Jul 062025
 


Johannes Vermeer View of Delft 1660-61

 

Iran Moved Its Enriched Uranium Before US Strikes – Seymour Hersh (RT)
Musk Unveils ‘America Party’ To Challenge ‘One-Party System’ (ZH)
Putin Is ‘A Professional’ – Trump (RT)
Bush’s, Obama’s ‘Farewell’-Style Wishes for USAID Staff (DS)
A Very Consequential 2 Weeks for Trump’s Presidency (Zito)
Here’s How Conservatives Can Keep the Momentum Going (Margolis)
A Reminder of What the 4th of July Means (Victor Davis Hanson)
Oh La La… Putin Drops Truth Bomb On Macron (SCF)
No Weapons For Kiev Over Christian Church Persecution – US Congresswoman (RT)
BlackRock Drops Ukraine Fund (RT)
Slovakia Blocks New EU Russia Sanctions (RT)
Hamas’ Has ‘Positive Response’ To Ceasefire, Pressure Mounts On Netanyahu (ZH)
US Plans Massive Arctic Investment (RT)
Head of Ryanair Airline Calls Ursula Von Der Leyen ‘Useless Politician’ (Sp.)
Lights Out, Europe: The Cost of Brussels’ Energy Fantasy (Villamor)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/1941219409860887018

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“The goal of the operation was to “prevent the Iranians from building a nuclear weapon in the near term – a year or so – with the hope they would not try again,”

Iran Moved Its Enriched Uranium Before US Strikes – Seymour Hersh (RT)

Last month’s US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities failed to hit the country’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed, citing US officials. The attack, which involved seven US B-2 ‘Spirit’ bombers carrying 30,000-pound bunker busters, was not even expected to “obliterate” the Iranian nuclear program, one of the journalist’s sources admitted. “The centrifuges may have survived and 400 pounds of 60% enriched uranium are missing,” one of the officials said, adding that the US bombs “could not be assured to penetrate the centrifuge chamber . . . too deep.”

The lack of radioactivity at the targeted Iranian nuclear sites – specifically Fordow and Isfahan – following the attack suggest that the enriched uranium stockpile had been moved ahead of time, one US official familiar with the matter said. Fordow, an underground complex built deep inside a mountain that many believed housed the stockpiles, was a particular focus of the attack.

The US officials cited by Hersh nevertheless believe that the location of the stockpile and its fate are “irrelevant” because of the serious damage the strike allegedly dealt to another Iranian nuclear site near the city of Isfahan. The goal of the operation was to “prevent the Iranians from building a nuclear weapon in the near term – a year or so – with the hope they would not try again,” a US official told Hersh. This could translate into “a couple of years of respite and uncertain future,” the official added. Following the strikes, US President Donald Trump claimed that the attack “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. CIA Director John Ratcliffe also told lawmakers that several key sites had been completely destroyed and would take years to rebuild.

However, intercepted communications suggested that Tehran had expected a worse impact from the strikes and that the real damage was limited, the Washington Post reported. The strikes were part of a coordinated American-Israeli military campaign launched in mid-June. The Israel Defense Force bombed Iranian targets, claiming that Tehran was close to being able to build a nuclear weapon. Hersh believes that Israel was the “immediate beneficiary” of the US strike. West Jerusalem does not officially acknowledge possessing nuclear weapons. The Jewish State may still have up to 90 nuclear warheads at its disposal, according to a recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

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The two-party system is very well protected.

Musk Unveils ‘America Party’ To Challenge ‘One-Party System’ (ZH)

One day after his latest poll asking his followers on X whether the USA needs a new political party, Elon Musk announced on Saturday that the “America party has formed.” “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!” Musk wrote. “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.” The announcement comes after 1,248,856 people voted ‘yes’ to whether he should “create the America Party.”

The announcement comes one day after President Donald Trump signed his signature tax and spending bill, which Musk has vehemently opposed for weeks, and which resulted in a very public falling out with Trump – whose campaign Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting. Musk also led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which found billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse – virtually none of which was included in Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” While the Trump-Musk spat has simmered in recent weeks, Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off billions of dollars in subsidies to Musk’s companies.

Meanwhile, Musk foe Steve Bannon tore into the plan for a third political party – saying on his “War Room” podcast on Friday: “The foul, the buffoon. Elmo the Mook, formerly known as Elon Musk, Elmo the Mook. He’s today, in another smear, and this — only a foreigner could do this — think about it, he’s got up on, he’s got up on Twitter right now, a poll about starting an America Party, a non-American starting an America Party.” “No, brother, you’re not an American. You’re a South African and if we take enough time and prove the facts of that, you should be deported because it’s a crime of what you did — among many,” Bannon added.

Musk, meanwhile, wrote on Friday that “The fat, drunken slob called Bannon will go back to prison and this time for a long time. He has a lifetime of crime to pay for.”

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Trump, too, will have to realize the changed ‘realities on the ground”.
And Putin is far more than a professional; he truly loves his country. Just like Trump.

Putin Is ‘A Professional’ – Trump (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is “a professional” who has learned how to handle Western sanctions, but he understands that more could come if the Ukraine conflict is not settled, US President Donald Trump has said. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump confirmed that the two leaders discussed potential sanctions during Thursday’s phone call. “I would say he [Putin] is not thrilled with it, but you know, he’s been able to handle sanctions, but these are pretty biting sanctions.” The Russian president, he added, is fully aware that the US could ramp up the pressure. “You know, he’s a professional. It may be coming,” he added.

In a one-hour phone call, Putin and Trump discussed the Ukraine conflict, the volatile state of affairs in the Middle East, and Russia-US cooperation, according to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov. Ushakov said Trump raised the issue of ending the hostilities as soon as possible, adding that while Moscow is open to finding a political solution, it will not back down from its goals, including addressing the root causes of the conflict. Later, Trump said he was “unhappy” with the lack of progress towards peace.

US lawmakers have introduced a bill that proposes a 500% tariff on imports from countries that continue to purchase Russian oil and energy products. Introduced by US Senator Lindsey Graham and backed by at least 81 senators, it also proposes extending sanctions on Russia, including its sovereign debt. Last month, Graham claimed that Trump told him “it’s time to move the bill” to a vote. At the time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Graham’s views are “well known to the whole world,” adding that “he belongs to a group of inveterate Russophobes,” and that he would have imposed new sanctions on Russia long ago if he were in charge.

“Would that have helped the [Ukraine] settlement? That is a question that those who initiate such events should ask themselves,” Peskov said. The US imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 following the start of the Ukraine crisis. After the conflict escalated in 2022, they were drastically expanded to include financial and energy sanctions, as well as asset freezes. Russian officials have described the sanctions as “illegal,” while highlighting Russia’s economic resilience, arguing that they have strengthened domestic production.

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“..a remarkable display of bipartisan support for an agency plagued by mission creep that has been almost entirely left-wing..”

Bush’s, Obama’s ‘Farewell’-Style Wishes for USAID Staff (DS)

Former Presidents George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s farewell messages to staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development this week reinforce the perception that critics have called the “uniparty” culture in Washington. On Monday, the staff of USAID received video messages from the two former presidents, along with one from Bono, the ultraliberal Irish frontman of the rock band U2. Monday was the last day for foreign assistance programming by USAID, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced would be moved under the purview of the State Department. The former presidents and Bono spoke with thousands in the USAID community in a videoconference.

The messages were a remarkable display of bipartisan support for an agency plagued by mission creep that has been almost entirely left-wing. “You had a one-sided uniparty apparatus here [in the State Department and USAID] funding only one side of the political equation,” Max Primorac, who previously served as USAID’s chief operating officer, explained in an interview with “The Signal Sitdown” podcast in February.“You’ve shown the great strength of America through your work, and that is our good heart,” Bush said in his video message to the staff. The Republican ex-president then went on to praise the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which he launched in 2003.

“Is it in our interest that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is,” Bush concluded in an apparent dig at Rubio’s emphasis on putting American interests first in the country’s foreign aid allocation at the direction of President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican. Bush’s critique of his GOP successor’s efforts at realigning PEPFAR with its stated mission is surprising, given that under Democrat President Joe Biden, the program also began to promote abortion. PEPFAR funding had even been used to perform 21 abortions in Mozambique, despite being against U.S. law, Reuters reported in January. “Ending your presence and your programs out in the world hurts the most vulnerable, and it hurts the United States,” Obama, a Democrat, said in his statement to the staff.

“If this isn’t murder, I don’t know what is,” Bono concurred. The Irish singer then subjected the gathered staff to what appeared to be an attempt at making a song about their plight. “They called you crooks—when you were the best of us, there for the rest of us. And don’t think any less of us, when politics makes a mess of us,” he rhymed. Bono was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Biden in January. At the ceremony, he was cited as having “brought together politicians from opposing parties to create the United States PEPFAR AIDS program.” A senior State Department official told The Daily Signal in February that Rubio had identified and cut almost 5,800 awards worth about $54 billion from USAID that he said didn’t fit with the core mission of protecting American interests. The State Department has already said a reformed version of PEPFAR will continue to be supported by the federal government.

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“..often the best of the best in the military come from the heartland, from working on the shop floors to defending the country. They understand that the planes might have been made by a member of their community or even their family.”

A Very Consequential 2 Weeks for Trump’s Presidency (Zito)

When the active-duty Air Force and Missouri Air National Guard bomber crews who attacked the Fordow uranium enrichment plant in Iran went to work on June 20, they kissed their loved ones goodbye, not knowing when or if they’d be home. That’s when their families became aware something was happening. “When those jets returned [to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on June 22], their families were waiting, flying American flags and shedding tears of pride and relief,” said Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The jets rejoined into a formation of four, pitching out to land right over the base—a landing Caine said was greeted by incredible cheers and tears from the families who sacrifice and serve right alongside the pilots.

“One commander told me this is a moment in the lives of our families that they will never forget,” Caine said at a press conference Thursday at the Pentagon. “That, my friends, is what America’s joint force does. We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we test, we evaluate every single day. And when the call comes to deliver, we do so.” It was a moment of consequence, excellence, leadership, and guts. In the past 12 days, some of the most consequential decisions in American history, those that will affect generations and leave a substantial impact on our culture, economy, and political alignment, have been made either by President Donald Trump or because of him. But they have been largely either downplayed or not fully analyzed in terms of how they all connect.

The U.S. Steel deal between the iconic American company and Nippon Steel happened because of Trump’s ability to apply pressure through negotiations that sometimes bewildered everyone involved. But they led to the literal reversal of fortune of an industry, from the additional supply industries that include mechanics, construction workers, transportation systems, such as railways, and energy. The 50% tariffs Trump announced the day he visited the U.S. Steel plant in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, were also seen by American manufacturers as a signal that Trump was committed to revitalizing American steel mills. It also signaled an overall mandate to reshore manufacturing in the country.

While much of Wall Street warned that the tariffs would cause a widespread recession, a former critic of the tariffs, Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, did an about-face and wondered if Trump outsmarted everyone, laying out a scenario that keeps tariffs well below Trump’s most aggressive rates long enough to ease uncertainty.

That a steelworker or a welder working for a defense contractor would watch what happened to Iran’s nuclear program and feel a part of it is a nuance in American journalism that is often missed. Sen. David McCormick, R-Pa., told the Washington Examiner that it is an integrated story, both in terms of the consequences of those decisions, bolstering our economic capability and our independence. “But it’s a confidence in leadership story, too,” McCormick said. McCormick, who took office in January after winning against an entrenched Democrat few thought he could defeat, said the nuance of how intertwined moments such as these are is often missed. “These are reinforcing themes,” he said.

McCormick, who grew up in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, argues that often the best of the best in the military come from the heartland, from working on the shop floors to defending the country. They understand that the planes might have been made by a member of their community or even their family. “That is where the grit of the country lies,” McCormick said. “Of course, they see what they do as part of something bigger than self, because often people don’t understand the vitality of their profession.” McCormick, who served in the Army and was part of the 82nd Airborne Division deploying to Iraq during the Gulf War, was joined by Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., in praising Trump’s Iran airstrikes. McCormick said he talked to Trump about the historic strikes on June 22.

“I just called him and just said, ‘Man, so when I put boots on the ground myself personally 30 years ago, I never imagined we’d have this kind of terrorist threat, the risk of a nuclear weapon, and this kind of leadership and competence,’” McCormick said. The president told McCormick something profound about the people who were part of the operation. “The president said, ‘Those young people are magnificent.’ And I said, ‘You know what, Mr. President, the thing about them is, my heart swells when I see that kind of leadership with those 40 kids shooting the Patriots in Qatar,’” McCormick said of the soldiers fighting to intercept Iranian missiles that targeted the U.S. base at Al Udeid in Qatar. McCormick recalled that Trump said, “These are the best America has to offer, and every time I’ve interacted with them, that’s what I said.”

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“President Trump didn’t just listen—he acted, giving his word that his administration would enforce the law as it was intended, not as the swamp wished it would be. That commitment swung the votes.”

Here’s How Conservatives Can Keep the Momentum Going (Margolis)

It’s not every day that conservatives have a reason to break out the confetti in Washington, but today is one of those rare, glorious moments. The One Big Beautiful Bill—President Trump’s signature legislative achievement—has finally crossed the finish line and now awaits his signature tomorrow. It’s time to celebrate with the gusto this victory deserves. For months, the OBBB wound its way through the Capitol, battered by the usual suspects: Democrat obstructionists, media naysayers, and even a handful of Republican holdouts who needed a little extra convincing. But in the end, it was the steady hand and relentless persuasion of President Trump that brought the House conservatives on board and delivered this win for the American people.

The turning point? It wasn’t a backroom deal or a last-minute concession to the left. It was a meeting at the White House, where President Trump sat down with key conservative lawmakers and laid out exactly how he would enforce the bill’s provisions. No more games from green energy companies trying to siphon off taxpayer dollars with phony construction starts. Trump promised to use the full force of the executive branch to make sure that only those who actually deliver get a dime. This wasn’t just about technical tweaks or bureaucratic fine print. Conservatives had real concerns about loopholes in the Senate’s version of the bill—especially when it came to renewable energy credits and the potential for abuse.

Conservatives pushed back, demanding real, verifiable progress before any federal money changed hands. President Trump didn’t just listen—he acted, giving his word that his administration would enforce the law as it was intended, not as the swamp wished it would be. That commitment swung the votes. Rep. Burchett called it “huge,” and he’s right. When the President of the United States looks you in the eye and promises to hold the line, it means something. That’s leadership. That’s why the OBBB passed, and that’s why conservatives are celebrating today. And let’s not forget the spectacle on the House floor. Speaker Mike Johnson, never one to miss a moment, took a well-earned victory lap, reminding the country that this wasn’t just a win for Trump or for Republicans—it was a win for America.

Meanwhile, Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries could do little more than rant and rave for hours as the conservative majority delivered a resounding rebuke to the left’s agenda. This is what happens when conservatives stand together and refuse to be bullied by the media or the establishment. The OBBB is more than just a legislative victory—it’s a sign that the conservative movement is alive, well, unified, and ready to keep winning. So yes, let’s take a moment to celebrate the passage of the OBBB—a clear, decisive victory for common sense and conservative leadership. This is what happens when Republicans stop playing defense and actually fight back. Real change can happen when we stop caving to the radical left’s hysterics and start standing on principle. And let’s be clear: this is only the beginning.

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“Supreme Court, Congress, president. Executive, legislative, judicial. All equal branches. All checking each other and balancing each other..”

A Reminder of What the 4th of July Means (Victor Davis Hanson)

Today is the 4th of July, and I’d like to remind everybody what the 4th of July is. It’s the formal date when the Second Continental Congress—about a year and four months after the shots heard around the world, the first shots of the Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord, were fired—the Second Continental Congress decided to formally disband the 13 colonies from Great Britain. Now, two days earlier, Richard Henry Lee of the famous Lee family—he was the first cousin of Light Horse Harry Lee, the father of Robert E. Lee—had introduced an amendment called the Lee Resolution that formally was approved and said we are divorcing ourselves from Great Britain. But two days later, John Adams and mostly Thomas Jefferson decided they needed a more holistic document that would list 23 grievances, why it was necessary. So that version of Jefferson, and to a lesser extent, Adams, became the formal Declaration of Independence. And it was ratified on July 4th.

And we all know it from our high school days, or we should. The first famous line, “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to disband …” And then, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” the first line of the second paragraph. So, it’s a foundational document.

And it doesn’t mean that men are God. When Jefferson wrote “that all men are created equal,” it doesn’t mean that they were equal at that time. But it gave an aspirational goal that, if you think about it, would put the Founders out of business, so to speak. Because if all men are created equal and you create this wonderful place, and you don’t have a blood and soil argument that only the people who were here and related to the Founders by race and ethnicity are Americans, but all men are equal, people will flock to the United States. And they might not look like the original Founders. But they would represent the original Founders. They would be the same type of people by ideas and values.

And so the idea of America was really established with the 4th of July. And we’re going to have the 250th anniversary a year from now that will celebrate the 250 years of the United States of America. Today, it’s the 249th anniversary of the 4th of July. This is not the Constitution that will be ratified in 1787 and will formally establish the government. Fourth of July declares that the 13 colonies who have been at war with Great Britain for about 14 or 15 months, and are operating on what we will call the Articles of Confederation, will then free themselves at the Battle of Yorktown. And then they will have a new type of government, which we now call the U.S. Constitution.

There’s a couple of other things to remember on the 4th of July. The British have a very different idea than we do when they look at the 23 grievances. They said, “Wow, you guys have it pretty easy. We’ve been as nice to you, or better, than the people in Canada. And we have all these Commonwealths and they’re not revolting.” And if you want to look at an interesting document, read “The Great Historian.” A good friend of mine, Andrew Roberts, has addressed all 23 grievances from the British point of view and said, “Ah, that was nothing. Oh, they were crybabies. You shouldn’t have done it.”

It was an interesting argument. But it has a phenomenal effect on history because if you look at Canada, if you look at New Zealand, if you look at the former South Africa, if you look at any of the British commonwealths, or for that matter, any country in Europe, they follow a parliamentary system. But the Founders who created the United States—and through this Revolutionary War learned about what was wrong with the British and what were the alternatives for consensual government, came up with this tripartite based on Montesquieu and the separation of powers. It goes back to the Spartan and Cretan constitution, antiquity. They came up with a unique government of checks and balances—Supreme Court, Congress, president. Executive, legislative, judicial. All equal branches. All checking each other and balancing each other, based on a system of federalism, that each state would have the right to be autonomous and free, as long as it did not contradict or conflict with the laws of the union itself. And they solve that problem of the Articles of Confederation.

And this system, 249 years ago, whether it persevered—I don’t know how it persevered in the Revolutionary War. The Americans didn’t have a lot of assets. The French helped a great deal. But then we had the War of 1812. The War of 1848. And of course, the American Civil War, where 700,000 Americans died trying to abolish slavery, and some trying to perpetuate it. And then, of course, we had the Spanish-American War. And then World War I, where 117,000 Americans died. Two million of them went across the Atlantic Ocean to save France and Britain from German precisionism or German autocracy.

And yet, less than 22 years later, the United States would be in another world war, and we would lose about 420,000. And then the Korean War, 1950 to 1953—35,000. Fifty-six thousand in Vietnam. So, it’s very valuable on this date, to realize that from time to time, from generation to generation, thousands of Americans have fought to protect the ideas of the American Revolution and the United States itself. And on this July 4th, we need to give them a due. And remember what they did, who they were, and why they did it.

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“Russia will end the conflict that Macron and other NATO powers started illegally, and the ending of it will be on Russia’s terms.”

“When discussing the situation surrounding Ukraine, Vladimir Putin reiterated that the conflict was a direct consequence of the policies pursued by the Western countries, which had for years been ignoring Russia’s security interests, creating an anti-Russia staging ground in the country..”

Oh La La… Putin Drops Truth Bomb On Macron (SCF)

NATO started the conflict in Ukraine, but Russia will end it on its terms, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart this week in a wake-up call. It’s always refreshing and necessary to bring reality into a conversation, assuming, of course, that the purpose of the dialogue is genuinely to resolve a problem. France’s Emmanuel Macron requested the phone call with Putin this week. It was the first time the two leaders had spoken in nearly three years. The long absence was due to Moscow claiming that Macron breached diplomatic protocol after the last phone call in 2022 by leaking details to the media. In any case, Putin showed magnanimity and a willingness to engage diplomatically by taking the call this week from Macron. The two leaders talked for over two hours.

Apart from Ukraine, another topic discussed was the outbreak of war between Israel and Iran, and the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites. Macron agreed with Putin that Iran has the right to pursue civilian nuclear energy production, and both appealed for diplomacy to prevent escalation, according to the Kremlin’s statement on the phone conversation. Critics might note, however, that France, Britain, Germany, and the other European states have played a double game with Iran, undermining Iran’s legitimate rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and giving political cover for the unlawful Israeli and US aggression against Tehran. Therefore, Macron’s concern for peace in the Middle East sounds hollow, if not hypocritical.

The Ukraine conflict was also discussed. But here, there was no pretense of diplomatic accord. Macron urged Putin to “call a ceasefire as soon as possible” and to proceed with peace talks, said the Elysee Palace, as reported by French media. For his part, Putin rebuffed the trite talk. He reminded Macron of some necessary reality.

According to the Kremlin’s statement: “When discussing the situation surrounding Ukraine, Vladimir Putin reiterated that the conflict was a direct consequence of the policies pursued by the Western countries, which had for years been ignoring Russia’s security interests, creating an anti-Russia staging ground in the country, and condoning violations of rights of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking citizens, and at present were pursuing a policy of prolonging hostilities by supplying the Kiev regime with a variety of modern weaponry. Speaking about the prospects of a peaceful settlement, the president of Russia has confirmed Moscow’s stance on possible agreements: they are to be comprehensive and long-term, provide for the elimination of the root causes of the Ukraine crisis, and be based on the new territorial realities.”

In other words, Russia will end the conflict that Macron and other NATO powers started illegally, and the ending of it will be on Russia’s terms. Who does Macron think he is? Telling Russia to call a ceasefire as soon as possible? Earlier this year, in March, Macron gave a televised nationwide address declaring Russia to be an existential threat to Europe. He even made the madcap suggestion of France using its nuclear weapons to protect all of Europe. Such crazed talk by Macron is irresponsible and reprehensible. Macron, along with Britain’s Starmer and Germany’s Merz, are prolonging the more-than-three-year war in Ukraine by pledging more military aid to the NeoNazi Kiev regime.

That regime owes its existence to an illegal coup d’état that the Americans and Europeans orchestrated in 2014. The ongoing conflict, which has slaughtered more than one million Ukrainian soldiers and burdened Europe with huge immigration costs, is the responsibility of Macron and other NATO states. They are the instigators, not Russia. If Macron genuinely wants peace in Ukraine, there is a straightforward solution. Stop arming the NeoNazi regime and stop telling lies about “defending democracy in Ukraine” from alleged “Russian aggression.” Macron and his gang of NATO war criminals could end the bloodshed promptly if they dropped the evil charade.

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Replacing a 1,000-year old church with a newly invented one is an idea that always backfires.

No Weapons For Kiev Over Christian Church Persecution – US Congresswoman (RT)

Kiev’s persecution of the country’s largest Christian church is reason enough for Washington to halt military assistance to Ukraine, US Representative Anna Paulina Luna has said, pledging to personally oppose any future weapons shipments. The Florida Republican accused Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky of banning the Orthodox Church in a post on X on Friday, apparently referring to ongoing actions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) – the largest religious organization in the country. “I can promise there will be no weapons funding for you,” wrote Luna, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We are not your piggy bank,” she added, calling on Zelensky to “negotiate for peace” instead.

Kiev has accused the UOC of maintaining ties with Moscow to justify its crackdown, even though the church declared its independence from the Russian Orthodox Church in May 2022. Responding to criticism in the comments under her post, Luna added, “The Ukraine bots are big mad about this one.” “All of a sudden these pro-war shills are religion experts and also telepathic, as they are CERTAIN not one Christian went to those churches to worship God. Imagine if we did that in the States. Hypocrites,” she said. According to Ukraine Oversight, an official US government portal tracking aid disbursements, Washington allocated a total of $182.8 billion in assistance to Ukraine between 2022 and the end of 2024.

In May, President Donald Trump expressed concern over what he described as billions of dollars being wasted on Ukraine aid. He said Congress was “very upset about it” and that lawmakers were demanding answers about how the money was being spent. Earlier this week, the Pentagon reportedly halted shipments of certain weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, citing the need to review remaining stockpiles as part of Trump’s ‘America First’ policy. Kiev’s persecution of the canonical Orthodox Church has received limited attention from US politicians and public figures. In late May, American journalist Tucker Carlson raised the issue in an interview with former Ukrainian MP Vadim Novinsky.

“I think very few Americans understand the degree to which the Ukrainian government under Zelensky has persecuted the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” Carlson said during the broadcast. Years of state pressure on the church have included the arrests of clergymen and raids on monasteries, including a high-profile incident at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where religious relics are kept. Last year, Zelensky signed legislation allowing the government to ban religious organizations deemed affiliated with so-called “aggressor” states, effectively targeting the UOC. Earlier this week, he also stripped the church’s senior bishop, Metropolitan Onufry, of his citizenship, citing his previously acquired Russian passport.

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“The Trump administration “was a notable absence from the fund’s backers in December..”

BlackRock Drops Ukraine Fund (RT)

US investment holding BlackRock stopped its search for investors to back a multi-billion dollar fund for rebuilding Ukraine earlier this year, Bloomberg has reported. Interest reportedly dropped after President Donald Trump retook the White House. The fund was set to be unveiled at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome next week. It had been close to securing backing from firms supported by the governments of Germany, Italy, and Poland, the outlet wrote on Saturday, citing anonymous sources. Nevertheless, BlackRock reportedly decided to shelve the talks early this year “due to a lack of interest amid increased uncertainty over Ukraine’s future,” after the US changed its stance towards Kiev under the current administration.

Trump has long promised to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict and has sought avenues to reach a peace deal. He has also pushed European NATO allies to take over the burden of militarily supporting Ukraine. Earlier this week, Washington reportedly froze critical arms deliveries to Kiev to focus on replenishing its own stockpiles, although the US president has insisted some military aid still continues.The Trump administration “was a notable absence from the fund’s backers in December,” Bloomberg added. In March of last year, BlackRock vice chairman Philipp Hildebrand indicated that the Ukraine Development Fund was on track to secure at least $2.5 billion from private investors, countries and other grant lenders. A consortium of such investors could finance at least $15 billion towards reconstruction work in Ukraine, he said.

