Pablo Picasso Couple on a bench 1943
mRNA military
We now know that the US Govt created Covid-19 by funding gain of function research at the Wuhan lab in China. But the US Govt also created gene-encoded vaccines since 2012.
“The US military came up with the idea of messenger RNA vaccines, not Pfizer…” pic.twitter.com/FSXsIz1R8B
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) December 8, 2022
Tucker military
https://twitter.com/i/status/1600677795369132032
She always acted in bad faith. Because she was going to blame Russia anyway: “..the Cold War never really ended because Russia was basically not at peace..”
And now, at some point, there must be new talks. How do you think Putin and Lavrov will act?
• Merkel Confirms Ukraine Ceasefire Was A Ploy (RT)
The 2014 ceasefire brokered by Berlin and Paris in Minsk was an attempt to give Kiev time to strengthen its military and was successful in that regard, former German chancellor Angela Merkel argued in an interview published on Wednesday. In an extensive interview about her 16 years in power, Merkel told the Zeit magazine her policy towards Russia and Ukraine was correct, even if not successful. “I thought the initiation of NATO accession for Ukraine and Georgia discussed in 2008 to be wrong,” Merkel said. “The countries neither had the necessary prerequisites for this, nor had the consequences of such a decision been fully considered, both with regard to Russia’s actions against Georgia and Ukraine and to NATO and its rules of assistance.”
She described the September 2014 Minsk agreement as “an attempt to give Ukraine time.” France and Germany had brokered a ceasefire after the failure of Ukraine’s attempt to subdue the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk by force. “[Ukraine] used this time to get stronger, as you can see today,” Merkel continued. “The Ukraine of 2014/15 is not the Ukraine of today. As you saw in the battle for Debaltsevo in early 2015, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin could easily have overrun them at the time. And I very much doubt that the NATO countries could have done as much then as they do now to help Ukraine.” The defeat at Debaltsevo resulted in the second Minsk protocol being signed in February 2015. Merkel said that it was “clear to all of us that the conflict was frozen, that the problem had not been solved, but that gave Ukraine valuable time.”
Meanwhile, she defended the decision to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for Russian gas, since refusing to do so would have “have dangerously worsened the climate” with Moscow given the situation in Ukraine. It just so happened that Germany couldn’t get gas elsewhere, she added. Asked for any self-criticism, Merkel told Zeit that “the Cold War never really ended because Russia was basically not at peace,” and that NATO “should have reacted more quickly to Russia’s aggressiveness” in 2014. Pyotr Poroshenko, who became president of Ukraine after the 2014 US-backed coup in Kiev, told the domestic audience in August 2015 that Minsk was a ruse to buy time for a military build-up. He admitted as much to the West in July 2022, in an interview with German media.
Guaranteeing the end of Ukraine. Why does Germany want that?
• Germany Says Ukraine Can Strike Inside Russia (RT)
While the US distanced itself from Ukraine’s drone strike at two air bases hundreds of kilometers inside Russia, the German government’s spokesman said on Wednesday that Kiev doesn’t have to limit its war effort to Ukrainian territory. “Ukraine has a right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter,” Steffen Hebestreit told journalists, when asked to comment on reports of explosions at the Russian airfields. “Ukraine is not obligated to limit defense efforts to its own territory.” Two strategic bomber bases in Ryazan and Saratov regions came under attack by drones on Monday morning, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Three service members were killed and several more injured, while two airplanes suffered minor damage.
The attack did not disrupt the planned strike against Ukrainian military logistics later in the day. The attack came on the same day as revelations that the US had modified HIMARS rocket launchers so Ukraine could not use them for longer-range missiles, allegedly because the White House wanted to avoid escalation with the Kremlin. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Tuesday that Washington has “neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia,” but instead provided them with “the equipment that they need to defend themselves.”
Moscow has repeatedly warned the US and NATO that providing heavy weapons to Ukraine risks crossing Russia’s “red lines,” and involving them in the conflict directly. Washington and its allies insist they are not a party to the hostilities, but continue arming Kiev. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to invest much more into his military, so that Berlin can become “the guarantor of European security that our allies expect us to be, a bridge builder within the European Union.” However, German media have noted that it will take until 2026 to hit the NATO-mandated goal of spending 2% of the GDP on the armed forces.
