing or treating Covid and infectious disease experts see the bills as examples of right-wing lawmakers politicizing medicine – a trend that is increasing as the pandemic wears on in America in to its third year amid an increasingly fraught political atmosphere. And so it goes with the latest suspect Covid-19 treatment that has become about more than just a drug, but rather about whether to trust established public health organizations or doctors who stray from their guidelines, and podcast and cable news hosts.


“We really need to have the politicians step aside and let scientists and public health officials make the decisions on what is going to be beneficial in preventing and treating Covid,” said Sunil Parikh, an associate professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases at the Yale School of Public Health. Kansas is one of at least 11 states, according to Buzzfeed, where Republican lawmakers have proposed, and in some cases passed, legislation to limit medical licensing boards’ ability to take action against providers who prescribe ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, another drug that has not been shown to be effective against Covid but nevertheless promoted by some politicians on the right. “We are leaving it up to medical professionals like it should be, not bureaucrats trying to maintain a single message,” said Kansas state Senator Richard Hilderbrand, the chair of the committee that sponsored the legislation.

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“..the nation’s first clinical trial of ivermectin to treat COVID-19..”

Just how crazy is that?

University of Minnesota Ivermectin Trial Nearing Completion (Star T.)

University of Minnesota researchers expect to finish enrollment this week in the nation’s first clinical trial of ivermectin to treat COVID-19, and the study’s highly anticipated results could be only a month away. The COVID-OUT study is reviewing three common drugs, including the antidepressant fluvoxamine and the diabetes treatment metformin, but gained attention for its inclusion of ivermectin. The controversial drug has been championed by opponents of COVID-19 vaccines, despite a warning from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that ivermectin is cleared only to treat parasitic infections, head lice and certain skin conditions. Anti-inflammatory benefits of all three medications prompted the U study, which was delayed by slow enrollment over the summer until the delta and omicron waves of the pandemic emerged.

Lead researcher Dr. Carolyn Bramante said the results will provide clinical guidance to doctors who are facing record pandemic cases and to the FDA about whether to authorize the drugs for treatment of COVID-19. “Sooner would have been better, but I’m really proud of my team,” she said. “We will be done very quickly.” Proven outpatient COVID-19 treatments have been limited, and supplies in Minnesota have been scarce. Providers in the state discontinued two types of monoclonal antibody infusions in December because they were ineffective against the omicron variant, and providers had to ration the effective types. New antiviral COVID-19 pills that have received emergency FDA approval are coming in small shipments every other week to Minnesota.

[..] The U trial is enrolling 1,100 patients with COVID-19 to receive fluvoxamine and ivermectin, alone or in combination with metformin, or a nonmedicating placebo for comparison. The study is tracking whether patients taking the drugs for 14 days avoid hospitalization and maintain healthy blood oxygen levels. Bramante said the drugs have potential to reduce excessive inflammation — a hallmark of some of the most severe and fatal COVID-19 cases. Ivermectin has been tried in other countries, such as India, with less access to vaccine, despite a World Health Organization warning against its use outside clinical trials until its benefits are proven. Some global studies of the drug have been debunked while others in the U.S. are behind the U study.

Duluth-based Essentia Health on Monday announced it was joining the ongoing national ACTIV-6 clinical trial that is studying ivermectin in combination with fluvoxamine and fluticasone, an inhaled steroid. “The aim of the study is to see if these medications make you feel better sooner and prevent hospitalization,” said Dr. Rajesh Prabhu, an Essentia infectious disease specialist. Bramante is not allowed to see the patient data from the U study until after enrollment is finished, but she said it is a positive sign that a data safety monitoring board has allowed it to continue. That means the drugs aren’t causing harm but also there is no proof yet they absolutely work or don’t work against COVID-19.

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Japan goes its own way.

Japan’s Kowa Says Ivermectin Effective Against Omicron In Phase III Trial (R.)

Japanese trading and pharmaceutical company Kowa Co Ltd said on Monday anti-parasite drug ivermectin has been found effective for treating the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in a Phase III trial. The trial found ivermectin has “an antiviral effect” against the variant, Kowa said without providing further details. The firm has been working with Kitasato University, a medical university in Tokyo. Clinical trials evaluating the drug, which is used to treat parasites in animals and humans, are ongoing but promotion of the drug as a COVID-19 treatment has generated controversy. The drug is not approved for treatment of COVID-19 in Japan and the U.S. Federal Drug Administration has repeatedly warned against its use.

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Yes, it’s about vaccines.

University Offers Help To Students ‘Affected By A Free Speech Event’ (DM)

Colorado State University is promoting resources aimed at students who claim to be ‘affected by a free speech event’ on campus. A sign was spotted on campus and posted to social media which reads: ‘If you (or someone you know) are affected by a free speech event on campus, here are some resources.’ The sign then proceeds to list 17 different departments or offices on the university campus that may be of help. It includes Multicultural Counseling, Incidents of Bias Reporting, the Office of Equal Opportunity, and a Victim’s Assistance Hotline. Even university staff are taken care of with specific services for employees including the Office of Ombuds, and the Employee Assistance Program.

The roll call continues with a host of departments and programs set up to assist minority students, including Student Diversity Program centers for Asian Pacific, Black/African, and Native Americans. LGBTQ+ are not forgotten either with various services and cultural resources designated for the community. Students with disabilities and given their own hotline together with women, through the Women and Gender Advocacy Center. Campus Reform first reported on the sign. The sign was posted on the Instagram account Turning Point USA Rockies Territory. Turning Point Action is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative values on high school, college, and university campuses across the country. The account called out the school for ‘intolerance,’ adding, ‘We haven’t even had an event yet gotta love the intolerance of @coloradostateuniversity.’

Colorado State University, where tuition is $31,712 a year for out-of-state students, has been hostile in recent months to conservative organizations. Several incidents occurred during the fall 2021 semester. In one, a student was filmed harassing Turning Point group members calling them ‘right-wing goons’ and noting that ‘disrupting one of your activities is actually probably one of the most ethical and best things I can do with my time.’ [..]Also in the fall, a student was caught as they stole a sign advocating against vaccine mandates after the university threatened any student who didn’t register their vaccine status with arrest for trespassing. The university later clarified their policy saying that they were ‘not arresting students who are unvaccinated’, so long as they provided their vaccination information or declared an exemption.

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Whole cloth.

US Close To Approving ‘Mother Of All Sanctions’ Against Russia (G.)

The leaders of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Sunday they were on the verge of approving “the mother of all sanctions” against Vladimir Putin, warning there would be no appeasement as the Russian president contemplates an invasion of Ukraine. “We cannot have a Munich moment again,” the panel’s Democratic chair, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, told CNN’s State of the Union, referring to the 1938 agreement by which allies ceded parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, believing it would stave off war. “Putin will not stop if he believes the west will not respond,” Menendez said. “We saw what he did in 2008 in Georgia, we saw what he did in 2014 in pursuit of Crimea. He will not stop.”

Menendez said he believed bipartisan negotiations for severe sanctions were “on the one-yard line”, despite disagreements with Republicans over whether measures should be imposed before or after any Russian invasion. The UK government promised to ramp up sanctions against Putin and his associates. The negotiations come ahead of an expected UN security council meeting on Monday, at the request of the US, to give Russia the opportunity to explain its actions. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said: “We’re going to go into the council prepared to listen to Russia’s security concerns, but we’re not going to be distracted by their propaganda.”

On Sunday, Kyiv urged Moscow to pull back its troops from Ukraine’s border and continue dialogue with the west if it was “serious” about de-escalating tensions that have soared amid fears of a Russian invasion. Canada moved its Ukraine-based military units westward on Sunday and announced the temporary withdrawal of all non-essential employees from its Kyiv embassy, citing ongoing Russian threats along the border. “We will continue to take all precautions necessary to keep our Canadian Armed Forces safe and secure,” said Canada’s Defense Minister Anita Anand at a press conference in Kyiv. Canada has 900 military members supporting the Nato mission in Ukraine via “land, air and sea,” she said.

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Eurocrat

EU Threatens To Halt Nord Stream 2 & Cut Russia Off From SWIFT (RT)

The EU is discussing the possibility of excluding Russia from the SWIFT international bank payment system and completely putting a halt on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline if Moscow launches an invasion of Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has revealed. Speaking to CNN on Thursday, the Eurocrat said the EU would not rule out any possible angles for sanctions, adding that nothing is “off the table.” The EU and the US are currently working on a package of measures designed to deter Russia from considering a military incursion into Ukraine. Moscow stands accused of placing 100,000 troops on the border, with some alleging it is planning an attack. This claim has repeatedly been denied by the Kremlin.

Von der Leyen’s latest statement comes despite some reports that many foreign leaders have given up on some of the harshest sanctions, including on the financial and energy sectors, due to fears that the European economy and the continent’s energy security could see significant blowback. These include the suggestion that the EU could place a total ban on the usage of Nord Stream 2, a controversial gas pipeline that connects Russia to Germany. “I want to be very clear: Nothing is off the table, everything is on the table,” von der Leyen said when asked directly if the EU would make sure the energy system is stopped from ever being used. She repeated the same line when also asked about SWIFT. “The Commission is responsible for designing, shaping, and developing the sanctions – in the financial field, in the economic field, in the technology field. This includes everything,” she explained.

According to von der Leyen, any EU sanctions against Russia would have a devastating effect. Brussels is Moscow’s largest trading partner, and 75% of direct foreign investment in Russia comes from the EU, she explained, suggesting that economic measures would be painful. Earlier in January, German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that the EU and the US had refused to consider disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT international bank payment system. It noted that it could destabilize financial markets and help create an alternative payment infrastructure that would no longer be dominated by Western nations.

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Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
~ Albert Einstein

Year in Review 2021 Part 3 – Rise of Global Authoritarianism (Dave Collum)

So, here we are at the third and final part of the 2021 Year in Review and it’s no longer 2021. Sorry about that pfuck-up. Think of it as not in 2021 but from 2021. You may have noticed that the first 200 pages (parts 1 and 2) were laced with a recurring catchphrase, “WTF is happening?” It was a literary device for noting that the events ceased to make sense within a conventional worldview, suggesting it is time to torch the old model and start anew. Our response to a disease that was killing a very small slice of the population was to sequester and vaccinate the entire population with an experimental drug of real but unquantified fatality rate. The apparent scientific illiteracy was not some mass psychosis. Y’all just got suckered by America’s Most Trusted Psychopathic Mass Murderer assisted by an epic media blitz sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry that had a distinct authoritarian quality.

During the brief period after uploading part 2 while grinding on this last portion, the Supreme Court took on the vaccine mandate issue, ruling that the only people forfeiting control of their own healthcare are the healthcare workersref 2 The court also illustrated their profound ignorance of the pandemic and what they were even charged to assess—the Constitutionality of mandates, not the efficacy.ref 3 The CEO of a major insurer reported a 40% spike in fatalities within the 18–65 age bracket that was not from Covid.ref 4 He said 10% would be a 3-sigma, once-every-200-year event: 40% is unheard of. Although he refrained from identifying a cause—deaths of despair, neglected healthcare, or a toxic vaccine—he knows precisely what did them in. They have been studying this stuff for centuries. I suspect his real message was that the insurance industry is about to contribute to inflation with rising premiums.

Meanwhile, the pathological liars running the covid grift decided after two years the masks you’ve been wearing served no medical purpose and that the vaccines don’t work either. Wait: who said the masks and vaccines don’t work?

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“I was a civil rights hero, darn it! It’s time for the rest of the world to catch up!”

Biden Promises To Replace Tom Brady With A Woman Of Color (BBee)

Legendary quarterback Tom Brady has announced his plan to retire from the NFL to spend more time carving little wooden toys for his grandkids. In response to the earth-shattering news, President Joe Biden has announced his commitment to replace the outgoing football star with a woman of color. “Listen, folks, it’s time,” said Biden to the press. “In the hundred-year history of the NFL, not a single quarterback has ever been a woman of color. That’s racist! We all know that poor women are just as smart and powerful as white kids. As president, I will nominate a new quarterback to replace Tom Brady that reflects America’s diversity.”


When told he doesn’t have the authority to nominate quarterbacks to the NFL, Biden told his staff he would just sign the executive order and let the courts deal with it later. “There’s no excuse,” said Biden. When I used to play Nine Pins with Jehoshaphat Jenkins and the townsfolk, we always used to let the black women play with us. I was a civil rights hero, darn it! It’s time for the rest of the world to catch up!” So far, candidates being considered for the empty position include Michelle Obama, Tyler Perry, and Colin Kaepernick in a woman’s wig.

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McCullough

 

 

Super immunity

 

 

 

 

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

 

Dec 112021
 


Louis Anquetin Avenue de Clichy, Five O’Clock in the Evening 1887

 

4 In Every 5 Covid-19 Deaths In England Since August Fully Vaccinated (DE)
B.1.1.529 Escapes Majority Of SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibodies (bioRxiv)
Epidemiology of Myocarditis And Pericarditis Following mRNA Vaccines In Ontario, Canada (medRxiv)
Two Jabs Offer Little Protection Against Omicron Infection, UK Data Shows (G.)
The Pandemic of the Vaccinated Is Here (Atlantic)
Austria To Fine Unvaxed Citizens Up To £12,000 A Year (Sun)
Belgian Court Rules Enforcing Covid Vaccine Pass Is Illegal (Metro)
Yes Folks, It Really IS Over (Denninger)
The Air Coming Out (Kunstler)
Alix Mayer Is Vaccine Injured, But Not From The Covid Vaccine (Kirsch)
Putin Says Russian Government Was Swarming With CIA Officers (RT)
US DOJ Wins Court Case Seeking Julian Assange Extradition (CTH)

 

 

 

 

Canadian Federation of Independent Business

 

 

“Vaccine Passports have absolutely nothing to do with protecting public health, and instead everything to do with controlling the nation.”