However, a BlackRock spokesperson indicated that the firm is no longer engaged in “any active mandate” with Kiev, having finished its pro-bono consulting work with the Ukraine Development Fund last year, Bloomberg wrote. The investment firm, which controls roughly $11.6 trillion in assets, owns substantial shares in military-industrial giants such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman, among many others. Armaments produced by these firms, which are supplied to Kiev by its Western backers, have seen extensive use in the conflict. Moscow has repeatedly condemned foreign arms supplies to Kiev, arguing that they make pro-Ukrainian Western nations party to the conflict, which Russia views as a NATO proxy war. The Kremlin has stated that the recent freeze in US military aid to Kiev will accelerate settlement of the conflict.

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Every single day, the EU fights rebel countries.

Slovakia Blocks New EU Russia Sanctions (RT)

Slovakia has blocked the EU’s 18th round of sanctions targeting Russia for the second time due to concerns about the planned phase-out of Russian energy, Slovak media has reported, citing the Foreign Ministry. According to TASR news agency, Bratislava vetoed the package on Friday during a vote by the EU’s Committee of Permanent Representatives. The ministry said Slovakia will continue to oppose the package until it receives firm guarantees from Brussels that the phase-out will not harm its economy. The dispute centers on the European Commission’s RePowerEU plan, which aims to eliminate Russian energy imports by 2028. The plan is being discussed alongside the new sanctions package targeting Russia’s energy and financial sectors. While Brussels reportedly plans to present the phase-out as trade legislation – requiring only a qualified majority – Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico insists it should be treated as sanctions, requiring unanimous approval.

The Foreign Ministry said the Slovak authorities, energy companies, and industry leaders consider the phase-out “a major challenge for the competitiveness of the economy, especially from the perspective of energy prices and energy security.” It added that while Bratislava is open to further talks, the current negotiations have not addressed its “fundamental concerns and reservations.” It stressed the need for a plan that “benefits citizens and businesses.” A group of European Commission experts reportedly arrived in Slovakia this week for talks on energy. Fico previously warned that the phase-out would jeopardize energy security and raise prices. He also cited the risk of arbitration with Russia’s Gazprom if Slovakia breaks its long-term contract, which could cost up to €20 billion ($23 billion) in penalties.

Hungary also opposes the plan. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Budapest and Bratislava jointly blocked the package at last week’s foreign ministers’ meeting, warning that the energy cuts would “destroy Hungary’s energy security” and cause sharp price hikes. The European Commission unveiled its 18th sanctions package in early June, framing it as an attempt to pressure Russia to end the Ukraine conflict. The proposed measures include lowering the Russian oil price cap from $60 to $45 per barrel, banning the future use of the Nord Stream pipeline, restricting imports of refined products made from Russian crude, and sanctioning 77 vessels which the West claims are part of a so-called Russian ‘shadow fleet’. The bloc also extended existing sanctions for another six months earlier this week.

Moscow has condemned the sanctions, calling them illegal and counterproductive. Russian officials warned that the EU’s rejection of Russian energy will force it to rely on costlier imports or rerouted Russian energy via intermediaries, driving up prices.

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Israel’s idea of a ceasefire: “‘This is the time to finish the job, reach a comprehensive deal and ensure full Israeli victory.'”

Hamas’ Has ‘Positive Response’ To Ceasefire, Pressure Mounts On Netanyahu (ZH)

Hamas announced on Friday that it had delivered a “positive” response to the latest US-backed ceasefire and hostage release proposal for Gaza, stating it was ready to begin proximity talks with Israel “immediately” to resolve outstanding issues. But just like with prior instances of being near the “goal line” – a phrase often heard during the Biden administration – Hamas has put forth several key conditions which could prove serious obstacles toward finalizing a deal. Still, global media is saying this is the closest the warring parties have been to reaching an agreement in a long time. Israeli media, citing one mediation source, has said that one of Hamas’s main demands is clearer assurances about what happens if negotiations on a permanent ceasefire are not concluded by the end of the proposed 60-day truce.

The militant group’s official statement said, “The movement has delivered its response to the brotherly mediators, which was characterized by a positive spirit.” “Hamas is fully prepared, with all seriousness, to immediately enter a new round of negotiations on the mechanism for implementing this framework,” it added. The current draft presented to Hamas says the ceasefire could be extended as long as both sides are negotiating in good faith, but Hamas reportedly wants that clause removed, fearing it gives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an opening to resume military action. This is precisely what ensued in March when a previous deal unraveled. Instead, Hamas is pushing for language that guarantees negotiations on a permanent ceasefire will continue until a final agreement is reached, and this is something which Israel has resisted.

Meanwhile, pressure on Netanyahu continues to grow domestically, as The Times of Israel details: “Tens of thousands of Israelis are set to join hostage families at mass rallies on Saturday night to urge the government to reach a deal that will free all the remaining captives held in Gaza after Israel and Hamas accepted the outlines of a US truce deal. The rallies will be held as the security cabinet gathers to discuss Hamas’s response to the emerging ceasefire-hostage deal, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the White House on Monday. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum demanded a comprehensive deal to end the war and release the remaining 50 hostages, at least 28 of whom are dead, even as Israeli officials are reportedly working to see which living hostages to prioritize in the partial, phased release under discussion.”

Prior statements of Israeli leaders have presented a grim outlook, with the possibility that less than twenty captives taken on Oct.7, 2023 might still be alive. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in its official statement, “Amid reports of a partial deal, and the prime minister’s trip to the United States, hostage families invite Israelis of all stripes to come to Hostages Square and join them in a clear call: ‘This is the time to finish the job, reach a comprehensive deal and ensure full Israeli victory.'”

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Icebreakers “R” Us.

US Plans Massive Arctic Investment (RT)

The US plans to invest billions in expanding its icebreaker fleet for which funding was included in President Donald Trump’s budget bill approved by Congress on Thursday. Trump previously admitted that the US lags behind Russia, which has the world’s largest and most advanced fleet of ice-capable vessels. Washington has of late sought to increase its influence in the Arctic. Vice President J.D. Vance stated in March that the government needs to “ensure that America is leading” in the region due to the presence of Russia and China. Trump’s so-called ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ includes funding through 2029 for ice-capable vessels.

The US Coast Guard will receive nearly $25 billion to buy 16 new icebreakers and ten light and medium icebreaking cutters, among other equipment, according to Senator Dan Sullivan from Alaska. Sullivan described the allocation as the largest investment in Coast Guard history and a “game-changer.” The US currently operates only two functional polar-class icebreakers, whereas Russia maintains a fleet of over 50, including several nuclear-powered ships. In 2022, NATO countries had 47 icebreakers in total. Eight countries have territory that extends into the Arctic: Russia, the US, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden – all but Russia are NATO members.

Trump has also revived his interest in Greenland, the vast resource-rich Arctic territory governed by Denmark. He has refused to rule out acquiring the island by force. As warming temperatures make the Arctic more accessible, the region’s potential for resource exploitation and emerging shipping lanes has drawn heightened attention from global powers. The largest portion of the Arctic region lies within Russian territory. In March, President Vladimir Putin called the Arctic a zone of “enormous potential” for trade and development but warned that geopolitical rivalry was intensifying.

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“The plans of more than 500,000 people have been disrupted because of the strike in France, which involved 272 employees of the industry..”

Head of Ryanair Airline Calls Ursula Von Der Leyen ‘Useless Politician’ (Sp.)

Ryanair said on Thursday that it was forced to cancel 170 flights, disrupting over 30,000 passengers, due to the French unions’ strike on Thursday and Friday. Ryanair’s chief executive officer Michael O’Leary told Politico on Friday that he had to cancel “400 flights and 70,000 passengers” and that “360, or 90 percent of those flights, would operate if the Commission protected the overflights as Spain, Italy and Greece do during air traffic control strikes.” Several airlines have accused France of failing to protect airlines during the protest action, while O’Leary criticized European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Almost 1,000 flights were canceled in France on Friday: half at Nice airport, 40 percent at Paris airports, and 30 percent at airports in Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Ajaccio, Bastia, Calvi and Figari due to the air traffic controllers’ strike. On Thursday, 933 flights were cancelled. “Ursula von der Leyen, being the useless politician that she is, would rather sit in her office in Brussels, pontificating about Palestine or US trade agreements or anything else. Anything but take any effective action to protect the flights of holidaymakers,” O’Leary said.

The plans of more than 500,000 people have been disrupted because of the strike in France, which involved 272 employees of the industry, Minister of Transport Philippe Tabarot said on Friday. Tabarot said on Thursday that losses related to the strike for airlines, including the country’s main carrier Air France, could amount to millions of euros. Last week, two French air traffic controllers’ unions, USAC-CGT and UNSA-ICNA, representing over 30 percent of the industry’s employees, called for protest action on July 3-4, demanding better working conditions, an end to structural staff shortages, failed technical projects and “toxic management.” The strike came as the French were preparing to go on summer school holidays.

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“What was marketed as a smooth transition toward renewable energy has turned into a forced green agenda, with no viable alternatives and little regard for its impact on competitiveness, system stability, or citizens’ well-being.”

Lights Out, Europe: The Cost of Brussels’ Energy Fantasy (Villamor)

Spain’s leading energy companies—Iberdrola, Endesa, and EDP—remain stunned. After the nationwide blackout that cut power across Spain on April 28, the government has yet to provide a clear explanation or take technical responsibility. The companies, represented by the employers’ association Aelec, have denounced “surprising omissions” in the official investigation. They demand that the extreme voltage spikes recorded in the days leading up to the collapse be included in the analysis. They have criticized the preliminary report from ENTSO-E—the European network of electricity operators—for claiming that “the system was operating normally” just seconds before the failure. Meanwhile, severe voltage swings were recorded, going beyond safety limits and triggering automatic shutdowns of high-voltage substations and key refineries.

This episode is far more than an isolated incident. It is a metaphor for the erratic direction taken by the European Union’s energy policy. In the name of climate change, Brussels has embarked on a radical overhaul of its energy model driven not by technical or economic realities, but by an ideological agenda imposed by political and bureaucratic elites. What was marketed as a smooth transition toward renewable energy has turned into a forced green agenda, with no viable alternatives and little regard for its impact on competitiveness, system stability, or citizens’ well-being.

At the root of this drift lies the REPowerEU plan, launched after the start of the war in Ukraine with the stated aim of “fully decoupling” Europe from Russian energy. What initially appeared to be a justified geostrategic measure quickly became, in the hands of the European Commission, a pretext to push through renewable energies at any cost. This led to a rushed and uneven transition, with citizens and businesses footing the bill. This leap into the void has destabilized key sectors such as agriculture, transport, and industry, forcing them to absorb rising costs without receiving real technological upgrades. Countries like Germany, which shut down their nuclear plants out of political conviction, have now had to reopen coal-fired stations in a contradictory reversal.

Meanwhile, state propaganda continues to promote green energy self-sufficiency, while households face record electricity bills and companies lose competitiveness. The structural failures of the European power grid are becoming increasingly evident. The continental grid was designed for stable and predictable hydro, gas, and nuclear sources. The mass introduction of intermittent sources like wind and solar makes imbalances difficult to manage: without wind or sun, generation collapses; with too much, the grid becomes dangerously overloaded.

On April 28th, the Iberian Peninsula experienced those consequences firsthand. Abnormal voltage levels were detected in several substations throughout the morning. To grasp the gravity: a “voltage oscillation” involves a sudden and significant fluctuation in the grid’s voltage, which can damage equipment, trigger automatic disconnections, or, in extreme cases, cause a total blackout. At the Lancha substation, voltage reached nearly 250 kV on a line rated for 220. Another line, rated at 400 kV, surpassed 470 kV just before the collapse. According to Aelec, these anomalies began as early as 10:00 a.m. While a sudden drop of 2,200 MW in generation has been cited as the trigger, the system is theoretically built to withstand a loss of up to 3,000 MW without shutting down. This was not a coincidental failure—it was a built-in weakness.

Beyond technical and political issues, the forced energy transition takes a human toll. European households are paying more for electricity, hitting middle- and lower-income families especially hard. Electrification of transport, promoted without adequate foresight, is raising the cost of mobility due to a lack of reliable charging infrastructure. Farmers and truckers, already squeezed by unmanageable climate regulations, face growing expenses while being pressured to make investments they cannot afford. Moreover, blackouts are no minor issue: their impact ranges from multimillion-euro industrial losses to the paralysis of hospitals, schools, and transport networks. In Spain, the outage even cost five people their lives. An energy model that cannot ensure a steady supply threatens the economy and public safety.

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Fish
https://twitter.com/IndianaGPA/status/1941261367207657862

Jeep

Eagle

School
https://twitter.com/Hoang_HQ/status/1941183156998242700

Octo
https://twitter.com/wmhuo168/status/1941351218544246839

Eve

 

 

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Apr 052025
 
 April 5, 2025  Posted by at 9:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Salvador Dali Paranoiac Woman-Horse (Invisible Sleeping Woman, Lion, Horse) 1930

 

Trump: This Is A Great Time To Get Rich (RT)
Why Are People So Angry About Trump’s Tariffs? (Victor Davis Hanson)
Trump’s Tariffs Will Turn EU Economy Into ‘Decaying Corpse’ – Medvedev (RT)
You Wouldn’t Want to Be Him on That Dreadful Day (Kunstler)
John Roberts Needs to Do His Job Already (Skeet)
Trump Nemesis Judge Muses: Who to Hold in Contempt in Deportation Case? (Adams)
Supreme Court Shuts Down Activist Judge (ZH)
Canada Will Lead The World – PM (RT)
Trump HHS Slashes Hundreds of Millions in Woke LGBTQ Grants (DS)
The DOGE Emperor (Spencer)
Trump’s Inner Circle Opposes New Putin Call – NBC News (RT)
Zelensky Contradicts Trump On NATO Membership (RT)
‘Free Le Pen’ – Trump to France (RT)
Yes, Trump Could Serve a Third Term. Law Professor Explains How (Allen)
Larry Fink Believes He Will Win Over Control Of The Panama Canal (Gasparino)
Trump Extends TikTok Deadline 75 Days, As He Tries To Close Deal (JTN)
EU Could Fine Elon Musk’s X $1B Over Illicit Content, Disinformation (CT)

 

 

 

 

My job

Yield

Gracias
https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1908220062496133399

Crash

Ratna

O’Leary

Dmitriev

Fall in Line
https://twitter.com/Jules31415/status/1907857369586901222

 

 

 

 

Amazing to see how many people claim to know Trump’s tariffs will lead to utter disaster. Nobody knows, it’s never been tried before. Give it time. He’s had decades to actively think about, and he’s convinced it will be fine. Why else would he do it?

Why does the press never report that the end of income tax is also part of the plan?

Trump: This Is A Great Time To Get Rich (RT)

US President Donald Trump has defended his controversial decision to impose sweeping tariffs on the majority of America’s trading partners. The move announced earlier this week has shocked global markets and sparked a backlash from world leaders. “To the many investors coming into the United States and investing massive amounts of money, my policies will never change. This is a great time to get rich, richer than ever before!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. The president remained defiant, even as the US stock market suffered its worst crash since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, with the Dow plunging 2,231 points on Friday, according to CNN. US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that it was “now becoming clear that the tariff increases will be significantly larger than expected.”

“While tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation, it is also possible that the effects could be more persistent,” Powell added. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt denied that the restrictions would hurt US businesses. “There’s not going to be any pain for American-owned companies and American workers, because their jobs are going to come back home, and again, as for prices, President Trump is working on tax cuts to put more money back into the pockets of Americans,” she told NewsNation on Thursday. On April 2, Trump announced a 10% baseline tariff on all imports and additional “reciprocal” duties on dozens of countries he said had an unfair trade imbalance with the US. The president argued that many nations were “ripping off” American citizens through “harmful policies like currency manipulation and exorbitant value-added taxes.”

China has reacted by imposing a 34% tariff on American goods, matching Trump’s levy on Chinese products. The EU has condemned the US tariffs and vowed to adopt “further countermeasures” in response. Canada said it would counter Trump’s “series of unwarranted and unjustified tariffs” with a 25% levy on cars imported from the US. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the head of the World Trade Organization, said that an all-out trade war would be “destructive for the global economy.” She warned that the tariffs lead to a contraction of around 1% of global merchandise trade.

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“..don’t you find it very ironic that Wall Street is blaming the Trump tariffs for heading us into a recession, if not depression, when the only great depression we’ve ever had was not caused by tariffs but by Wall Street?

Why Are People So Angry About Trump’s Tariffs? (Victor Davis Hanson)

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. April 3, President Donald Trump announced it as “Liberation Day.” And by that he meant we were going to be liberated from asymmetrical tariffs of the last 50 years. And it was going to inaugurate a new what he called “golden age” of trade parity, greater investment in the United States, but mostly, greater job opportunities and higher-paying jobs for Americans. And yet, the world seemed to erupt in anger. It was very strange. Even people on the libertarian right and, of course, the left were very angry. The Wall Street Journal pilloried Donald Trump. But here’s my question. China has prohibitive tariffs, so does Vietnam, so does Mexico, so does Europe. So do a lot of countries. So does India. But if tariffs are so destructive of their economies, why is China booming?

How did India become an economic powerhouse when it has these exorbitant tariffs on American imports? How did Vietnam, of all places, become such a different country even though it has these prohibitive tariffs? Why isn’t Germany, before its energy problems, why wasn’t it a wreck? It’s got tariffs on almost everything that we send them. How is the EU even functioning with these tariffs? I thought tariffs destroyed an economy, but they seem to like them. And they’re angry that they’re no longer asymmetrical. Apparently, people who are tariffing us think tariffs improve their economy. Maybe they’re right. I don’t know. The second thing is, why would you get angry at the person who is reacting to the asymmetrical tariff and not the people who inaugurated the tariff?

Why is Canada mad at us when it’s running a $63 billion surplus and it has tariffs on some American products at 250%. Doesn’t it seem like the people who started this asymmetrical—if I could use the word—trade war should be the culpable people, not the people who are reluctantly reacting to it? Sort of like Ukraine and Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine. Do we blame Ukraine for defending itself and trying to reciprocate? No, we don’t. We don’t blame America because it finally woke up and said, “Whatever they tariff us we’re gonna tariff them.” Which brings up another question: Are our tariffs really tariffs? That is, were they preemptive? Were they leveled against countries that had no tariffs against us? Were they punitive? No. They’re almost leveled on autopilot. Whatever a particular country tariffs us, we reciprocate and just mirror image them.

And they go off anytime that country says, “It was a mistake. We’re sorry. You’re an ally. You’re a neutral. We’re not going to tariff this American product.” And we say, “Fine.” Then the autopilot ceases and the automatic tariff ends. In other words, it’s their choice, not ours. We’re just reacting to what they did, not what we did. Couple of other questions that I’ve had. We haven’t run a trade surplus since 1975—50 years. So, it wasn’t suddenly we woke up and said, “It’s unfair. We want commercial justice.” No. We’ve been watching this happen. For 50 years it’s been going on. And no president, no administration, no Congress in the past has done anything about it. Done anything about what? Leveling tariffs on our products that we don’t level on theirs.

It was all predicated in the postwar period. We were so affluent, so powerful—Europe, China, Russia were in shambles—that we had to take up the burdens of reviving the economy by taking great trade deficits. Fifty years later, we have been deindustrialized. And the countries who did this to us, by these unfair and asymmetrical tariffs, did not fall apart. They did not self-destruct. They apparently thought it was in their self-interest. And if anybody calibrates the recent gross domestic product growth of India or Taiwan or South Korea or Japan, they seem to have some logic to it.

There’s a final irony. The people who are warning us most vehemently about this tariff quote the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930. But remember something, that came after the onset of the Depression—after. The stock market crashed in 1929. That law was not passed until 1930. It was not really amplified until ’31. And here’s the other thing that they were, conveniently, not reminded of: We were running a surplus. That was a preemptive punitive tariff, on our part, against other countries. We had a trade surplus. And it was not 10% or 20%. Some of the tariffs were 40% and 50%. And again, it happened after the collapse of the stock market. In conclusion, don’t you find it very ironic that Wall Street is blaming the Trump tariffs for heading us into a recession, if not depression, when the only great depression we’ve ever had was not caused by tariffs but by Wall Street?

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Seems a likelier prediction than mayhem in the US.

Trump’s Tariffs Will Turn EU Economy Into ‘Decaying Corpse’ – Medvedev (RT)

The US imposition of “reciprocal” tariffs on EU exports has doomed the bloc’s economy, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said. This week, US President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs in an attempt to improve America’s balance of trade, accusing the country’s economic partners of exploiting access to its consumer market through protectionist policies and currency manipulation. Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, remarked on Thursday that while the move seriously disrupts global commerce, Russia will be largely unaffected, as its trade with the US is virtually nonexistent.

“No need for knee-jerk reactions,” he posted on social media. “We should take a seat on the shore and wait for the enemy’s corpse to float by. In this case, the decaying corpse of the EU economy.” The expression, which advises patient inaction, has been attributed by Western authors, including Umberto Eco, to various Eastern sources and may be a misinterpretation of a remark by Chinese philosopher Confucius, which does not mention dead bodies. Outgoing German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has compared the potential impact to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Then too, “something new was happening, and we were not prepared in Europe to cope with the challenge,” he said during a press conference on Thursday. Many other European politicians and media outlets have described the economic fallout from the tariffs as disastrous for member states. Washington, however, has warned that any retaliatory steps would be met with further measures.

Medvedev has previously called out Brussels for being incompetent and irrationally hostile toward Russia. In an effort to punish Moscow over the Ukraine conflict, Brussels has sought to cut off energy imports from the country entirely. The economic bloc has also imposed sweeping sanctions, significantly reducing direct trade. Critics of the policy, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico, argue that it has led to a dramatic decline in the competitiveness of EU products, inflicting substantial economic damage.

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If Trump must fight Roberts, he will.

You Wouldn’t Want to Be Him on That Dreadful Day (Kunstler)

Do you see the pattern? Populist party leaders all over Western Civ getting undone by the law courts —Calin Georgescu in Romania, election cancelled; Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, de-railed by President Lula’s stooge judges (with CIA help); Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia shot-up with five bullets in May last year (survived miraculously); the Alternative-for-Deutschland Party de-platformed by the Scholz-Merz ruling junta; then, this week, Marine Le Pen, leading candidate (by far) for President of France, defenestrated on Mickey Mouse charges in the Paris court. And, of course, since 2015, Mr. Trump, hounded relentlessly, but not yet overthrown, due to sheer pluck and testosterone (the official hated hormone of the Left).

International lawfare is about the last remaining tool in the “Globalist” kit-bag for “color revolution,” which means regime change by underhanded means, election interference being the favorite device. The poster child, of course, was the US CIA / DOD State Department regime change operation in Ukraine, 2014, that ousted Russian-leaning elected President Viktor Yanukovych, eventually leading to the installation of coke-head Volodymyr Zelensky, and ultimately to the Ukraine War that has killed over a million people. These days, astroturf (i.e., fake) street revolution (e.g., Maidan in Kiev 2014) is out; lawfare is in.

By Globalist, let’s just say the broad alliance of the EU, the European Central Bank & friends, the WEF-and-cronies in the global corporatocracy, the US Democratic Party, billionaires such as George Soros and Reid Hoffman, and sundry residual mass-formation world-savors of the crypto-communist-green-bullshit persuasion. The situation in our own country has grown particularly acute with the DC and other regional federal court judges lately arrogating the Article II executive powers of the president. You can see what the furthest strategic end-point is: the Democratic Party wants to induce President Trump to invoke a national emergency against this legal insurrection in order to force him to play the role of “fascist dictator.” Mr. Trump has been very careful to stay as much within-the-guardrails of the law as possible throughout this long campaign to destroy him and his MAGA movement to purge corruption from the government.

The hinge on the conflict now is the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS), which is led by Chief Justice John Roberts. A whole lot of troubling info about CJ Roberts has blown up in recent days, much of it not exactly new, but buried and ignored by the likes of The New York Times, and its kindred blob mouthpieces. You’ve read in this blog recently how CJ Roberts’s chief factotum at SCOTUS, Sheldon Snook, is married to Mary McCord, involved officially in every lawfare prank against Mr. Trump since RussiaGate, when she was U.S. Assistant Attorney-General for National Security — and who then went on as counsel for Jerrold Nadler’s House Committee Trump Impeachment No. 1, and the J-6 House Committee, both actions of stupendous bad faith.

Turns out that CJ Roberts has been “besties” with Lawfare field marshal Norm Eisen, and for quite a long time, as far back as 2005. Eisen was special counsel on Impeachment No. 1, and chief strategist behind the janky cases staged last year against Mr. Trump by New York AG Letitia James, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, and Fulton County (GA) DA Fani Willis. You can bet that Eisen was at least an unofficial strategic advisor in the Special Counsel Jack Smith prosecutions, too, along with Mary McCord and Andrew Weissmann of Mueller Commission infamy — Eisen, McCord, and Weissmann, the three Nosferatus of Lawfare. Eisen is coordinating most of the current lawsuit action against Mr. Trump in the federal courts.

Several alt-news outlets are reporting that CJ Roberts made two trips to visit Norm Eisen in Prague between 2011 and 2014 when Eisen was Barack Obama’s ambassador to the Czech Republic. The longest visit, a week, entailed a global conference on “American and European rule-of-law issues.” Hmmmm. . . what could that possibly mean? Revolver News, Mike Benz on “X”, and a character styled as “The Researcher” on “X” have all reported on the Roberts-Eisen close friendship. Also turns out that CJ Roberts is a club member at an elite, invite-only club for legal poohbahs called the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court, which is indirectly associated with an international Inns of Court network centered in London. (“Rule-of-law,” anyone?) Other members of the EBW Inn of Court in DC. include Judges James (“Jeb”) Boasberg, Beryl Howell, Amit Mehta, all of the DC District — all involved in current lawfare suits — and SCOTUS Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Do you suppose they have discussed any of these matters at their meet-ups, especially after the pass-around of legal beverages? Perhaps even strategized about them?

Doesn’t that make you a little queasy about CJ Roberts’s role presiding over cases coming any day before SCOTUS that have been designed and propelled by his good pal, Norm Eisen? Should CJ Roberts consider recusing himself from any of these pending cases on the SCOTUS docket? Oh, yes, one other interesting sidelight: John Roberts has been found listed on the Jeffrey Epstein flight logs of the “Lolita Express” bound for Little St. James Island in the US Virgin Islands, Epstein’s supposed party shack for the celebrity elite. The allegation that the “John Roberts” listed in the flight log is the same as the Chief Justice is officially unsubstantiated. But here it is FWIW. Of course, no flight log would be required for a jaunt to Epstein’s New York City townhouse, in case CJ Roberts ever ventured up there from our nation’s capital, an easy car trip.