“Russia does not have tactical nuclear weapons in other countries, unlike the US.”
• Putin: Risk Of Nuclear War Rising, Ukraine Operation To Be “Long Process” (ZH)
On Wednesday Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a wide-ranging public war update during a televised session of his Human Rights Council, which at least one independent regional outlet said was tightly controlled in terms of the kind of questions Kremlin officials could ask. Among the more important topics he addressed related to the now 10-month long “special military operation” in Ukraine was future plans for broader mobilization and the prospect of deployment of nuclear assets. On the latter point, Putin lashed out at the United States and NATO, saying “Russia does not have tactical nuclear weapons in other countries, unlike the US.” This was in reference to the fact that some NATO members in Europe, including extending as far east as Turkey, do act as host countries to many of the US’ tactical nukes under the NATO defense umbrella.
“Our nuclear forces are in a more advanced state than any other country in the world,” he boasted at one point. Importantly, given the ratcheting US-NATO arms pipeline to Ukraine’s forces, which has lately involved transfer of increasingly sophisticated and longer range missiles, Putin warned that the “risk of nuclear war in the world is rising.” He further took the opportunity to restate Russia’s ‘defensive’ nuclear doctrine, stressing that nuclear weapons would be considered as a response to an attack on Russian territory, while also stating that he stands ready to defend Russian territory “using all available means”. According to a translation of Putin’s remarks in Sky News: “We didn’t speak about usage of nuclear weapons.” Then, he said: “Russia has not gone mad.”
“We have the most advanced weapons, but we do not want to wave it around.” But in taking a swipe at Washington’s nuclear deployments in Europe, he seemed to suggest that it’s precisely the US side doing the nuclear saber-rattling. “Yes, we will do this by various ways and means. First of all, of course, we will focus on peaceful means, but if nothing else remains, we will defend ourselves with all the means at our disposal,” Putin said. Western mainstream media will more than likely run with the comments as a fresh “threat” that Russia stands ready to conduct a nuclear attack if cornered in Ukraine, and yet just like the previous time he made similar statements, the Russian leader was in fact articulating the defensive nature of the country’s official nuclear policy against ‘existential’ threats to Russian territory.
This British volunteer flighting for the Ukrainian army reports of truckloads of military aid going missing because of rampant corruption in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/WFDgLoOUW7
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) December 8, 2022
“..Paris and Berlin later negotiated a ceasefire between Kiev and the Donbass republics in Minsk, but did nothing to uphold or promote it.”
• Ukraine Operation Could Take A Long Time – Putin (RT)
The military operation in Ukraine may go on for a while, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, in a meeting with the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. Addressing a question about the duration of hostilities that escalated in February, Putin said that achieving all the objectives will take time, but pointed to several major gains already won. “Of course, this might be a lengthy process,” Putin said, pointing out that the conflict really began in 2014, when the US backed a nationalist coup in Kiev. He explained that Moscow had little choice but to intervene in February, to defend the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk – which have since voted to join Russia, along with most of Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.
“These new territories are a major gain for Russia,” the president said. “Even Peter the Great sought access to the Azov Sea, and it is now an internal sea of the Russian Federation.” “Most importantly, the people who live there showed in a referendum that they want to be in Russia and feel themselves part of our world,” Putin said. “They are now with us, millions of them, and that is the greatest outcome.” Putin also said there was “no point” in discussing additional mobilization measures, as the more than 300,000 reservists called up to fill the ranks of the military were quite sufficient. In fact, some of the Donbass students who have been fighting for years are in the process of mustering out so they can finish their studies.
The Russian president also revealed that Western European leaders now objecting to the military operation “fall silent” when he reminds them their countries were supposed to guarantee the peace process in Ukraine since 2014. France and Germany negotiated a peaceful end to the Maidan turmoil just before the US-backed nationalists violently seized power in February that year. Paris and Berlin later negotiated a ceasefire between Kiev and the Donbass republics in Minsk, but did nothing to uphold or promote it. Earlier this year, former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko openly admitted the ceasefire was a tactic to buy time so Kiev could build up an army for a military solution.