4 In Every 5 Covid-19 Deaths In England Since August Fully Vaccinated (DE)

Serious questions need to be answered as to why Boris Johnson’s Government have decided to restrict the freedoms of the unvaccinated population through the introduction of Vaccine Passports, when the latest official data shows that the vaccinated population have accounted for 3 in every 5 Covid-19 cases, 3 in every 5 Covid-19 hospitalisations, and 4 in every 5 Covid-19 deaths, in England since August 16th 2021.

During a national Covid-19 briefing that took place on Tuesday December 8th, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announced that ‘Plan B’ would be implemented in England from Wednesday December 15th, which would entail ‘working from home’ (if you can) orders, and the introduction of Vaccine Passports. The reason given for the commencement of ‘Plan B’ is that it has to be done to protect the public from the alleged new Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus. A variant which as of December 11th, has failed to cause a single fatality in the UK, with just several hundred cases allegedly being confirmed.


A new law will come into effect from Wednesday December 15th, which will state that Vaccine Passports will become mandatory for entry to nightclubs and other large venues, including Premier League football matches and concerts. We’re told they will be required for indoor settings of 500 people or more, outdoor settings of 4,000 people or more, and any setting with 10,000 attendees or more. There will be many in England who believe Vaccine Passports are the answer to their prayers. Two years of misinformation, and disinformation mixed with propaganda published by the mainstream media can do that to people. But unfortunately the official data published by the UK Government proves that they are far from it, and suggests Vaccine Passports have absolutely nothing to do with protecting public health, and instead everything to do with controlling the nation.

The above chart proves that the fully vaccinated population have accounted for the majority of Covid-19 deaths every single month since August 2021, with things really taking a turn for the worse in October. The highest number of Covid-19 deaths in single four week period among the fully vaccinated population has been 3,284, whereas the highest number of Covid-19 deaths among the unvaccinated population in a four week period has been just 850. That’s a 286% difference.


The official data shows the vaccinated population have accounted for 56% of Covid-19 cases, 63% of hospitalisations, and 80% of deaths over the past 16 weeks in England. It’s quite clear that the jabs do not prevent infection or transmission, but they are alleged to reduce the risk of hospitalisation and death.

However, if this were the case then should we not be seeing a graph that looks more like this? So why aren’t we? It could have something to do with the fact that the data suggests the Covid-19 injections are actually increasing the risk of death due to Covid-19 rather than reducing it by the claimed 95%.

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Chinese research.

B.1.1.529 Escapes Majority Of SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibodies (bioRxiv)

The SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.529 variant (Omicron) contains 15 mutations on the receptor-binding domain (RBD). How Omicron would evade RBD neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) and humoral immunity requires immediate investigation. Here, we used high-throughput yeast display screening to determine the RBD escaping mutation profiles for 247 human anti-RBD NAbs identified from SARS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 convalescents and vaccinees. Based on the results, NAbs could be unsupervised clustered into six epitope groups (A-F), which is highly concordant with knowledge-based structural classifications. Strikingly, various single mutations of Omicron could impair NAbs of different epitope groups. Specifically, NAbs in Group A-D, whose epitope overlaps with ACE2-binding motif, are largely escaped by K417N, N440K, G446S, E484A, Q493K, and G496S.


Group E (S309 site) and F (CR3022 site) NAbs, which often exhibit broad sarbecovirus neutralizing activity, are less affected by Omicron, but still, a subset of NAbs are escaped by G339D, S371L, and S375F. Furthermore, B.1.1.529 pseudovirus neutralization and RBD binding assay showed that single mutation tolerating NAbs could also be escaped due to multiple synergetic mutations on their epitopes. In total, over 85% of the tested NAbs are escaped by Omicron. Regarding NAb drugs, LY-CoV016/LY-CoV555 cocktail, REGN-CoV2 cocktail, AZD1061/AZD8895 cocktail, and BRII-196 were escaped by Omicron, while VIR7831 and DXP-604 still function at reduced efficacy. Together, data suggest Omicron could cause significant humoral immune evasion, while NAbs targeting the sarbecovirus conserved region remain most effective. Our results offer instructions for developing NAb drugs and vaccines against Omicron and future variants.

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Mix and don’t match.

Epidemiology of Myocarditis And Pericarditis Following mRNA Vaccines In Ontario, Canada (medRxiv)

Increased rates of myocarditis/pericarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have been observed. However, little data are available related to product-specific differences, which have important programmatic impacts. The objective of this study was to estimate reporting rates of myocarditis/pericarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccine by product, age, sex, and dose number, as well inter-dose interval. We conducted a population-based cohort study using passive vaccine safety surveillance data. All individuals in Ontario, Canada who received at least one dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine between December 14, 2020 and September 4, 2021 were included. This study was conducted in Ontario, Canada (population: 14.7 million) using the provincial COVID-19 vaccine registry and provincial adverse events following immunization database.

We included all individuals with a reported episode of myocarditis/pericarditis following COVID-19 vaccine in the study period. We obtained information on all doses administered in the province to calculate reporting rates. Receipt of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (mRNA-1273 [Moderna Spikevax] or BNT162b2 [Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty]). Reported rate of myocarditis/pericarditis meeting level 1-3 of the Brighton Collaboration case definitions.

Results There were 19,740,741 doses of mRNA vaccines administered and 297 reports of myocarditis/pericarditis meeting our inclusion criteria. Among these, 69.7% occurred following the second dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and 76.8% occurred in males. The median age of individuals with a reported event was 24 years. The highest reporting rate of myocarditis/pericarditis was observed in males aged 18-24 years following mRNA-1273 as the second dose; the rate in this age group was 5.1 (95% CI 1.9-15.5) times higher than the rate following BNT162b2 as the second dose. Overall reporting rates were higher when the inter-dose interval was shorter (i.e., ≤30 days) for both vaccine products. Among individuals who received mRNA-1273 for the second dose, rates were higher for those who had a heterologous as opposed to homologous vaccine schedule.

Conclusions and Relevance Our results suggest that vaccine product, inter-dose interval and vaccine schedule combinations may play a role in the risk of myocarditis/pericarditis, in addition to age and sex. Certain programmatic strategies could reduce the risk of myocarditis/pericarditis following mRNA vaccines.

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The MSM is twisting defeat into victory.

The function of Omicron is it allows them to obscure the fact that the vaccines are utter failures, and at the same time to sell more of the same vaccines as boosters.

“The booster is really adding to protection..”

Yeah, and what we don’t say is “..for two weeks..”

Two Jabs Offer Little Protection Against Omicron Infection, UK Data Shows (G.)

Having two doses of a Covid vaccine offers less defence against symptomatic infection from the Omicron variant than with Delta, experts have said, although a booster jab raises protection considerably. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said Omicron was projected to become the dominant variant of coronavirus in the UK by mid-December, based on current trends. It added that there could be more than a million coronavirus infections by the end of the month. Dr Susan Hopkins, the UKHSA’s chief medical adviser, said: “I think what we’re seeing is that if you’ve had two doses more than three months ago, then it’s not going to prevent you from getting symptomatic disease.” However, a Pfizer/BioNTech booster jab, given after an initial round of either Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer, raised the level of protection, offering 70-75% protection against symptomatic infection.

The findings came as the UK reported 58,194 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday – the highest number of positive cases in a 24-hour period since 9 January – and 120 deaths. A total of 448 Omicron cases were also reported, compared with 249 on Thursday, with the total across the UK to date now standing at 1,265. The UKHSA report offers early insights into the degree of protection the initial two vaccinations may offer against Omicron. The data suggests that people who have had two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab 25 or more weeks ago have far lower protection against symptomatic infection with Omicron than with Delta. While the data suggests such individuals have about 40% protection against Delta at this time point, protection against symptomatic infection with Omicron could be less than 10%. However, there is a great deal of uncertainty around that figure given the small number of people studied and the fact that the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab was largely given to older or more vulnerable people.


A similar trend was seen for those who have had two doses of the Pfizer jab, with about 60% protection against Delta at 25 or more weeks since the second dose, and just under 40% protection against Omicron at the same time point – although, again, there are uncertainties around the figures. About 44 million people received their second jab at least three months ago, but about 22 million have received a booster since then. Experts have said Omicron infections are doubling every two to three days in the UK, leading to concerns that the variant could overwhelm the NHS if it is as virulent as Delta. In the UK, about 39% of those over 12 years old have had a booster dose, compared with 81% of people having had two doses. “The booster is really adding to protection,” said Dr Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at the UKHSA.

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The Atlantic, too, continues its sloppy sales job.

“Settings that might have previously seemed safe for vaccinated folks—say, a restaurant or performance venue that strictly checks vaccination status—could become fertile ground for transmission, because the people inside them are more likely to catch and spread the virus.”

The Pandemic of the Vaccinated Is Here (Atlantic)

The 60 percent of Americans who are fully vaccinated could soon find their lives looking very different. For much of the summer and fall, those who had received two Pfizer or Moderna doses or one Johnson & Johnson shot were told that they were essentially bulletproof, especially if they were young and healthy. But preliminary data from South Africa and Europe now suggest that two vaccine doses alone might still allow for frequent breakthrough infections and rapid spread of the disease—even if hospitalization and death remain unlikely. Getting three shots, or two shots plus a previous bout of COVID, seems to offer more protection. For Saad Omer, the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, that’s enough evidence to justify changing the CDC’s definition of full vaccination. “With Omicron and the data emerging, I think there is no reason why we shouldn’t have a pretty strong push for everyone to have boosters,” he told me.

At this point, the CDC has recorded that less than a quarter of adults who are fully vaccinated under the existing definition have gotten a third shot. That leaves about 150 million people who are vaccinated but unboosted. Given that the people in this group are less protected against infection, they’re at greater risk of passing on the disease to unvaccinated or partially vaccinated kids, as well as to unvaccinated or immunologically vulnerable adults. They will also pass the coronavirus more readily among themselves. Settings that might have previously seemed safe for vaccinated folks—say, a restaurant or performance venue that strictly checks vaccination status—could become fertile ground for transmission, because the people inside them are more likely to catch and spread the virus. Indeed, anecdotal reports already suggest that large indoor gatherings of fully vaccinated people can become super-spreader events in the age of Omicron.


Population-level immunity could suffer in another way too, Omer said: People who were previously protected because of a prior infection could now be quite vulnerable to getting reinfected and passing on the disease. In fact, it’s possible that the only parts of the country where community transmission might be blunted are those that faced devastating early waves of the virus and subsequently had strong vaccination rates—mostly a handful of areas in the Northeast. “It’s really very, very challenging to consider how those differences might play out,” Joshua Schiffer, a disease-modeling expert at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me.

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The caption for that graph, I kid you not: “Cases have been on the rise in recent months..”

Austria To Fine Unvaxed Citizens Up To £12,000 A Year (Sun)

Austria will impose criminal fines of up to £12,000 a year if they refuse the Covid vaccination. The move comes amid a shift across much of Europe towards increasingly harsh measures to crack down on vaccine hesitancy amid fears Omicron patients will overwhelm hospitals. Under Austria’s plans to make injections against coronavirus compulsory from February onwards. It comes as Europe’s coronavirus death toll could soar by another 700,000 this winter, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned. Austria’s conservative-led government today gave details of its plan to make coronavirus vaccines compulsory, saying it will apply to people 14 and over and holdouts face fines of up to £3,000 every three months.

Roughly 68 per cent of Austria’s population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, one of the lowest rates in western Europe. Many Austrians are sceptical about vaccines, a view encouraged by the far-right Freedom Party, the third biggest in parliament. As infections set records three weeks ago, the government announced a fourth national lockdown and said it would make vaccinations compulsory for all, the first European Union country to do so. Minister for constitutional affairs Karoline Edtstadler said: “We do not want to punish people who are not vaccinated. We want to win them over and convince them to get vaccinated.”


The vaccine mandate, which must be approved by parliament, is due to start in February and last through January 2024. Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein said: “There will be quarterly vaccination deadlines. “If that is not the case, proceedings will be brought. In regular proceedings, the amount of the fine is 3,600 euros (£3,000). “As an alternative, the authorities have the option to impose a fine in shorter proceedings immediately after the vaccination deadline. Here the amount of the fine is 600 euros.” There will be exemptions for pregnant women and people who cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons, he added.


Cases have been on the rise in recent months

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From Dec. 3.

Belgian Court Rules Enforcing Covid Vaccine Pass Is Illegal (Metro)

A court has ruled a Covid pass in a region of Belgium is unlawful and has fined the district more than £4,000 per day until it stops enforcing it. In the judgement, the Covid Safe Ticket (CST) in Wallonia was called disproportionate and the court suggested it could breach European law, the Brussels Times reported. Since November, the CST has been mandatory in the Walloon Region and the whole of Belgium. People who want to eat in a restaurant or go to the theatre must present a Covid pass, showing vaccination, a negative test, or recent recovery.


Non-profit organisation Notre bon droit (NBD) brought the summary proceedings against Wallonia after contesting the use of the Covid pass before its introduction. NBD founder Isabelle Duchateau said: ‘The court has ruled in our favour by conceding that the CST does not respect the principle of proportionality.’ As well as the daily £4,258 (€5,000) fine, The Walloon Government was ordered to pay NBD’s court costs and will have to ‘rectify’ the situation pending a judgement on the CST’s benefits. But the Walloon Region refused to annul the CST following the judgement and said it would appeal the court’s decision on Wednesday, according to the Brussels Times.

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Post mandate America.