It is established fact that Epstein was busy recording the various doings in the many bedrooms of these establishments, arguably not merely for his private entertainment. Is CJ Roberts perhaps under blackmail for any such activity recorded? Lord only knows, just now. But it’s possible that FBI Director Kash Patel and his Deputy Director Dan Bongino know the answer to this abiding mystery, since weeks ago they assigned a thousand agents in the New York City FBI office to sort out the thousands of pages and other articles of evidence that the office had been suppressing for years until US AG Pam Bondi fired the top agent there, James Dennehy, for withholding it so long. It’s been awfully quiet over at the FBI and DOJ home office in DC since then. Of course, if any referrals are being considered, or any grand jury bound cases being prepared, you wouldn’t want that to leak out, would you?

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Roberts can try to wait out the clock 677 times, but the Trump team are not fools.

John Roberts Needs to Do His Job Already (Skeet)

We are in the midst of a judicial coup. In the past three months, there have been at least 79 nationwide injunctions issued by lower courts against the legal orders issued by President Trump. That’s more than half the total number of nationwide injunctions ever issued. Furthermore, these injunctions can ignore and overrule rulings on the same issue made by other district judges. If 50 district judges rule that a presidential order is constitutional, and the 51st district judge rules that it isn’t, that single district judge can overrule and violate the separation of powers not only of the president and Congress, but also of the rest of the judiciary. Just in the past couple of weeks, a federal judge blocked President Trump from firing federal probationary workers. Bosses and managers in every company in America, including unionized companies, have the right to fire probationary workers at any time for any reason.

But Judge James K. Bredar unilaterally declared that President Trump cannot. In the same vein, District Judge Anthony Trenga blocked President Trump from firing 19 CIA and DNI employees. District Judges Benjamin Settle and Ana Reyes, handling different cases on opposite sides of the country, both blocked Trump’s transgender military ban. Boston Municipal Court Judge Mark Summerville declared an ICE agent in contempt for taking an illegal into custody during the latter’s criminal trial (for charges of falsifying information on a government document, a charge the judge dismissed). Judge Summerville then ordered the local district attorney’s office to investigate the ICE agent. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the American government to somehow force the return of an MS-13 gang leader from a prison in El Salvador. The judge said he must be returned before this upcoming Monday before midnight. (Or?)

District Judge Edward Chen blocked President Trump from revoking deportation protections from Venezuelan illegals, decrying Trump’s order as racist and blathering on about the “social and economic contributions” of the 350,000 illegals flooding the labor market and straining social services, as if their economic impact (even if it were positive) should have any bearing whatsoever of the constitutionality of Trump’s order. As Bonchie over at RedState pointed out, this case is particularly egregious in that Judge Chen disregarded the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had previously ruled that the Temporary Protection Status (which Judge Chen ordered reinstated) is not subject to judicial review. This is the appeals court under whose jurisdiction Judge Chen operates. So, he basically just told his supervisors that they’re wrong, he’s right, and they can go pound sand.

And of course there is District Judge Boasberg, who infamously ordered planes carrying foreign terrorists to turn around midair and return them to American soil, where they’d be freed to rape, murder, and vote Democrat. Any common-sense reading of the Alien Enemies Act clearly demonstrates that President Trump is well within his rights in deporting foreign terrorists and gang members. But Boasberg singlehandedly and arbitrarily claimed authority to negate the law. Boasberg’s blatant disregard of the law and his usurpation of executive authority led to calls from conservative circles, Congress, and the president himself for Boasberg’s impeachment. But shortly after these calls for impeachment, Chief Justice John Roberts issued an unprecedented statement denouncing such an approach. Roberts’ statement read, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Justice Roberts is not so dumb as to confuse “disagreement concerning a judicial decision” with a blatant usurpation of authority and the willful violation of the separation of powers as enumerated in the U. S. Constitution. Roberts’ intention is to protect and expand the unchecked power of the judiciary at the expense of the other co-equal branches of government. The abuse of legislative and executive power regularly leads to censure, party expulsion, and impeachment. The abuse of judicial power suffers from no such checks, limitations, or consequences. And when such constitutionally documented remedies are pondered by members of the supposedly coequal branches, Justice Roberts harangues them for their audacity.

Justice Roberts is also not so dumb as to not realize exactly what the Left is doing. It’s obvious to everyone that they’re trying to jam Trump up in the red tape of a judicial bureaucratic nightmare to slow down or stop his agenda. It doesn’t matter if every single case reaches the Supreme Court and every single case results in the Supreme Court siding with Trump. Such a process can take months or years to adjudicate each case. That’s the point. The process is the punishment, and the Left is using it as an unconstitutional veto. They’re hoping to string Trump along until the midterms, where they hope to regain control of Congress and launch a few dozen or so impeachment proceedings against him (about which Roberts will make zero statements about the abuse of impeachment powers).

His defense of the integrity of the court system, or against the abuse of impeachment, is quite selective. Did he speak out during the first two sham impeachments against President Trump? Did he speak out when President Biden brazenly ignored and defied the Supreme Court ruling on student debt? On a side note, John, any progress on that internal investigation as to which justice’s aide leaked the Dobbs decision to the press? To the extent that Justice Robert concedes that there is a blatant judicial coup being attempted in real time at district level (for which there have been no consequences and, hence, no incentives to refrain from such abuse, which has clearly accelerated in recent weeks), the legal and constitutional solution must be wide ranging and comprehensive.

[..] Suppose a rogue judge ordered the New York Times and the Washington Post to cease operations based on that judge’s twisted understanding of the First Amendment. Would Justice Roberts tell everyone to calm down and go through the appeals process? Would these newspapers be expected to abide by the ruling for the months and years it would take to reach the Supreme Court?

If police across the country started entering whatever homes they wanted to conduct warrantless searches, and a rogue judge passed a nationwide injunction giving them legal cover to do so, would Justice Roberts expect this abuse to continue while the appeals courts heard the cases? Would American citizens be expected to submit to warrantless searches at the whim of the authorities until SCOTUS finally got around to reviewing them?

Justice Roberts, you have judges ordering how the executive is to administer the military. You have justices acting as de facto air traffic controllers, demanding the executive branch order aircraft maneuvers over other nations’ airspace without any regard or knowledge of the safety and logistics thereof. You have judges handcuffing executive action based not on the constitutionality of said action, but on how that particular judge thinks its economic impact would be. You have judges ordering district attorneys’ offices to launch investigations. You have judges ordering our government to tell other governments what to do.

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“Judge Boasberg’s politically motivated ruling overstepped his authority, compromised the impartiality of the judiciary, and created a constitutional crisis,”

Trump Nemesis Judge Muses: Who to Hold in Contempt in Deportation Case? (Adams)

“How should I determine who the contemner or contemners are?” federal District Court Judge James Boasberg asked Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Immigration Litigation Drew Ensign. A contemner is someone said to be in contempt of court. In an at-times contentious hearing on Thursday, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia told the Justice Department lawyer that he thought the Trump administration had disobeyed his verbal court order to turn around three planes heading to El Salvador carrying more than 238 illegal migrants accused by the Trump administration of being members of the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs. “It seems to me there’s a fair likelihood that that is not correct; in fact, that the government acted in bad faith throughout that day,” Boasberg, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said in court.

The Trump administration, for its part, maintained that it had followed the judge’s written order on 7:27 p.m. on March 15 that halted what the administration viewed as the enforcement of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. However, Boasberg also gave an oral order earlier in the day that is the subject of the dispute between the judge and the Trump administration. The Trump administration contends that the judge’s verbal command to turn the planes around “did not amount to a binding injunction.” The 1798 Alien Enemies Act was passed during the administration of John Adams, the second president. The law stipulated that when the United States is at war or facing “any invasion or predatory incursion,” the president can remove males who are 14 years of age or older from the United States “as alien enemies.”

Boasberg asked who had made the decision to not turn the planes back or not disembark the illegal immigrants, for which the government lawyer did not have an answer. “You, standing here, have no idea who made the decision to not to bring the planes back or have the passengers not be disembarked upon arrival? As we proceed with potential contempt proceedings, that may become relevant,” the judge said. Members of Congress have taken issue with Boasberg’s actions, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has vowed to hold hearings on some of the judicial rulings against the Trump administration. Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, and five other House Republicans have introduced articles of impeachment in the House against Boasberg.

“Chief Judge Boasberg usurped the executive’s constitutional authority, going so far as to order midair flights to turn around and return violent foreign gangsters back to American soil. Judge Boasberg’s politically motivated ruling overstepped his authority, compromised the impartiality of the judiciary, and created a constitutional crisis,” Gill said in a press statement. To remove a federal judge from office would require some Democrats’ support in the Senate, which House Republicans are unlikely to get. Boasberg is expected to rule on whether to hold Trump administration officials in contempt of court next week. The federal D.C. appeals court denied the Trump administration’s request to lift Boasberg’s order, and the administration has subsequently appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

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Not complete.

Supreme Court Shuts Down Activist Judge (ZH)

The Supreme Court on Friday overruled an activist judge in Boston, allowing the Trump administration to slash $250 million for more than 100 teacher training grants for DEI and other woke programs. In a 5-4 decision nine days after the request, the Supremes sided with the Trump administration’s emergency request to stay the court order by judge Myong J. Joun of the federal District of Massachusetts – who had ordered the Trump administration to “immediately restore” the “pre-existing status quo prior to the termination.” According to the ruling – which is likely to narrow the ability of district courts to halt agency actions involving grant function, Joun lacked authority to order the Trump admin to restore the funding.

https://twitterr.com/bykatiebuehler/status/1908255070291996992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1908255070291996992%7Ctwgr%5Ee5efef6d959ddcbb739d9a2382749cea9bba9ea0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fsupreme-court-shuts-down-activist-judge-lets-trump-cut-250-million-dei-training-teachers

In his ruling, Myong sided with California and eight other blue states that argued that the cuts were likely driven by efforts by the Trump administration to gut DEI programs (duh). The cuts were announced on Feb. 17, following findings by DOGE that taxpayer funds were being used to “train teachers and education agencies on divisive ideologies” that were “inappropriate and unnecessary,” including “critical race theory,; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); social justice activism; ‘anti-racism’; and instruction on white privilege and white supremacy.” And of course, dissenting in the Supreme Court decision were Justices Jackson, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Chief Justice Roberts.

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“Carney said the move was bound to “rupture the global economy,” which has already become “fundamentally different today than it was yesterday.”

That is the idea, yes.

Canada Will Lead The World – PM (RT)

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has condemned US President Donald Trump’s new slate of tariffs, declaring that Ottawa stands ready to become the global economic leader in place of Washington. He delivered the remarks on Thursday as he unveiled retaliatory measures for Trump’s claimed “reciprocal” tariffs, which include an additional 25% automobile industry tariff on Canada. Ottawa has responded by tariffing all cars and vehicle content imported from the US that is not compliant with USMCA, a cornerstone free trade pact between the US, Canada, and Mexico. The sweeping new wave of tariffs ranging from 10% to 49%, affecting most countries in the world, was rolled out by Trump on Wednesday on what he called “liberation day” in an effort to rectify America’s import-export imbalance. Carney said the move was bound to “rupture the global economy,” which has already become “fundamentally different today than it was yesterday.”

“The system of global trade anchored on the US [is one] that Canada has relied on since the end of the Second World War. A system that, while not perfect, has helped to deliver prosperity for our country for decades is over. Our old relationship of steadily deepening integration with the US is over,” the prime minister announced. Carney described the development as a “tragedy” that has become “the new reality,” but claimed that Ottawa was ready to take “global economic leadership” instead of Washington. “Canada must be looking elsewhere to expand our trade, to build our economy, and to protect our sovereignty. Canada is ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of like-minded countries who share our values,” he said. “And if the United States no longer wants to lead, Canada will.”

Canada has become one of the prime targets for Trump’s attacks on the global trade status quo, with the US president alleging that Washington has been “subsidizing” Ottawa in the amount of about $200 billion a year. The best way to resolve their economic disagreements would be for Canada would be becoming the “cherished” 51st state of the US, he has suggested on multiple occasions. While Canadian leaders have firmly rejected the annexation idea, opinion polls have indicated it is also extremely unpopular among the public as well. A recent YouGov poll suggested that up to 77% of Canadians firmly oppose it, with only around 15% in favor of a merger with the US.

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We escaped this at the last minute.

Trump HHS Slashes Hundreds of Millions in Woke LGBTQ Grants (DS)

The Trump administration’s Health and Human Services Department has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants dedicated to researching illegal sexual behavior in children, pregnancy prevention for “transgender boys,” and so-called sleep inequality affecting black sexual-minority men. In March, HHS canceled at least $530 million of funding for LGBTQ+ health research programs, according to a grant tracker from Noam Ross of rOpenSci and Scott Delaney of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. HHS previously provided more than $990 million of grant funding to LGBTQ+ health research programs, according to the tracker. The National Institutes of Health’s newly sworn-in director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, said that under his tutelage, the agency would shift its priorities toward “research aimed at preventing, treating, and curing chronic conditions like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity and many others that cause so much suffering and deaths among all Americans, LGBTQ individuals included.”

The shift “away from politicized DEI and gender ideology studies” is in “accordance with the president’s executive orders,” HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told The Daily Signal. The priority shift included cutting funding for studies focused on radical gender ideology, critical race theory, and other topics that polls show to be wildly unpopular with Americans, according to The Daily Signal’s review of terminated grants. For instance, the Trump administration cut off $10,000 of promised funding to a conference Feb. 25-27 at the University of Oklahoma called “Be Curious Not Judgmental: The 4th National Symposium on Sexual Behavior of Youth.” “Professionals and parents continue to use myths and misunderstandings as the base of decisions on problematic and illegal sexual behavior of children and adolescents,” the symposium’s website reads. “Adults worry about addressing sexual topics, and yet youth continue to be inundated with graphic sexual images and messages.”

“We need to better equip professionals and parents to understand and support healthy sexual development and to identify problematic sexual behavior early and intervene with all children and caregivers impacted,” the description continues. One breakout session at the conference focused on “The Help-Wanted Prevention Intervention for Minor Attracted Individuals,” a euphemism for pedophiles. On March 21, Trump’s NIH terminated a $2.9 million grant to the University of Minnesota for research on “adolescent health at the intersections of sexual, gender, racial/ethnic, immigrant identities and native language.” The study aimed to determine “what positive and negative experiences are particularly relevant to the overlapping, simultaneous production of inequalities by [sexual and gender minority] identity, race/ethnicity, immigration experiences, and native language?”

The pre-Trump NIH promised the Research Triangle Institute $100,507 to study “social influences on sexual health among Latinx adolescents and emerging adults who identify as LGBTQ+ in an agricultural community.” NIH ended a $1.5 million grant to Urban Health Partnerships for “leveraging a community-driven approach to address the impact of social determinants of health on structural inequities among Miami-Dade County’s intergenerational LGBTQ+ Community.” Hunter College lost its $211,100 grant to study “development and feasibility of a psychosocial intervention for sexual and gender minority autistic adults.” On March 18, NIH cut off Virginia Commonwealth University’s $205,308 grant focused on “using youth-engaged methods to develop and evaluate a measure for disordered eating behaviors in transgender and gender-diverse youth.”

“Transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse (TNG) youth face stigma due to the marginalization of their gender identities,” the study says. “TNG youth also have increased vulnerability to body dissatisfaction due to pubertal changes and development of secondary sexual characteristics that might be misaligned with their gender identity, which may be exacerbated by a youth’s inability to access gender-affirming medical care (i.e., puberty blockers, gender-affirming hormones).” Yale University lost government funding for a program, “Training in Behavioral Design Interventions to Address Stigma Among Men Who have Sex with Men.” “This study will explore relationships of different discrimination experiences and sexual health among young Black men who have sex with men (YBMSM),” the project narrative says. “This study aims to better the sexual health of YBMSM throughout their lives by informing future interventions that help decrease new cases of HIV and other poor sexual health outcomes.”

The NIH terminated its $2,368,492 contract with Brown University to study “improving mental health among the LGBTQ+ community impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.”NIH had committed more than $1.3 million to Princeton University to study “Views of Gender in Adolescence.” “Gender diverse children often experience disparities in mental health and well-being,” the project narrative says. “Further questions concern the stability of their gender, as that has implications for medical transitions. The proposed work would examine the role of gender beliefs and self-categorization in predicting mental health and well-being, as well as provide better estimates of rates of stability and change across time in the identities of both cisgender and gender-diverse youth.” Trump’s HHS terminated a $1.3 million grant to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research to study “Adapting an LGB+ inclusive teen-pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys.”

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Publius Helvius Pertinax.

“There is no doubt, however, that those who have fattened at the public trough in the U.S. for so many decades are not giving up easily..”

The DOGE Emperor (Spencer)

See if any of this sounds familiar: a great nation, indeed, the world’s only superpower, is beset by turmoil, as a corrupt political class grows more interested in enriching itself than in performing any actual public service. Finally, a new leader emerges who has a long and distinguished record in other fields, but is not a career politician. Citizens who are deeply concerned about the direction of the country put their faith in this unlikely reformer and manage to secure the top spot for him, but the corrupt elements are supremely powerful and deeply entrenched. They refuse to accept the new leader and fight back fiercely against his efforts to restore competence and honesty to the government. I am, of course, speaking about Publius Helvius Pertinax, who was the emperor of Rome from Jan. 1, 193, to March 28, 193. In his all too brief reign at the helm of the magnificent empire, Pertinax tried to turn around the mighty ship of state and draw it out of the morass of corruption into which he had fallen.

One of his contemporaries, the historian and Roman Senator Cassius Dio, said that Pertinax was “an excellent and upright man” and a fine emperor as well, who during his three-month tenure demonstrated “not only humaneness and integrity in the imperial administrations, but also the most economical management and the most careful consideration for the public welfare.” Writing over thirteen centuries later, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote in his notorious manual of power politics, “The Prince,” that Pertinax was one of three Roman emperors of his time who were “men of modest life, lovers of justice, enemies to cruelty, humane, and benignant.” This did not, however, play well in the empire of his day. The soldiers of the Roman Empire, “being accustomed to live licentiously under Commodus,” who was Pertinax’s free-spending predecessor, “could not endure the honest life to which Pertinax wished to reduce them.”

This was understandable. The thing about corruption is that it, well, corrupts. Once soldiers get accustomed to getting lavish amounts of money under the table for various favors, it is difficult to compel them to be content with their relatively meager official salary alone. And it wasn’t just the soldiers. The Roman Emperors site notes that “Pertinax’s reign was characterized by his attempts to reverse the excesses and corruption of Commodus’ rule. He immediately set about reforming the administration, cutting down on the extravagance that had characterized the previous regime.” Shades of DOGE. Pertinax also “sought to restore discipline within the Praetorian Guard and the broader military, which had become increasingly unruly under Commodus. Pertinax also attempted to implement financial reforms, aiming to replenish the depleted imperial treasury through austerity measures and the sale of Commodus’ extravagant possessions.”

While anyone who was aware of the empire’s former glory welcomed these reforms, the beneficiaries of the corruption were less happy: “Pertinax’s reforms were met with resistance from multiple quarters. The Praetorian Guard, in particular, had grown accustomed to the bribes and favors they had received during Commodus’ reign. Pertinax’s attempts to impose discipline and reduce their influence were deeply unpopular. The Guard, which had played a key role in the assassination of Commodus, was now wary of any emperor who might threaten their privileged position.” Making matters even worse was the fact that “Pertinax’s efforts to restore financial discipline alienated many in the Roman elite. His attempts to collect overdue taxes and recover state property from wealthy individuals who had benefitted under Commodus made him enemies among the Senate and the aristocracy. These powerful groups saw Pertinax as a threat to their wealth and influence and began plotting against him.”

Yeah, you’re right, this could be a terrific movie. Cast Trump as Pertinax, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi as his enemies among the Senate and aristocracy, Old Joe Biden (or maybe Barack Obama) as Commodus, and Mark Milley as the angry head of the Praetorian Guard. The worst part, however, is that Pertinax did not succeed; the Praetorian Guard assassinated him on March 28, 193, and the empire descended into chaos. The imperial throne was sold off to the highest bidder, Didius Julianus, who was himself murdered on June 2, 193. Of course, the effort to reform the American government may not have the same sad ending. There is no doubt, however, that those who have fattened at the public trough in the U.S. for so many decades are not giving up easily, and will continue trying to throw every possible roadblock in Trump’s path as he attempts to restore honest government. May he succeed where Pertinax failed.

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He’ll make the call.

Trump’s Inner Circle Opposes New Putin Call – NBC News (RT)

US President Donald Trump’s advisers are urging him to not call his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, before Moscow commits to a full ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict, NBC News reported on Thursday citing two anonymous officials. The US leader previously told the media outlet that he intends to talk with Putin again, potentially as soon as this week, following their previous conversation on March 18. Trump, who is trying to mediate a truce between Moscow and Kiev after more than three years of hostilities, stated on Tuesday that Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky are “ready to make a deal” thanks to his efforts.

Putin has said he supports a full suspension of the fighting, but is concerned with the specifics of how it would be arranged. He has suggested that a pause would become possible if the US ensures comprehensive monitoring along the frontline and if Kiev suspends mobilization of reinforcements. During his previous call with Trump, the Russian president agreed to a moratorium on attacks against energy infrastructure, which Zelensky also publicly endorsed. However since then the Russian Defense Ministry has regularly reported Ukrainian strikes breaching the partial ceasefire, including against internationally-owned infrastructure on Russian soil. Moscow has said that it remains committed to its end of the bargain. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Friday that no contacts between Putin and Trump are scheduled for the “next several days” and downplayed the NBC report, warning about “speculation and outright lies” in the press.

This week, Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, who advises President Putin on international economic cooperation, visited the US to meet White House officials. Following the talks, he said more progress has been made towards resolving the Ukraine conflict, but that third parties are seeking to derail the normalization of US-Russian relations initiated by Trump in February, when he phoned Putin for the first time since assuming office.Politico has reported an expectation in the UK and Germany of a third Putin-Trump call within days, following Dmitriev’s visit.

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Putin will demand a final solution.

Zelensky Contradicts Trump On NATO Membership (RT)

Ukraine could still become a member of NATO despite opposition to the idea from the administration of US President Donald Trump, Vladimir Zelensky has insisted. Trump lashed out at the Ukrainian leader earlier this week, saying “he wants to be a member of NATO. Well, he was never going to be a member of NATO. He understands that.” However, during a meeting with the heads of territorial communities of Chernigov Region, Zelensky made it clear that he has not yet given up on his long-standing ambitions of joining the US-led bloc. “You know who does not support Ukraine’s membership in NATO so far, but in any case, no one is removing this issue from the table for the future,” Zelensky said, as cited by the Ukrinform news agency.

“At least, we are talking about the fact that even if now someone does not want to support [Kiev joining the bloc], we will see what happens in the future,” Zelensky added. According to the Ukrainian leader, until Kiev becomes a member of the bloc it should be provided with “NATO-like security guarantees” by its Western backers. Ukraine will be able to achieve “a just peace” with Russia, but in order to do so “it has to be strong when getting to the negotiating table,” he insisted. Russia cited Kiev’s ambitions to join NATO, which Moscow views as a hostile bloc, as among the main reasons for launching its military operation in February 2022.

Ukraine’s neutrality remains one of the key demands by Moscow for achieving a diplomatic settlement of the conflict, along with the demilitarization and denazification of the country and recognition by Kiev of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye regions as Russian territory. Last month, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said “yes” when asked by Bloomberg if Trump had already taken the question of Kiev joining NATO off the table in efforts undertaken by the US and Russia to achieve peace in the Ukraine conflict. Rutte also suggested that once the fighting stops, the West could “step by step… restore normal relations with Russia.” However, he added that “we are absolutely not there yet, we have to maintain the pressure” on Moscow.

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“It is the same ‘playbook’ that was used against me by a group of Lunatics and Losers, like Norm Eisen, Andrew Weissmann, and Lisa Monaco,”

‘Free Le Pen’ – Trump to France (RT)

US President Donald Trump has accused the French political establishment of employing lawfare against right-wing figure Marine Le Pen, urging Paris to “free” her. On Monday, a Paris court sentenced Le Pen to four years in prison and imposed a five-year ban on her eligibility for public office, effectively preventing her from running in the 2027 presidential election. In a post on Truth Social late Thursday, Trump declared Le Pen a victim of a “witch hunt.” He asserted that the prosecution of Le Pen was orchestrated by “European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent.”

“It is the same ‘playbook’ that was used against me by a group of Lunatics and Losers, like Norm Eisen, Andrew Weissmann, and Lisa Monaco,” he remarked, referring to attorneys who were involved in litigation against him since his first term as president. Trump claims those proceedings were politically-driven. Although Trump admitted he did not personally know Le Pen or the specifics of her case, which he assumed stemmed from a “bookkeeping” error, he expressed admiration for her resilience. He concluded, “It is all so bad for France, and the Great French People, no matter what side they are on. FREE MARINE LE PEN!” Le Pen and several other senior members of her National Rally (RN) party were found guilty of misappropriating EU funds intended to support European Parliament members for domestic party activities.

The offenses occurred between 2004 and 2016, when she was the leader of RN. Several foreign political leaders criticized the ruling as a blow to democracy in France. Trump previously described it as “a very big deal.” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni contended that the sentence “takes away representation from millions of citizens,” while her Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orban, expressed his solidarity with Le Pen by posting “Je suis Marine!” Le Pen characterized the ruling as “political,” asserting that it reflected a “lower court judge” depriving French voters of the opportunity to back their preferred presidential candidate.

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Can’t get elected three times, but you can serve.

Yes, Trump Could Serve a Third Term. Law Professor Explains How (Allen)

President Donald Trump could not run for a third term, but he could be president a third time, according to Cornell law professor Bill Jacobson. The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is clear that no one can be elected to the office of the president “more than twice.” “But there’s nothing in the Constitution that prohibits someone from serving a third term,” said Jacobson, founder and publisher of Legal Insurrection. If another candidate won the presidential election, and Trump was his or her vice presidential running mate, that candidate could step aside after winning the race and allow Trump to take over, according to Jacobson, who was quick to add he doesn’t endorse such an action. While a deal made with a running mate for Trump to serve a third term “does not violate the Constitution,” Jacobson says, it “might violate the spirit of the Constitution.”