“..the European Union will be able to participate in these processes on an equal footing when it realizes that it doesn’t have to say 100% ‘yes, sir’ to the United States.”
• EU Has To Show It ‘Has Its Own Interests’ – Lavrov (RT)
The European Union could have a place in a new multipolar world but it has to first free itself from excessive dependence on its allies across the Atlantic Ocean, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has argued. He added that the bloc needs to learn how to stick up for itself in areas that are important to it. Speaking on Wednesday at the Primakov Readings, an international forum of experts, diplomats and decision-makers held in Russia, Lavrov said: “the European Union will be able to participate in these processes on an equal footing when it realizes that it doesn’t have to say 100% ‘yes, sir’ to the United States.” He added that the bloc needs to demonstrate that it “has its own interests.” The minister also noted that, of late, voices calling for this have been emerging in European countries.
Lavrov stressed that Moscow is by no means trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Brussels, arguing that it is obvious that not all of Europe’s interests are necessarily in line with those of the US. “That Europe cannot defend these interests is, in my opinion, for now also a medical fact,” the official quipped. Lavrov pointed to the apparent lack of any meaningful results from French President Emmanuel Macron’s meeting in Washington last week with his US counterpart Joe Biden, as proof of his assertion. Addressing the guests at the Valdai Discussion Club meeting outside Moscow in late October, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed confidence that sooner or later “new centers of power in the multipolar world and the West will have to start talking as equals about our common future.”
“The East Route is part of a $400 billion, 30-year agreement between Russia’s Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation, signed in May 2014..”
• Russia’s Mega Gas Pipeline To China Nearly Complete (RT)
A crucial section of the East Route natural gas pipeline between Russia and China has been completed, Xinhua News agency reported on Wednesday, citing construction company PipeChina. It will allow gas to be transported from Russia to China’s eastern economic powerhouse Shanghai, according to the report. The 5,111 km cross-border pipeline reportedly enters China via the border city of Heihe in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, and runs through nine provincial-level regions, supplying natural gas to areas along the route, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. It is part of the East Route project, connecting to the 3,000 km Power of Siberia pipeline in Russia. The East Route was partially launched in December 2019, becoming the first pipeline to supply Russian gas to China.
The mega project, which is expected to be completed and become fully operational by 2025, will provide China with 38 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas annually, starting in 2024. That could help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 164 million tons per year, according to PipeChina. The energy corridor will boost the energy security and economic development of the eastern regions of China, the company said. The East Route is part of a $400 billion, 30-year agreement between Russia’s Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation, signed in May 2014. The two companies are also working on a western gas route, which involves the construction of a pipeline to China through the territory of Mongolia. The route will be capable of delivering as much as 50 billion cubic meters of gas, once operational.
Why didn’t @jack release the files himself?
• Elon Musk: Data May Have Been Hidden And Deleted From The Twitter Files (PM)
On Wednesday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk revealed that important data in the Twitter Files releases was “hidden” and “deleted,” but vowed that “everything we find will be released.” “Most important data was hidden (from you too) and some may have been deleted, but everything we find will be released,” the Wednesday afternoon tweet read. The tweet came in response to a post from former Twitter CEO and company cofounder Jack Dorsey demanding that all information related to the Twitter Files be released “without filter.” “If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves? Including all discussions around current and future actions? Make everything public now. #TwitterFiles,” the tweet read.
Musk fires FBI-linked Twitter staffer James Baker pic.twitter.com/K9rIcnEeGr
— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2023) December 7, 2022
On Tuesday evening, Musk also tweeted out the phrase, “Oh, what a tangled web they weave, when first they practice to …,” referencing the 1801 poem by Sir Walter Scott Marion: A Tale of Flooded Field, with the complete line ending in “deceive,” according to the Daily Mail. In Tuesday’s release of the Twitter Files, it was revealed that now-former twitter Deputy General Counsel James Baker had “vetted” the Twitter Files, causing delay and occurring without “knowledge of new management,” said journalist Matt Taibbi.