Yes Folks, It Really IS Over (Denninger)

And now, as I pointed out, it is time for anyone coerced — whether you caved or not — to press your offense. This action makes clear the last argument Biden’s Administration had was false — and means they will lose. The Senate voted Wednesday to repeal a President Biden-backed federal *****-19 ******* mandate for private businesses. The final vote was 52-48. Moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana joined Republicans to vote in favor of the repeal. Yes, the bill will die in the House. Pelosi will never bring it to the floor on a voluntary basis and certainly not on an expedited one with there being no effective forcing mechanism in the House; she knows damn well the majority of Americans do not support mandated vaccination and she’s already screwed in the midterms.

This bill, irrespective of the vote outcome, would turn that into a slaughter and for no purpose, since Biden will veto it anyway if it gets to his desk. While its theoretically possible to force action with a discharge petition that’s unlikely. But for those who argue that this means its a “worthless gesture” by the Senate you’re wrong. If you’re an employer or legal department and argue this you’re going to wind up asset-stripped to your underwear. The Executive has no authority to enact such any such mandate on its own. It has to rely on, and has argued in court multiple times that it was delegated this authority by Congress. That’s the entire foundation on which such a mandate rests — that the enabling law for OSHA permitted this and was explicitly authorized and contemplated, that the FARs governing contracts with the government again explicitly permitted this action as a result of Congressional delegation of said authority and that CMS, likewise, can do it under the Medicare and Medicaid enabling legislation.

That argument just got a cement boot tied to it and tossed into 3,200 feet of water. The Senate action makes clear that the Senate did not concur then, long before this threat was on anyone’s radar and even in the throes of the current pandemic the Senate would not concur to delegate said authority to the Executive. In other words if these laws were on the table today to be passed, complete with this explicit or implicit authority they would not pass the Senate and thus would not become law! The courts will not ignore this. Indeed their rulings thus far have all turned on exactly this point — where is the authority within the Executive, and from what did it derive? This action means the courts don’t even get to the Constitutional question of bodily autonomy; they are now going to rule on the very-clear fact that the Senate has formally, in a recorded vote, disavowed Executive authority to implement any of these mandates.

That’s the beginning and end of it — and now, with that in the bag and in the record of the Senate those employers who have in any way relied on the statements of the government or crafted their concepts based upon same are cooked. Oh sure, there will be those who vehemently want to protest their “wokeness” in this regard but now they have to face the fact that their alleged “justification” has been destroyed and the legal protection it might have afforded them — whether their punitive acts were surcharging employee health insurance or outright firing people — has disappeared in a puff of smoke. The landsharks will be feasting on businesses and the “woke” among them. It’s time to go on offense folks. You were dealt the nuts hand by the Senate. Do not let them off cheaply.

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“..it was “not a matter of if but when” conscience would provoke him, Dr. Fauci, a.k.a. The Science, to declare the already-vaxxed, even the multi-vaxxed and once-boosted, unvaxxed!

The Air Coming Out (Kunstler)

Has the illustrious Dr. Fauci not just plumb shot his wad now? Made himself — how do you put it delicately — something less than…uh… helpful… in the public health sphere? Worn out his welcome, a little bit? We have been a kind and generous nation through our history, after all, patient to a fault with all sorts of public rascals. I’m sure you would agree: an apology and discreet withdrawal from the scene might buy him a few years of elder peace at some ocean or desert retreat, dandling the grand-kids on his tender lap, even while the prosecutors construct their case… and by then, of course, the spike proteins moiling in the conus arteriosus of his shriveled heart — gift of his own marvelous science project — will have worked their hoodoo and punched his ticket to the great gain-of-function Palookaville up yonder.

Or is he, rather, begging for the rope at the end of the lamp-post now (along with a few thousand other public figures around the world)? I mean… moving the goal-posts yet again the other day right there on CNN with the ever-glowering Kate Bolduan, saying it was “not a matter of if but when” conscience would provoke him, Dr. Fauci, a.k.a. The Science, to declare the already-vaxxed, even the multi-vaxxed and once-boosted, unvaxxed! The horror! I’d calculate that the internet campaign to purchase the aforesaid rope would take about ten seconds flat, including the log-in.

It’s beginning to look like Americans have had enough of this monkey business, losing their livelihoods, their futures, their reasons to live. And now this malignant dwarf of a government witch-doctor wants to come for their children? Homey don’t play that. And, by the way, Omicron is no Darth Vader and Dr. Fauci is no Obi-Wan Kenobi. Omicron is a punk-ass computer iteration of the original “SARS CoV-2” computer model of a frightful pandemic agent engineered to drive the Western advanced nations batshit crazy (literally) so as to distract them from the criminal ineptitude of their financial managers. And now that the virus narrative is unspooling it’s showtime for the terminal financial follies of the age.

[..] CBS-News reports this morning that “household wealth has surged an astonishing $36 trillion.” Our Federal Reserve says so in a 205-page statistics dump. Oh, really? Do you know what that is? It’s called air. Something you can see clean through because the thing that is supposed to be there is not there, namely, what money is supposed to represent. This is the financial narrative, cousin to the virus narrative — making manifest the non-manifest… a ghost story around civilization’s campfire. Any minute now, the air is going to come out of the family rooms in these hypothetical millions of suddenly rich households and the people within will suffocate financially. The New York Times will report them as Covid-19 deaths, I’m sure.

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Haven’t watched the interview yet.

Alix Mayer Is Vaccine Injured, But Not From The Covid Vaccine (Kirsch)

On December 9, I interviewed Alix Mayer, President, Children’s Health Defense, California Chapter. She’s vaccine injured from a set of vaccines she took prior to a business trip. She’s never fully recovered. Here’s my interview on Rumble. It’s one of the most popular videos I’ve done (over 34,000 views in less than 24 hours with no promotion; all positive reviews).

IMPORTANT: If you are a parent of young kids, have grandkids, or are thinking about ever getting vaccinated again, you will want to watch this video. You will be shocked about what you are not being told. Key things I learned from talking with Alix:

• All the 16 childhood vaccines should be considered unsafe because all the safety data shows that kids are uniformly less healthy after taking the vaccines compared to kids who are not vaccinated at all.

• All the papers published in medical journals documenting the dangers of the vaccines have been revoked and the people who wrote them have lost their jobs. The papers weren’t censored because they were wrong. They were censored so nobody will find out the truth. The papers all showed that kids who avoided the vaccines were significantly healthier than the kids who got vaccinated. The COVID vaccines? They are 1,000 times worse than any of these vaccines.

• The CDC is supposed to be assessing the safety of the children’s vaccines every 2 years. They have never done this. They even admit it. They don’t have any plans to comply with the law. Nobody is holding them accountable. Everyone is looking the other way.

• There has been a huge increase in autism and other disabling conditions after kids take the childhood vaccination schedule. There is no doubt they are linked.

• RFK, Jr. has been trying to get a debate with the CDC for 20 years about the safety of the childhood vaccines. Nobody from the CDC will debate him. They refuse to be put in a situation where they could be asked questions that they don’t want to answer. Someone is hiding in the shadows and it isn’t RFK, Jr.

• Judy Mikovits discovered impurities in the vaccines but they forced out of her job to silence her.

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“Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by “hundreds” of CIA agents who told him what to do throughout his tenure as leader..”

Putin Says Russian Government Was Swarming With CIA Officers (RT)

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Russian government was swarming with CIA workers, and they eventually had to be “cleaned out” and sent back to the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Thursday. Speaking to a meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, Putin used the example of Americans within the Russian government to show how foreign countries attempt to interfere in the country’s internal affairs. “In the early 2000s, I had already cleaned everyone out, but in the mid-1990s, we had, as it later turned out, cadres of the US Central Intelligence Agency sitting as advisers and even official employees of the Russian government,” Putin explained. “They were later prosecuted in the United States for violating US law and taking part in privatization while they were CIA employees working for us,” the president claimed.

According to Putin, some American specialists were stationed at Russian nuclear weapons facilities and even sat at a desk with a US flag. “They lived and worked there. They didn’t need such subtle instruments of interference in our political life because they controlled everything anyway,” he continued. This isn’t the first time that Putin has accused America of interfering with Russia’s internal affairs, especially in the immediate aftermath following the fall of the Soviet Union and the privatization of government-owned assets. In 2013, the president claimed that CIA officers worked in the entourage of Anatoly Chubais, the deputy prime minister who oversaw the privatization process. He later went on to become Kremlin chief of staff.


Earlier this year, Ruslan Khasbulatov, the former chairman of Russia’s parliament, claimed that the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by “hundreds” of CIA agents who told him what to do throughout his tenure as leader. Khasbulatov even claimed that Yeltsin would send security officials and heads of departments to the US so the Americans could “examine them” and “give conclusions.”

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Long read by conservative lawyer Sundance focusing on the strong connection between Assange and the failure of Russiagate as grounds for his present treatment.

“..Assange could essentially destroy the baseline predicate for the entire Trump-Russia investigation ..”

US DOJ Wins Court Case Seeking Julian Assange Extradition (CTH)

Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative; and knowing that Assange could essentially destroy the baseline predicate for the entire Trump-Russia investigation – which included the use of Robert Mueller; it would make sense for corrupt government officials to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange. And that would explain why those same government officials, willfully or by direction, would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017. Within three months of the grand jury seating (Nov/Dec 2017), the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018. The EDVA then sat on the indictment while the Mueller/Weissman probe was ongoing.

As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed As a person who has researched this three year fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16; and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17; this timing against Assange is too coincidental.

It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is the fulcrum point that structurally underpins the entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative. However, this important claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange’s on-the-record statements.

The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment (Peter Strzok); and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from another Michael Sussmann partner, Shawn Henry at Crowdstrike. Yes, another DNC contractor and collaborator with the Clinton campaign. The CIA always held a massive conflict of self-interest problem surrounding the Russian hacking claim as it pertains to their own activity in 2016. The FBI and DOJ always held a massive interest in maintaining that claim.

Robert Mueller and Andrew Weismann did everything they could to support that predicate; and all of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also carried a self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative. Julian Assange was/is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange has claimed he has evidence it was not from a hack. This Russian “hacking” claim was ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K Intelligence apparatus…. Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon as intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public.

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Imperial Rock, Rimini, Italy

 

 

Mouse drawing
https://twitter.com/i/status/1469385917752385545

 

 

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

 

Nov 302021
 


René Magritte The endearing truth 1966

 

Harsh Penalties Mulled For Resisting Compulsory Vaccination In Austria (RT)
DeSantis Says Lockdowns Not an Option Regardless of Variant (CTH)
Moderna Boss Says Vaccines Likely No Match For Omicron (F24)
Victoria Creates Australia’s First mRNA Vaccine (G.)
Pfizer Systematic Deployment in USA (Paardekooper)
Biden Reveals What New Normal Will Be (RT)
Judge Halts Biden Vaccine Mandate In 10 States (RT)
Biden Admin Delays Federal Vaccine Enforcement Until New Year (ET)
Winning A War (Denninger)
The Narratives Fail (Kunstler)
Fauci Blasting ‘Dangerous Criticism’ Sets Off Rand Paul (RT)
Will Twitter Become an Ocean of Suck? (Taibbi)
27 More Russian Diplomats Expelled From US (ZH)

 

 

Here’s the new Twitter CEO:

 

 

Every 3 months

 

 

Far from God.

Harsh Penalties Mulled For Resisting Compulsory Vaccination In Austria (RT)

People repeatedly snubbing Covid-19 vaccination summons in Austria after immunization becomes compulsory there might face fines of up to $8,100 or several weeks behind bars, according to a draft that was leaked to the media. Those resisting vaccination in Austria might soon face stiff punishments, according to a leaked draft of the so-called Covid-19 Vaccination Protection Act seen by the Austrian Die Presse daily. If passed, the legislation, which is set to take effect in February, would apply both to the Alpine nation’s citizens and its permanent residents.Under the bill, anyone who refused to attend a scheduled vaccination appointment would receive an official summons from local authorities. If an individual failed to show up, they would then be summoned one more time within the next four weeks.


Should the second official request be ignored as well, the person would face a fine of €3,600 ($4,061) or four weeks in prison. The fine would increase to €7,200 ($8,000) for those who had already been fined twice for violating the vaccination requirement. Exceptions are only allowed for those who cannot get a jab due to “a danger to life or health” as well as pregnant women and children up to the age of 12. The bill further says that booster shots would be compulsory. The Health Ministry is tasked with regulating intervals between vaccinations and possible vaccine combinations, according to the draft. The government would also decide who was considered “vaccinated” and whether people who have recovered from Covid-19 should be counted as “vaccinated” as well. Still, no one would be “forcibly brought” to a vaccination center or made to get a jab against their will, Die Presse reported.

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Desantis: “In Florida, we will not let them lock you down. We will not let them take your job. We will not let them harm your businesses. We will not let them close your schools. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

DeSantis Says Lockdowns Not an Option Regardless of Variant (CTH)

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis responded to the remarks from Dr. Anthony Fauci yesterday and from Joe Biden earlier today about the new Omicron variant of COVID and the possibility of lockdowns. The Governor was very specific and clear about no lockdowns when he spoke today at an event to celebrate increased salaries and bonuses for law enforcement officers in the state. Florida will continue to emphasize prevention, optional vaccinations, therapeutics and quick responsive treatment – with accessible monoclonal antibody treatments – as the state COVID mitigation protocol. So far, the approach by Florida Governor DeSantis has been effective as the state now holds one of the lowest COVID infection rates in the nation, yet the state is wide open and free from any mandates or restrictions. If people want to live in fear, they can go live somewhere else.

 

 

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We’ll have something better. Just a little more expensive.

Moderna Boss Says Vaccines Likely No Match For Omicron (F24)

Existing Covid-19 jabs will struggle against the Omicron variant and it will take months to develop a new shot that works, the head of US vaccine manufacturer Moderna has told the Financial Times. Stephane Bancel told the newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that data would be available on the effectiveness of current vaccines in the next two weeks but scientists were not optimistic.”All the scientists I’ve talked to … are like ‘this is not going to be good’,” he told the newspaper. Bancel’s warning came as G7 health ministers held emergency talks on the new variant, which is spreading around the world and prompting nations to close their borders once again or impose fresh travel restrictions.