The intent of the 22nd Amendment is “that we not have a permanent president,” Jacobson said, adding that because of that, serving a third term “might be subject to challenge,” adding: “It might be subject to what was the original meaning of these terms. But on its face, there’s no barrier. “The conversation of Trump serving a third term recently landed in headlines when a number of reporters started asking the president if he wanted a third term. “I’m not looking at that, but I’ll tell you, I have had more people asking me to have a third term,” Trump said while speaking with reporters on Air Force One at the end of March. This isn’t the first time the idea of a former two-term president serving another term has been floated.

In October 2023, Howard J. Klein of Lakewood Ranch, Florida, wrote in a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal that former President Barack Obama could run as the vice presidential candidate with then-President Joe Biden. “Mr. Obama would constitutionally succeed to the presidency—without election—if Mr. Biden were to vacate the office,” Klein wrote. The 22nd Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1951 in the wake of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election to four terms in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. Congress approved the 22nd Amendment on March 21, 1947, then submitted it to the state legislatures for required ratification. The ratification process was completed on Feb. 27, 1951, when the required 36 of the then-48 states (before Hawaii and Alaska joined the union) had ratified the amendment.

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Buy TikTok, Larry.

Larry Fink Believes He Will Win Over Control Of The Panama Canal (Gasparino)

Larry Fink is playing the long game. With a little time, a possible nudge from President Trump and some on-the-ground lobbying of his contacts in mainland China, BlackRock’s billionaire boss believes he will win approval from the Mainland’s apparatchiks to take control of the Panama Canal, On The Money has learned.Specifically, Fink is looking to close a $23 billion deal with Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison to buy 43 ports worldwide — including the two ports that are strategically located on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Panama Canal.Until recently, most people didn’t know much about CK Hutchison, which is headed by the mercurial, 96-year-old billionaire Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong’s richest tycoon.

That was until The Donald began talking up the strategic importance of the Panama Canal, one of the busiest waterways for global trade because it easily connects both oceans through a 51-mile deepwater runway. Hutchison holds long-term leases there and at dozens of others including on the Suez Canal. Its stock traded cheaply, and when Trump began to mouth off about the need to exert US eminence at the Panama Canal (the US, after all, built it and controlled the zone until the 1970s), Blackrock saw a way to make some money and get into Trump’s good graces. The other side of the deal wasn’t so happy. And I’m not talking about Hutchison, but its overlords in the Chinese Communist Party who began to “investigate” the tie-up for God knows what other than to prevent the US from gaining a foothold at this vital waterway. The CCP is now threatening to throttle the entire deal.

The people at BlackRock are at least posturing in private conversations that they’re not too worried. They tell On The Money to ignore reports that the deal was set to be officially signed by Wednesday. The real due date is the 145-day “due diligence” period that began when the buyout was announced on March 4. The grace period was designed to ensure a complicated buyout involving dozens of ports in many different countries comported with various laws, including getting buy-in from the Chinese President Xi Jinping. Yes, the people at BlackRock said they saw the potential for trouble from China Inc., and they built that into the closing schedule. They believe that over this time, they can get the deal approved by the CCP overlords and put American flags back up in the canal zone.

“We are proceeding as if this deal will happen,” a BlackRock executive told On the Money as this column went to press. Of course, things could change given the volatile nature of the relations between China and the US and the frenemy dynamic between Trump and Xi. Trump is said to admire the Chinese strongman (and the feeling seems to be mutual), but wary of his obvious global ambitions. Part of Trump, I am told, will never forgive the Chinese for unleashing COVID on the planet, which on top of all the misery it caused, doomed his re-election chances in 2020. But the BlackRock deal is something Trump covets. He mentioned it in the State of the Union address, no less as proof of an American global renaissance.

And people at BlackRock believe the deal will get folded into negotiations with the Chinese over Trump’s plan to save the China-owned short-video app TikTok from being banned from US app stores as early as this weekend, and our overall trade negotiations with the Mainland. Barring some last-minute deal implosion (or a realistic new competing bid, which at this stage is unlikely), the White House is scrambling to unveil a plan for a newish US-investor-controlled TikTok any minute now, a structure, as On The Money reported, that the Trumpers believe will comport with a US law that demands the end of Chinese control.

But the Chinese will have some buy-in, as I also reported. That includes possibly a minority stake in the new company and it won’t have to part with its algorithm, the important part of TikTok that gins up user engagement and some say, has allowed the Chinese to spy on US users. To get around the ban legislation, tech giant Oracle will be part of the planned new ownership group, but more importantly, monitor the algo in its cloud. To get Xi’s buy-in, the Chinese remain a part of the app’s infrastructure, which can operate in the US and retain its value estimated in the tens of billions of dollars.

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Panama and TikTok.

Trump Extends TikTok Deadline 75 Days, As He Tries To Close Deal (JTN)

President Donald Trump announced Friday that he would sign an executive order to keep the social media app TikTok running for 75 days. Trump insisted his administration had made great progress on a deal to keep the social media app running in the U.S., but that it needed more time to finalize it. “The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days,” Trump wrote on TRUTH Social. “We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!).”

April 6 was the deadline for the China-based ByteDance to either sell the app or face a ban on U.S. operations. The founder of OnlyFans and Amazon made offers to buy the app earlier this week. “We do not want TikTok to ‘go dark.’ We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump’s post concluded.

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They risk the wrath of Trump. He’ll protect Elon.

EU Could Fine Elon Musk’s X $1B Over Illicit Content, Disinformation (CT)

European Union regulators are reportedly mulling a $1 billion fine against Elon Musk’s X, taking into account revenue from his other ventures, including Tesla and SpaceX, according to The New York Times. EU regulators allege that X has violated the Digital Services Act and will use a section of the act to calculate a fine based on revenue that includes other companies Musk controls, according to an April 3 report by the newspaper, which cited four people with knowledge of the plan. Under the Digital Services Act, which came into law in October 2022 to police social media companies and “prevent illegal and harmful activities online,” companies can be fined up to 6% of global revenue for violations.

A spokesman for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, declined to comment on this case to The New York Times but did say it would “continue to enforce our laws fairly and without discrimination toward all companies operating in the EU.” In a statement, X’s Global Government Affairs team said that if the reports about the EU’s plans are accurate, it “represents an unprecedented act of political censorship and an attack on free speech.” “X has gone above and beyond to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, and we will use every option at our disposal to defend our business, keep our users safe, and protect freedom of speech in Europe,” X’s global government affairs team said.

Along with the fine, the EU regulators could reportedly demand product changes at X, with the full scope of any penalties to be announced in the coming months. Still, a settlement could be reached if the social media platform agrees to changes that satisfy regulators, according to the Times. One of the officials who spoke to the Times also said that X is facing a second investigation alleging the platform’s approach to policing user-generated content has made it a hub of illegal hate speech and disinformation, which could result in more penalties.

The EU investigation began in 2023. A preliminary ruling in July 2024 found X had violated the Digital Services Act by refusing to provide data to outside researchers, provide adequate transparency about advertisers, or verify the authenticity of users who have a verified account. X responded to the ruling with hundreds of points of dispute, and Musk said at the time he was offered a deal, alleging that EU regulators told him if he secretly suppressed certain content, X would escape fines.

Thierry Breton, the former EU commissioner for internal market, said in a July 12 X post in 2024 that there was no secret deal and that X’s team had asked for the “Commission to explain the process for settlement and to clarify our concerns,” and its response was in line with “established regulatory procedures.” Musk replied he was looking “forward to a very public battle in court so that the people of Europe can know the truth.”

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mRNA
https://twitter.com/NicHulscher/status/1908173339677397118

 

 

BlackRock

 

 

Adams
https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1907868704622198948

 

 

Payne

 

 

Effects

 

 

Golden Fish
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1907951899489227188

 

 

The King

 

 

Arthur C. Clarke

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 092024
 
 October 9, 2024  Posted by at 8:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  76 Responses »


Elio Ciol Via Portica, Assisi 1958

 

Trump Is The Only One Who Can Bring Peace To Russia, Ukraine – General (JTN)
DeSantis, Dark Brandon, CNN Hit Kamala Over Hurricane ‘Phone Call’ Stunt (ZH)
Harris’s Biden-esque ‘Hiding In The Basement’ Campaign Has Dems Worried (JTN)
Kamala’s True Grit (Turley)
Texas Demands Biden-Harris Verify 454,289 Unverified Voters (HUSA)
How FEMA Got Into The Illegal Immigrant Business (JTN)
Von Der Leyen’s New Budget Is A Huge Power-Grab From Brussels (RMX)
Stoltenberg Could Have Prevented Ukraine Conflict, But Fueled It Instead (Sp.)
Most NATO Countries Do Not Support Ukraine’s Accession – Hungary FM (RT)
American Neocons Get Their Iran War As Congress Sleeps (Ron Paul)
Israel’s Bond Sale To Americans – How To Stop The Big Steal (Helmer)
Israel’s Unity Is Shaken And It’s Bleeding Support (Sadygzade)
Good Morning Italy, It’s Black Rock Here (Pacini)
America Is Falling Apart (Whitehead)
Biden-Harris’ FAA May Finally Greenlight Musk’s Starship Launch (ZH)

 

 

 

 

 

 

KamaColbert

 

 

Trump ad

 

 

60m

 

 

Walmart
https://twitter.com/i/status/1843056003497218451

 

 

9ft

 

 

Bridges

 

 

Schiff

 

 

Casey
https://twitter.com/i/status/1843717457640304834

 

 

 

 

“..what you need is an interlocutor, and somebody who can actually sit down and talk to both sides.”

Trump Is The Only One Who Can Bring Peace To Russia, Ukraine – General (JTN)

Former National Security adviser General Keith Kellogg said that former President Donald Trump is the only one who will be able to bring peace between Russia and Ukraine as president. “He’s the only one who can do it,” Kellogg said on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. “Because what you need is an interlocutor, and somebody who can actually sit down and talk to both sides.” He added that neither President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris could properly talk to the leaders of Ukraine and Russia.

Western leaders had discussions last month about whether or not they would allow Kyiv to use weapons supplied by the West to hit targets deep inside Russia. Top Russian officials warned that if Ukraine started launching long-range strikes with the support of the West, the response won’t “be pretty.” Kellogg said that the war is brutal and needs to end quickly. “I think the president could do that by pulling both sides together,” Kellogg said. “And I think you start with getting both sides to start talking. And I think he can do that immediately.”

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“..She has never contributed anything to any of these efforts, and so what I think is selfish is her trying to blunder into this..”

DeSantis, Dark Brandon, CNN Hit Kamala Over Hurricane ‘Phone Call’ Stunt (ZH)

After completely biffing her 60 Minutes interview (after which the network edited out her word salad), Vice President Kamala Harris has come under fire for accusing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of “political gamesmanship” after reports emerged that he didn’t take her calls ahead of Hurricane Milton. When asked about the alleged snub, Harris said DeSantis was being selfish and “utterly responsible” for not taking her call.

In a Monday evening interview with Fox News, DeSantis said he’s “leveraging all resources available, including from the federal government” to prepare for the storm that’s headed straight for Tampa. DeSantis said he’s been in touch with both President Joe Biden and officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “And so for Kamala Harris to try to say that my sole focus on the people of Florida is somehow selfish, is delusional,” said DeSantis. “She has no role in this. In fact, she’s been vice president for three and a half years. I’ve dealt with a number of storms under this administration. She has never contributed anything to any of these efforts, and so what I think is selfish is her trying to blunder into this,” he continued.

He took her to task on Tuesday, where he said “It’s not about you, Kamala,” adding “She has never called on any of the storms we’ve had when she’s been vice president until apparently now. Why all the sudden is she trying to parachute in and inject herself?” You know it’s bad when CNN and President Biden back DeSantis… “She’s attacking the governor of a state that’s about to get lashed with one of the worst storms,” said CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings, adding “Is she crazy?” And on Tuesday, Biden said DeSantis is doing a great job, and that he gave the governor his personal phone number in case he needs anything.

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“..the danger in that is if you don’t define your own candidacy well enough, people will start defining it themselves.”

Harris’s Biden-esque ‘Hiding In The Basement’ Campaign Has Dems Worried (JTN)

Vice President Kamala Harris has emulated her former running mate’s 2020 presidential campaign in minimizing her time in the spotlight and carefully managing her few public media interactions with friendly outlets. Some Democrats are increasingly worried that what worked for President Joe Biden, may not yield similar fruit for her. “They’re trying to keep her away. It’s like seeing your favorite Hollywood actor, and then they’re on a talk show and they can’t even speak,” former New Hampshire Democratic House Speaker Steve Shurtleff told Fox News. “It’s so obvious she’s been avoiding the one-on-one interviews, and the voters deserve better.” The Harris campaign has long faced scrutiny from its Republican counterpart over its perceived unwillingness to engage with the media and the public outside of a carefully controlled setting.

Indeed, a Fox News analysis released last week found that former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance had participated in at least 65 interviews between them, while Harris and running mate Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., had done a mere 26 non-scripted interviews since making the Democratic ticket. Apart from the infrequency of such events, the lack of substance of Harris’s public statements has also attracted criticism. In a September campaign event, for instance, Vance mocked her penchant for responding to policy questions with seemingly unrelated anecdotes. “Vice President, Harris. What are you going to do? What is your specific plan to solve the inflation crisis that’s making it unaffordable to buy groceries and housing?” he asked. “And Kamala will say, ‘Well, did you know that I grew up in a middle class family? I had a very nice lawn back there in Berkeley, California.’”

“How are you going to solve [the Israel-Gaza conflict] as President of the United States?” he then added. “And Kamala Harris will say, ‘Well, did you know that I worked at McDonald’s for about three months when I was a teenager?’”But while such lines have been ubiquitous at Republican events, such refrains have become more common in Democratic circles as well. Harris is set for a media blitz this week, including appearances on “60 Minutes,” “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and a town hall event on Univision. The majority of her appearances, the New York Times conceded, will occur on “friendly” networks. Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis outlined the risks of minimizing public appearances and giving softball interviews in a statement to NBC News last week. “The campaign is taking a chance that they can run out the clock and Trump’s weaknesses will be enough to win,” he said.

“But the danger in that is if you don’t define your own candidacy well enough, people will start defining it themselves.” Biden was able to employ his so-called “basement” strategy during 2020 in part due to his substantial polling lead, as well as his decades in the public spotlight and status as a known commodity, in addition to a campaign based on personal hatred towards Donald Trump. But Harris has not been in the national spotlight nearly as long and signs have shown a narrowing race. Her most noteworthy public appearance was her debate with former President Donald Trump, a public event that saw moderators lopsidedly fact-check Trump while giving Harris a pass on several questionable statements. While pundits widely pronounced Harris the winner, she evidently failed to win over a substantive bloc of undecided voters as panels and post-debate polling suggested the needle did not move.

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“..Harris’s pledge to gun down intruders stands in stark contrast to her opposition to stand your ground laws..”

Kamala’s True Grit (Turley)

The reinvention of Vice President Kamala Harris in this election has been a thing to behold. In politics, candidates often reconstruct their records to secure votes, but Harris appears to have constructed an entirely mythical being. Once ranked to the left of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and viewed as among the most liberal members of the Senate, Harris has sought to convince the public that she is actually a frack-loving, gun-toting, border-defending moderate. This last week, Harris sounded like she has hired Neo as her new campaign manager from the Matrix. When asked “what do you need, besides a miracle?” Neo replied “Guns. Lots of Guns.” Recently, that remake was on full display during a softball interview with Oprah, who has endorsed Harris. The Vice President declared that she is a gun owner and “if somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot.”

She repeated the claim in a CBS Sixty Minutes interview and noted that she has fired the gun at a pistol range. The gun is reportedly a semiautomatic Glock handgun. Many Glocks are semiautomatics that use 9mm ammunition. When CBS’s Bill Whitaker expressed shock at her gun-toting persona on the campaign trail, he asked if she actually fired it. Harris then did her best Rooster Cogburn, who noted “Well a gun that ain’t loaded, ain’t much good for nuthin.” Harris said that she has of course fired the gun in her trips to the firing range. While she was referring to defending her home, Harris’s pledge to gun down intruders stands in stark contrast to her opposition to stand your ground laws. When she was the San Fransisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris was one of the signatories on the District Attorneys’ amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller — in support the handgun ban. The Court rejected the position of Harris and her fellow Democratic DAs and held that there is an individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.

Harris’ true grit has delighted activists who are trying to lure male voters back to the Democratic Party. It may not be as thrilling to some in the Biden-Harris Administration including President Joe Biden. As we have previously discussed, Biden and other Democrats have repeatedly denounced semiautomatics and some have suggested that, with a change in the Supreme Court, they might be banned. While the Administration has repeatedly called for a ban on AR-15s, the most popular weapon in America, President Biden has suggested in the past that he might seek to ban 9mm weapons. In reference to guns that use 9mm ammunition, Biden declared “there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of thinking about self-protection.” It is a call that has been echoed in Canada where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government is introducing legislation to “implement a national freeze on handgun ownership.”

He said Canadians would no longer be able “to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” adding that “there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives.” While the White House subsequently tried to walk back his comments, Biden saying there’s “no rational basis” to own 9mms makes the new Harris look . . . well . . . irrational. Both Biden and Harris have made sweeping, unsupportable statements about guns and constitutional protections. For example, despite being repeatedly corrected, President Biden continues to repeat the same false statements about bans on weapons when the Second Amendment was ratified. Likewise, in support of the ban on AR-15s, Harris declared: “Do you know what an assault weapon is? It was designed for a specific purpose, to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war, with no place, no place in a civil society.”

Yet, courts likely would press a Harris administration on why it is seeking to ban this model when other higher-caliber weapons are sold. AR-15s can handle a variety of calibers. However, they are no more powerful than other semi-automatic rifles of the same caliber and actually have a lower caliber than some commonly sold weapons which use .30-06, .308 and .300 ammunition; many of these guns fire at the same — or near the same rate — as the AR-15. None of these weapons are classified as actual military “assault weapons,” and most civilians cannot own an automatic weapon. As discussed earlier, President Biden showed the same disconnect as Harris between the factual and the rhetorical basis for some gun-control measures. He condemned “high-caliber weapons” like 9mm handguns and said “a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.” Biden has not made any comment on Harris promising to blow away anyone coming into her house with her own Glock.

Yet, before condemning Harris for her an implied threat to “blow lungs out of bodies,” Biden should again check both the constitutional and practical statements about handguns. Gun experts mocked the notion that 9mm rounds blow organs out of bodies, but 9mm ammunition is the most popular handgun caliber in the U.S., with more than half of all handguns produced in 2019 using that round, according to Shooting Industry magazine. If Biden pushed a ban, he would target more than 40 percent of all pistols produced in the U.S., including many Glocks. Again, in fairness to Harris, she is not the first politician to reinvent herself on the campaign trail. For now, Harris wants to be clear that “I have a Glock, and I’ve had it for quite some time.” For critics, the reload is a bit much given her record. Yet, in a close election, many activists want voters in states like Pennsylvania to know that Harris is the virtual Jed Clampett of the Beverly Hills set. Indeed, you get the impression that she would use her Glock to frack, if only she could.

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“Texas has exhausted all available methods to confirm the citizenship status of the voters in question and is now demanding federal assistance..”

Texas Demands Biden-Harris Verify 454,289 Unverified Voters (HUSA)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has demanded that the Biden-Harris administration turn over data to verify the citizenship status of nearly 454,289 registered voters in Texas. In a letter addressed to USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou on Monday, Paxton raised concerns that these individuals may have unlawfully registered to vote without having their citizenship status confirmed. Paxton requested Jaddou’s assistance in identifying non-citizens on the voter rolls to ensure only eligible voters cast ballots in the 2024 presidential election, which is expected to be close. “The Biden-Harris Administration is legally obligated to assist States in doing so, and it is imperative that we use every tool available to uphold the integrity of our elections,” Paxton wrote.

Paxton’s request follows an investigation by his office and Secretary of State Jane Nelson, which found individuals who registered to vote without providing a state driver’s license or other state-issued identification. This, Paxton argued, made it near impossible for state officials to verify these individuals’ citizenship. It is not immediately clear when these individuals were registered to vote. “I am not asking for verification of the citizenship of anyone whose voter registration records contains [sic] a driver’s license or state-issued identification number,” Paxton clarified. According to Paxton, over 1,300 non-citizens were found registered to vote during an audit of four randomly selected counties. “That is 1,300 too many when so many of our federal, state, and local election [sic] are decided by a handful of votes,” Paxton wrote.

Paxton noted that Texas has exhausted all available methods to confirm the citizenship status of the voters in question and is now demanding federal assistance. However, it is unlikely that the Biden-Harris administration will respond or cooperate with Texas on this issue. On Sept. 27, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against Alabama after Wes Allen, the Republican secretary of state, inactivated the voter registrations of 3,251 individuals due to a lack of citizenship verification. The DOJ argued that Alabama’s actions violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Allen defended his decision in an interview with Headline USA, stating, “I was elected Secretary of State by the people of Alabama, and it is my Constitutional duty to ensure that only American citizens vote in our elections.”

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“..the truth is both parties signed off on a budget deal earlier this year that increased funding for the new mission authorized in 2023 for FEMA..”

How FEMA Got Into The Illegal Immigrant Business (JTN)

In the midst of the last major budget crisis in Washington, Democrats diverted money and the legal authority to put the nation’s disaster relief agency into the business of caring for the millions of illegal immigrants who crossed the border on the Biden-Harris administration’s watch. And now both parties seem to be trying to obfuscate the truth. White House spokeswoman Karine-Jean Pierre took the lead in trying to suggest it was a “conspiracy theory” to suggest the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was using its resources to aid illegal aliens. Republicans countered with surprise and shock that FEMA had routed $640.9 million in grants to nonprofits aiding immigrants, many of whom have crossed into the U.S. illegally. But the truth is both parties signed off on a budget deal earlier this year that increased funding for the new mission authorized in 2023 for FEMA, which is now reeling from a double-barreled hurricane crisis that has led to frustration over alleged missteps by the agency as millions of stranded and needy Americans in the Southeast await help.

“FEMA, as well as this whole Biden administration has is here to protect Americans, our citizens, and hurricane Helene has put a tremendous burden on us, but, get this, follow these funds that have been directed at anything but Americans: $110 million in FEMA funds went to the emergency food and shelter program to assist migrants,” Congressman Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show Monday. Norman partly blamed the broken budget process in Congress for giving funds to FEMA for immigrants rather than American citizens suffering from a disaster. “If we don’t get back to regular order, John, then there’s no hope for ever having a fiscal sanity plan in place,” he said. “They, the Democrats, play us like a drum waiting to the end of the year.” FEMA has disputed the Republican characterizations in recent days that disaster relief money was diverted to fund illegal immigrants, instead pointing out that Congress appropriated funding for the immigrant programs separately during the budget process.

“This is false. No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts,” FEMA said in its Hurricane Helene Frequently Asked Questions page. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also denied that FEMA resources were going to illegal migrants at a press conference last week despite her own statements at the podium two years earlier touting the opposite. “Funding is also available through FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter program to eligible local governments and not-for-profit organizations upon request to support humanitarian relief for migrants,” Jean-Pierre said of FEMA efforts to alleviate the immigration crisis.

A Democrat-run Congress that year later created the Shelter and Services Program (SSP) was to replace a similar program formerly run by DHS, which was directed to transfer $800 million of its appropriations in 2023 to the emergency management department. Though FEMA is a subagency of DHS, it represented a transfer of the core responsibility for illegal and legal immigrant support to the agency dedicated to disaster relief. The funding was to stand up the new program which would “support sheltering and related activities provided by non-Federal entities, including facility improvements and construction, in support of relieving overcrowding in short-term holding facilities of U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

By 2024, the program was well established at the agency when Republicans and Democrats alike voted to fund it to the tune of $650 million with the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024—a minibus bill passed by the House and Senate in March, both with significant Republican support, and sent to President Joe Biden’s desk. Now, Republicans have placed the program under a spotlight after widespread flooding and damage from Hurricane Helene left several southeastern regions devastated and tens of thousands of citizens without basic resources. But, so far, few who originally supported the bill have owned up to their role in passing the budget stopgaps last year funding the very programs being placed under the spotlight.

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“Why is this dangerous? In such a scenario, the liberal elite in Brussels could win every time..”

Von Der Leyen’s New Budget Is A Huge Power-Grab From Brussels (RMX)

Poland’s Piotr Serafin will probably take over as EU commissioner for budget on Dec. 1, but the president of the European Commission is already organizing his most important task: the draft EU budget for 2028-34. The document, seen by Polish media outlet Rzeczpospolita shows that the German, Ursula von der Leyen, wants to dismantle regional policy across the EU, which will have a profound effect on Poland. The money that is currently given to the regions, and largely managed by them (two-thirds of EU structural funds), would be given instead to the governments of the member states. These governments would then divide it as they saw fit, allowing for more centralization and control, a move that would better suit a Brussels looking to expand its control through a top-down approach. Instead of the 530 currently operating programs (including 398 concerning cohesion policy), Ursula von der Leyen proposes 27 national operational programs.

Each such program will include all expenditures that have so far made up cohesion policy and agricultural policy, including even subsidies for farmers. The programs will be divided into sectors, e.g., transport, energy, agriculture, or internal affairs and migration — all under the slogan of simplification. The second slogan repeated by von der Leyen is “flexibility.” She wants to introduce the principle of an “annual review” of the multiannual budget, which she argues will increase flexibility. Money allocated to one area could therefore be shifted to another purpose if necessary. Experts who spoke to Rzeczpospolita unofficially have no doubt that this proposal means the elimination of regional policy, which von der Leyen clearly does not like, which is more control for rural areas on how funding is spent with these rural areas often leaning more conservative.

Why is this dangerous? In such a scenario, the liberal elite in Brussels could win every time. First, when the central government is of a different political color than the local government, the distribution of EU funds can be an element of rewarding its party allies. Let’s imagine a situation where Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) returns to power and does not transfer money to voivodeships or cities governed by PO. However, in such a scenario, Brussels could turn around and cut funding to Poland if it disagrees with PiS’ policies. In the event that a left-liberal government carries out such actions, it could simply look the other way and allow funds to continue to flow. Von der Leyen also wants the payment of money to be on the condition of reforms at the central level, even if the regions have nothing to do with the lack of reforms.

Finally, the transfer of competencies to the central level means that many regions will not have coherent investment programs. For decades, the EU has been building a regional policy based on the principle of convergence, or raising the level of development of poorer areas. It had a developed methodology, instruments for negotiating programs with governments and regions, and criteria for granting money. The aim of such a policy was also to bring the EU closer to its citizens: local authorities were involved in writing operational programs and the effects of EU money were visible on the ground. Now, von der Leyen proposes throwing this policy in the trash and introducing a transactional method: the government carries out reforms and, in return receives money and divides it between sectors.