“We can now tell you part of the reason why” there was a delay, Taibbi posted. “On Tuesday, Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired. Among the reasons? Vetting the first batch of “Twitter Files” – without knowledge of new management.” “The process for producing the “Twitter Files” involved delivery to two journalists (Bari Weiss and me) via a lawyer close to new management. However, after the initial batch, things became complicated.” “Over the weekend, while we both dealt with obstacles to new searches, it was @BariWeiss who discovered that the person in charge of releasing the files was someone named Jim. When she called to ask “Jim’s” last name, the answer came back: “Jim Baker,” Taibbi continued.
Elon knew about James Baker since at least April. Curious?!
How can Tarrio have a fair trial? He wasn’t in DC on Jan 6. Unlike a lot of FBI agents.
• Fight Over Officer Testimony Roils Proud Boys Sedition Case (AP)
A legal fight has erupted over a Washington D.C. police officer who was communicating with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack that could shape the outcome of the upcoming trial of Tarrio and other far-right extremists. Metropolitan Police Lt. Shane Lamond’s testimony is crucial for the former Proud Boys national chairman’s defense against seditious conspiracy and other serious charges stemming from the attack, Tarrio’s attorneys say. But Lamond plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination if called to the witness stand after prosecutors warned the officer he could be charged with obstructing the investigation into Tarrio, the Proud Boy’s attorneys say.
They have accused the Justice Department of trying to bully Lamond into keeping quiet because his testimony would hurt their case. Prosecutors have vehemently denied that charge. The legal skirmish is unfolding two weeks before jury selection is supposed to begin in one of the highest-profile cases the Justice Department has brought since the Jan. 6 insurrection. Prosecutors charge Tarrio and four co-defendants conspired to forcibly stop the transfer of presidential power from former President Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. The Proud Boys trial will be another major test for the Justice Department, which secured a major victory last month in the seditious conspiracy convictions of two other far-right extremist group leaders: Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, and Kelly Meggs, who was the leader of the group’s Florida chapter.
Tarrio’s far-right, male chauvinist extremist group that seized on the Trump administration’s policies was a major agitator during earlier pro-Trump protests and at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Tarrio wasn’t in Washington when the riot erupted, but authorities say he helped put into motion the violence of that day. Shortly before the riot, authorities say Tarrio posted on social media that the group planned to turn out in “record numbers” on Jan. 6, but would be “incognito” instead of donning their traditional clothing colors of black and yellow. Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the riot and charged with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a protest in December 2020. Tarrio was released from jail on Jan. 14, 2022 after serving his five-month sentence for that case.
[..] Tarrio told Lamond that Proud Boys would not be wearing their traditional colors of black and yellow in order to protect themselves from possible attacks from antifa activists. Tarrio told the officer they planned to watch Trump’s speech, protest the results of the election “and later that night they planned to party with plenty of beers and babes,” Tarrio’s lawyers wrote. “He told me they are trying to go incognito this time,” Lamond told fellow officers in one message, according to Tarrio’s attorneys. “Even if they aren’t wearing their colors they will stick together as a group so we should be able to identify them. Not to mention they won’t be head to toe in black with makeshift shields!”
“..inflammation of the heart tissue due to an autoimmune response triggered by the vaccine..”
• Report: Those Who Died Suddenly Likely Killed by the Covid Vaccine (Jones)
A major new autopsy report has found that three people who died unexpectedly at home with no pre-existing disease shortly after Covid vaccination were likely killed by the vaccine. A further two deaths were found to be possibly due to the vaccine. The report, published in Clinical Research in Cardiology, the official journal of the German Cardiac Society, detailed autopsies carried out at Heidelberg University Hospital in 2021. Led by Thomas Longerich and Peter Schirmacher, it found that in five deaths that occurred within a week of the first or second dose of vaccination with Pfizer or Moderna, inflammation of the heart tissue due to an autoimmune response triggered by the vaccine had likely or possibly caused the death.