The World Health Organization has called the risk from Omicron “very high”. . m hjhhhnhdvvcsdsdza/Bancel said researchers were concerned because 32 of 50 mutations found in the Omicron variant were on the spike protein, a part of the virus that vaccines use to bolster the immune system against Covid. He told the FT there would be a “material drop” in the effectiveness of current jabs against Omicron. Moderna has already said it is working on an Omicron-specific vaccine, as is US drugmaker Pfizer. Chief executive Bancel said his company could deliver between two billion and three billion doses in 2022 but it would be dangerous to shift all production to an Omicron-specific shot with other strains of the virus still in circulation.

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“Existing vaccines really are vaccines that expose our immune system to the whole spike protein and the coronavirus,” he said. “We’re vaccinating with the receptor-binding domain, it’s about a quarter of the spike protein.”

Victoria Creates Australia’s First mRNA Vaccine (G.)

Victorian scientists have created Australia’s first mRNA vaccine, which could be adjusted to fight off aggressive new Covid-19 variants. The new vaccine was developed in Melbourne in five months by Monash University researchers, pharmaceutical manufacturer IDT Australia and the Doherty Institute. It is now subject to clinical trials and regulatory approvals. About 450 doses have been produced at the Boronia site, enabling 150 people to take part in phase one trials from January, with results expected later in 2022. However, it may take years before the vaccine is rolled out more widely, which will only occur if it passes three stages of clinical trials, and if that data is approved by Therapeutic Goods Administration. Not all drugs and treatments make it to the final stages of clinical trials.

Victoria’s innovation minister, Jaala Pulford, said it was a “significant milestone” and the first time Australia had developed an mRNA vaccine of any kind. “Australia has manufactured for trial our first Covid-19 mNRA vaccine, this is also Australia’s first mRNA product that has been manufactured,” she said on Tuesday. “We are the only place in this country that has the capacity in pharmaceutical manufacturing, but also in scientific development, to do this.” Pulford said the technology may lead to a “whole new frontier of individualised medicine” and could help scientists to develop medicine for others diseases including cancer.

Monash University professor of pharmaceutical biology Colin Pouton said the new vaccine was different to existing Covid vaccinations. “Existing vaccines really are vaccines that expose our immune system to the whole spike protein and the coronavirus,” he said. “We’re vaccinating with the receptor-binding domain, it’s about a quarter of the spike protein.”

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Bit out of left field: “These batches may be Hot Lots by design.”

Pfizer Systematic Deployment in USA (Paardekooper)

If the separate companies were deploying high toxicity batches systematically, then the patterns of deployment could be confused and clouded by mixing data for all of the companies. So, instead of combining all of the VAERS data for Moderna, and for Pfizer, I decided to separate them out. Here is the complete output for Pfizer only – showing adverse reactions for each sequential batch. Pfizer deployed about 9500 batches to the USA.

In the first cluster, we have 12 highly toxic batches all appearing in close temporal proximity – and all within a defined range of 2000 to 3000 x base toxicity. In the second cluster, we have 3 highly toxic batches appearing in close temporal proximity, and within the range of 2000-2500 x base toxicity. In the third cluster, we have 27 highly toxic batches all appearing in close temporal proximity – and all within the defined range of 1000-2000 x base toxicity.In the fourth cluster we have 21 highly toxic batches all appearing in close temporal proximity – all within the defined range of 100-1500 x base toxicity.If the production of toxic batches was an accident, we would expect their temporal appearance to be random and more scattered.

The production of large numbers of toxic batches in close temporal proximity to one another shows that such “accidents” are repeated dozens of times, sequentially !In addition to this, these clusters of toxic batches are separated by clear periods of harmless batches – then the sudden appearance of another cluster. The toxic batches are also clustered into a narrow range of toxicity, rather than having a random spread of toxicity – which is odd if these batches were accidents.Finally, the toxicity of these clusters decreases in steps, linearly over time – again, not what we would expect from the accidental production of toxic batches. These batches may be Hot Lots by design.

 

 

Video version. Made me fall asleep.

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He himself will?

Biden Reveals What New Normal Will Be (RT)

There won’t be a new lockdown if everyone gets vaccinated and takes booster shots, and masks up indoors, US President Joe Biden said in response to questions about his plans to deal with the Omicron strain of Covid-19.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Biden said “the best protection against this variant or any of the variants out there, ones we’ve been dealing with already, is getting fully vaccinated and getting a booster shot.” Asked about the possibility of a lockdown, the US president said “there’s no need” for one, but cautioned that his administration is still reviewing the data about the latest variant of concern. He said there won’t be a new lockdown, but a push for “more widespread vaccinations, boosters, testing, and more!” A detailed strategy will be announced on Thursday.

“I expect the new normal to be, everyone ends up getting vaccinated and the booster shot, so we reduce the number of people who aren’t protected to such a low degree that we’re not seeing the spread of these viruses,” he told reporters. People who are fully vaccinated “can celebrate the holidays much more safely than where we were last year,” Biden said, adding “That’s a blessing none of us should take for granted.” He also urged Americans to “wear your masks when you’re indoors in public settings around other people to protect you, to protect those around you.” Biden’s ban on travel from Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Malawi and South Africa – imposed in response to the Omicron variant’s appearance in that region – went into effect on Monday morning.

As of Monday, just over 59% of the total US population has been fully vaccinated, and 21% of those have received a booster jab as well. The US has registered almost 777,000 deaths from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, 384,000 of them since Biden was sworn into office.

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So necessary, the counterweight.

Judge Halts Biden Vaccine Mandate In 10 States (RT)

A federal judge in Missouri has blocked US President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers in 10 states, saying that it would need approval from Congress – which it does not have. US District Court Judge Matthew Schelp issued a preliminary injunction on Monday, blocking the White House’s order that all workers employed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) had to be vaccinated by January 4, 2022 or face losing their jobs. “The nature and breadth of the CMS mandate requires clear authorization from Congress—and Congress has provided none,” Schelp said, adding the injunction is warranted by the “vast economic and political significance” of the mandate.


Monday’s ruling means that Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and New Hampshire will not be subject to the mandate while the injunction stands. The White House has the option to appeal it before the Eighth Circuit. There are three more lawsuits against the CMS vaccination mandate, involving more than half of US states. The White House says 96% of federal employees are compliant with Biden’s vaccine mandate and there are no plans to extend the deadline to vaccinate or get fired. However, the attempt to impose a mandate on private businesses with 100 or more employees was blocked by the Fifth Circuit court earlier this month.

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Dave Collum @DavidBCollum: “This is fascism, not healthcare…”

Biden Admin Delays Federal Vaccine Enforcement Until New Year (ET)

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) told some federal agencies and managers that they can wait to terminate or suspend their employees who won’t get vaccinated until the holidays are over, according to a memo that was sent by the agency on Monday. The memo was confirmed by White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday afternoon after she was questioned by reporters about the OMB delay. Earlier, OMB Deputy Director for Management Jason Miller and Office of Personnel Management Director Kiran Ahuja wrote that “no subsequent enforcement actions, beyond that education and counseling” is mandated for federal workers “who have not yet complied with the vaccination requirement until the new calendar year begins in January,” according to several news reports.

But Psaki downplayed the text of the memo, saying that “nothing has changed” regarding the deadline or the Biden administration’s approach to enforcing COVID-19 vaccine compliance among federal workers. She said that it is “inaccurate” to say that the White House has “delayed anything, or changed” its enforcement of the rule. Last week, the Biden administration announced that approximately 92 percent of federal workers have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The rest have either not complied with the mandate or have sought religious or medical exemptions.

And a spokesperson for OMB told media outlets later on Monday that the vaccine “deadline was November 22, and we already have 96.5 percent compliance across a diverse workforce that is the largest in the United States. This is incredible progress and should serve as an example to employers across the board that vaccination requirements work.” The Office of Management and Budget and its chief spokesperson have not responded to multiple requests for comment. The deadline, the spokesperson continued, isn’t designed to “penalize anyone.” Federal agencies are “encouraged” to “continue the education and counseling period in December for the small number of employees not already in compliance,” the spokesperson told CNN.

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Pure bloods?

Winning A War (Denninger)

Concrete victory conditions are essential. The concept of “return to NORMAL” can be expressed by things like: 1/ No masks. 2/ Laws against vaccine mandates. 3/ No social distancing. 4/ Laws against vaxports. Pure blood victory conditions are diametrically opposed to Karens. There can be only one winner for each. Milestones track progress towards victory. Once a victory condition is decisively met, that particular battle is over. When all are decisively accomplished, the war is finished. Stakes is number one on the list because everyone needs a reason to fight. Concrete stakes are better than vague doom and gloom. Stating stakes crystalize what happens if one side fails. “If they can make my kids wear a mask, they can make them get the shot.”

If you want to win, you need a line in the sand that you stick to. No cucking. Cucking means it was never a line in the first place. The line has to be compatible with victory conditions. If you are a go along to get along type of person, be honest with yourself. For example, if you are planning to get the shot rather than lose your job, set your victory conditions and line appropriately. Boundaries means what someone is willing to do and not do. The list of “will dos” forms a list of possible tactics. Now is the time to plan when to employ them. Finally we come to the most important part of winning a war: Knowing your enemy’s battle plan.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” –Sun Tzu, Art of War Karen’s battle plan was outlined above. Based on it, pure bloods can predict what happens after General Karen directs a logistical maneuver and when pure bloods take the offensive. The gaslighting campaign of the past two years is a successful tactic. We’ve all experienced it many times now, but look at it in the context of Karen’s battle plan. Someone mentions reality or a scientific fact around a General Karen (like Fraudci or Pants ****ter) and the next thing out of their mouth is gaslighting.

Pure bloods scramble to explain why what the General stated is bull****. More gaslighting, fear porn, and shaming follows. “But I don’t want to kill Grandma,” the pure blood stammers. It’s a poor tactic and plays right into Karen’s logistics. Gaslighting allows their battle plan to proceed because the pure bloods are distracted and defending instead of going on the offensive. Now you know what to look for and what to expect. Don’t be shocked when it happens…again. As soon as pure bloods have victory conditions and logistics and tactics to support them, they join the battle. Until then it’s a one sided battle into cattle cars.

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“And might Omicron represent for them some final grasp at the last straw of narrative control?”

The Narratives Fail (Kunstler)

Does it finally look like Dr. Anthony Fauci is trying to carry out an assisted suicide of the United States? On the Sunday Morning TV chat circuit, the White House Covid-19 czar (a.k.a. The Science) declared that the new Omicron variant is “a clarion call” to get people vaccinated. Is that so, Dr. Fauci? Considering how well your “vaccines” work? And how many people have been maimed and killed by their side-effects? (More than all other vaccines combined over the past thirty years.) And how you knavishly outlawed effective and cheap early treatment protocols that would have put Covid-19 down by June of 2020 (and saved half-a-million lives). The Science also called on Sunday for the general re-masking of the public and averred to the possibility of more lockdowns ahead. And just at Christmas-time, you understand. What a nose this rascal has for politics!

Senator Ted Cruz (TX) called for the Department of Justice to prosecute The Science for lying to Congress, which The Science smugly laughed off, perhaps knowing that his world-beating, maliciously incompetent leadership in the Coronavirus saga would end up incriminating and delegitimizing the entire corrupt, Pharma-captured US public health bureaucracy, with collateral damage everywhere else in government — and therefore that no authority in the land would dare to swear him under oath in a court-of-law. Or so he may think for now.

Meanwhile, Virologist Barry Schoub, Chairman of South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19 Vaccines, declared the new Omicron Coronavirus “mild.” Could it be that the whole hoary Covid-19 narrative is falling apart now? Could Dr. Fauci and his sleazy associates in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WHO, the Big Pharma C-suites, the grifting university research labs, the despicable social media combine, and yet more sinister outfits such as the CIA and the WEF — might this unholy host of villains and fixers find themselves on-the-run? And might Omicron represent for them some final grasp at the last straw of narrative control?

It’s pretty clear that citizens of the liberal democracies are fed up with being pushed around, jabbed, driven out of business, lied-to, gaslighted, and deprived of their livelihoods. They increasingly can’t believe any of the bullshit issued by the medical establishment and its political hand-maidens, and why should they? The countries with the highest vaccination rates also happen to be the ones with the highest Covid cases. Countries with low vaccination rates and widespread use of early treatment with common drugs have low Covid cases. Two weeks after Japan okayed the use of Ivermectin in mid-November of this year, cases fell from a big surge down to near zero. What part of that is complicated?

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Untouchable for Senators?

Fauci Blasting ‘Dangerous Criticism’ Sets Off Rand Paul (RT)

US chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci claimed that his critics are targeting science by questioning his policies, saying it’s “dangerous.” Calling it “hubris,” Sen. Rand Paul doubled down on criticizing Fauci’s Covid-19 response. Paul (R-Kansas), Fauci’s arch-nemesis in the Senate, and other lawmakers who have questioned the veracity of his claims are “really criticizing science,” rather than the official himself, the White House medical adviser insisted during a recent interview with CBS’s Face the Nation. He also dismissed the senators’ opposition as “theater,” “nonsense” and “noise.” “Anybody who’s looking at this carefully realizes that there’s a distinct anti-science flavor to this, so if they get up and criticize science, nobody’s going to know what they’re talking about,” Fauci declared, appearing to insist that those targeting him personally were only doing so because they were afraid to face down science itself.