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“..understanding that the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine must be stopped and the “next [war], which will come,” averted. ”

Stoltenberg Could Have Prevented Ukraine Conflict, But Fueled It Instead (Sp.)

Former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg had the power to prevent the Ukraine conflict from escalating, but, on the contrary, he fostered it, said Patrick Pasin. Pasin has been studying the roots of the conflict in Ukraine for a long time, and also said that “he has always scrupulously respected historical facts, especially in the context of the situation between Ukraine and Russia.” In particular, he wrote the book “War in Ukraine: the Criminal Responsibility of the West”, and also helped with the publication of two books by 15-year-old girl Faina Savenkova from Donbass. The French author explained that he was motivated to take the unusual step due to understanding that the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine must be stopped and the “next [war], which will come,” averted.

“Because it’s clear, we see what’s happening in the Middle East and we know that the next step is against China. So we can’t accept that these people can trigger wars, unlawful wars, unjust wars. And that we, and when I say ‘we,’ I mean Russians, Ukrainians, I mean all the people of the world, pay the price,” Pasin underscored. Jens Stoltenberg blatantly lied when he claimed NATO had never promised Russia that the alliance would not expand eastwards, Pasin said, and for that he deserves to be sued. The publisher recalled that during his trip to Germany, Stoltenberg was asked by a German journalist “Didn’t we [NATO] promise to the Russians that we will not go further eastwards?” Stoltenberg answered in German, saying “No… even behind the scenes, never was such an agreement made between the West and the Russians.”

“This was a lie,” Pasin said, pointing to the same German outlet the following month publishing an article with a document confirming the Russian version, proving that there had not only been a promise, but a “commitment from the West and NATO not to go eastwards.” Confirmation of such a commitment can be found in the NATO website archives, the author said. There is a text of a speech by Manfred Wörner, who was the secretary general of the alliance in the 1990s, in which he underscored that “the commitment of NATO not to expand eastwards was a serious guarantee of security for Russia,” Pasin noted. The Russian Federation had no choice but to intervene in Donbass in 2022 due to the law of nations, said Patrick Pasin. Ukrainian forces were “bombing civilians” in complete violation of the United Nations charter, the Minsk agreements, and the articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Patrick Pasin told Sputnik.

He took a moment to recall Russia’s numerous efforts to draw attention to the Donbass disaster, noting that Moscow’s own core demands contained in the draft agreements on security guarantees in Europe that it presented to the US and NATO in December 2021 were disregarded. At a January 2022 press conference, President Joe Biden fueled invasion fears, stating he believed Russia was ready to attack Ukraine. US and UK tabloids soon claimed a Russian offensive could occur on February 15-16, which did not happen. Pasin referenced data from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which was monitoring the ceasefire in line with the Minsk agreements. When the Russians did not, as the West had predicted, “invade” Ukraine within the designated timeline, “the [Ukrainian] bombings started immediately,” the writer noted.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces began using “heavy weapons against the civilian population of Donetsk and Lugansk,” he recalled. “It was a serious matter, because the law of nations forbids to bomb civilian populations. That’s what the Ukrainian forces did,” Patrick Pasin emphasized, concluding that Russia had no choice but to protect Donbass. The mainstream media “can’t love [his lawsuit against former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg], because they have been lying for more than two years,” Patrick Pasin told Sputnik. “In fact, they have been lying at least since the beginning of the war. People who want to express a different point of view and simply a neutral point of view, saying that we should listen to the Russians, are fired immediately. And it’s the reason why they sort of forbade Russian media in Europe,” said Pasin.

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“..I don’t know what they are trying to convince him of, but when we are alone behind closed doors, the majority [of NATO states] shares the position that I just articulated..”

Most NATO Countries Do Not Support Ukraine’s Accession – Hungary FM (RT)

Most NATO members are acting “unfairly” towards Ukrainians and do not actually support the country’s desire to join the US-led military bloc, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto claimed on Tuesday during a televised press conference. The diplomat stated that many members of the bloc have been expressing their skepticism and opposition in private conversations. The behavior of a “significant part” of NATO members has been “extremely unfair” to Ukrainians, given that the countries do not talk “honestly” about their real position, Szijjarto said. The minister said he conveyed this to his Ukrainian counterpart Andrey Sibiga during their recent meeting. The diplomat did not reveal how the Ukrainian minister reacted to his remarks.

“Last week I told the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, who was in Budapest, that I don’t know what they are telling him, I don’t know what they are trying to convince him of, but when we are alone behind closed doors, the majority [of NATO states] shares the position that I just articulated,” Szijjarto said. Unlike most NATO states, Hungary has openly opposed Kiev’s membership, believing its accession would result in World War III, he pointed out. Because the accession of new countries must be approved by all of NATO’s 32 members, even a single nation is capable of keeping an aspirant out of the US-led bloc. A similar stance has been repeatedly taken by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who had held the office twice and regained it after the October 2023 election. The potential accession of Ukraine would only “serve as a good basis” for WWIII, Fico believes.

“As long as I am the prime minister of the Slovak Republic, I will lead the legislators, whom I have control over as a party chairman, to never agree to Ukraine’s membership in NATO,” he said last week in an interview with the broadcaster STVR. Kiev formally applied to join NATO in September 2022, citing the conflict with Russia. While many Western states publicly back Ukraine’s aspirations, they have refused to provide a concrete roadmap or timetable for accession. Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged in July that “we will not be in NATO until the war is over in Ukraine.”

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“It would be an economic calamity for Americans for the benefit of a foreign country. This is what they call patriotism?”

American Neocons Get Their Iran War As Congress Sleeps (Ron Paul)

Over the weekend, the Commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), General Michael Kurilla, arrived in Israel to “coordinate” with the Israeli military and plan a military strike against Iran. Think about that for a moment: one of the highest-ranking officers in the US military is planning a war in a foreign country against another foreign country which will be fueled by American weapons, American intelligence, and American tax dollars. Did that foreign country – Iran – attack the United States or threaten Americans? No, it did not. What did Iran do to warrant a CENTCOM commander bringing the weight of the US military into play to plan a war – possibly WWIII? It retaliated against Israeli airstrikes including the assignation of a Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.

It was the Israeli missile attack on Tehran – an unprecedented event – that set off this chain of escalation, but few would know if from media coverage. This war fever between Israel and Iran not only has nothing to do with us, but our increasing involvement actually hurts our national interests in the region. After a deadly and futile three-year proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the last thing we need is another war in the Middle East, especially against Iran. But make no mistake, war is what we are getting. This Administration has even offered to “compensate” Israel with even more weapons and diplomatic support if they hit targets of the US choosing and avoid others in Iran. Imagine if China sent military officials to Iran to pay Tehran to make sure some US targets were struck and others avoided. Would we consider it Iran’s war against us, or China’s war against us? Both? Has Congress declared war on Iran or even authorized the war? No.

Has this Administration explained to us why Americans suffering after the catastrophic Hurricane Helene are on their own because we need to spend billions on a war that is none of our business? No. The neocons have wanted this war for decades and for them it’s always America last. This war will make us less free, less safe, and much poorer. There will be no benefits at all, only downside. Will the Biden/Harris Administration greenlight Israel taking out Iran’s oil production and other energy facilities? That would mean the average American already suffering under high inflation and an economic downturn would be paying orders of magnitude higher for not just gasoline, but everything. Consider the cost of shipping and trucking and every aspect of our lives that depends on world energy prices. It would be an economic calamity for Americans for the benefit of a foreign country. This is what they call patriotism?

We are sleepwalking into a catastrophic war, lulled into compliance by non-stop media propaganda. More billions will be drained from our economy and many more innocent lives will be lost in this madness. Almost a quarter of a century later we still have not learned the lessons of 9/11. When we go abroad wreaking havoc and destruction on foreign populations who have not harmed us we create enemies who will seek revenge. We harm ourselves. And we risk blowback. The time to oppose this impending war is NOW!

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“..four Palestinian Americans launched the most serious threat to Israel’s survival in the economic war that is under way in parallel..”

“Their target is $700 million worth of Israel bonds purchased by the Palm Beach County treasury of Florida on the order of a single man, the county’s chief financial officer Joseph Abruzzo.”

Israel’s Bond Sale To Americans – How To Stop The Big Steal (Helmer)

Just days before Iran and Arab forces launched their October 1 operation to expose Israel’s military vulnerabilities, four Palestinian Americans launched the most serious threat to Israel’s survival in the economic war that is under way in parallel. On September 24 they filed an 89-page brief in a Florida state court to declare illegal US financing of Israel’s war against Palestine through the purchase of Israeli government bonds with American taxpayer money. Their target is $700 million worth of Israel bonds purchased by the Palm Beach County treasury of Florida on the order of a single man, the county’s chief financial officer Joseph Abruzzo. Starting in September 2023, one month before Hamas launched its break-out from Gaza, Abruzzo signed a purchase of $40 million in Israel bonds. Then from October 10 through March 2024 Abruzzo used county taxpayer funds to buy $660 million worth of securities the Israeli government was issuing to cover its warfighting costs.

Altogether, the Israeli plan is to raise at least $58 billion in new debt this year, with an increasing proportion of this debt to be covered from the US where Goldman Sachs and Bank of America are placing the bonds with small-town officials like Abruzzo. In Abruzzo’s case, the court papers relate, “Palm Beach County is currently the world’s largest investor in Israel Bonds due to the Defendant’s [Abruzzo] $700 million dollar investment in Israel bonds. These $700 million dollars, sourced from Palm Beach County taxpayers’ property taxes, are being poured into a foreign economy that has an increased risk of default. Defendant purchased $700 million dollars of Israel Bonds amidst a housing crisis in Palm Beach County, an education crisis, and a funding shortfall of $732 million dollars in Palm Beach County’s budget that is leading to several capital-improvement projects such as athletic centers, parks, animal shelters, and bridges to be either delayed or cancelled. At the time the $732 million dollar shortfall in Palm Beach County’s budget was announced, Defendant had already invested $160 million dollars in Israel Bonds.”

After his own budget deficit and treasury debt were announced, Abruzzo “invested an additional $540 million dollars in Israel Bonds.” In his public justification, Abruzzo told the Miami press on October 10: “I am proud to show solidarity with the people of Israel and make Palm Beach County the first county in the nation to increase its investment in Israel Bonds following their declaration of war against Hamas.” Six months later, Abruzzo attacked critics of Israel in the Democratic party as it began the presidential election campaign. “Do I hear, especially from the far-left wing of my Democratic party, concerns about investing in Israel? Yes. Are the public leaders in D.C. of the Democratic Party condemning support for Israel? Yes. . . But I would say to them, we’re not going to be deterred. They need to back off and we need to stand united with our greatest ally, Israel.”

At the same time Abruzzo has claimed: “everything I do financially is, down to the penny, putting personal feelings aside,” Abruzzo said. “None of my purchases was done for a political purpose whatsoever. It’s the dollars and cents and getting the most we can for taxpayers. It’s all economic driven.” Abruzzo has also tweeted that “if we don’t balance the federal budget and curb spending, our nation’s future will be unrecognizable. With interest payments on the national debt now exceeding $1 trillion, the urgency for fiscal responsibility should have been addressed…”

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“..no one truly wants war – Iran shows restraint, the US and other players seek diplomatic solutions, and it seems that only Netanyahu and his circle are willing to go to any lengths to achieve their goals.”

Israel’s Unity Is Shaken And It’s Bleeding Support (Sadygzade)

AA year after the events of October 7, 2023, the conflict between Israel and Palestinian factions has not only failed to subside but has also significantly expanded, engulfing the entire Middle East region. The ongoing military operations in Gaza, Israel’s reluctance to engage in negotiations with Hamas, and the recent assassinations of senior Hezbollah leaders and other radical figures have escalated tensions, bringing the region closer to a full-scale war. Despite numerous international calls for a ceasefire and hostage exchange, Israel continues its war with Hamas, showing little interest in diplomatic negotiations. Lengthy and complex negotiations over hostages, in which Hamas proposed various exchange options while Israel delayed decisions or imposed additional conditions, serve as an example.

US officials have frequently criticized Israel for dragging out negotiations, and members of the Biden administration have expressed frustration, stating that Netanyahu’s hardline stance complicates diplomatic efforts for a truce and increases the risk of conflict escalation. In 2024, Israel intensified its military operations beyond Gaza. One of the most significant events was the elimination of Ismail Haniyeh, one of the leaders of Hamas, along with Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. These assassinations provoked immediate retaliation from Lebanon and Iran. Israel has already been targeted by direct missile strikes from Iran twice, heightening fears of an imminent direct military confrontation between the two nations. Alongside operations against Hamas, Israel launched an invasion of Lebanon, encountering fierce resistance from Hezbollah.

The fighting has resulted in substantial losses on both sides, including civilian casualties. In this context, the international community is increasingly concerned about the possibility of Israeli strikes on Iran, which could trigger a full-scale regional war involving the US. The world watches with bated breath as analysts warn that an Israeli strike on Iran could drag the US into a Middle Eastern conflict. Washington is unprepared for such a scenario, but its alliance with Israel complicates its diplomatic maneuvering. US officials have repeatedly called on Israel to exercise restraint, understanding that escalation could have catastrophic consequences for the entire region. Netanyahu faces a daunting challenge – consolidating power at home while diminishing the influence of the opposition, which criticizes him for failing to protect citizens from terrorist attacks.

Israel’s internal instability, driven by political divisions, is compounded by external threats from Iran and its proxy groups across the ‘Axis of Resistance’. Netanyahu’s strategy aims to address two key issues. On the one hand, he seeks to weaken Iranian influence in the region, viewing Iran as the primary threat to Israel’s security. On the other hand, he strives to maintain control over the domestic political situation, using military operations as a way to strengthen his hold on power and counter opposition criticism. A year after the start of the conflict, the situation in the Middle East has only deteriorated. The military operations in Gaza, the invasion of Lebanon, and the growing tensions with Iran pose the threat of a full-scale regional conflict that could extend beyond the Middle East, potentially involving major global powers, including the US.

Despite diplomatic efforts, the conflict continues to expand, and its consequences could be devastating for the entire region. Many believe that no one truly wants war – Iran shows restraint, the US and other players seek diplomatic solutions, and it seems that only Netanyahu and his circle are willing to go to any lengths to achieve their goals.

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“At the end of July 2024, the giant BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund, posted unprecedented losses, seeing $1.7 trillion go up in smoke within a few months..”

Good Morning Italy, It’s Black Rock Here (Pacini)

Giorgia Meloni’s leadership is bringing great joy to Italians: unrestrained immigration, taxes and excise duties appearing like mushrooms after an autumn rainstorm, skyrocketing food prices, denial of the freedom to demonstrate, and even a nice award at the Atlantic Council. A resounding success. To crown it all further, she has seen fit to invite U.S. financial monster Black Rock to shop in Italy. At the end of July 2024, the giant BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund, posted unprecedented losses, seeing $1.7 trillion go up in smoke within a few months. In August, it was discovered that the U.S. fund’s top executives, such as CEO Larry Fink and Chairman Shapiro, had sold their shares for $54 million. The fund in which the wealth of the world’s most powerful banking families is stored is bleeding away, and the sharks running it seemed to be taking off. Certain movements should have tipped us off that something was about to happen.

It is never easy to predict the point of the matter, because these are financial transactions at very high levels and the hidden regions can be many. What is certain is that a capital flight, or rather a sell-off, always suggests something negative. And something has indeed happened. Meloni went to New York on 23 September to receive the Global Citizen Award, an award from the Atlantic Council, NATO’s main think tank. She receives the statuette from Elon Musk and in her speech claims the defense of so-called ‘Western values’ as an answer to the autocracies of the rest of the world. The event, it should be noted, took place in conjunction with the 79th UN General Assembly, just as a reminder of who is in charge of whom. The Italian Prime Minister’s merits? Her support for the European Union, the large amount of money and armaments sent to Ukraine, the presidency of the G7 in 2024 and the work done to strengthen the Atlantic Alliance. A true ‘American girl’.

The next day, delighted with the celebrations, Meloni met face to face with Fink, the head of BlackRock. Which – we learn – could help the government in many ways. Of course, as we know, aid is never ‘free’, but always involves a quid pro quo. What must the two have said to each other? Like it or not, in recent days, the Meloni government has authorized BlackRock to exceed the threshold of 3% in Leonardo, the main company in the Italian-flagged defense sector. In fact, the American fund has become the only private shareholder with such a stake. This is a further qualitative leap in the presence in Italy of one of the Big Three investment funds, Black Rock, Vanguard and State Street, which is now the main foreign investor in companies listed on the Milan Stock Exchange. BlackRock is present literally everywhere: banks like UniCredit, BPM, Mediobanca, Intesa San Paolo, but also companies like Ferrari, in the telecommunications sector with Prysmian, in pharmaceuticals with Stellantis, in energy with Eni and Enel, and in other multi-utilities.

But that’s not all: on the horizon is the issue of the announced privatizations, a very serious business. In order to make the accounts of the Budget Law turn around, the government needs to privatize at least EUR 6 billion, half of which has already been taken through privatizations in Eni. The remainder will apparently be taken from Poste Italiane, a state-owned company that has had excellent growth in 2024. Another attack is planned on Ferrovie dello Stato, already largely privatized for years, which is in the crosshairs of government commissions. We also do not know exactly how much has been promised to Fink in the energy and technology sector, especially with regard to cyber-intelligence and digitization. These operations represent a very strong political stranglehold by the U.S. on Italy, but on Europe in general. There will probably be big mergers of European companies and capital funds, or perhaps something even bigger. What is already clear is that political sovereignty, not just economic sovereignty, is being further attacked and put in check. Because you know, in the 20th century the economy overtook politics and became its main engine, in the words of Karl Marx.

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“Our National Priorities Are In Dire Need Of Restructuring..”

America Is Falling Apart (Whitehead)

A water main breaks every two minutes somewhere in the U.S., resulting in contaminated drinking supplies and boil water notices. One out of three bridges in the U.S. needs repair, endangering hundreds of millions of commuters. More than 42,000 bridges across the country, carrying about 167 million vehicles each day, are in disrepair. It is estimated that 300 million people could face power outages across the United States between 2024 and 2028, due in large part to widespread power grid failures. No wonder U.S. infrastructure received a C- on the Infrastructure Report Card. America is falling apart. Collapsing bridges, buckling roads, overheated railways, deteriorating power lines, contaminated water lines, outdated public transportation, overtaxed power grids, aging ports and waterways, unsafe tunnels and highways, and spotty or insufficient telecommunications assets are all becoming frequent hallmarks of the American way of life.

If the nation is woefully unprepared to deal with climate disasters such as floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts, despite the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that have been pledged to shore up the nation’s infrastructure problems, it is because politicians across the political spectrum have failed us. The devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene makes this failure by the government to put the needs of the American people first painfully evident. Entire towns are under water. Roadways have collapsed or are otherwise impassable. Potable water is scarce. More than 1.5 million households are still without power. Clearly, our national priorities need to be re-examined. While the politicians play partisan games with our tax dollars, the nation’s critical infrastructure—both the physical foundations of the nation and the figurative foundations of our freedoms—continues to be neglected and deprioritized in favor of grandstanding, bloated military budgets on endless wars abroad, foreign aid to shore up the infrastructure and military defenses of international allies, and all manner of graft and pork barrel spending.

When all is said and done, the bread-and-circus distractions and sleight-of-hand political theater being trotted out in order to keep Americans distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from the government’s steady encroachments on our freedoms adds nothing of real value to the lives of the average American. It’s time to fix what’s broken in this country. For starters, we need an overhaul of the nation’s infrastructure. According to Time magazine, “Throughout the country, millions of Americans don’t have access to or can’t afford broadband internet service. In excess of 2 million people live without running water or basic plumbing. For too long, the American public has had to carry on while these deficiencies have gone unattended. The political will has been weak or inattentive, the rewards too far removed from electoral advantage.”

In other words, the politicians who dance to the tune of the oligarchic elite aren’t motivated to do anything about our failing infrastructure because they get nothing out of it: no votes, no money, no power. This isn’t about whether the Republicans or Democrats have better policies. Indeed, both parties’ priorities are disconcertingly alike: both parties support endless war, engage in out-of-control spending, ignore the citizenry’s basic rights, have no respect for the rule of law, are bought and paid for by Big Business, care most about their own power, and have a long record of expanding government and shrinking liberty. This is about the plight of the American people who continue to be treated like a permanent underclass.

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“By continuing to push our hardware in a flight environment, and doing so as safely and frequently as possible, we’ll rapidly bring Starship online and revolutionize humanity’s ability to access space.”

Biden-Harris’ FAA May Finally Greenlight Musk’s Starship Launch (ZH)

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the Federal Aviation Administration have been locked in disputes on when the Starship mega-rocket will blast off from SpaceX Starbase in Texas. After a month of delays, SpaceX revealed on X that Starship’s fifth launch could begin as early as Sunday. The initial launch date was slated for mid-September. Since the FAA fined SpaceX $633,000 for safety violations in Florida and $633,000 for environmental violations at Starbase – while slowing down rocket launches, the private space company has moved to speed up timelines. Company execs have warned that FAA regulatory hurdles are nothing more than ‘lawfare’ by Biden-Harris admin officials. San Antonio Express-News noted, “Chatter of a mid-October launch began last week when a Coast Guard Notice to Mariners about the launch appeared online.” However, the FAA dismissed that, saying, “We are not issuing launch authorization for a launch to occur in the next two weeks—it’s not happening.”

SpaceX provided more details about the upcoming Starship test flight: “Starship’s fifth flight test could launch as soon as October 13, pending regulatory approval. A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the new X TV app. The launch window will open as early as 7:00 a.m. CT. As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to stay tuned to our X account for updates. Flight 4 was a tremendous success. A fully successful ascent was followed by the first ever booster soft-landing in the Gulf of Mexico and Starship making it through a brilliant reentry, before its own landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The fifth flight test of Starship will aim to take another step towards full and rapid reusability. The primary objectives will be attempting the first ever return to launch site and catch of the Super Heavy booster and another Starship reentry and landing burn, aiming for an on-target splashdown of Starship in the Indian Ocean.

Extensive upgrades ahead of this flight test have been made to hardware and software across Super Heavy, Starship, and the launch and catch tower infrastructure at Starbase. SpaceX engineers have spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize our chances for success. We accept no compromises when it comes to ensuring the safety of the public and our team, and the return will only be attempted if conditions are right. Thousands of distinct vehicle and pad criteria must be met prior to a return and catch attempt of the Super Heavy booster, which will require healthy systems on the booster and tower and a manual command from the mission’s Flight Director.

If this command is not sent prior to the completion of the boostback burn, or if automated health checks show unacceptable conditions with Super Heavy or the tower, the booster will default to a trajectory that takes it to a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The returning booster will slow down from supersonic speeds, resulting in audible sonic booms in the area around the landing zone. Generally, the only impact to those in the surrounding area of a sonic boom is the brief thunder-like noise with variables like weather and distance from the return site determining the magnitude experienced by observers. Starship will fly a similar trajectory as the previous flight test with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. This flight path does not require a deorbit burn for reentry, maximizing public safety while still providing the opportunity to meet our primary objective of a controlled reentry and soft water landing of Starship.

One of the key upgrades on Starship ahead of flight was a complete rework of its heatshield, with SpaceX technicians spending more than 12,000 hours replacing the entire thermal protection system with newer-generation tiles, a backup ablative layer, and additional protections between the flap structures. This massive effort, along with updates to the ship’s operations and software for reentry and landing burn, will look to improve upon the previous flight and bring Starship to a soft splashdown at the target area in the Indian Ocean. With each flight building on the learnings from the last, testing improvements in hardware and operations across every facet of Starship, we’re on the verge of demonstrating techniques fundamental to Starship’s fully and rapidly reusable design. By continuing to push our hardware in a flight environment, and doing so as safely and frequently as possible, we’ll rapidly bring Starship online and revolutionize humanity’s ability to access space.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1833347271003718107

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Costco

 

 

Shepherd

 

 

Bear resistant

 

 

Snow leopard
https://twitter.com/i/status/1843771316983468338

 

 

Coconuts

 

 

Dance

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 192023
 
 March 19, 2023  Posted by at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  38 Responses »


Henri Rousseau The Flamingoes 1907

 

Donald Trump Says He Will Be Arrested Tuesday (NYP)
Arrest Would Deliver Trump 2024 Election In ‘Landslide’ – Elon Musk (RT)
Get Ready For Manhattan DA’s Made-for-TV Trump Prosecution (Turley)
George Soros A Major Force Behind Trump’s Prosecution and Imminent Arrest (TP)
Hillary Clinton Quietly Settled Campaign Finance Violation Last Year (PM)
Obama, Hillary Settled Nearly $500,000 In Campaign Finance Fines (DCE)
Watchdog Group Launches Investigation Into Biden’s ‘Woke Army’ (ET)
Putin Makes Surprise Visit To Donbass, Mariupol (RT)
Ukrainian Troops Use 19th-Century Arms To Defend Bakhmut – The Telegraph (RT)
Russia Responds To Denmark’s Nord Stream Probe Refusal (RT)
The Perfect Solution to the Banking Crisis Is to Make a Truly Safe Bank (Mish)
Nearly 200 US banks At Risk Of Repeating SVB Collapse – Study (RT)
UBS Seeks $6 Billion Government Backstop In Credit Suisse Takeover (ZH)
Britons Facing ‘Disastrous Decade’ – Report (RT)
Massie Asks A Reasonable Question (Denninger)

 

 

 

 

OTAN

 

 


If we wanted to get screwed by the goverment we would have elected Brad Pitt

 

 

Big guy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1637086038756671488

 

 

DNA RNA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1637133867319451649

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1637153858819375106

 

 

 

 

Dowd

 

 

 

 

The US appears at serious risk of becoming ungovernable: “protest, take our nation back!”. But they can’t beat Trump any other way.

Donald Trump Says He Will Be Arrested Tuesday (NYP)

Former President Donald Trump said he expects to be arrested Tuesday in Manhattan — and urged his followers to protest his looming indictment. “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!,” he thundered in an all caps missive to his followers on Truth Social Saturday morning. He slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office as “CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL” in his post. Trump again insisted he had committed no crime, and reminded his followers that Bragg’s campaign had been heavily financed by liberal billionaire George Soros.


Bragg’s looming charges are said to focus on Trump’s payments of hush money to Stormy Daniels, an adult star who claimed she had an affair with Trump in 2016 and received $130,000 in hush money payments from the billionaire to keep her quiet during his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump has denied the alleged infidelity. An attorney for Daniels said Wednesday his client had met with Manhattan prosecutors, and that she was prepared to testify in any trial as a witness. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer, pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance law violations stemming from the payment and was sentenced to three years in prison.