In total the report looked at 35 autopsies carried out at the University of Heidelberg in people who died within 20 days of Covid vaccination, of which 10 were deemed on examination to be due to a pre-existing illness and not the vaccine. For the remaining 20, the report did not rule out the vaccine as a cause of death, which Dr. Schirmacher has confirmed to me is intentional as the autopsy results were inconclusive. Almost all of the remaining cases were of a cardiovascular cause, as indicated in the table below from the supplementary materials, where 21 of the 30 deaths are attributed to a cardiovascular cause. One of these is attributed to blood clots (VITT) from AstraZeneca vaccination (the report was looking specifically at post-vaccine myocarditis deaths), leaving 20 from other cardiovascular causes.
“..we’d have to assume that this is now the baseline, there’s going to be 145% higher mortality..”
• Analysis Shows 26% Worse Mortality Among the Vaccinated (RVM)
‘COVID-19 Vaccines: What They Are, How They Work and Possible Causes of Injuries’. That’s the title on the agenda today (December 7, 2022), as Senator Ron Johnson holds a roundtable discussion of doctors, medical experts, and researchers in an effort to shed light on the current state of knowledge regarding the Covid-19 shot. An enlightening speaker today was Josh Stirling, a highly-recognized insurance research analyst. And what he brought forth was “the one chart that tells the entire story.” Here it is: “The UK Government, until this summer, was reporting a data series that showed the relative mortality rates for the vaccinated and unvaccinated by the number of doses of the vaccine,” stated Stirling.
“We’ve done what we think is really professional work with this. And we think it simplifies down to a conclusion that says that through the last available data set, the people in the UK who took the vaccine have a 26% higher mortality rate. The people who are under the age of 50 who took the vaccine now have a 49% higher mortality rate. And worst of all, the people who only took one dose of the vaccine at approximately 145% worse mortality rate.” “That last data point is on its face confusing.” “It just doesn’t make a ton of sense unless you realize that what’s going on with this really is that the people who took the dose, the first dose in the United States — that’s about 12% of people — but then stop taking any other doses, those people, through their choice to stop, disproportionately [were] the ones who are harmed,” explained Stirling.
“And so, what we’re concluding is that if you happen to be an unlucky person who was in some fashion, even moderately injured [or] with a minor injury [and] have decided not to continue, the statistics, the best statistics we have show that you’re gonna have, at least through today, maybe it’ll get better … but if that doesn’t happen we’d have to assume that this is now the baseline, there’s going to be 145% higher mortality. And if you were to take these numbers and just apply them to the United States, that ends up being something like 600,000 excess deaths per year in the United States from this higher vaccine-induced mortality.”
Worldwide.
• Australia Concerned As People Dying At ‘Incredibly High’ Pace (Benzinga)
Australia’s peak actuarial body has asked the government to urgently investigate the country’s “incredibly high” 13% excess death rate in 2022. What Happened: An analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data by the Actuaries Institute showed that an additional 15,400 people died in the first eight months of the year in the country. Actuaries said that number includes around one-third of those having no link to COVID-19. 13% was an “incredibly high number for mortality,” and it was “not clear” what was driving the increase, said Karen Cutter, spokeswoman for the institute’s Covid-19 Mortality Working Group.
“Mortality doesn’t normally vary by more than 1 to 2%, so 13% is way higher than normal levels,” she said. “I’m not aware [of anything comparable] in the recent past but I haven’t gone back and looked [historically]. They talk about the flu season of 2017 being really bad, and the mortality there was 1% higher than normal. So it’s well outside the range of normal,” she said. This came after Australia’s latest mortality data released in November showed that there had been 128,797 deaths from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, which was 17% higher than the historical average.
Edward Dowd
'Something Flipped in 2021 by 8 points': Ed Dowd
"Excess mortality has shifted so much – it's pretty phenomenal"
Healthy policyholders (exposed to vax mandates) suffered 40% excess mortality in '21, the general population (less exposed) saw a 31.7% excess mortality. pic.twitter.com/QDEI6ww0qv
— New World Odor™ (@hugh_mankind) December 7, 2022
At this point, how dare you even talk about it?
• COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters For Young Adults (BMJ)
In this paper, we integrate a risk-benefit assessment of SARS-CoV-2 boosters for adults under 30 years old with an ethical analysis of mandates at universities. Our estimate suggests an expected net harm from boosters in this young adult age group, whereby the negative outcomes of all SAEs and hospitalisations may on average outweigh the expected benefits in terms of COVID-19 hospitalisations averted. We also examine the specific harms to males from myo/pericarditis. We then outline a five-part ethical argument empirically assessing booster mandates for young people informed by the quantitative assessment.
First, we argue that there has been a lack of transparent risk-benefit assessment; second, that vaccine mandates may result in a net expected harm to individual young adults; third, that vaccine mandates are not proportionate; fourth, that US mandates violate the reciprocity principle because of current gaps in vaccine injury compensation schemes; fifth, that mandates are even less proportionate than the foregoing analyses suggest because current high levels of coercion or pressure may create wider societal harms. We consider possible counterarguments including potential rationales for mandates based on a desire for social cohesion or safety and summarise why such arguments cannot justify current COVID-19 vaccine mandates. We suggest that general mandates for young people ignore key data, entail wider social harms and/or abuses of power and are arguably undermining rather than contributing to social trust and solidarity.
Rod Stewart lost his 2 brothers within 2 months earlier this year. He’s a vaccine promoter.
“..we should not delude ourselves into thinking that eliminating emissions would have a noticeable impact on weather and climate extremes in the 21st century..”
• The Faux Urgency Of The Climate ‘Crisis’ (Curry)
For the past two centuries, fossil fuels have fuelled humanity’s progress, improving standards of living and increasing the life span for billions of people. In the 21st century, a rapid transition away from fossil fuels has become an international imperative for climate change mitigation, under the auspices of the UN Paris Agreement. As a result, that transition is now dominated by stringent targets to rapidly eliminate carbon dioxide emissions. However, the recent COP27 meeting in Egypt highlighted that very few of the world’s countries are on track to meet their emissions reductions commitment. The desire for cleaner, more abundant, more reliable and less expensive sources of energy is universal.
However, the goal of rapidly eliminating fossil fuels is at odds with the urgency of providing grid electricity to developing countries. Rapid deployment of wind and solar power has invariably increased electricity costs and reduced reliability, particularly with increasing penetration into the grid. Allegations of human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, where global solar voltaic supplies are concentrated, are generating political conflicts that threaten the solar power industry. Global supply chains of materials needed to produce solar and wind energy plus battery storage are spawning new regional conflicts, logistical problems, supply shortages and rising costs. The large amount of land use required for wind and solar farms, as well as transmission lines, is causing local land use conflicts in many regions.
Given the apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding climate change, does the alleged urgency of reducing carbon dioxide emissions somehow trump these other considerations? Well, the climate ‘crisis’ isn’t what it used to be. The COP27 has dropped the most extreme emissions scenario from consideration, which was the source of the most alarming predictions. Only a few years ago, an emissions trajectory that produced 2 to 3C warming was regarded as climate policy success. As limiting warming to 2C seems to be in reach, the goal posts were moved to limit the warming target to 1.5C. These warming targets are referenced to a baseline at the end of the 19th century; the Earth’s climate has already warmed by 1.1C since 1880.
In context of this relatively modest warming, climate ‘crisis’ rhetoric is now linked to extreme weather events. Attributing extreme weather and climate events to global warming can motivate a country to attempt to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels. However, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that eliminating emissions would have a noticeable impact on weather and climate extremes in the 21st century. It is very difficult to untangle the roles of natural weather and climate variability and land use from the slow creep of global warming. Looking back into the past, including paleoclimatic data, there has been more extreme weather everywhere on the planet. Thinking we can minimise severe weather by using atmospheric carbon dioxide as a control knob is a fairy tale.
“Julian’s case is coming to the end of all possibilities of getting a fair solution through the court proceedings.”
• Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Warns Assange May Be Extradited “Within Weeks” (WSWS)
Julian Assange could be extradited to the United States within weeks, WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson has warned. He told journalist Glenn Greenwald that Assange was “running out of time” and that legal avenues in London to challenge his unlawful extradition were being exhausted, “he will never get a fair trial there”. Hrafnsson’s urgent warnings came during an interview in Brazil, published Monday on Rumble. He told Greenwald, “Julian’s case is coming to the end of all possibilities of getting a fair solution through the court proceedings. He is fighting extradition in London. Within weeks he could be extradited.”