“If they get up there and really aim their bullets at Tony Fauci, well people can recognize that there’s a person there, so it’s easy to criticize,” the director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases argued. Responding on Twitter, Paul called out what he dubbed the “hubris” of Fauci’s comment, and claimed that Fauci has “worked so hard to ignore the science of natural immunity.” A trained ophthalmologist, Paul has frequently clashed with Fauci over the NIAID chief’s insistence that he represents the scientific establishment – despite apparently changing his public opinions more than once about the way the Covid-19 pandemic should be handled. The senator has repeatedly attacked Fauci on his alleged involvement in the controversial gain-of-function research of viruses such as SARS-CoV-2.

Paul’s Senate colleague Ted Cruz (R-Texas) backed up Paul on Twitter, noting that Fauci’s story regarding the National Institutes of Health’s involvement with such research seems to have changed, and no longer matches up with the NIH’s own claims regarding whether it funded such controversial work. Fauci has repeatedly denied involvement in gain-of-function research conducted in Wuhan, China – the city where the pandemic is believed to have originated. However, last month the NIH admitted it had funded certain experiments on bat coronaviruses in China through a grant provided to a company called EcoHealth Alliance, with which Fauci’s department was involved.

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Will it matter?

Will Twitter Become an Ocean of Suck? (Taibbi)

Jack Dorsey, the extend-o-bearded CEO who co-founded Twitter and whose fame grew with that of his increasingly powerful platform during the Trump years, resigned today. His departure is the latest plot point in a long-developing Internet tragicomedy, which has seen what was supposed to be a historically democratizing technological tool transformed into a dystopian force for censorship and control. The departure of Dorsey, the rare CEO who not only has a conscience but appears to consult it more than once every few years, is bad news for those who already had complaints about the company, which during his tenure came to occupy a central role in what’s left of American intellectual culture. Twitter under Dorsey suffered from working too well. Specifically, society responded to Donald Trump’s Tweet-driven 2016 presidential campaign as if it revealed a defect in the platform that needed fixing when actually Trump’s election was proof that Twitter was working much as intended. Our political establishment just wasn’t looking for that sort of functionality.

The original concept of Twitter was egalitarian, flattening, and iconoclastic: “To give everyone the power to create and share ideas, instantly, without barriers.” That mantra fit with then-CEO Dick Costolo’s 2010 claim that “We’re the free speech wing of the free speech party.” Prior to 2016, elite mouthpieces bragged about acting as gatekeepers to political power. Someone like then-ABC writer Mark Halperin could write boastful pieces about how a “Gang of 500” in Washington really decided the presidency. These were “campaign consultants, strategists, pollsters, pundits, and journalists who make up the modern-day political establishment,” as the New Yorker put it. When political debates were held, a handful of analysts on television told you who won. We, reporters, told you who was “electable” and who wasn’t, and people mostly listened, even if “electability” was a crock that mostly measured levels of corporate donor approval.

Then came 2016. Trump didn’t get the big Republican donor money (it went to Jeb Bush), he didn’t get the support of his party’s bureaucracy (which at various times pulled out stops to try to “derail” his candidacy for the nomination), and even conservative media locked arms against him early in the race (the National Review published an unprecedented “Conservatives Against Trump” mega-piece featuring a slew of famed mouthpieces, who aimed to forestall the “crisis for conservatism” Trump’s presence threatened). Trump throughout his political career benefited from free corporate media coverage, but by the time of his first nomination, he had universally negative editorial treatment in mainstream media and even serious detractors on stations like Fox. Once, that would have been fatal to a politician, which is why Nate Cohn could write with confidence in the New York Times that Trump had “just about no chance” to win the Republican nomination in 2016 — because, he said without embarrassment, it is “the party elites who traditionally decide nomination contests.” Such commentators didn’t figure on the power of the Internet, and especially Twitter.

Trump didn’t need the news media to amplify his message. He was expressing himself in a way that defied contextualization, on a Twitter account that essentially became the country’s most-followed media network. Between January 2015 and January 2016, Trump’s number of followers doubled, but beyond that, the average number of retweets went from 79 to 2,201, which as Politico noted, meant that his power of dissemination increased by a factor of 28 in that single year.

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The stupidity level doesn’t matter. We need Russiagate.

27 More Russian Diplomats Expelled From US (ZH)

The United States is preparing to expel over two dozen more Russian diplomats by January, as part of ongoing tit-for-tat punitive efforts which previously saw the Russian government forbit its citizens from serving as local staff for the US Embassy in Russia, greatly reducing its ability to process visas and other actions in a timely manner. The Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov revealed over the weekend in an interview that “our diplomats are being expelled” and detailed that 27 diplomats and their families are due to be expelled from American soil. “A large group of my comrades, 27 people with families, will leave us on January 30,” Antonov described according to Reuters. He said the embassy and consulates are now “facing a serious staff shortage.”


This follows two dozen Russian diplomats being told to leave in September, with the US refusing to renew their visas as is the normative practice. When that prior event happened, Amb. Antonov complained, “It has gotten to the point where the U.S. authorities cancel valid visas of spouses and children of our staff with no reasons provided. The widespread delays in renewing expired visas are also aimed at squeezing Russian diplomatic workers out of the country.” The State Department at the same time has downplayed that the moves have been retaliatory, instead framing it as but the result of an expired, unrenewed visa issue. On Monday Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov lashed out at Washington. He was cited in Russian media sources as demanding the US “must stop”… “We will definitely respond. We have already warned the US side that in order to prevent a further decline of personnel numbers here we cannot help but to respond. They must stop,” Ryabkov said.

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Italy

 

 

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Nov 162021
 
 November 16, 2021  Posted by at 9:48 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  95 Responses »


Francisco Goya The straw mannequin 1791-92

 

Who Will Answer? (Kunstler)
The Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine Monopoly: The Backstory (Kogon)
New Type Of Covid-19 Vaccine In The Works (RT)
Austria’s Greatest Olympian Quits Politics As Lockdown For Unvaxxed Starts (RT)
Why Have We Doctors Been Silent? (Wilk)
Biden’s Moribund Vaccine Mandate (AS)
Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccination Up to 9 Months (Lancet PP)
Gibraltar Cancels Christmas Celebrations Amid Covid Spike (Exp.)
Brits Will Need 3 Jabs to Be Considered ‘Fully Vaccinated’ -PM (ET)
Gavin Newsom Is Lying About His Vaccine Injury And Now I Can Prove It (Kirsch)
Fauci, Gates Admit COVID Vaccines Don’t Work as Advertised (CHD)
160,000 US Military Families Struggling With Food Insecurity (JTN)
Bitcoin’s Mysterious Inventor May Be Revealed In Court (RT)

 

 

Ryan Cole: Vaccines weaken immune systems

 

 



SARS-CoV-2 is a highly transmissible aerosolized cytotoxic chimeric quasispecies RNA virus.
You’re not gonna get a worthwhile vaccine out of it.
In any form.
Ever.

 

 

“One wonders: is this child vax campaign an attempt to eliminate the last major control group in the population?”

Who Will Answer? (Kunstler)

Did all that vaxxing help? It apparently did nothing to prevent transmission of the disease. The vaxxed were spreading it as effectively as the unvaxxed, and the vaxxed were catching the disease as easily, too, though supposedly suffering not as badly as the unvaxxed (if you choose to believe the official press releases, and why would you believe them?). Then, along came the reports of “adverse reactions” to the vaccines, many of them quite grave — clots, strokes, infarctions, neurological havoc, organ failure. In mid-October this year, the VAERS registry had it at 17,000 deaths and 26,000 permanent disabilities, and the rule-of-thumb was that these represented only 10 percent of the actual number of adverse events because the VAERS website was so badly designed that it crashed half the time any doctor tried to use it… plus the doctors were being silenced and punished for voicing any distrust of the vaccines.

Then why the mad rush to vaccinate all the children in America? There have been next-to-zero covid deaths among children besides a few hundred with grave co-morbidities like cancer or cystic fibrosis — and the hospitals had a cash subsidy incentive from the federal government to list them as dying “with Covid.” Children are far more likely to suffer harm from the vaccines than from the Covid-19 disease. The child vax experiment is only just underway, and there are already enough cases of myocarditis and other disorders to be very concerned. The medical establishment has no idea what the long-term effects on children might be, in particular on their reproductive systems, since the chief active ingredient in the vaccines, the spike protein, has a proclivity for the sexual organs. It happens, too, by the way, that mothers who got vaxxed in early 2021 are just now giving birth to babies with myocarditis and other signature disorders of adverse mRNA vaccine reactions. Keep your eye on that sub-plot of the story.

One wonders: is this child vax campaign an attempt to eliminate the last major control group in the population? (Or just to eliminate a big demographic chunk altogether?) Is it tied in some way to beating the release date for Pfizer’s “Comirnaty” vaccine — which would vacate the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) that protects the pharma companies from liability? Despite delirious propaganda from the likes of National Public Radio, the bad news is out, and the bad news is that the Covid vaccines for children are bad news. Parents ought to object to any official attempts to coerce them into vaxxing their kids, but will they? I’d guess that the reaction will be ferocious. Stand by on that.

Meanwhile, what would be an intelligent response to Covid-19 at this point? Well, how about letting it burn through the population as expeditiously as possible, along with an aggressive nationwide early treatment program using existing effective drugs such as ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, fluvoxamine, budesonide, monoclonal antibodies, for starters, along with vitamin D3, quercetin, zinc, selenium, N-acetyl L-cysteine (NAC)? That would minimize fatalities and confer superior natural immunity throughout the whole population.

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“But if Pfizer did not rule the world two years ago, how did it come to rule the world today?”

The Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine Monopoly: The Backstory (Kogon)

The notion that vaccine mandates and related measures to compel vaccination are the product of the influence of “Big Pharma” on governments is a commonplace among the critics of such measures. Moreover, with the Pfizer vaccine going from one regulatory success to another and increasingly dominating the Covid-19 vaccine market in both the United States and continental Europe (not to mention Israel, whose vaccination campaign has consisted almost exclusively of Pfizer), it is clear that what is really meant today by “Big Pharma” must be Pfizer and Pfizer alone. Following negative media coverage of adverse effects (in particular, thrombosis) and, in some cases, regulatory intervention on the part of national supervisory agencies, both of the other actual “Big Pharma” alternatives, AstraZeneca in the EU and Johnson & Johnson in the EU and the US, have been relegated to the status of bit players outside of the United Kingdom.

It would appear that in the West at least, we are moving toward a virtual Covid-19 vaccine monopoly for Pfizer. Even the Covid vaccine of Moderna – a company that famously had never brought a drug to market previously and hence that could hardly be described as “Big Pharma” – is increasingly coming under scrutiny for causing myocarditis in young males and its use is being restricted to people under 30 in a whole series of European countries. Pfizer, by contrast, has remained untouched. This even though myocarditis is a widely-reported and officially acknowledged adverse effect of both mRNA vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer, even though recent statistical analysis by the CDC, at any rate, found no “significant difference” in reported myocarditis between the two vaccines for males 18-25, and even though there is evidence that Moderna provides longer-lasting protection (the effectiveness of the vaccine even being twice that of Pfizer six months on, according to this recent study [p. 11]).

What greater proof of the inordinate power of “Big Pharma” – i.e. Pfizer – could there be? But if Pfizer did not rule the world two years ago, how did it come to rule the world today? Moreover, as many Americans will only have discovered when the FDA’s full approval of the “Pfizer” vaccine was given not to Pfizer, after all, but to BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH of Mainz, Germany, the actual developer of the so-called “Pfizer” vaccine is precisely Pfizer’s German partner BioNTech. This is already evident indeed from the codename of the vaccine: BNT162b2. Needless to say, “BNT” does not stand for Pfizer. The partnership agreement between the two firms likewise makes abundantly clear that BNT162b2 is BioNTech’s vaccine. Thus, apart from its own direct proceeds from sales of the vaccine, BioNTech receives “up to double-digit tiered royalty payments” from Pfizer on the latter’s sales of the vaccine in Pfizer’s assigned territories.

This is in addition to “$120 million in upfront, equity and near-term research payments and up to an additional $305 million in potential development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments”. (See BioNTech press release here.) BioNTech, incidentally, has a similar agreement with Fosun Pharma for commercializing its vaccine in China. Now, far from being “Big Pharma,” prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, BioNTech was still, in effect, a small, struggling start-up, which, like Moderna, had yet to bring a product to market. BioNTech’s own 2019 annual report filing to the SEC describes the company as follows: “We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with no pharmaceutical products approved for commercial sale.”

The filing continues frankly, “We have incurred significant losses since our inception and we anticipate that we will continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future….” Thus, in the 2nd quarter of 2020, BioNTech had only 41.8 million euros in (non-product) revenues and losses of more than twice that amount (88.3 million euros). Thanks to its Covid-19 vaccine, however, one year later, in the 2nd quarter of 2021, its revenues had rocketed to 5.31 billion euros – a more than 100-fold increase! – of which over three-quarters (4 billion euros) is profit. As the economist Carsten Brzeski of the Dutch bank ING put it to Reuters, BioNTech had gone “from 0 to 100 in just a year.” BioNTech’s recently announced 3rd quarter results show estimated revenues of over 6 billion euros and gross profits of nearly 4.7 billion euros.

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Always, as long as there’s money to be made.

New Type Of Covid-19 Vaccine In The Works (RT)

A British company is moving towards phase 1 trials for its novel Covid-19 vaccine, which is applied as a skin patch and uses T-cells to fight back against the virus. In theory it offers longer-lasting protection. Speaking to The Guardian in an article published on Monday, Emergex Chief Commercial Officer Robin Cohen hailed the awarding of regulatory approval by Swiss authorities for allowing his Oxfordshire-based firm to push forward with the clinical trials. Cohen stated that it was the first time a regulator had approved a Covid-19 vaccine for clinical trials in which the vaccine’s sole purpose was to “generate a targeted T-cell response” rather than an antibody response.