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“The predicted indictment of the former president [..] would be the first of its kind in US history..”

Arrest Would Deliver Trump 2024 Election In ‘Landslide’ – Elon Musk (RT)

If former US President Donald Trump is arrested next week, he will win the 2024 election in a “landslide victory,” Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday in response to a Fox News clip discussing the possibility of the former president being “handcuffed” and processed through the New York City court system. “If this happens, Trump will be re-elected in a landslide victory,” Musk said in the tweet, a reply to a similar – though less emphatic – prediction from Canadian lawyer @thevivafrei. The opinion that this scenario might propel the former reality TV star back into the White House is not an uncommon one, and appears to be shared by Trump himself. He alerted his followers to his impending arrest on Truth Social on Saturday, urging them to “protest, take our nation back!”

His post highlights that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is discussing security for such an eventuality, perhaps suggesting that the authorities may be wary of the response of Trump’s followers. The predicted indictment of the former president on what are expected to be campaign finance violation charges would be the first of its kind in US history. Even former President Richard Nixon was not prosecuted after he resigned from office following the Watergate scandal. Trump’s lawyer has accused prosecutor Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, of having “weaponized” the legal system, leveraging a misdemeanor charge that federal prosecutors did not deem worthy of prosecution into a felony. If he is found guilty before November 2024, it could potentially keep him from the White House.

When the FBI staged a nighttime raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida estate last summer, the New York Times expressed concern that the agency’s heavy-handed tactics would galvanize the former president’s base, with the resulting electoral turmoil not only allowing Republicans to seize control of Congress, but handing Trump the 2024 nomination on a silver platter. While Republicans did take back the House of Representatives, the midterms fell short of the partisan rout expected by many on the right, with the Senate remaining in Democratic hands. Although incumbent President Joe Biden’s approval rating hovers near record lows, even among those in his own party, most polls pitting him against Trump have Biden leading by a handful of points. An arrest could easily push Trump over the top, according to Musk and many others.

Elon Hunter

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“..high on ratings, but short on the law..”

Get Ready For Manhattan DA’s Made-for-TV Trump Prosecution (Turley)

“The moment that we are waiting for, we made it to the finale together” — those familiar words from “America’s Got Talent” — could well be the opening line for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg next week, when he is expected to unveil an indictment of former President Trump. With Trump’s reported announcement that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday, it would be a fitting curtain raiser for a case that has developed more like a television production than a criminal prosecution. Indeed, this indictment was repeatedly rejected only to be brought back by popular demand. Trump faces serious legal threats in the ongoing Mar-a-Lago investigation. But the New York case would be easily dismissed outside of a jurisdiction like New York, where Bragg can count on highly motivated judges and jurors.

Although it may be politically popular, the case is legally pathetic. Bragg is struggling to twist state laws to effectively prosecute a federal case long ago rejected by the Justice Department against Trump over his payment of “hush money” to former stripper Stormy Daniels. In 2018 (yes, that is how long this theory has been around), I wrote how difficult such a federal case would be under existing election laws. Now, six years later, the same theory may be shoehorned into a state claim. It is extremely difficult to show that paying money to cover up an embarrassing affair was done for election purposes as opposed to an array of obvious other reasons, from protecting a celebrity’s reputation to preserving a marriage. That was demonstrated by the failed federal prosecution of former presidential candidate John Edwards on a much stronger charge of using campaign funds to cover up an affair.

In this case, Trump reportedly paid Daniels $130,000 in the fall of 2016 to cut off or at least reduce any public scandal. The Southern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s office had no love lost for Trump, pursuing him and his associates in myriad investigations, but it ultimately rejected a prosecution based on the election law violations. It was not alone: The Federal Election Commission (FEC) chair also expressed doubts about the theory. Prosecutors working under Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., also reportedly rejected the viability of using a New York law to effectively charge a federal offense.

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“..Bragg upgraded the charges from a misdemeanor class, which stands in sharp contrast to the prosecutor’s history of reducing charges in the majority of his cases..”

George Soros A Major Force Behind Trump’s Prosecution and Imminent Arrest (TP)

President Donald Trump reacted to the news of his imminent arrest in New York by pointing out that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office’s “leader is funded by George Soros.” Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, whom Donald Trump is referring to in his post, was elected in November 2021 with indirect backing from left-wing billionaire George Soros, who gave $1 million to the Color of Change PAC, which spent it to elect Bragg. The Color of Change PAC is a radical activist group that describes itself as “the nation’s largest online racial justice organization.” [..] Now, Bragg has an opportunity to become infamous in U.S. history for charging former President Donald Trump. The Soros connection was brought up by popular tweeter Catturd, who provoked a response from Twitter owner Elon Musk.

Bragg is allegedly preparing to indict the GOP presidential candidate “for alleged hush money payments Trump made as a presidential candidate in 2016” to pornstar Stormy Daniels, as Fox News reported. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has come to the defense of Donald Trump amid reports of a potential indictment by the Manhattan D.A. “Here we go again — an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump,” McCarthy said on Twitter. The House Speaker said, “I’m directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is expected to bring felony charges against Trump next week related to payments made in 2016 to settle rumors of an extramarital affair. Bragg upgraded the charges from a misdemeanor class, which stands in sharp contrast to the prosecutor’s history of reducing charges in the majority of his cases.


Since taking office last year, DA Bragg has downgraded approximately 52 percent of all cases brought before his office. Many of these cases involved reducing felony charges to misdemeanors. Under Bragg’s predecessor, less than 40 percent of cases were downgraded. The expected Trump arrests would come after a failed Russia collusion investigation, two dead-end impeachments, a Special Counsel investigation into Trump’s “classified documents” that appears to be neutered by Biden’s worse classified documents scandal, and a January 6 investigation that has led to no substantive evidence that Donald Trump called for an “insurrection.” This is apparently the ‘hail Mary’ play the corrupt Democratic Party is calling for to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.

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“..Clinton was given a $113,000 fine, Trump is looking at the possibility of handcuffs, for the same charges..”

Hillary Clinton Quietly Settled Campaign Finance Violation Last Year (PM)

In 2022, Hillary Clinton was fined by the Federal Election Commission after an investigation showed that she and the DNC “misreported payments made to a law firm during the 2016 campaign to obscure the spending,” the AP reported last year. The lawfirm was Perkins Coie, which hired research firm Fusion GPS, which then fabricated evidence, compiled in the Steele Dossier, which was later used by Congress to impeach Donald Trump. The Clinton campaign classed these expenses paid to Perkins Coie for opposition research as “legal services,” and for that misrepresentation, Clinton was made to pay a fine of $113,000. Donald Trump is facing potential felony indictment over recording payments made to his attorney, which were then paid out to porn-star Stormy Daniels in alleged hush money, as legal fees.

Clinton was given a $113,000 fine, Trump is looking at the possibility of handcuffs, for the same charges—mischaracterizing payments to lawyers as legal fees when those lawyers were passing on the money for another purpose. Only Trump sought to keep quiet a relationship he did not want made public, while Clinton and her campaign paid for the creation of false information that was then used in an attempt to unseat the president from the White House. New York City DA Alvin Bragg, who invited Trump to testify before a grand jury, which is an indication of a forthcoming indictment, is elevating the misdemeanor charge of false reporting to a felony by seeking to prove that Trump intended to commit a second crime, likely election fraud. Clinton paid for the creation of a false dossier with the intent to spread that literal disinformation to the public and thereby influence the electorate against Trump. For this, she was issued a fine.

“By intentionally obscuring their payments through Perkins Coie and failing to publicly disclose the true purpose of those payments,” the campaign and DNC “were able to avoid publicly reporting on their statutorily required FEC disclosure forms the fact that they were paying Fusion GPS to perform opposition research on Trump with the intent of influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election,” the initial complaint said, per the AP. Clinton and the DNC said the payments were legal fees, but settled for the fines anyway. Clinton paid a civil penalty fine of $8,000, while the DNC paid the remaining $105,000. Depsite lenghty attempts by the FBI to corroborate the reports, the Steele Dossier “has been largely discredited since its publication, with core aspects of the material exposed as unsupported and unproven rumors.”

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”..In 2013, Obama’s 2008 campaign was fined one of the largest fines in presidential campaign history with a $375,000 fine..”

Obama, Hillary Settled Nearly $500,000 In Campaign Finance Fines (DCE)

Both former President Barack Obama and two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton were fined a collective total of $488,000 for campaign finance violations and didn’t face indictment or arrest unlike 45th President and leading 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump. In 2013, Obama’s 2008 campaign was fined one of the largest fines in presidential campaign history with a $375,000 fine from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for campaign reporting violations. In 2022, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) settled an FEC investigation into whether they violated campaign finance laws by paying a $113,000 Steele dossier fine.

Despite adult film “star” Stormy Daniels being ordered to pay Trump $300,000 for losing a defamation case against him, Far-left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) is attempting to bring charges against Trump over a $130,000 payment made by his former lawyer and now convicted liar, Michael Cohen, to Daniels. This will likely backfire for the far-left Manhattan DA and result in skyrocketing fundraising and poll numbers for Trump. In August, when the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) conducted a raid on Mar-A-Lago, his home in Palm Beach, Florida, contributions to Trump’s political action committee skyrocketed over one million dollars in two days.

[..] As Trump continues to crush all potential Republican and Democrat challengers in polls for the 2024 presidential election, it’s no coincidence the Department of Justice (DOJ), far-left courts, the radical left, and more are and have targeted President Trump for the past six years and have only exonerated him time after time.

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“Executive Order Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government.”

Watchdog Group Launches Investigation Into Biden’s ‘Woke Army’ (ET)

The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) is launching an investigation into a recent executive order the group called an “unprecedented scheme” they believe violates the democratic process. In a press release, FGA said they are “sounding the alarm” on the “‘woke army’ being assembled inside the federal government,” through Executive Order 14091 (EO), titled “Executive Order Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government.” FGA announced that their investigation will include filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests targeting the 23 agencies addressed in the Equity EO, including the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, Labor, Transportation, Social Security, Education, and Health and Human Services.

The group will share the information they gather with Congress, the states, and the American people, according to their press release. FGA asserted that the plan (pdf) was developed by a left-wing activist group, and said it was “designed to circumvent the normal, democratic process and instead force their ideology onto Americans.” Tarren Bragdon, FGA President and CEO said of the executive order, “These equity teams are a Trojan horse planted in the heart of every federal agency to fundamentally change decision-making across the bureaucracy. Their goal is to continuously and permanently embed Left-wing ideology into every agency action.

“We cannot allow this new ‘woke army’ to force un-American philosophy into all corners of our federal government. They will degrade our nation’s capabilities and effectiveness, while undermining our liberty and security.” “We’ve seen the economic devastation over the first two years of the Biden presidency. If radical ideology is ingrained into every policy and regulatory decision at all agencies, the impact on the American people and economy will be widespread, devastating, and impossible to reverse,” Bragdon added. Bragdon referenced part of Section 2 of the order, which outlines the requirement that agency heads across the administration ensure they place an “Agency Equity Team” within their agencies to “coordinate the implementation of equity initiatives,” in order to deliver “equitable outcomes” to the American people.

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And Crimea.

Putin Makes Surprise Visit To Donbass, Mariupol (RT)

Following his surprise visit to Crimea on Saturday, President Vladimir Putin made an unannounced “working trip” to Mariupol, an Azov Sea port city which was liberated by Russian forces last spring amid the military operation in Ukraine, and joined Russia as part of the Donetsk People’s Republic following a referendum in September. Putin arrived in Mariupol by helicopter, accompanied by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, multiple news agencies including TASS and RIA Novosti reported on Sunday morning, citing the Kremlin’s press service. The president visited several districts of the city to inspect the progress of restoration efforts, including the construction of “new residential districts, social and educational facilities, housing and communal services infrastructure, medical institutions.” He also toured the “coastline in the area of the yacht club, theater,” as well as other “memorable places” in the city.


Putin also got behind the wheels of a car and drove through the streets of Mariupol to inspect the facilities, while taking time to speak with residents. On Saturday, Putin was in Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the peninsula’s reunification with Russia. Mariupol was liberated by Russian forces last spring amid the military operation in Ukraine. It has become one of the symbols of Russia’s military campaign, and victory in this city has arguably been the main triumph so far. In September, the Donetsk People’s Republic, which includes Mariupol, along with the Lugansk People’s Republic, as well as Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, officially joined the Russian Federation after holding referendums. Crimea overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in a referendum after the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014.

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“Maxims were used by British colonial forces in Africa and by Imperial Russian forces in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905..”

Ukrainian Troops Use 19th-Century Arms To Defend Bakhmut – The Telegraph (RT)

Ukrainian forces defending the Donbass town of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, are relying on Victorian-era Maxim guns, the Telegraph reported on Friday. Despite receiving tens of billions of dollars worth of US and NATO aid, Kiev is reportedly struggling with shortages of arms and ammunition. “I have seen Maxim machine guns in stationary positions many times,” a Ukrainian soldier told the British newspaper. “Despite their age, it is a rather formidable weapon. The main thing is not to forget to add some water.” Invented by Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1884, the Maxim gun was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world. Firing a still-respectable 600 rounds per minute, the gun relies on a heavy water jacket around its barrel to prevent overheating. Sitting on iron wheels and weighing around 30 kilos before adding water or ammunition belts, it takes a crew of four people to operate.

Maxims were used by British colonial forces in Africa and by Imperial Russian forces in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. It was already considered obsolete by the First World War, with British forces using the lighter Vickers machine gun in its stead. Sitting in Ukrainian armories since the country was a part of the Russian Empire, Maxims have been used on the frontline in Donbass since last year. While Ukrainian troops told the Telegraph that the Maxim is “a fairly effective weapon in capable hands,”some of Kiev’s servicemen have complained that they haven’t received newer gear. “The Russians have artillery, armored vehicles, and their forces are five to six times greater than ours,” a sergeant near Severodonetsk told Radio France Internationale last July.

“We only had machine guns and RPGs from 1986. A Degtyarov machine gun from 1943. And the Maxim machine gun from 1933.” The US alone has sent Ukraine more than $37 billion worth of weapons and ammunition since Russia’s military operation began last February. With Western stockpiles dwindling, however, American advisers are instructing Ukrainian forces to conserve their ammoif they hope to mount a counteroffensive this spring. Western military officials have also advised Zelensky against hanging on to Artyomovsk, which is nearly encircled by Russian forces at present. Kiev keeps casualty figures under wraps, but US officials believe that “upwards of 100,000 Ukrainian forces” have died since last February, with “many of these losses” taking place in the city, according to a Politico report earlier this week.

Although US officials have written off Artyomovsk as strategically insignificant, it is a vital logistics hub for the Ukrainian military. Control of the town would clear a path for Russian forces to push on towards Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, which sit along the last in a series of fortified lines built by Ukraine since the onset of its conflict with the Donetsk People’s Republic in 2014.

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“..Zakharova described Denmark’s refusal as a “fraud” and a “total scam.”

Russia Responds To Denmark’s Nord Stream Probe Refusal (RT)

Denmark has never been interested in finding the real culprits behind the explosions that destroyed Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines last September, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. She noted that Copenhagen had dragged its feet on granting permission for the second leg of the gas conduit and is refusing to cooperate with Moscow now that it has been sabotaged. In a statement released on Saturday, Zakharova suggested that Copenhagen’s long-standing aversion to the Nord Stream project is due to American influence. “Copenhagen, which so ferociously defends US interests in Europe, was in the first place not interested in conducting an investigation that could shed light on” those behind the sabotage, the Russian official wrote.

She pointed out that Denmark has yet to respond in a meaningful way to any of the numerous requests Russian authorities have made about the investigation into the blasts, including one by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin last year. Zakharova also reminded Danish officials that Moscow is the owner of the destroyed gas pipelines. According to the statement, “despite Denmark’s refusal [to participate] in a joint investigation into the sabotage,” Russia will continue to insist on being “given answers to the questions posed earlier.” Zakharova went on to warn that Moscow would not let Copenhagen “sweep the issue under the rug,” adding that only an open international probe that includes Russia would be able to establish the facts and present them in an objective manner.

Appearing on Russia’s Russia 1 TV channel on Thursday, Zakharova described Denmark’s refusal as a “fraud” and a “total scam.” Earlier that day, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen ruled out the possibility of Moscow participating in the probe, explaining to journalists that “Denmark, Sweden and Germany all have rule of law and one can have confidence in our investigations.” Russia has accused the three countries of obstruction and asked the UN to initiate an impartial international investigation. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were built under the Baltic Sea to deliver Russian natural gas to Germany and onward to Western Europe. Both conduits were ruptured and made inoperable by explosions near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.

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“We would have a full reserve system, unfortunately one that is not backed by gold, but it would be a huge step in the right direction.”

The Perfect Solution to the Banking Crisis Is to Make a Truly Safe Bank (Mish)

How many times do we have to go down the duration mismatch road with fractional reserve lending and nearly $9 trillion of Fed QE to prove the current banking doesn’t work? Once again, systemic risk morphed into economic stress, bank failures, and then a bailout of the banking system, not just Silicon Valley Bank. If you think only depositors got bailed out, you are mistaken. The Fed put a system backstop on $600 billion in bond losses. And although bank executives will lose their jobs, they cashed out tens of millions of dollars in stock options along the way. Specifically, we need a bank that puts 100% of its assets in overnight treasuries and makes zero loans. The bank would not need any loan officers or many operational personnel for obvious reasons.

There would be no need for FDIC guarantees because there would be zero risk of a run and zero risk of losses. We can still keep the FDIC term in place, but realistically it would not be needed. In essence, we would create a 100% reserve bank. Such a bank might pay one percentage point less than the Fed ‘s overnight rate for safekeeping. If the overnight rate fell below 1 percent, the bank would charge a fee for safekeeping. The bank could also do term deposits at a slight discount to corresponding treasury yields. Depositors would be required to hold assets to term. To prevent runs on existing banks right, we would let every bank participate in this offering. Customers would have a chance to place their deposits into safekeeping accounts at existing banks.

To make loans, I propose banks would have to attract investment money instead of lending money into existence. They would do so by offering higher than market interest rates on term deposits, but those deposits would not be guaranteed. As an added benefit, this setup would end fractional reserve lending. We would have a full reserve system, unfortunately one that is not backed by gold, but it would be a huge step in the right direction. The immediate economic reaction would likely be contractionary, but that seems to be what the Fed wants now anyway to rein in inflation. Alternatively, perhaps we could phase these ideas in over a 10-year period to mitigate risk.

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“..these calculations suggest that recent declines in bank asset values very significantly increased the fragility of the US banking system to uninsured depositor runs..”

Nearly 200 US banks At Risk Of Repeating SVB Collapse – Study (RT)

Nearly 200 American banks face similar risks to those that led to the implosion and bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), according to a paper posted this week to the Social Science Research Network. SVB, a major US lender focused on the tech and startup sectors, was shut down by regulators last week after massive deposit outflows. In the study, four economists from prominent US universities estimated how much market value the assets held by US banks have lost due to recent interest rate hikes. “From March 07, 2022, to March 6, 2023, the federal funds rate rose sharply from 0.08% to 4.57%, and this increase was accompanied by quantitative tightening. As a result, long-dated assets similar to those held on bank balance sheets experienced significant value declines during the same period,” they wrote.

Although higher interest rates can benefit banks by allowing them to lend at a higher rate, many US banks have parked a significant portion of their excess cash in US Treasuries. This was done when interest rates were at near-zero levels. The value of these bonds has now greatly decreased due to the rate hikes – investors can now simply purchase newly issued bonds that offer a higher interest rate. The decline in the banks’ portfolios is unrealized, meaning the value of the securities has declined but the loss is still only ‘on paper’. The problem arises when customers request their deposits back and banks are forced to sell their securities – at a significant loss – in order to pay depositors back. In extreme cases, this can lead to a bank becoming insolvent, or as happened with Silicon Valley Bank, the loss of confidence can trigger a bank run.

The report’s authors looked into how the amount of US lenders’ funding that comes from uninsured deposits: the greater the share, the more susceptible a bank is to a run. For instance, at SVB, where 92.5% of deposits were uninsured, the deposit outflow caused the bank to collapse in a span of only two days. The authors of the study calculated that 186 American banks do not have enough assets to pay all customers if even half of uninsured depositors decide to withdraw their money. “Our calculations suggest these banks are certainly at a potential risk of a run, absent other government intervention or recapitalization… Overall, these calculations suggest that recent declines in bank asset values very significantly increased the fragility of the US banking system to uninsured depositor runs,” the economists concluded, noting that the number of banks at risk could be “significantly” larger if “uninsured deposit withdrawals cause even small fire sales.”

SVB’s failure sent ripples across the entire US banking industry and caused the closure of another lender, Signature Bank. Many other financial institutions have seen their stocks plunge, with the six largest Wall Street banks losing around $165 billion in market capitalization, or some 13% of their combined value. Earlier this week, the ratings agency Moody’s downgraded its outlook for the US banking system from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’, citing the “rapidly deteriorating operating environment.”

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BlackRock denies being involved.

UBS Seeks $6 Billion Government Backstop In Credit Suisse Takeover (ZH)

As negotiations drag on late on Saturday night local time, Bloomberg reports that liabilities at the Credit Suisse investment bank are proving to be a key sticking point in the takeover talks (“UBS is worried about the balance sheet risk associated with the investment bank, which has suffered a string of losses and scandals in recent years”), with Reuters adding that UBS is asking the Swiss government to cover about $6 billion in costs if it were to buy Credit Suisse. The $6 billion in guarantees “would cover the cost of winding down parts of Credit Suisse and potential litigation charges.” There are other snags: one sources cautioned that the talks to resolve the crisis of confidence in Credit Suisse are encountering significant obstacles, and 10,000 jobs may have to be cut if the two banks combine.

Meanwhile, with UBS facing pressure from the Swiss authorities to carry out a takeover of its local rival as soon as possible to get the crisis under control, the FT reported that Switzerland is preparing to use emergency measures to fast-track the deal, the Financial Times reported, citing two people familiar with the situation. The banking sector’s fundamentals are stronger and the global systemic linkages are weaker than during the 2008 global financial crisis, Goldman analyst Lotfi Karoui wrote in a late Friday note to clients. That limits the risk of a “potential vicious circle of counterparty credit losses,” Karoui said. “However, a more forceful policy response is likely needed to bring some stability,” Karoui said. The bank said the lack of clarity on Credit Suisse’s future will pressure the broader European banking sector.

A senior official at China’s central bank said on Saturday that high interest rates in the major developed economies could continue to cause problems for the financial system. Elsewhere, there were multiple reports of interest for Credit Suisse from other rivals. Bloomberg reported that Deutsche Bank was looking at the possibility of buying some of its assets, while U.S. financial giant BlackRock denied a report that it was participating in a rival bid for the bank.

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” We ask them to pay higher taxes, while cutting public services..”

Britons Facing ‘Disastrous Decade’ – Report (RT)

Real wages in the UK will not return to their 2008 level until 2026 despite an easing of inflation, the Resolution Foundation, an independent think tank, reported this week in its analysis of the new budget. According to the report, the country is on track for a “disastrous decade” of stagnant incomes and high taxes, with cuts to public services. The publication highlighted that real wages fell at an annual rate of 3.9% in January, noting that the bigger picture for wages is “one of long-term pay stagnation.” The decrease in household disposable incomes this year and next are the worst in a century, the think tank stressed. “Britain’s economy remains stuck in a deep funk – with people supported into work but getting poorer, and paying more tax but seeing public services cut,”it wrote.

The UK is forecast to have gone through “the biggest energy and inflation shock since the 1970s, while avoiding a recession, with unemployment peaking at just 4.4%,” Resolution Foundation added. According to the study, taxes as a share of GDP are expected to hit 37.7% by the end of the forecast period, representing a 70-year-high and a 4.7% increase since 2019-2020.

The freeze on income tax thresholds since 2022-23 means that typical households will be worse off by £1,110 ($1,337) by 2027-28 when the freeze ends, it noted. Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, stated that “Jeremy Hunt’s first budget was a much bigger affair than many expected, combining improvements to the dire economic and fiscal outlook with a significant policy package aimed at boosting longer-term growth in general, and the size of the workforce in particular. “But stepping back, the UK’s underlying challenges remain largely unchanged. We are investing too little and growing too slowly. Our citizens’ living standards are stagnant. We ask them to pay higher taxes, while cutting public services,” he concluded.

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GMOs and vaccines.

Massie Asks A Reasonable Question (Denninger)

Pertaining to GMOs and what we’ve learned about genetically engineering viruses. Should the results of the genetically engineered virus give us concern about genetically modifying seeds/food? The clear answer is yes, for the following reasons: Everyone involved lied about the SARS-CoV2 origins. Ecohealth got caught lying quite early on when DRASTIC was exposed; DARPA turned down their requested program to engineer and test modified coronaviruses in Chinese caves, and among the slams in that refusal was the fact that the population of the nation in question were effectively not being asked for their consent. That Ecohealth arrogated to itself the right to test a genetically-modified organism on someone else’s soil without the informed consent of the people residing there was sufficient grounds to destroy the organization and jail every single person involved. DARPA has no authority to do that, but our DOJ does and didn’t.

The deception did not stop there; Fauci claimed that NIH wasn’t actually funding said research when it was, and we now know he was lying. He didn’t go to jail for that either, did he? That the virus was clearly engineered was known very early on because it contained a patented sequence and, in addition, had another sequence in it that never occurs in nature. The latter is routinely used by virus labs for this exact reason; if you put a virus through some process (e.g. through a cell line) and that sequence comes out the other end you know what you did worked because it can’t occur naturally. That this was present in SARS-CoV2 was known within weeks of its alleged “arrival” in the US. Everyone involved lied about when Covid was first “out” in the population. This was known too.

When it first arrived in Washington State and NY, along with the outbreak in Italy, we knew that the strain in NY was not the same as the one on the west coast; it was instead essentially the same as that in Italy. We also knew at that point from the mutational rate it had to be in the wild no later than roughly the end of September of 2019. I posted on this at the time and we later proved this was correct because analysis of blood donated during the first week of December of 2019 detected antibodies specific to SARS-CoV2 which, at the time (there were no jabs of course) could have only occurred if the person who donated the blood had become previously infected and survived There were plenty of additional lies but those are enough. GMOs are typically engineered so as to provide resistance to herbicides.