Assange has been charged under the Espionage Act (1917) for WikiLeaks’ publications exposing war crimes by US imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan, and anti-democratic conspiracies of the US government and its intelligence agencies throughout the world. If found guilty, the 51-year-old journalist and father of three faces 175 years in a US federal prison. He has already spent more than a decade in detention in the UK, including three years without charge in Belmarsh maximum security prison. Hrafnsson was appointed WikiLeaks editor in 2018 after Assange’s communication with the outside world was cut under pressure from the US government, a prelude to his seizure from the Ecuadorian Embassy in April 2019.
An award-winning journalist in his own right, Hrafnsson worked with Assange to verify WikiLeaks’ most famous release, the Collateral Murder video, travelling to Iraq in early 2010 to interview relatives of civilians killed by targeted airstrikes launched from US AH-64 Apache helicopters. Speaking last week in Brazil, Hrafnsson said legal channels for Assange to appeal his extradition are fast closing. In June, then UK Home Secretary Priti Patel approved Assange’s extradition after the High Court overturned an earlier court decision barring it on medical grounds. The High Court accepted worthless assurances by the US government that Assange would not face oppressive treatment, ignoring overwhelming evidence that the CIA plotted to kidnap and kill Assange.
Britain’s courts have mounted a legal vendetta against Assange, approving the extradition request in violation of his fundamental legal and democratic rights as a publisher and journalist.The High Court and Supreme Court have handed down rulings aimed at speeding his dispatch to his would-be assassins. In March, the High Court refused Assange’s application to appeal its earlier ruling to the Supreme Court. His lawyers have since appealed the Home Secretary’s extradition order.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1599528877201641472
“quiet diplomacy”
• Julian Assange’s Family Pleads For Unity (AAP)
Julian Assange’s family wants supporters of the imprisoned WikiLeaks founder to politely advocate for his release, rather than “disparaging” the Australian government. Endorsing the approach of “quiet diplomacy” and thanking Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for a supportive statement in parliament last week, Mr Assange’s mother Christine called on backers to unite in their support of the government’s efforts to bring her son home. Mr Assange is facing espionage charges in the United States and remains in London’s Belmarsh prison, where he’s been since 2019 while fighting extradition. Ms Assange asked advocates to “support and not thwart or disparage the efforts of the Australian government in their diplomatic efforts to bring Julian safely home”.
“Diplomatic negotiations at this level are not easy. They require a high level of skill, experience, understanding, mutual respect, time and patience,” she said in a statement on Wednesday. “Please continue to politely inform your politicians, media and the general public of the facts of Julian’s plight to raise public and political support for the Australian government’s diplomatic efforts.” Mr Albanese has previously opted for quiet diplomacy in his efforts to secure the 51-year-old Australian’s release, but told parliament last week he had raised the matter personally with US government officials. “My position is clear, and has been made clear to the US administration, it is time this matter be brought to a close,” he said.
“This is an Australian citizen … what is the point of continuing this legal action, which could be caught up now for many years into the future.” Ms Assange thanked the PM for the government’s commitment to bring the “12-year legal stalemate and suffering to an end”. “His simple but compassionate statement ‘enough is enough’ resonates with the hearts of people around the world,” she said. “I endorse quiet diplomacy as the Australian government’s preferred path for reaching a resolution … to date all other methods have failed. “The involvement of diplomatic teams negotiating at a high level is the most appropriate and historically the most successful way to resolve the detention of Australian citizens overseas in political cases.”
Fossil fuels
“this idea that we owe reparations is a total injustice. There are people living 10, 20 years longer because of us, [who are] safer from climate because of us. So there should be gratitude toward the free world, not this condemnation.”
With @Tom_Basile pic.twitter.com/rBZ1woGJEN
— Alex Epstein (@AlexEpstein) December 7, 2022
A good friend
https://twitter.com/i/status/1600474899092758530
Golden crowned Kinglet
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