While the antibody response, engendered by overcoming infection or the administration of one of the current cohorts of widely used vaccines, wanes over time, the Emergex skin patch could offer longer-lasting immunity – possibly for decades, according to Cohen. The COO claimed that the vaccine could be more effective too. Research published last week described a so-called “abortive infection” in which T-cells destroy the virus before it has the chance to settle in the body. However, Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told the Guardian that a T-cell vaccine was unlikely to be capable of providing complete cover against the virus, suggesting it could be used to complement an existing vaccine that generates an antibody response.

Altmann noted that the Pfizer vaccine elicits a weaker T-cell response than the AstraZeneca shot, but the former is considered more effective against Covid-19. Emergex’s skin patch vaccine will start its trial on January 3 after the Swiss drugs regulator granted approval for the 26-person test. Interim results from the trial are expected in June with some participants receiving higher doses than others. Cohen added that the skin patch vaccine would not be available until 2025 at the earliest, noting the normal timeframe for vaccine development.

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“I am deeply ashamed of our country and, as an Austrian, I am angry, sad and stunned at the same time.”

Austria’s Greatest Olympian Quits Politics As Lockdown For Unvaxxed Starts (RT)

Austria’s most successful Olympian, Felix Gottwald, has accused the government of discriminating and dividing by introducing a strict lockdown for the unvaccinated, causing the country’s Sports Minister to defend the measures. As of Monday, around two million Austrians who have not yet received their Covid vaccinations have been thurst into the initial 10-day measures with their country facing a rise in cases and strains on its public health system. They have received permission to leave their homes only for work or food shopping, with police carrying out spot checks across public spaces to determine vaccination status and dish out fines ranging from €500 ($572) to €1,450 ($1,650) for anyone caught breaching protocol or refusing to comply. “We are not taking this step lightly but unfortunately it is necessary,” said Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg.

In an open letter voicing his disgust at the move, three-time Olympic and triple world champion Gottwald has resigned from his role as chairman for popular sports while denouncing “division, agitation, [and] discrimination”, which he claims are “the government imperatives of the hour”. “After nine official months in this function, I can say that there may be a lot going on in our country, but certainly not about the health and well-being of Austrians and the people living in Austria – and that in the midst of the greatest health crisis,” the Nordic combined all-time great continued. “I am deeply ashamed of our country and, as an Austrian, I am angry, sad and stunned at the same time.”

A self-professed “healthy person who uses sensible and sensible measures to contain the pandemic very responsibly”, Gottwald took aim at the Minister of Sports, Werner Kogler, and said that he “would have the power to set levers in motion that promote, rather than prevent, exercise and (popular) sport in what is probably the greatest health crisis of our time”, with the unvaccinated unable to partake in such activities. “As an athlete, I have learned to deal with defeat and failure, to learn from them, to develop myself further and to treat myself and others with respect and dignity. I am currently missing these virtues entirely on the part of politics,” he stated. As Gottwald thanked party members and the Bundes-Sport GmbH organization which he was a part of, he admitted that he accepted that he had “failed” in his duties and felt unable to “continue as if I wasn’t aware of the unsportsmanlike and unhealthy developments surrounding this pandemic”, which he said “is not an option for me.”

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“A betrayal of the Nuremberg Code constitutes a crime against humanity.”

Why Have We Doctors Been Silent? (Wilk)

I have watched as ‘the science’ has been presented on the national stage flanked by Union Jack flags as an unassailable truth. For something so apparently inviolable, it seems to shift and change disconcertingly from week to week, and for those of us looking beneath the pomp to the plain data, we see the rather unexciting (and unchanging) truth: the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, as it turns out, has a much lower infection fatality rate than early predictions. It is less deadly than the seasonal flu in children. The Office for National Statistics has reported the mean age of a Covid-attributed death in the UK to be 80.3 years, slightly older than deaths from other causes (78.2 years over the comparable time period).

What has been most upsetting for me has been the unquestioning compliance from the medical community as increasingly draconian, non-evidence-based and destructive virus control measures have been implemented. Some of the overt corruption, financial conflict of interests and politicisation has been laid bare in editorials in prominent medical journals such as the BMJ. But the vast majority of doctors have had no interest in asking questions or looking further. My concern over our professional passivity turned to alarm as our compliance required us to support the roll-out of an experimental vaccine to a trusting population. Contrary to the basic tenets of evidence-based medicine, pronouncing an experimental medical intervention ‘safe and effective’ now does not seem to require any peer-reviewed evidence of safety or clinically meaningful efficacy.

The vaccines have not been shown in clinical trials to reduce transmission, hospitalisation or death. The phase 3 trials are not over and the safety data is not complete; the earliest trials will run into 2023. The consent form for the Covid-19 vaccine does not disclose its status as an unlicensed experimental product. The risks remain largely unknown, although it is becoming clear that the vaccine has resulted in death or injury in a rising number of healthy people. A growing number of vaccine-induced syndromes are being recognised, including immune thrombotic thrombocytopaenia, myocarditis and menstrual irregularities, among many others being published in the literature. At the time of writing, there have been more than 380,000 reports, 1.2million injuries and 1,700 fatalities submitted under the MHRA Yellow Card scheme.

The Prime Minister himself has communicated the latest evidence, that two doses of the vaccine do not stop one contracting the virus, nor do they stop person-to-person transmission, they merely reduce the severity of symptoms. Despite this, it is clear the public are being subjected to a relentless media campaign of shame and coercion, that they must take this experimental product ‘for the greater good’ lest they be viewed as selfish cowards. A vaccine passport is now likely to be rolled out under ‘Plan B’, which proposes to return unlawfully usurped fundamental human rights and freedoms to only the vaccinated. Workers in the care home sector have had their livelihoods tethered to their compliance with the vaccine mandates, and a recent announcement confirms that this will soon include NHS employees. Not only is there no scientific basis for these mandates, these coercive actions breach the Nuremberg Code, as does the unprecedented lack of animal safety data for a novel medical product. A betrayal of the Nuremberg Code constitutes a crime against humanity.

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“SCOTUS will concur with the 5th Circuit that this arbitrary edict is fatally flawed.”

Biden’s Moribund Vaccine Mandate (AS)

The Biden administration will inevitably ask the Supreme Court to review last Friday’s decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to halt its vaccine mandate. The effort is likely to be futile, however. Writing for the appeals court, Judge Kurt Engelhardt confidently predicted that the mandate’s challengers “are likely to succeed on the merits” under judicial review. Engelhardt took particular exception to the attempt to impose the mandate through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), pointing out that the Constitution’s Commerce Clause and the nondelegation doctrine preclude OSHA from making such “sweeping pronouncements on matters of public health affecting every member of society in the profoundest of ways.”

The decision also declared the mandate “fatally flawed on its own terms,” emphasizing that it purports to “save employees with 99 or more coworkers from a ‘grave danger’ in the workplace, while making no attempt to shield employees with 98 or fewer coworkers from the very same threat.” This seriously undermined the administration’s claim that the purpose of the mandate is a response to a genuine national emergency: “The underinclusive nature of the Mandate implies that the Mandate’s true purpose is not to enhance workplace safety, but instead to ramp up vaccine uptake by any means necessary.” This created questions concerning OSHA’s use of the emergency temporary standard (ETS):

As the name suggests, emergency temporary standards “are an ‘unusual response’ to ‘exceptional circumstances.’” Thus, courts have uniformly observed that OSHA’s authority to establish emergency temporary standards under § 655(c) “is an ‘extraordinary power’ that is to be ‘delicately exercised’ in only certain ‘limited situations.’” But the Mandate at issue here … is a one-size fits-all sledgehammer that makes hardly any attempt to account for differences in workplaces (and workers) that have more than a little bearing on workers’ varying degrees of susceptibility to the supposedly “grave danger” the Mandate purports to address.

The appeals court goes on to point out that President Biden and OSHA have both undermined the legitimacy of the mandate by contradicting their own prior positions concerning the need to impose such a measure. Judge Engelhardt quotes Biden’s answer to a question posed to him on December 4 of last year concerning whether vaccines should be mandatory: “No, I don’t think [they] should be mandatory. I wouldn’t demand it be mandatory…” The judge also quotes a D.C. Circuit Brief filed by OSHA in May of 2020: “Based on substantial evidence … an ETS is not necessary both because there are existing OSHA and non-OSHA standards that address COVID-19 and because an ETS would actually be counterproductive.”

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“..47% [..] at day 121..”

Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccination Up to 9 Months (Lancet PP)

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using Swedish nationwide registries. The cohort comprised 842,974 pairs (N=1,684,958), including individuals vaccinated with 2 doses of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, mRNA-1273, or BNT162b2, and matched unvaccinated individuals. Cases of symptomatic infection and severe Covid-19 (hospitalization or 30-day mortality after confirmed infection) were collected from 12 January to 4 October 2021.


Findings: Vaccine effectiveness of BNT162b2 against infection waned progressively from 92% (95% CI, 92-93, P<0·001) at day 15-30 to 47% (95% CI, 39-55, P<0·001) at day 121-180, and from day 211 and onwards no effectiveness could be detected (23%; 95% CI, -2-41, P=0·07). The effectiveness waned slightly slower for mRNA-1273, being estimated to 59% (95% CI, 18-79) from day 181 and onwards. In contrast, effectiveness of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 was generally lower and waned faster, with no effectiveness detected from day 121 and onwards (-19%, 95% CI, -97-28), whereas effectiveness from heterologous ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 / mRNA was maintained from 121 days and onwards (66%; 95% CI, 41-80). Overall, vaccine effectiveness was lower and waned faster among men and older individuals. For the outcome severe Covid-19, effectiveness waned from 89% (95% CI, 82-93, P<0·001) at day 15-30 to 42% (95% CI, -35-75, P=0·21) from day 181 and onwards, with sensitivity analyses showing notable waning among men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities.

Interpretation: Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19 infection wanes progressively over time across all subgroups, but at different rate according to type of vaccine, and faster for men and older frail individuals. The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain high through 9 months, although not for men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities. This strengthens the evidence-based rationale for administration of a third booster dose.

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“Gibraltar; the most vaccinated region on Earth (100% fully vaccinated, 40% boosted) has now cancelled Christmas due to “exponential” rise in cases.”

Gibraltar Cancels Christmas Celebrations Amid Covid Spike (Exp.)

While the government has called upon the public to “exercise their own judgement”, they have “strongly” advised against any social events for at least the next four weeks, discouraging people from holding private Christmas events. Gibraltar has seen a steady increase in active cases of COVID-19 throughout October and November, which has gained pace over the past few days. Health Minister, the Hon Samantha Sacramento, described the increase in case numbers as “drastic”, encouraging people to come forward to receive their booster vaccine. The government has advised members of the public to wear masks, avoid large gatherings and maintain social distancing. They also advised people to “conduct themselves in a cautious and sensible manner”, reminding the public that “we are still in a global pandemic and that people are losing their lives every day all over the world.”


Gibraltar has seen an average of 47 cases per day over the last seven days. The country saw 124 new cases appear over the weekend, taking the number of active cases to 474. Ms Sacramento said: “The drastic increase in the numbers of people testing positive for COVID-19 in recent days is a stark reminder that the virus is still very prevalent in our community and that it is the responsibility of us all to take every reasonable precaution to protect ourselves and our loved ones. “The vaccination programme for 12 to 15-year-olds and the booster vaccination programme are now underway, and Gibraltar received 4680 more doses this week. “Everyone who is eligible for a vaccine or a booster is strongly encouraged to take up the offer when they are called.”

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Cheaper by the dozen?

Brits Will Need 3 Jabs to Be Considered ‘Fully Vaccinated’ -PM (ET)

People will need to have COVID-19 booster shots on top of the original two doses to be considered “fully vaccinated” in the UK, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday. At a Downing Street press briefing, Johnson said the concept of what constitutes “full vaccination” will need to be adjusted. “On boosters, it’s very clear that getting three jabs—getting your booster—will become an important fact and it will make life easier for you in all sorts of ways, and we will have to adjust our concept of what constitutes a full vaccination to take account of that,” he said. “As we can see from what’s happening, the two jabs sadly do start to wane, so we’ve got to be responsible and we’ve got to reflect that fact in the way we measure what constitutes full vaccination.”


Johnson said the government will be making plans to add the booster to the digital COVID-19 passport issued by the National Health Service. The prime minister urged people to get the booster jab as soon as they are eligible. “It would be an utter tragedy if, after everything we have been through, people who had done the right thing by getting double vaccinated ended up becoming seriously ill or even losing their lives because they allowed their immunity to wane,” he said. Earlier on Monday, the UK government accepted the advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to extend the booster vaccine programme to include people aged 40 to 49. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: “We know immunity to COVID-19 begins to wane after six months and new data published today shows a third dose boosts protection against symptomatic infection to more than 90 percent—this highlights just how important it is that everyone eligible gets their top-up jabs as soon as possible.”

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Not Kirsch’s strongest outing. But I guess it’s not his fault that a previous piece on Newsom is his most viewed yet.

Gavin Newsom Is Lying About His Vaccine Injury And Now I Can Prove It (Kirsch)

Recently, I wrote a very popular article about Gavin Newsom being vaccine injured. It got over 250K views, my most popular article so far. As expected, Newsom denied it: Naturally, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and Newsweek immediately “fact checked” my article and deemed it to be false. Of course, none of them could explain why Newsom was a no-show at the UN Climate summit via Zoom. Not even for 5 minutes via Zoom!?! Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Not a very thorough fact check. And none of the organizations analyzed the before and after Newsom videos either by asking a prominent neurologist for their opinion. I guess it is hard to find competent help in the fact checking department nowadays.