Round-up ready seeds, for example, are GMO’d so the plants are not killed by glyphosate where a non-GMO plant is. This allows glyphosate (“RoundUp”) to be used as a pre-emergent and post-emergent weed killer in fields without destroying the crop, and that in turn increases crop yields. However this also means that the seeds then are patented and, because a farmer cannot completely control exactly where everything he puts on a crop ends up it effectively forces all the other farmers around him to buy the same Round-up resistant seeds or risk their crop’s damage or destruction from drift of the spray. I will note that 15 USC Chapter 1 states that it is a criminal felony to attempt to restrain trade or engage in a monopoly practice where market power is implicated.

Effectively forcing the next farmer over to buy your GMO seeds lest his crop be damaged or destroyed when the spraying occurs is pretty-much the description of such felonious conduct, yet it goes on every single day and not one person has gone to prison for it. That right there is enough reason for me to be “concerned”, but what adds to that concern is that there have been repeated claims that these herbicides in particular are “safe.” Are they? We don’t know. The EPA says “no” to cancer risks in particular but on the other hand there are many lawsuits over exposure to it and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Bayer/Monsanto has entered into an $11 billion dollar settlement. Clearly they were concerned they might lose; nobody tosses that sort of money around otherwise.

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Jon Stewart Summers

 

 

This silver statue featuring Goddess of Beauty, Yang’asha, worshipped by the Miao people in SW China’s Guizhou, is 88 meters high. Yang’asha is the symbol of fighting for true love in Miao culture.

 

 


This fifty-foot sculpture was unveiled recently in South Dakota. It’s called ‘Dignity’ and was done by artist Dale Lamphere to honor the women of the Sioux Nation.

 

 

Genius cat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1637044120031211521

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 292022
 


Max Ernst Inspired hill 1950

 

A War of Rhetoric & Reality (Patrick Lawrence)
Report Warns Risk of Nuclear War At Its Highest Since US Nuked Japan (Antiwar)
Russia Steps Up Kherson Shelling, Dismisses Zelenskiy’s Peace Plan (RT)
Zelensky To Join WEF in Davos, Sign New Postwar Loans With BlackRock (PM)
Ukrainian Proposal Is Not ‘A Peace Plan’ – Kremlin (RT)
Italian Minister: Russia Will Dare Use Nuclear Weapons If It Is Defeated (RT)
Ukraine Law Firm Runs Campaign Targeting Ordinary People In Western Europe (RT)
Jan. 6 Committee Withdraws Trump Subpoena (ZH)
‘Just Take A Look At’ Biden’s Accounts’: Trump Tells GOP (DCE)
Elon Musk Says Gain-of-function Research In Wuhan Was Bioweapon Research (PM)
PIC Updates Its ‘Aluminum – Vaccine Risk Statement’ (PIC)
‘Health Experts’ Slam DeSantis’ Probe into Moderna, Pfizer (FlV)
IgG4-Related Disease (IgG4RD) Means Fibrosis And Organ Destruction (Rose)

 

 

 

 

Barak Avi

 

 

 

 

GVB

 

 

 

 

FBI/Twitter

 

 

 

 

“Either Russia prevails on its terms,” came the answer, “or there is a nuclear exchange.”

A War of Rhetoric & Reality (Patrick Lawrence)

Passing through Austin, Texas, the other night, we had drinks with a distinguished observer of global affairs and took the opportunity to ask how he thought the war in Ukraine would conclude. It is a common question these days. While no answer can be definitive, it is always interesting to discover what wise heads see out front. “Either Russia prevails on its terms,” came the answer, “or there is a nuclear exchange.” I do not think this stark assessment would have necessarily held up even a month ago. I may not have agreed with it, in any case. But the war has escalated markedly over the past week or two. And our Austin companion’s either/or prediction seems now to be the terrible truth of new circumstances. There are numerous indications that Russia is preparing to launch a major offensive in coming weeks or months.

With Volodymyr Zelensky’s circus-like visit to Washington last week, the Biden administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress have drastically, recklessly increased their investment in the Ukrainian president’s regime — a good-money-after-bad judgment if ever there was one. This now shakes out as a war between rhetoric and reality. And the former, a war waged with immense volumes of Western weaponry in defense of ideological bombast, is far more dangerous than the latter, a war waged on the ground with clearly defined objectives. As John Mearsheimer and Jack Matlock, two astute students of this conflict, have argued, neither side can afford to lose in Ukraine. But what is at stake for Russia and the West — Ukraine being the latter’s proxy — is very different.

A Russian defeat in Ukraine would be a direct threat to its security, sovereignty, and altogether its survival. These are legitimate causes. What people would not defend themselves against such a threat — especially given Washington’s long record of subterfuge in nations, not least the Russian Federation, that insist on their independence. The Biden administration’s rhetoric since the Ukraine crisis sharpened prior to the outbreak of hostilities in February has cast this conflict as a near-cosmic confrontation between liberalism and authoritarianism. I do not see that this is very different from Bush II’s biblical baloney about Gog and Magog as it prepared to invade Iraq, or Mike Pompeo’s unhinged end-times talk when he was whipping up war fever against Russia and China while serving as Donald Trump’s secretary of state.

This irresponsible rhetoric has painted every breathing, walking-around American into a corner from which the only escape is capitulation. That is why it is dangerous. Russia can win battles and wage extensive artillery and rocket campaigns and remain open to negotiation at any opportunity conditions present. Putin made this point clear once again on Sunday. It is difficult to see, by contrast, how our addled president can find his way to talks given how he and the third-rate neoconservatives who control his foreign policies have cast this conflict. And it is too easy to imagine these people reaching for the nuclear buttons once their follies become evident.

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“..an all-out nuclear exchange would send enough dust in the air to block sunlight resulting in “a period of chaos and violence, during which most of the surviving world population would die from hunger.”

Report Warns Risk of Nuclear War At Its Highest Since US Nuked Japan (Antiwar)

A Swedish group that assesses catastrophic risks warned in its annual report this year that the risk of nuclear weapons use is higher today than at any point since the US dropped nuclear weapons on Japan in 1945, AFP reported on Tuesday. Kennette Benedict, an advisor to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists who led the report for the Global Challenges Foundation, said the risk of nuclear war was greater than during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The report warned that an all-out nuclear exchange would send enough dust in the air to block sunlight resulting in “a period of chaos and violence, during which most of the surviving world population would die from hunger.”

President Biden acknowledged the risk back in October when he said the chances of nuclear “armageddon” are higher today than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Despite his recognition of the danger of his policy of supporting Ukraine against Russia, Biden continues to escalate US involvement in the war, and there is no end in sight to the fighting. Ukraine’s war effort is entirely reliant on Western support, and the US is not just sending weapons but also providing training, intelligence, and other kinds of targeting support. According to recent media reports, the Pentagon now tacitly backs Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, and the CIA is directing sabotage operations inside Russia.

Russian officials have made clear that they believe they are not just fighting Ukrainian forces in the war but also the US and NATO. This means Russia has the pretext to launch strikes on the US and NATO, although there’s no sign that such a decision has been made. If Russia eventually chooses to retaliate by using conventional weapons against NATO, the conflict could quickly spiral into nuclear war. If Moscow decides to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, most experts believe it would lead to a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia.

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It was never going to be a quiet New Year’s.

Russia Steps Up Kherson Shelling, Dismisses Zelenskiy’s Peace Plan (RT)

Ukraine’s recently liberated southern city of Kherson suffered intense mortar and artillery attacks from Russian forces across the Dnipro river, while the Kremlin rejected a Ukrainian peace plan, demanding that Kyiv accept its annexation of four regions. Kherson has remained under bombardment from Russian forces which had retreated to the east bank of the river when the city was retaken in a major victory for Ukraine last month. On Wednesday, the shelling hit the maternity wing of a hospital, though no-one was hurt, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s deputy chief of staff. Staff and patients were moved to a shelter, Tymoshenko said in a post on Telegram. “It was frightening … the explosions began abruptly, the window handle started to tear off … oh, my hands are still shaking,” Olha Prysidko, a new mother, said. “When we came to the basement, the shelling wasn’t over. Not for a minute.”

Macgregor

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“..already helping Ukraine to structure the fund for the reconstruction of our state.”

Who’s going to pay? Not BlackRock.

Zelensky To Join WEF in Davos, Sign New Postwar Loans With BlackRock (PM)

On Wednesday it was revealed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government is prepping to participate in January’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, and that the Ukrainian leader is in talks with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink regarding rebuilding efforts following the war with Russia. According to Bloomberg, Zelensky said in an evening address to the nation, “Specialists of this company are already helping Ukraine to structure the fund for the reconstruction of our state.” Zelensky reportedly had a video call with Fink in September. He did not reveal whether he would be attending the WEF in person or virtually.


According to a Wednesday post on the Ukrainian President’s official website, Zelensky said, “In accordance with the preliminary agreements struck earlier this year between the Head of State and Larry Fink, the BlackRock team has been working for several months on a project to advise the Ukrainian government on how to structure the country’s reconstruction funds.” “Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Larry Fink agreed to focus in the near term on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of our country, channeling investment into the most relevant and impactful sectors of the Ukrainian economy,” the post added. “During the conversation, it was emphasized that certain BlackRock leaders plan to visit Ukraine in the new year,” the post continued. “The President thanked Larry Fink for the work of the professional team that BlackRock has allocated to advise on structuring the reconstruction projects.”

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“No plan that ignores that reality can pretend to have peace in mind..”

Ukrainian Proposal Is Not ‘A Peace Plan’ – Kremlin (RT)

No proposal that refuses to account for reality can pretend to aim for peace, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday, responding to a question about Russia’s official position on a “peace plan” floated by the Ukrainian government. “No plan that ignores that reality can pretend to have peace in mind,” Peskov said. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s proposal, floated earlier this month, envisioned a UN-sponsored “Global Peace Summit” taking place in February 2023. According to Zelensky, the agenda would be based on his ten-point “peace formula,” which includes the withdrawal of Russian troops from all territories claimed by Ukraine, Moscow paying reparations, and holding war crimes trials for individuals that Kiev accuses of aggression.

Zelensky’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba brought up the proposal anew on Monday, insisting that Russia must face judgment by an “international court” before being allowed at the table. Moscow’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky dismissed Kuleba’s statement as “nonsense,” commenting that there can be no peace talks without Russia, while the actions of Ukraine’s government may result in such a meeting eventually taking place without their participation. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Kiev must recognize the status of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as parts of Russia as a prerequisite for any peace talks. In addition to the four regions, Moscow seeks to “prevent the creation and continuation of any threats to our security from Ukrainian territory,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview on Wednesday.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the 2014 ceasefire, brokered by Germany and France, to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.” Moscow demands that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

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Good thing then that it won’t be defeated.

Italian Minister: Russia Will Dare Use Nuclear Weapons If It Is Defeated (RT)

“Russia will dare to use nuclear weapons if it is defeated,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said in an interview with the local media, Report informs.He said that the use of tactical nuclear power is foreseen by Russia: “For us, it is inconceivable, but for Moscow, yes. But if Moscow understands that there is no return, it will go for it.” The minister assured that Rome will stand by Kyiv until the last Russian soldier leaves the sovereign lands of Ukraine: “We will help Ukraine to protect itself. Russia has crossed the border it should not have crossed.”

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“rashists”

Ukraine Law Firm Runs Campaign Targeting Ordinary People In Western Europe (RT)

Boutique Ukrainian law firm T&M has launched an appalling new service allowing residents of Western European countries to “cleanse Europe of rashists,” a reference to the derogatory neologism used by officials in Kiev, which combines the words “Russian” and “fascist.” Titled “give in charge rashist” (apparently a bad translation of the Ukrainian title “turn in a rashist”), the webportal invites visitors who are “tired of potential invaders living near you” to “let us know and we will try to solve this issue in the legal field.” “We are a team of lawyers who decided to use legal methods to cleanse Europe of potential invaders,” the site explains. “No one will know who surrendered the rashist. It’s completely free. You pay nothing, but you get a bonus to karma. You are making a personal contribution to a peaceful future.”

Reporting a “possible aggressor” is said to be “easy.” Concerned citizens can easily use a form to anonymously submit the names and social media accounts of Russian citizens living in any European country, who may be “potentially dangerous” and a “carrier of propaganda and violence.” In return, the Lviv-based T&M “do everything to ensure that the relevant European authorities check the legality of such a person’s stay in Europe,” and “send a corresponding statement to the state authorities of the country in which the presence of a potentially dangerous rashist was reported.” The obvious desired end result is that the Russian in question will be arrested and deported, or perhaps even worse. A disclaimer at the bottom of the page states the service “is not intended to incite ethnic, racial, religious or other enmity,” and only serves to bring its stated targets “to justice.”

T&M has been operating in Lviv since 2014, specializing in sports law, road traffic accidents, IT and technology transfer, and corporate relations. “Give in charge rashist” is a sub-page of T&M’s main site and links back to it in its disclaimers section. “We do not collect your personal data in any way, and we use the personal data of rashists that you provide us exclusively for contacting state authorities,” it concludes. It is unknown if any “rashists” have been reported to authorities as a result of this abhorrent resource, or where they are located or what has happened to them if so. This is just the latest example of how a highly hostile environment for Russians is being created abroad, in which they are, regardless of their political leanings and beliefs, viewed as one and the same. The purpose is to ensure all Russians are falsely considered “the enemy within” by local citizens in their host countries, plotting misdeeds and wrongdoing in support of the Kremlin’s devilish plans for global domination.

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“..the West should be engaged in the “permanent strengthening of our common security in the face of Russia.”

Berlin Promises To Ramp Up Sanctions Against Moscow (RT)

Any business as usual with Russia is impossible in the near future due to the Ukraine conflict, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Tuesday. She also vowed that Berlin and its allies would intensify sanctions pressure against Moscow. Speaking to Romania’s Digi 24 TV Channel, the minister emphasized that “there can be no normal relations with this Russia” amid the fighting between Moscow and Kiev’s forces and the stand-off with the West. EU would prefer “a peaceful and democratic Russia that does not pose a threat to its neighbors,” Baerbock stated, adding that she harbors “no illusions” on the matter. “We are living in a different reality right now.” Against this backdrop, the minister noted that the West should be engaged in the “permanent strengthening of our common security in the face of Russia.”

According to Baerbock, as long as Moscow wages “the brutal war of aggression,” the West will gradually tighten its sanctions policy. However, she did not clarify what additional restrictions could be in the offing. She went on to add that Western capitals would support Ukraine “as long as necessary,” providing it with arms, as well as humanitarian and financial aid, because the nation “defends the freedom of Europe.” However, she struck a more cautious tone about Kiev’s aspirations to join the EU. While hailing the bloc’s decision to grant Ukraine candidate status in June as a “historic moment,” Baerbock admitted that “the road there will still be long and certainly sometimes difficult.” To pave the way for Kiev’ accession, Western countries are doing their best to help the nation harmonize its legal system with EU standards, she said.

Following the start of Russia’s military operation against Ukraine in late February, Germany has provided Ukraine with large amounts of weaponry and joined Western sanctions against Moscow. The restrictions targeted entire sectors of the Russian economy, particularly energy exports, while hundreds of senior officials were blacklisted, and about half of the nation’s foreign exchange reserves were frozen, a move that was denounced by Moscow as essentially “theft.” On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated that the EU is waging a “hybrid war” against Moscow, arguing that Brussels’ policies have only hurt the interests of the bloc’s citizens while bringing its relations with Russia to their “lowest point.”

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What a catastrophic failure. Do call it was it is.

But they still keep arresting people two years later.

Julie Kelly: “And Senate GOP just handed FBI a half-billion dollar raise and gave DOJ $212 million just to prosecute Trump supporters.”

Jan. 6 Committee Withdraws Trump Subpoena (ZH)

The January 6th special committee has formally withdrawn its subpoena of former President Donald Trump. “In light of the imminent end of our investigation, the Select Committee can no longer pursue the specific information covered by the subpoena,” wrote Rep. Bernie Thompson (D-MI) in a Wednesday night letter sent to Trump’s attorneys, which was obtained by CNN. “Therefore, through this letter, I hereby formally withdraw the subpoena issued to former President Trump, and notify you that he is no longer obligated to comply or produce records in response to said subpoena,” the letter continues.


Trump took a victory lap on Truth Social, writing: “Was just advised that the Unselect Committee of political Thugs has withdrawn the Subpoena of me concerning the January 6th Protest of the CROOKED 2020 Presidential Election. They probably did so because they knew I did nothing wrong, or they were about to lose in Court. Perhaps the FBI’s involvement in RIGGING the Election played into their decision. In any event, the Subpoena is DEAD!” As CNN notes, the committee has already dropped several subpoenas against other witnesses, and has wrapped up its investigation by referring Trump to the DOJ for potential criminal prosecution on four separate charges. The referrals, however, hold no legal weight.

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“evidence that the finances, credit cards, and bank accounts of Hunter and Joe Biden were co-mingled, if not shared.”

‘Just Take A Look At’ Biden’s Accounts’: Trump Tells GOP (DCE)

Former President Donald J. Trump shared a campaign video to Truth Social providing a stern rebuke to the release of his 2015-2020 tax returns by the Democrat-led House Means and Ways Committee on Tuesday. He further called for the new Republican-led House to “immediately obtain the financial records of Joe Biden and his entire criminal enterprise.” The dramatic legal battle over the former president’s tax records ended in November when the United States Supreme Court declined to overturn an appellate court ruling that ordered Trump to hand over the records to Congress. The sole Republican candidate to announce for the 2024 presidential race denounced the move as “an outrageous abuse of power” from “radical Democrats” Friday.

“There is no legitimate legislative purpose for their action, and if you look at what they’ve done, it’s so sad for our country,” he said, after sharing the video with Breitbart. The former president called the action “unconstitutional.” “It’s nothing but another deranged political witch-hunt, which has been going on from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower,” he added. “Although these tax returns contain relatively little information and not information that almost anybody would understand — they’re extremely complex — the radical Democrats’ behavior is a shame upon the U.S. Congress,” Trump added. He then called upon the House GOP to aggressively acquire Biden’s financial records, as reported by Breitbart:

“The new Republican House should immediately obtain the financial records of Joe Biden and his entire criminal enterprise because that’s exactly what it is. Biden is a corrupt politician who spent years selling out America all over the world, including to Communist China. Just take a look at his accounts, take a look at all of his homes, and take a look at what his son, Hunter, has contributed to the family. The American public deserves to know the truth. We should also get to the bottom line on how Biden, on a salary of a U.S. Senator, was able to buy one mansion after another, all these different locations. When I’m president, we will expose the Washington cartel, and we will Make America Great Again.”

Incoming Republican Chairman Rep. James Comer of the U.S. House Oversight Committee told CNN in November that Hunter Biden is expected to be subpoenaed about his father’s involvement in his business dealings overseas. Comer explicitly told reporters “This is an investigation of Joe Biden.” “This committee will evaluate whether this president is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars,” Comer added. He explained, as previously reported by Newsweek, that the investigation will have “evidence that the finances, credit cards, and bank accounts of Hunter and Joe Biden were co-mingled, if not shared.”

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“Musk argues that “‘Gain-of-function’ in this context is just another way of saying ‘bioweapon.'”

Elon Musk Says Gain-of-function Research In Wuhan Was Bioweapon Research (PM)

Elon Musk went on the Fauci attack on Wednesday, insinuating that the gain-of-function (GoF) work the doctor was advocating for was essentially bioweapon research. “‘Gain-of-function’ should be called ‘bioweapon’ research, as the function referred is death!” Musk tweeted. The Twitter CEO points to a Yahoo News article from last year that unearthed a paper that Fauci wrote a decade ago, where he argues that the benefits of GoF research outweigh the potential pandemic risk. GoF research consists of genetically altering an organism, such as a virus, in order to gain an increased understanding of its function, work that was taking place at the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. “In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?,” Fauci asks in his 2012 paper.


He goes on to say that GoF research is “important work,” clearly stating that the benefits “outweigh the risks.” Musk argues that “‘Gain-of-function’ in this context is just another way of saying ‘bioweapon.'” He also points out that Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, is the head of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, where she is “the person who is supposed to make sure that Fauci behaves ethically.” There is mounting evidence pointing to the fact that the COVID-19 virus originated from a leak at the Wuhan lab, despite insistence from the government and from Fauci himself that this was not the case. It was revealed earlier this year that many scientists in Britain and the United States were more concerned about keeping “international harmony” than with opening the debate regarding the lab-leak theory.

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“..up to 22 doses of aluminum-containing vaccines are administered to children..”

PIC Updates Its ‘Aluminum – Vaccine Risk Statement’ (PIC)

The document explains that both the FDA and ATSDR have raised concerns about the negative effects of aluminum exposure in humans. Scientific studies have shown that small amounts of aluminum can interfere with cellular and metabolic processes in the nervous system. Some of the most damaging effects of aluminum range from motor skill impairment to encephalopathy (altered mental state, personality changes, difficulty thinking, loss of memory, seizures, coma, and more). Studies have also shown that adverse effects of aluminum may not be restricted to neurological conditions.* A study referenced in the PIC document and published in Academic Pediatrics found that asthma occurred in 1 in 183 vaccinated children for every 1 mg (1,000 mcg) increase in aluminum exposure.

In the United States, up to 22 doses of aluminum-containing vaccines are administered to children, with 11 doses administered from birth to 6 months of age. “Overexposure to aluminum may lead to significant harm,” said Dr. Shira Miller, founder and president of Physicians for Informed Consent. “In California, where PIC is headquartered, since Senate Bill 277 (SB 277) was enacted in 2015, numerous doses of aluminum-containing vaccines are mandated for public and private K-12 school attendance — with no exceptions for religious or personal belief exemptions. PIC asserts that vaccine mandates are unscientific and unethical and a threat to public health. SB 277, and any other law that coerces vaccination, needs to be repealed.”

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“..decades of established procedure designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccines..”

‘Health Experts’ Slam DeSantis’ Probe into Moderna, Pfizer (FlV)

After the Florida Supreme Court accepted Gov. Ron DeSantis’ request to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate mRNA COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, “health experts” fear the move “betrays decades of established procedure designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, and only serves to stoke further immunization fears.” Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of public health group the de Beaumont Foundation, told The Hill that the governor “appears to be focused on creating fear around vaccines that have been shown to be safe and effective.” “These vaccines have been tested and scrutinized more than any other vaccine, and they continue to save lives. Vaccine safety is not a partisan issue and attempting to make it one puts lives at risk,” he went on.

At a roundtable earlier in December, DeSantis was joined by Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and other health experts telling their personal stories and experience dealing with adverse effects of the mRNA vaccines. Doctors warned that more research should have been conducted to weigh the risk and benefits for certain age groups and between men and women. For example, Ladapo’s Department of Health warn of a higher risk of cardiac death particularly among young males. “It is against the law to mislead and to misrepresent, particularly when you’re talking about the efficacy of a drug,” DeSantis said of the mRNA vaccine manufacturers. The petition to the Court argued it is “likely” the companies and those who benefit from the vaccines made misleading claims to consumers “for financial gain.”

It specifically points out Moderna and Pfizer’s claims about preventing the COVID-19 disease with “94.1% efficacy” and “91.3% vaccine efficacy.” Earlier in December, DeSantis also announced that a public health integrity committee will be established. The board will advise the public and provide oversight moving forward of the public health establishment. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at Johns Hopkins University and former principal deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told The Hill that DeSantis’ request is not a good example of a “legitimate avenue” for scrutinizing vaccine recommendations.

“This is turning a matter of health and science into a political wedge issue, with the likely consequence that many people will be misled into placing themselves and their families at risk of serious illness and death,” he said. At the roundtable, DeSantis slammed ‘experts’ for dismissing dissenting opinions. “Part of the reason I think it’s been a bad response is because from the very beginning, you had a lot of arrogance, that it’s our way or the highway, and anyone that offers any type of a dissenting opinion, and they were censoring from day one, people that would write anti lock down things in March of 2020, April 2020, some of those would get taken down off some of these big tech platforms,” DeSantis said. “Anything [the CDC will] put out, you just assume, at this point, that it’s not worth the paper that it’s printed on.”

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Jessica Rose is one of many -but never enough- doctors reinstated on Twitter.

IgG4-Related Disease (IgG4RD) Means Fibrosis And Organ Destruction (Rose)

A recent paper published in Science confirms what many of us have been saying for well over a year now: repeated injections with modified mRNA encapsulated by LNPs messes up your immune system. It messes it up in a specific way. We have evidence from this work that the fibrosis and organ destruction we are witnessing in countless numbers of folks post COVID injection, is due to the shots and more specifically, likely due to the eventual class switching to IgG4 and subsequent prevalence (perhaps dominance) of this antibody subclass. Just so that you know, the typical relative percentages of the four subclasses of IgG in the blood are the following: 60-70% IgG1, 20-30% IgG2, 5-8% IgG3, 1-3% IgG4. So if IgG4 percentages are much higher than 1-3% in the blood, then something is out of the ordinary.

It may even manifest pathologically. To reiterate from my last Substack article, the authors found a 48,075% increase (from 0.04% – 19.27%) in spike-specific IgG4 antibodies in test subjects between the 2nd and 3rd injections of the Comirnaty product, so I suppose this would translate to a presence of IgG4 in the blood at levels higher than 1-3%. Probably closer to 20%? In any case, the shift in IgG subclass ratios is notable following the 2nd and 3rd injections. Before I dig into IgG4RD, I want to make something clear. The role of IgG4 as a ‘tolerizing antibody’ is inherently linked to T regulatory cells (Tregs) – the immune ‘tolerancers’: IgG4 is not directly responsible for tolerization. This means that IgG4 is not so much the tolerizer, as it is a medium for tolerization via Tregs.


I think calling it a tolerizing antibody is appropriate. I have provided background on Tregs in a previous Substack, but I will give a very quick summary here of their role in immunological tolerance – and also what immunological tolerance is! Immunological tolerance is the process of making sure that your immune system doesn’t turn on you. Imagine if you didn’t have a system in place to ensure that your immune cells only recognized foreign antigens as bag guys? Imagine what would happen, therefore, if your immune cells recognized your antigens as bad guys? Maybe… autoimmunity? An antigen (Ag) is a molecule that can bind to a specific antibody or T-cell receptor. Antigens can be proteins, peptides (amino acid chains), polysaccharides (chains of monosaccharides/simple sugars), lipids, or nucleic acids.

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BBee woman

 

 

 

 

Throwback to subprime. John Bird (smaller of the two Johns) died aged 86 yesterday.