Not only was Newsom himself vaccine injured and deliberately covered it up, but I found out that his kids aren’t vaccinated either. Want to know why? Because his wife is smart: she knows that vaccines are dangerous. She doesn’t want his kids to be vaccine injured. And she’s right! Good for her. Bravo! But Gavin’s stance is horrible. He’s not just suggesting how you should care for your kids. The governor is dictating medical treatment for your kids based on what he believes. But for his own kids? No way are they going to get vaccinated. He said, “Public or private, they have to be vaccinated.” I don’t have a problem with Gavin recommending vaccination. Everyone makes mistakes. But he has no right to force your child to do what he wants even if the vaccine was perfectly safe (which it isn’t). And it’s hypocritical to force you to vaccinate your kids when he won’t vaccinate his own kids.


[..] Here’s how I am going to prove to the world I’m right: Gavin, I’m willing to bet you $1M that I’m right about you being vaccine injured and that you are lying about the injury and covering it up. We don’t have to drag your kids into it. Will you take my bet? All I need is for you to disclose the names of all doctors who were involved in any way in your vaccine injury treatment within 21 days of the booster and an order from you demanding that all of these doctors disclose to me any and all vaccine-related conversations, emails, notes, and/or medical records regarding you and your vaccine side effects in the 21 days after you got your booster and give me permission to disclose that information publicly. That’s it. Easy peasy. If you were telling the truth, you have absolutely nothing to lose. You will provide no list of doctors and your doctors will not be able to tell me anything since there is nothing to tell and no records to produce! There will be nothing to disclose.

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“..waning to the point where booster doses will become “essential” for everyone.”

Fauci, Gates Admit COVID Vaccines Don’t Work as Advertised (CHD)

In two recent interviews, pandemic thought leaders Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates drastically changed their opinions on COVID vaccine effectiveness — and used their newfound concerns to push booster shots for the general population. Last week, in an interview with Jeremy Hunt at London’s Policy Exchange, Gates admitted what many, including the Lancet, have been saying for months — that the vaccines aren’t effective. Gates, who previously referred to the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines as “magic,” told Hunt “we need a new way of doing the vaccines.” Only days later, Fauci echoed similar sentiments during a New York Times podcast. Fauci said the COVID vaccine’s effectiveness against infection, hospitalization and even death, for all age groups, is waning to the point where booster doses will become “essential” for everyone.

Fauci said: “I think the boosting is going to be an absolutely essential component of our response, not a bonus, not a luxury, but an absolute essential part of the program.” Fauci said authorities are observing vaccine waning “involving all age groups.” Making his case for a wider booster program, he told The Times the vaccines are “waning to the point that you’re seeing more and more people getting breakthrough infections, and more and more of those people who are getting breakthrough infections are winding up in the hospital.” Today in the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson similarly spoke of widening the UK’s COVID booster program.

“Getting three jabs or getting your booster will become an important fact … We will have to adjust our concept of what constitutes a full vaccination,” he told Britans. The mainstream media also is priming the public for an unknown number of additional COVID shots. Sunday, Bloomberg reported: “It may turn out that the term ‘booster’ is a bit of a misnomer, and that the correct number of shots for maximum efficacy isn’t yet known.” If Gates and Fauci coordinated their latest COVID vaccine messaging, to manufacture consent for wider uptake of COVID vaccines through booster programs, it wouldn’t be the first time the two have collaborated closely on vaccines.

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“We’re the mightiest military on the face of the earth..”

You sure?

160,000 US Military Families Struggling With Food Insecurity (JTN)

At least 160,000 active-duty military members are struggling to feed their families, according to Feeding America, which coordinates over 200 food banks across the country. It is unknown what the exact scope of the issue is, as there have been no formal studies. But activists say it has continued for years, mostly with junior-level enlisted service members — ranks E1 to E4 in military parlance — who have children, The Associated Press reported. “It’s a shocking truth that’s known to many food banks across the United States,” said Feeding America’s government relations officer, Vince Hall. “This should be the cause of deep embarrassment.” During the previous year, 29% of military members faced food insecurity, according to an estimate by Feeding America.

Junior enlisted ranks receive modest pay and have to frequently move, making it difficult for their spouses to maintain a job, the AP reported. There is a significant network of military-adjacent charitable organizations, like Blue Star Families and the Armed Services YMCA, that have created an infrastructure of food banks near the majoriy of most domestic bases. Military families living outside of base grounds receive a Basic Allowance for Housing to help cover the majority of their costs. But the 2008 Food and Nutrition Act counts the allowance as income when calculating food stamps eligibility, which results in disqualifying thousands of military families. However, the allowance does not count as income with WIC benefits for mothers and children or for tax reasons.

“It’s one of these things that the American people don’t know about, but it’s a matter of course among military members. We know this,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a former Blackhawk pilot who lost both of her legs in a helicopter crash in Iraq. “We’re the mightiest military on the face of the earth and yet those who are on the lower rung of our military ranks are — if they are married and have a child or two– they’re hungry. How can you focus on carrying out the mission and defending our democracy. If you’re worried about whether or not your kid gets dinner tonight?”

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How do you reveal what you don’t know?

Bitcoin’s Mysterious Inventor May Be Revealed In Court (RT)

The true identity of bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, who has been one of the financial world’s enduring mysteries, could be finally unveiled in a Florida court, the Wall Street Journal reports.According to the media, a lawsuit is currently underway where the family of deceased man David Kleiman is suing his former business partner Craig Wright over control of their shared assets. The assets in question are a cache of about one million bitcoins (worth over $64 billion), belonging to bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright, a 51-year-old Australian programmer living in London, has been making statements since 2016 saying he created bitcoin. Those claims, however, have been strongly criticized and dismissed by most of the bitcoin community.

The family reportedly plans to provide evidence that Wright and Kleiman worked together since the cryptocurrency’s inception. “We believe the evidence will show there was a partnership to create and mine over one million bitcoins,” Kleiman family lawyer Vel Freedman told the WSJ. The defense aims to prove that Wright is the sole creator of bitcoin. “We believe the court will find there’s nothing to indicate or record that they were in a partnership,” Wright’s lawyer said. Some cryptocurrency experts still remain skeptical about whether Wright or Kleiman actually had the knowledge needed to create the world’s most prominent crypto token.

The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for the author of the white paper titled ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’ in 2008, remains a mystery. Various theories have emerged but to date nobody knows who Nakamoto is. One of the most celebrated candidates was a 64-year-old Japanese-American engineer from California named Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto. In 2014, he became the subject of an extensive Newsweek magazine report which purported to identify bitcoin’s inventor. The man, however, has denied any involvement with cryptocurrency.

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Nov 132021
 
 November 13, 2021  Posted by at 9:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , ,  68 Responses »


Mestre da Família Artés The Last Judgment and the Mass of Saint Gregory 1500-1520

 

US Appeals Court Again Rejects Biden’s Vaccine Mandate (RT)
Will Biden’s Vaccine-Mandate “Work-Around” Work with the Supreme Court? (Turley)
Why Covid Vaccine Mandates Are Completely Nonsensical (Kirsch)
Over 65: Health Pass Deactivated 6 Months And 5 Weeks After 2nd Dose (BFM)
CDC Crushes Rights of Naturally Immune Without Proof They Transmit Virus (Siri)
Latvia Bans Unvaccinated Lawmakers From Voting, Docks Pay (R.)
Austria To Declare Nationwide Lockdown For Unvaccinated People (BNO)
The Fight to Allow Doctors to “Doctor” Heads to a Virginia Court (FLCCC)
The Recognition (Kunstler)
When Science Speaks in Tongues: How Glossolalia can lead to Collapse (Bardi)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Collapse
https://twitter.com/i/status/1459187939116785664

 

 

 

 

“staggeringly overbroad” and an abuse of “extraordinary power.”

“critical to note that the (Biden Admin) makes no serious attempt to explain why OSHA and the President himself were against vaccine mandates before they were for one here.”

US Appeals Court Again Rejects Biden’s Vaccine Mandate (RT)

A US federal appeals court has again ruled against President Joe Biden’s national vaccine mandate for companies with 100 or more workers, shredding the policy as “staggeringly overbroad” and an abuse of “extraordinary power.” The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stark rebuke to Biden’s vaccine requirement for larger American companies in a ruling on Friday, stating that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) – the federal agency tapped to enforce the mandate – was not created to “make sweeping pronouncements on matters of public health affecting every member of society in the profoundest of ways.”

“The Mandate is staggeringly overbroad,” Judge Kurt Engelhardt said, noting that it does not take into account the diversity of workplaces across the country, nor the fact that Covid-19 “is more dangerous to some employees than to other employees.” As an example, he compared a hypothetical 28-year-old truck driver who works in isolation to a “62-year-old prison janitor” employed in more cramped conditions. The Biden administration initially announced the requirement in September, with OSHA following up earlier this month with an emergency order to enforce the mandate. The agency will require all workers at firms with more than 100 employees to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by early next year, or else test for the virus regularly and wear masks at all times while working.

The appeals court issued its first stay on November 6 after a litany of plaintiffs – including a number of companies and several US states – challenged the move, conducting an expedited judicial review. Friday’s ruling reaffirmed the pause, telling OSHA to “take no steps to implement or enforce the Mandate until further court order.” Despite the first stay, the White House has continued to urge businesses to follow the vaccine dictate and effectively ignore the ruling, potentially setting up a battle in the Supreme Court. While OSHA does have the power to issue what’s known as an “emergency temporary standard,” or ETS, the judge observed that only a single standard has survived legal scrutiny since the agency was founded in the 1970s. “The reason for the rarity of this form of emergency action is simple,” Engelhardt went on, adding that courts and OSHA itself have agreed “for generations” that such orders constitute “extraordinary power” which must be “delicately exercised, and only in those emergency situations which require it.”

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I can’t see the Supreme Court allowing the OSHA abuse.

Will Biden’s Vaccine-Mandate “Work-Around” Work with the Supreme Court? (Turley)

OSHA regulations are designed for dangers inherent in a given workplace or industry. In the case of hard hats, things fall, and workers need to protect their heads. Likewise, if workers are being exposed to a toxic chemical in a given industry, that industry can face an ETS. The idea is to stop businesses from creating dangerous conditions once people enter workplaces. But this national vaccine mandate is different. The administration arguably is using the workplace to make society at large safer. White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre seemed to make that point on Monday when she insisted that OSHA clearly has this authority because “more than 750,000 people have died of COVID. You have approximately 1,300 people a day, who continue to die a day, as I said, from COVID. If that’s not a grave danger, I don’t know what else is.”

However, those are people dying in society at large, not in workplaces. While some may have contracted the virus in the workplace, courts may demand a closer nexus to a “grave danger” inherent in the workplace. The White House has expressly admitted that it is seeking to “reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans by using regulatory powers and … these requirements will become dominant in the workplace.” It is not even clear that the rule is necessary. Courts have uniformly upheld the right of employers to impose mandatory vaccination or testing requirements as a condition for employment; states have enhanced authority over such public health measures, too.

This is, admittedly, a novel issue, and there are good arguments on both sides. But it also is a generally-worded statute that can be interpreted broadly, and I expect a split in court decisions — and that only increases the likelihood of a Supreme Court review. Once there, the Biden administration could be giving some justices an opportunity to review not mandates but OSHA’s discretion over such mandate orders. A majority of the court has shown an interest in rolling back the so-called Chevron Doctrine, which affords agencies great deference in the interpretation and enforcement of federal law. After long debating whether it even has this authority, OSHA has suddenly found it, and then has issued one of the most comprehensive health-based standards in its history — all without rule-making or debate. Ironically, the Supreme Court warned against such sudden agency “finds” of regulatory authority.

In 2014, the court ruled that “When an agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to regulate a significant portion of the American economy, we typically greet its announcement with a measure of skepticism. We expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decision of vast ‘economic and political significance.’” Indeed, the Court recently rejected Biden’s effort to continue the eviction moratorium under the same type of sweeping interpretation by saying “[i]t strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the [agency] the sweeping authority that it asserts.”

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“..neither vaccine status nor the presence or absence of symptoms should influence the recommendation and implementation of good public health practices..”

Why Covid Vaccine Mandates Are Completely Nonsensical (Kirsch)

Let’s be clear.COVID vaccine mandates are necessary because the protected need to be protected from the unprotected by forcing the unprotected to use the protection that didn’t protect the protected. Get it? A study from UC Davis and UCSF authors published on October 5, 2021 show conclusively that the viral loads are exactly the same in vaccinated and unvaccinated. “No Significant Difference in Viral Load Between Vaccinated and Unvaccinated, Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Groups Infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant. The data gathered in this study during the surge of the Delta variant strongly support the notion that neither vaccine status nor the presence or absence of symptoms should influence the recommendation and implementation of good public health practices, including mask wearing, testing, social distancing, and other measures designed to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2.”

In other words, the latest data from UCSF shows that basing public health practices on vaccination status is nonsensical. A person who is unvaccinated is just as likely to have and spread COVID as someone who is vaccinated. They are no different. If they were different, we’d see it clearly in that study (which sampled people at random times). In short, we are not following the science at all with mandates. We are mandating something that makes no difference to the health of others. Mandates only infringe our liberties to do what we choose with our body. [..] ” The CDC admits that there isn’t a single known case of a person with “recovered immunity” infecting someone with COVID. So if you have had COVID, you should SURELY be exempt from both vaccine mandates and testing. Yet we treat such people the same as unvaccinated. There is absolutely no way to justify that. The data is unambiguous.

And to make matters worse, nobody in the medical community is raising any objections! They are all brain dead. This stuff couldn’t be more obvious. Is there a hidden benefit that the vaccinated are less likely to get infected? Well, the study only looked at infected people, so that’s possible. However, the way the vaccine works is to create antibodies and T-cell immunity that would fight off any infection that came in. So a working vaccine would always show a significantly lower level of infection for all vaccinated people at all times. We see no difference. So explain to me the mechanism of how you think the vaccine is preventing infection? A new magical process? Is there a hidden benefit that people who are vaccinated are less likely to be hospitalized like they say? No, there is nothing we’ve seen in any of the research that would lead to this. Everything we have measured shows the opposite: it basically suppresses your immune system in general, raises D-dimer, raises troponin, etc. All bad things. The only potentially good thing it does do is raise your antibody levels, but clearly these antibodies aren’t making much of a difference based on this study since the virus has mutated to avoid the vaccines.

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Macron is crazy. At least Napoleon was brilliant too.

Over 65: Health Pass Deactivated 6 Months And 5 Weeks After 2nd Dose (BFM)

To keep their health pass after December 15, people over the age of 65 already doubly vaccinated will have to receive a third injection before crossing the six-month and five-week date after their second dose. This Wednesday morning, Gabriel Attal clarified the announcements of Emmanuel Macron, in particular on the question of the third dose for those over 65 years old. “On December 15, the pass will be deactivated,” said the government spokesperson on France Info , for “over 65s, if you have had your second dose for more than 6 months and 5 weeks”, without to have made recall. “You will have alerts which will remind you that it is important to recall, there will also be Health Insurance”, added the government spokesperson. Nearly 100,000 appointments have been made for the booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine within an hour of the president’s speech on Tuesday evening.

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The definition of “naturally immune” to only mean those who have been infected makes no sense. Is it because what keeps most people from getting Covid is hard to measure? Across the world, max 10% of people ever even test positive. But they’re not “naturally immune”?

CDC Crushes Rights of Naturally Immune Without Proof They Transmit Virus (Siri)

You would assume that if the CDC was going to crush the civil and individual rights of those with natural immunity by having them expelled from school, fired from their jobs, separated from the military, and worse, the CDC would have proof of at least one instance of an unvaccinated, naturally immune individual transmitting the COVID-19 virus to another individual. If you thought this, you would be wrong. My firm, on behalf of ICAN, asked the CDC for precisely this proof. ICAN wanted to see proof of any instance in which someone who previously had COVID-19 became reinfected with and transmitted the virus to someone else. The CDC’s incredible response is that it does not have a single document reflecting that this has ever occurred. Not one. In contrast, there are endless documents reflecting cases of vaccinated individuals becoming infected with and transmitting the virus to others. It goes on and on…

But it gets worse. The CDC’s excuse for not having a shred of evidence of the naturally immune transmitting the virus is that “this information is not collected.” What?! No proof! But yet the CDC is actively crushing the rights of millions of naturally immune individuals in this country if they do not get the vaccine on the assumption they can transmit the virus. But despite clear proof the vaccinated spread the virus, the CDC lifts restrictions on the vaccinated?! That is dystopian. The facts about natural immunity are simple. Every single peer reviewed study has found that the naturally immune have far greater than 99% protection from having COVID-19, and this immunity does not wane. In contrast, the COVID-19 vaccine provides, at best, 95% protection and this immunity wanes rapidly.

I am no mathematician, but a constant 99% seems preferable to a 95% that quickly drops. And, while the vaccinated readily transmit the virus, not so for the naturally immune. The lesson yet again is not that health authorities should never make mistakes. They will. It happens. The lesson is that civil and individual rights should never be contingent upon a medical procedure. Everyone, the naturally immune or otherwise, who wants to get vaccinated and boosted should be free to do so. But nobody should be coerced by the government to partake in any medical procedure.

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Clueless.

Latvia Bans Unvaccinated Lawmakers From Voting, Docks Pay (R.)

Latvia’s parliament voted on Friday to ban lawmakers who refuse COVID-19 vaccine from voting on legislature and participating in discussions.Latvia, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in European Union, was the first in the bloc to reimpose a lockdown this autumn as a surge in COVID-19 cases threatens to overwhelm its health system. The restrictions on vaccine-rejecting lawmakers, which includes docking their pay, was supported by 62 of its 100 lawmakers, and will last from Monday until mid-2022. State television reported that nine MPs have rejected the vaccine.


The ban on unvaccinated MPs in parliament was necessary to promote public confidence in the government’s policies to control COVID-19 infections, the legislation’s sponsor, lawmaker Janis Rancans, was cited as saying by the parliamentary press service. Latvia, home to 1.9 million people, has reported 236,765 infections and 3,646 coronavirus-related deaths since the pandemic began.

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Once again: ..the viral loads are exactly the same in vaccinated and unvaccinated ..

Austria To Declare Nationwide Lockdown For Unvaccinated People (BNO)

Austria will impose a nationwide lockdown for people who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19, becoming the first country in the world to do so, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg announced on Friday. Schallenberg, speaking at a press conference in Tyrol, said the nationwide lockdown is expected to be formally approved at a meeting on Sunday. Random checks will be carried out to ensure compliance with the new restrictions. “A lockdown for the unvaccinated means one cannot leave one’s home unless one is going to work, shopping (for essentials), stretching one’s legs – exactly what we all had to suffer through in 2020,” Schallenberg said earlier, according to Reuters.

The lockdown for the unvaccinated has already been formally approved in Upper Austria, where restrictions have also been announced for the entire population. This includes a legal requirement to wear an FFP2 mask in all indoor public places and a ban on events for 3 weeks. Daily coronavirus cases in Austria reached an all-time high this week, with 11,576 new cases on Wednesday alone. A further 11,040 new cases were reported on Friday, along with 40 deaths, which is the highest since April 13. About 60 percent of Austria’s population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, making it the lowest rate in Western Europe, with the exception of tiny Liechtenstein. This means the lockdown will affect roughly 40 percent of the population.

However, questions have been raised about the feasibility of a lockdown which applies to only a part of the population. “We don’t live in a police state and we can’t and don’t want to check every street corner,” Schallenberg said.

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The case heading to court is Dr. Paul Marik’s. This part of the text is Dr. Joseph Varon’s.

The Fight to Allow Doctors to “Doctor” Heads to a Virginia Court (FLCCC)

DR. VARON: My position at the hospitals where I have privileges has fortunately enabled me to employ any, and all effective treatments to cure COVID-19 and its effects at every stage of the disease but, most particularly, at the critical care stage when patients are admitted to hospital and/or the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). As a result of the remarkable success our hospitals have enjoyed with such patients over the past 18 months since March 19, 2020, we have exclusively applied the MATH+ protocol, with small variations as appropriate to every COVID patient entering our hospitals and ICUs.

Over the past 18 months of our hospitals’ use during the COVID pandemic, I can testify that the MATH+ protocol saves lives, and saves them in substantial numbers. I know this first, and foremost, from my own experience in our hospital, where we were able to lower our mortality for COVID-19 patients (both critically ill and those on regular wards) beginning in March 2020 (when we began utilizing the MATH+ protocol) to 4.4% as of August 2020– a dramatic improvement over the national average of 22% over the same time period.

Reported mortality averages across the globe have varied widely, but our hospitals’ results have successfully maintained far lower patient mortality rate—between 4.4% and 7%—to the present day. Multiple studies report much higher national mortality averages, including one such study that I participated in and published in June 2021 in the Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Reports. That study, reviewing some 85 hospital studies worldwide, establishes an average 28-day hospital mortality rate among COVID-19 patients of 20% nationwide, and 21% globally. Moreover, as the study points out, because a large percentage of patients remain hospitalized after Day 28, the real average mortality rate is likely much higher. To this day—even with the advent of the “Delta variant” of COVID-19, our mortality rate has not risen above 7%. Bottom line: our hospitals’ use of the MATH+ protocol has reduced mortality of hospitalized COVID-19 patients by at least 50% below the national average.

Our experience of substantially lowering the mortality rate using MATH+ protocols is made all the more remarkable by the fact that our hospital now routinely admits severely ill patients referred by other hospitals and ICUs that for whatever reason are not administering the MATH+ protocol. These patients, in many cases, are those that the referring hospital/physician has determined will not likely survive. As our success has become increasingly known among treating physicians in the Houston area, and beyond, those referrals have risen to account for approximately 10-15% of our admitted COVID-19 patients. While we have been able to cure the vast majority of those patients using MATH+, in my opinion, the advanced stage of the disease we see in the referred patients likely accounts for some of the increase in our mortality rate for COVID patients. Nevertheless, we are currently experiencing a mortality rate in our hospitals of just 5%.

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“..the skulking managers behind the ectoplasmic “President Joe Biden” (and their handmaidens in Congress) — that Satanic host of coercion-meisters, inqusitionists, corporate despots, reputational executioners, moneygrubbers, political whores, and credentialed sadists trying to run your life — are headed for a fall.”

The Recognition (Kunstler)

The collapse of the global economy is underway and working itself out as it will, and the fear associated with that epic loss of resources, goods, comforts, and conveniences is driving Western Civ batshit crazy. Hence, the lunacies around the Covid-19 virus, another measure-and-control mania. Except that most of the official measurements about Covid-19 are untrue, gamed, fudged, juggled, misrepresented, and weaponized for political purposes. In fact, despite all the obsessive-compulsive statistical measuring, everything that the public health officialdom and the medical establishment did to control the disease after January 2020, only made the pandemic worse and prolonged it.

And so now all those authorities are bent on “vaccinating” every last human — which is absolutely the last thing you would rationally do in the midst of the pandemic event, since it only provokes new iterations of the virus that are immune to the “vaccines.” What’s more, the “vaccines” are so ineffective in the first place, and so toxic in the second place, that the damage they cause is arguably worse than the disease. But that quandary affords another opportunity for the self-designated “good” people (the vaxxed) to distinguish themselves from the “bad” people (the unvaxxed), and hence another way to persecute them. (Do you suppose it’s a mere coincidence that the people who refuse to get agitated by the climate change panic are often the very same people skeptical of the “vaccines.”)

Another interesting paradox in this panorama of mindfuckery is that the self-designated “good” people have behaved with uniform bad-faith and dishonesty throughout the long crisis — at least from RussiaGate through the current crusade to vax-up all the children — and that is what will change the game, probably soon. It happens that the leadership of the “good” people includes most of the figures in authority over the whole country: those public health officials like Dr. Fauci, the hospital directors who outlawed early treatment protocols, the pharma executives who buried their failed drug trials, the scientific journal publishers who killed reports that don’t support the “vaccine” narrative, the news-media editors and producers who can’t stop spinning lies, the Social Media totalitarian censors and cancellers, the tyrant mayors of New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, the “blue” state governors who destroyed small business with lockdowns and “passports,” the Woked-up state and federal bureaucrats ever preoccupied with covering their asses, the skulking managers behind the ectoplasmic “President Joe Biden” (and their handmaidens in Congress) — that Satanic host of coercion-meisters, inqusitionists, corporate despots, reputational executioners, moneygrubbers, political whores, and credentialed sadists trying to run your life — are headed for a fall.

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Yeah, sure. But this is not what’s happening with Covid papers. They simply get banned and censored,

When Science Speaks in Tongues: How Glossolalia can lead to Collapse (Bardi)

You may have heard the recent news of 44 scientific papers being retracted from a scientific journal after they were discovered to be nothing but gibberish. The usual reaction in these cases is to speak of “a few bad apples.” But this fraud exposes a problem that goes deep, very deep, in science. Science suffers from “glossolalia” — a syndrome that makes people utter meaningless sounds as if they were speaking a real language. To start, “papers” are the main output of a scientist’s work. It is the harsh law of “publish or perish,” meaning that for a scientist publishing something — anything — in an academic journal is the first line of defense against being fired. Even if a scientist has no money, no grants, no instrumentation, no ideas, they have to show that they are doing something. Woe betide the scientist who does not publish at least one paper every year! Anathema! Abomination! Horror! May you be eaten by the h-index bugbear who punishes those who sin so hideously against the sacred rules of science!

But publishing papers has a problem. When scientists publish something, in a certain way they are showing their hand. Readers will be able to understand how good they are, how well they master their field, how much money they have to perform their research, and more. They may not want others to know that, especially if they have something to hide (almost everyone does, in this world). So, many scientists practice obfuscation in order to defend their turf. So, scientists want to publish papers, but they may not want others to read them. A way to do that is to use purposefully convoluted language, eliminating all elements that would make a text interesting, turning it into the most boring possible kind of prose. The use of the passive form is a typical example (“it has been found that”) instead of the simpler “we found that….”. But there is more: for instance, why do scientists often sign their papers only with the initials of their first and middle names? (“J. I. Smith” — does it mean “Jolly Idiot Smith,” or what?). The idea is the same: to remove all hints of human interest for the text.

By far the most effective strategy is to use obscure terms. Uncommon and archaic ones can do a good job of repelling readers. An example noted by Malcolm Kendrick in his “The Clot Thickens” (2021): why in the world would anyone write “pultaceous” instead of “pulpy” if not with the specific purpose of being obscure? But what makes a paper truly unreadable is the proliferation of acronyms. If you stumble on “GDAP,” you have to decide which one of the 9 known meanings it can take (here, it is “Growing Danger of Acronym Proliferation”).

So, you start understanding how the mechanism works. First of all, an obscure paper makes it difficult for the reviewers to wade through the text and, surely, they don’t want to appear ignorant by asking what a particular term or acronym, or whatever means. Then, the paper may be full of mistakes, inconsistencies, shortcomings, and plain lies but, if it is really, obscure there is a chance that neither the reviewers nor anybody else will read it through and notice its shortcomings. It may even be cited, thus providing some extra points for the authors, by those who just read the title. Of course, it won’t make the authors candidates for the Nobel prize, but it means some respite from the wrath of the scientific PTB (obscure acronym for the “powers that be”).

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Freezing soap bubble
https://twitter.com/i/status/1459216275922731012

 

 

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