 

 

 

 

Big art

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 102022
 


John Martin The Fall of Babylon 1831

 

 

The Ukraine “war” narrative is changing. From the west/Kiev side, that is. They are trying to get Wall Street capital involved. Zelensky attempts to sell them parts of Ukraine that are not his to sell in practice, because he doesn’t control them, but that are according to US law, a country 10,000 miles away or so. Russia recognized Crimea as part of its territory 8 years ago after a referendum in which 95% of citizens voted for that move, but the west never has. The Donbass republics declared their independence at the same time, but Russia only acknowledged that one day before their Special Military Operation (SMO). A feast for lawyers. And a nightmare.

Ukraine has made some headway in what is labeled a “counterattack” -but which could simply be a trap-, and anyway -“Kiev has banned journalists from the front lines, making these claims difficult to verify”- and this is milked for all it can deliver, and then some. Beware. First up, there’s a retired US general declaring Russia has all but lost:

Ukraine Will Retake Crimea In A Year – Ex-US General

Ukraine could “restore full sovereignty” within a year, retaking all of its lost territory including Crimea, retired US General Ben Hodges told Newsweek on Thursday at the Tbilisi International Conference of the McCain Institute in Georgia. Hodges is now a lobbyist at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, a pressure group funded by NATO and US arms manufacturers. Western support for Kiev has resulted in a financial bonanza for these companies. “The Ukrainians saved their country,” Hodges gushed, declaring that “half a year after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion…the supposed second-best army in the world is now the second-best army in Ukraine,” with Russia’s “ability to conduct further offensive operations…all but exhausted.”

Now, Hodges said, it was up to the US and NATO to step in and make sure the war is won, starting with a full-throated proclamation of support for Kiev. Washington should stop publicizing the cost of the military aid it sends overseas, he continued, suggesting the deliveries be framed in terms of the percentage of “what is needed for Ukraine to defeat Russia and regain their territory.” The retired general did not elaborate on how those numbers could be calculated. The administration of US President Joe Biden has poured over $44 billion into the war effort since February. While Ukraine and its Western backers have declared the Kherson counteroffensive a rousing success, boasting of recapturing several villages, Kiev has banned journalists from the front lines, making these claims difficult to verify.

Russia has argued the initiative “failed miserably,” pointing to the loss of over 1,200 Ukrainian servicemen in a single day of fighting. Ukrainian MP Alexey Goncharenko echoed Hodges’ optimism in comments to Newsweek, declaring “next year will be the decisive year of the war” and that “with the help of the free world, Ukraine has an opportunity to win.” That will require a lot more weapons, he clarified, mentioning aircraft, air defense systems, and rockets superior to the HIMARS. Crimea became part of Russia in the wake of a 2014 referendum following the US-backed overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Viktor Yanukovich in Kiev.

Ukraine and NATO consider it illegally annexed territory, and the US has reportedly given Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky the go-ahead to attack the peninsula. The Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk declared their independence that same year and were recognized as independent states by the Kremlin this past February. Zelensky has vowed to retake all three regions, promising on Sunday that “Ukraine will return” to Donbass, Kharkov, Zhaporozhye, Kherson, and “definitely to Crimea.”

Then a Ukraine general claims Russia is about to use nukes, again because it allegedly has all but lost. Please note that Ukraine has no nukes, so how this fine young man could see a “limited” nuclear war is not clear, unless he’s calling for US (or French, or UK) nukes to get involved. Mind you, it simply looks like another attempt to get the west to send ever more and ever heavier weapons, so the Ukraine can get more Ukrainians killed. But nukes are never a joke, no matter how ridiculous the claims made.

Ukraine’s Top General Doesn’t Rule Out “Limited” Nuclear War

Ukraine’s top military chief has warned that Russia could unleash nukes if its army is against the ropes in Ukraine. The comments were issued Wednesday amid an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south and east which both Kiev and Washington say has so far had “success”. Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Gen. Valery Zaluzhny stated “There is a direct threat of the use, under certain circumstances, of tactical nuclear weapons by the Russian armed forces.” He wrote this in an op-ed published by state run outlet Ukrinform, with the alarming words being picked up by The Washington Post and others. “It is also impossible to completely rule out the possibility of the direct involvement of the world’s leading countries in a ‘limited’ nuclear conflict, in which the prospect of World War III is already directly visible,” Zaluzhny added.

The top commander further issued his first official confirmation that the unprecedented large strikes on Russia’s Crimea bases and an arms depot widely reported in August were Ukrainian operations. The initial early August huge Saki air base explosion had previously only been acknowledged as a Ukrainian strike via anonymous leaks to Western media outlets by senior Kiev officials. At around the same time as those opening Crimea attacks, which have continued sporadically since then, President Zelensky vowed to “liberate” the Russian-held territory, which the Kremlin gained control of after a 2014 popular referendum, which wasn’t recognized by Europe or the US. According to Gen. Zaluzhny’s words as featured in The Washington Post:

“With the fighting all but certain to continue into 2023, Ukraine has to make the war “even sharper and more tangible for the Russians and for other occupied regions, despite the massive distance to the targets,” Zaluzhny wrote. He called the Crimean strikes a “convincing example” of Kyiv’s calls for allies to send longer-range weapons for its outgunned soldiers.. Moscow, he said, can hit 20 times farther.” Moscow for its part has also expressed alarm over the potential for nuclear-armed confrontation with the West over Ukraine, given Washington’s steadily growing involvement – especially the billions of dollars in weapons and military aid being poured into the Ukrainian side. It has also rejected charges that it is prepared to use nukes.

The next article is crucial to our understanding of what is going on. Zelensky is trying to sell his country to the highest bidder, to the last inch.. That’s been going on for a while. A lot of land and industry has already been sold. But be careful here: Zelensky is also selling off “assets” that are nominally his, but which he doesn’t control. Like the Crimea, like the Donbass – Ukraine’s only real fertile and industrious region-.

Both are -largely- under Russian control, but the west doesn’t formally recognize that. 8 years after a referendum won by 95%, the west still insists that Crimea is not Russian. So Ze can sell it, more or less legally, and if a potential buyer points out the Russian control, he’ll say he’s about to regain control (a retired US general said so himself) and you can have a discount for the risk (half price!). But then if the Russians advance -which they will-, they’re now advancing on western -Wall Street- property, not Ukrainian. And then Blackrock et al will lean on DC to bring in US troops, and eventually, nukes.

Meanwhile, Ze sounds like a sales brochure (via Benjamin Norton) :

Zelensky Is Literally Selling Ukraine To Wall Street Corporations

Ukraine’s Western-backed leader Volodymyr Zelensky virtually opened the New York Stock Exchange on the morning of September 6, symbolically ringing the bell via video stream. Zelensky announced that his country is “open for business” – that is to say, that foreign corporations are free to come and exploit its plentiful resources and low-paid labor. In a speech launching the neoliberal selloff program Advantage Ukraine, Zelensky offered Wall Street “a chance for you to invest now in projects worth of hundreds of billions of dollars.” The financial news service Business Wire published a press release from the Ukrainian government in which Zelensky boasted:

“The $400+ [billion] in investment options featured on AdvantageUkraine.com span public private partnerships, privatization and private ventures. A USAID-supported project team of investment bankers and researchers appointed by Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy will work with businesses interested in investing.” It also quoted the president of NYSE Group, Lynn Martin, who said: “As the largest exchange globally, we stand for freedom, investor protection and unfettered access to capital. We are pleased to welcome President Zelenskyy virtually to the NYSE bell podium, a symbol of the freedom and opportunity our U.S. capital markets have enabled around the globe. We are honored the President has chosen the NYSE to mark the kickoff of Advantage Ukraine and engage with the world’s business community.”

The press release cited executives of US corporate giants Google, Alphabet, and Microsoft, who salivated over the economic possibilities offered by Ukraine. Reuters noted that the Ukrainian government hired British public relations firm WPP to run the marketing operation for Advantage Ukraine. Zelensky coordinated his New York Stock Exchange publicity stunt with an editorial in the Wall Street Journal imploring US capitalists to “Invest in the Future of Ukraine.” “I committed my administration to creating a favorable environment for investment that would make Ukraine the greatest growth opportunity in Europe since the end of World War II,” Zelensky wrote. He continued:

“To create a safe, transparent environment for business engagement, Ukraine is pursuing investment guarantees from both the Group of Seven and the European Union, reforming the country’s tax system, and establishing a strong new legal framework. Our country has already adopted rules and laws to allow companies to build transparent corporate structures, attract foreign investment more easily, and use additional mechanisms to protect intangible assets. Favorable conditions will allow us to establish Ukraine as a powerful IT hub and implement innovative business ideas quickly and effectively.”.

 

About that alleged counterattack you -and investors- are being sold. Big Serge breaks that down. Izyum is pivotal. Russia took it very early in the SMO. “..they are attempting a thrust toward Kupyansk, with the aim of cutting the line connecting Izyum to Belgorod in the north. This operation, I believe, is doomed to spectacular failure.”

This looks like a trap. And Big Serge thinks it’s not even a prepared or planned trap, just one the Ukraine forces created themselves. And one that the Russians will be sure to “trap shut”, turning it from a “salient” into a “cauldron”. Let the Ukrainians think they are winning, let them all come in. And then close the trap.

Ukraine Counterattacks! Please Remain Calm

A modest city with a prewar population of perhaps 50,000 people, Izyum was always slated to be a focal point in this war, due to its location at a critical intersection. The topography of northeastern Ukraine is dominated by a few critically important features which determine patterns of movement. These include the crucial E40/M03 highway, which connects the metropolis of Kharkov and the urban agglomeration of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, which are the largest and most important cities in the western Donbas. The region is furthermore shaped by the Severodonetsk River – alternatively called simply the Donets (from which the Donbas, or Donets Basin, draws its name) – which snakes lazily around the plain.


The Donets forms a geographic barrier between the Donbas to the south and the Kharkov region to the north, while the E40/M03 highway forms the main arterial for transit between Kharkov and the urban centers of the western Donbas. Izyum is a strategically crucial city because it is where the highway crosses the river; as an added cherry on top, the Oskil River – a major tributary of the Donets – confluences with the Donets less than five miles to the east of Izyum, meaning the city essentially sits directly on the intersection of all the most important geographic features of the region. A highly simplified map of the area looks like this:

Capturing Izyum was a major objective for Russia in the early weeks of the war (as I argued in a previous piece, this was a major reason for the pinning move on Kiev), because it not only interdicts and complicates supply to Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, but it also gave Russia an early position on the Donets river. It is obvious why Ukraine would want to dislodge Russia from Izyum. This would simplify and secure lines of communication to Slovyansk and greatly complicate the Russian push in the Donbas by freeing Ukraine’s northern flank. To achieve this, they are attempting a thrust toward Kupyansk, with the aim of cutting the line connecting Izyum to Belgorod in the north. This operation, I believe, is doomed to spectacular failure.

Yes, Ukraine forces advanced somewhat. But look where it’s gotten them. What “president” would do this to his own people? Sure, he has to claim they’re winning, or the Pentagon and the investors won’t show up, but how many Ukrainians will be left in the end? Blackrock doesn’t care, but a president should.

Izyum: The Non-Salient

In military parlance, a “salient” simply means a bulge in the frontline, where one side has achieved some level of penetration at a particular point. A salient is a classically vulnerable position – a glaringly obvious operational focal point, because simultaneous attacks at the base of the bulge can easily cut it off and trap the forces inside. Essentially, a salient is a position where a force is already encircled on 3 sides, leaving only the exit to be snapped shut. In the opening phase of the war, Izyum was indeed a salient. Russia had captured an exposed position which jutted out into Ukrainian territory, and there was talk of a Ukrainian counteroffensive to take advantage of this. Furthermore, the only safe supply line to Izyum ran through Kupyansk, making this a vulnerable position indeed. However, throughout the following weeks, Russia took control of the territory directly to the east of Izyum, including the town of Lyman.


This concretized the Russian flank and secured additional lines of communication into Izyum, creating redundancies for the highway from Kupyansk. The window of opportunity for an easy encirclement or interdiction of supply to Izyum ended when Russia cleared all the Ukrainian forces from the north side of the Donets river. Supply lines to Izyum are now shielded from the south by the Donets, and from the west by the Oskil. Because Russia has redundant supply lines to the northeast of Izyum, for Ukraine to reach operational depth, they must cross the Donets and Oskil rivers. Even suppressing Kupyansk is not enough to disrupt Russia’s ability to project force here. The Oskil river – which, incidentally is more than a kilometer wide in places – presents a major barrier that will prevent Ukraine from exploiting their early advances. They have more or less advanced into a wall, and already the map presents an unfolding catastrophe for them. Courtesy of Rybar:


“This is a Salient with Ukrainians inside”

In short, the Ukrainian advance has been too slow and lacks a clear path to reach operational objectives. Already, Russia has begun to deploy huge reserves to this theater, and fear is beginning to show among the more operationally aware Ukrainians. One Ukrainian journalist at the front had this to say: “There is heavy fighting near Kupyansk, worse than Balakleysky. We are taking heavy losses. The enemy is transferring a bunch of reserves by air. The “Wagnerites” have already arrived in the city itself. The sky is filled with aircraft. Hearing about all this, a haunting feeling of an ambush arises in the soul. What if this all really turns out to be a strategic level ambush?”


I do not believe this is an “ambush” per se by the Russian army. The word ambush implies that the Russian forces were already in position, drawing the Ukrainians into a specific maneuver plan where they could be attacked from prepared positions. That’s not what’s happening at all – Russian forces are coming in fresh from reserve and were not pre-deployed to the sector. What the operation reflects instead is Russia’s preference to wage a high-firepower, mobile defense. Frontline positions are, relatively speaking, thinly manned, which powerful mobile reserves are held back. This is a flexible, firefighting approach which allows the Ukrainians to advance into vulnerable positions so that they can be destroyed.

Assuming that Russia is losing today due to a few Ukrainian moves also means assuming that Russia’s army is severely weak and weakened, and its commanders are mentally challenged. And there are no indications of either. But if Zelensky and the US State Dept. want to sell this war to Wall Street, they are obliged to make such claims.

What they should all be doing, of course, is talk peace. But there’s no money inn peace. At least not short term. So Europeans this winter can go to food and energy hell, courtesy of Wall Street, Biden’s neocons and a two-bit comedian, while Europe itself lacks all leadership. What a world.

 

 

 

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Sep 202021
 
 September 20, 2021  Posted by at 9:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  53 Responses »


Claude Monet The sheltered path 1888

 

YouTube Is Always Right (Steve Kirsch)
Covid-19 Vaccines Are Killing At Least 2 People For Every 1 Life They Save (TE)
Counting Covid (Attkisson)
A Plausible Hypothesis, Based On Fact (Denninger)
Indian Bar Association Issues A Legal Notice To WHO (IF)
The Weaponisation of Vaccination (NoF)
Gaming Measurement of Vaccine Efficacy (Crawford)
Now The Lancet U-turns Over Covid Lab Leak Theory (DM)
This Week in the New Normal |(OffG)
Evergrande: Why Most Analysis Is Dead In The Water (Erba)
France Accuses Britain Of ‘Retreating To America’s Lap’ (Inews)
BlackRock and Citi Get on Board the Climate Nazi Train (IMan)

 

 

Fullmilch

 

 

Singapore stats. Completely out of hand. Vaccines, is there still any doubt about this? 82% fully vaccinated. Yet Eric Topol, who calls himself a physician-scientist, says:
“Delta can be daunting to contain. The situation in Singapore with over 1,000 new cases today and yesterday, 80% of total population fully vaccinated, 1 of top 3 countries in the world, is an important indicator of the challenge.”

How blind can one be?

And here’s the health minister. The vaccines saved us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

See Us. Hear Us. Believe Us. Heal Us.

 

 

Vaccine Truth tweets: “Steve Kirsch’s last video on YouTube where he admits “Ivermectin doesn’t work” in order to satisfy YouTube policies. It’s hilarious. Let’s see how long it takes before YouTube removes it.”

Note: Kirsch was suspended by Twitter too.

YouTube Is Always Right (Steve Kirsch)

STOP listening to the science! Whatever YouTube says is what you should believe. The science says that Ivermectin works. The science is wrong. What matters is what YouTube says, not science. Stop thinking for yourself and do whatever YouTube says. Otherwise, you will be banned, block, and demonitized.


Watch all my future content on Rumble.

Read more …

More Kirsch.

Covid-19 Vaccines Are Killing At Least 2 People For Every 1 Life They Save (TE)

FDA experts have unexpectedly voted against approving Covid-19 vaccination boosters for anyone over the age of 16 in the USA, citing a lack of long term data and stating that the risks do not outweigh any benefits because the Covid-19 vaccines are killing at least 2 people for every 1 life saved. In a live broadcast conducted on the 17th September the Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee met to debate and vote on Pfizer and BioNTech’s application to offer booster shots to the general public. The meeting lasted over 8 hours and contained some shocking revelations. Dr Joseph Fraiman, an emergency medicine physician in New Orleans, spoke for several minutes during the meeting and revealed that no clinical evidence exists to disprove claims that the Covid-109 vaccines are harming more people than they save.


“We need your help on the front lines, to stop vaccine hesitancy. Demand the booster trials are large enough to find a reduction in hospitalisations. “Without this data we the medical establishment cannot confidently call out anti-Covid-vaccine activists who publicly claim the vaccines harm more than they save especially in the young and healthy. “The fact we do not have the clinical evidence to say these activists are wrong should terrify us all”. Dr Joseph Fraiman was then followed by Steve Kirsch, Executive Director of the Covid-19 Early Treatment Fund, who revealed that the Covid-19 vaccines more people than they are saving. “I’m going to focus my remarks today on the elephant in the room that nobody likes to talk about, that the vaccines kill more than they save.

“We were led to believe that the vaccines were perfectly safe but this is simply not true, for example there are four times as many heart attacks in the treatment group in the Pfizer 6 month file report, that wasn’t just bad luck.VAERS shows heart attacks happen 71 times more often following these vaccines compared to any other vaccine,” Steve Kirsch then continued his presentation by showing a slide titled ‘Excess Death: Life ratio is UNACCEPTABLE’. The slide shows how many excess deaths were required following vaccination to save one life due to Covid-19. “Only the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) are statistically significant, but the other numbers are troubling.” said Steve Kirsch.


“Even if the vaccines have 100% protection, it still means we kill 2 people to save 1 life. “Four experts did analysis using completely different non US data sources and all of them came up with approximately the same number of excess vaccine related deaths, about 411 deaths per million doses. That translates into 115,000 people have died (due to the Covid-19 vaccines).”

Read more …

“Oh, well that was a typo. They just got put in there by accident.”

Counting Covid (Attkisson)

As hindsight comes into clearer focus, we’re learning a lot about mistaken advice and policies amid the Covid-19 pandemic. One still murky and disputed area involves the death toll, now upwards of 640,000 in the U.S., according to CDC. Some insist the true count is much higher; others claim it’s lower. Today, we begin with the startling results of our investigation that found in some documented cases, news that Covid was the cause of death was greatly exaggerated. Grand County, Colorado, rural country a hundred miles outside of Denver. Thanksgiving 2020, Lucais Reilly shoots his wife Kristin in the head, then turns the gun on himself, committing suicide. They have alcohol and drugs in their system and a history of domestic troubles. Grand County coroner Brenda Bock explains how the small town tragedy is exposing serious questions about the way Covid deaths are counted.

Brenda Bock: I had a homicide-suicide the end of November, and the very next day it showed up on the state website as Covid deaths. And they were gunshot wounds. And I questioned that immediately because I had not even signed off the death certificates yet, and the state was already reporting them as Covid deaths. Bock says somebody, somewhere had apparently run the couple’s names through a database showing they’d tested positive for Covid within 28 days of their death. Then recorded them as Covid deaths even though they died of gunshots. Sharyl: If we look at the death certificates for the murder-suicide case, what will it say about Covid? Bock: Nothing, absolutely nothing. I paid a forensic pathologist to do the autopsies on those two cases. And nowhere is COVID mentioned on those death certificates. Nowhere.

Bock: This is a copy of the death certificate, and nowhere does it say COVID. So we have a homicide, suicide, nothing to do with COVID. Because there had been no Covid deaths within the geographic boundaries of Grand County in 2020, Bock was in a unique position to challenge the state’s accounting. In many cities and counties, the numbers are too big and the coroners would never know about discrepancies. Within a week of the murder-suicide, two more Grand County deaths popped up on the state’s Covid count. Bock investigated and found out why she had no record of them. Bock: Two of them were actually still alive, and yet they were counting them. Had I not called them on it and asked them who those were, where were they from, all the information about it and it’s like, “Oh, well that was a typo. They just got put in there by accident.”

Attkisson

Read more …

“Despite the presence of antibodies sufficient to suppress a virus with an R0 of nearly 6, twice that of the original strain [..] we had a wild outbreak of disease anyway”

A Plausible Hypothesis, Based On Fact (Denninger)

The recent JAMA article makes clear several things. First, likely as many as half of those who got a positive PCR test never had Covid-19 at all. The antibody counts they documented in that study do not square with the claimed infection rate nor the low-symptom prevalence where the person in question never sees a doctor and is never tested. Back in the fall of 2020 the folly of the so-called “tests” was laid bare on the table when Elon Musk took four in sequence on the same day and got two positive and two negative results — nothing better than a coin-toss. How many more people were labeled as “diseased” when they either had the flu, some other virus, or nothing? The data from JAMA strongly suggests the answer is “a huge percentage, likely roughly half of so-called positive tests, were in fact not from actual positive Covid-19 individuals.”

The danger of telling someone they had something when they didn’t is they have every reason to think they’re safe when they’re not and thus they are likely to put themselves at severe risk of getting hammered. That’s stupid and contrary to every principle of medicine, say much less ethical behavior. But antibody presence is dispositive. Pre-existing immunity is very, very hard to determine the presence of, since cross-reaction requires you know what you’re looking for — and we don’t. We didn’t do the work, beyond SARS. We didn’t want to do the work because discovering what it was (1) made possible a potential easy infection that would confer actual immunity (e.g. if it’s OC48 which usually causes colds, well, go get inoculated with it on purpose!) and (2) instantly deflates the fear porn, drive for vaccines and every single screaming idiot in the government, social media and on TV.

But then this summer something odd happened. Despite the presence of antibodies sufficient to suppress a virus with an R0 of nearly 6, twice that of the original strain and equal to that claimed for Delta, which I remind you is unsubstantiated and the data from the UK in fact suggests Delta is not materially more-infective than the original wild strain (it only has to be a bit more-so to out-compete, of course), we had a wild outbreak of disease anyway. Much worse is that in Britain it is impossible for there to be widespread communicable disease even for a a virus with an R0 worse than measles: “Based on antibody testing of blood donors, 97.7% of the adult population now have antibodies to COVID-19 from either infection or vaccination compared to 18.1% that have antibodies from infection alone.”

It is impossible for Britain to have any material Covid-19 infectious activity among adults given this level of prevalence unless the jabs are largely or entirely worthless, or much worse, enhance infection. It’s a hypothesis that fits the facts and you can bet not one single penny of government money will go toward proving or disproving it as if it was to be proved then what do you do with all the vaccine companies and every involved government at all levels, local, state and federal, who literally slaughtered their populations with their advocacy and even in some cases attempted mandates for these jabs. Do we have any independent medical science folks remaining, anywhere in the world, who will take this challenge on and prove it up? We’ll see.

But whether they do or not you can’t change facts and the facts are that either the jabs destroyed existing immunity, creating susceptible people out of resistant ones, or the virus has evolved to largely-evade the protection the jabs provided. Which it is doesn’t matter to the person who believed they were safe, and now learns — especially the hard way — that they are not.

Read more …

You go girl.

Indian Bar Association Issues A Legal Notice To WHO (IF)

Advocate Dipali Ojha of the Indian bar association and a team of young indian lawyers have issued a legal notice to the world health organization over their blatant campaign against any alternative treatments. Her legal action against WHO comes after the tweet from Soumya Swaminathan, WHO chief scientist, who issued tweet against Ivermectin backing it with a link, that was declaration from a private company. The team of indian lawyers seeks to make available all possible affordable options to the masses and hold the highest authorities accountable for their directives, and suspected submission to big pharma lobbying.

Timestamp :

00:00 Intro
01:14 Interview Start
02:03 Dipali Ojha background
03:58 Why did Indian Bar association sue WHO ?
11:08 WHO Scientist Twitter statement against treatments
13:04 History of Iver-mectin & Big Pharma profit motive
16:30 Can 8 billion people get vaccine ? options for poor countries
20:19 Dipali Ohja explains indian Protocol & Lawsuit
23:44 Media blackout on Iver-mectin
24:20 role of fact checkers
25:20 AI bias in social media
26:40 Where was the lawsuit filed?
27:10 Dipahli ojha explains cause of 2nd legal notice
32:38 Effects of legal notice
34:50 Many solutions to the crisis
37:14 Diplai ojha explains the Public Interest Litigation
38:52 Rajiv explains the two lawsuits in one
40:54 Challenging Compulsory Vaccine & civil rights
42:28 Role of Gates Foundation , Fauci & Wuhan lab funding
46:50 Dipali Ohja explains WHO’s compromised investigations
48:40 Vaccine and complementary treatments
50:24 Role of AI in information bias
51:19 Closing statement of Diplai Ojha

Read more …

“The vaccination pass is a mobilisation of state power, an extension of discipline and policing over the free life of civil society.”

The Weaponisation of Vaccination (NoF)

The vital public health measure of vaccination is being transformed into a project of the extension of state control, with measures such as covid passports and mandatory vaccination. The Israeli minister of health was caught confiding to the minister of the interior that ‘there is no medical or epidemiological justification for the Covid passport, it is only intended to pressure the unvaccinated to vaccinate’. France – the European country with the harshest covid pass laws – shows how this ‘pressure to vaccinate’ is driven by a political rather than a medical impulse. The vaccination pass is a mobilisation of state power, an extension of discipline and policing over the free life of civil society. This rides roughshod over individual liberty, unions, scientific committees and medical logic alike.

Currently, all over-12s in France must present a vaccine passport (‘pass sanitaire’) in order to access restaurants, museums, long-distance trains, and outdoor and indoor sports facilities. All civil society bodies take on a policing function. Covid pass checks are installed at the entrance of open-air horse riding facilities, in bars, at the entrance of swimming pools. The sports instructor checks your covid pass at the start of every class or term. The riding school asks you to ‘prepare your health certificate’ before you are allowed to walk into the open field where the horses are held. The cafe asks you to scan your QR code before sitting down at a table.

The vaccinated person is treated as safe, and the unvaccinated person as risky. This distinction is made not on public health grounds, since vaccinated and unvaccinated transmit the delta variant at similar rates, but because the unvaccinated person stands as the figure that has resisted state authority. The unvaccinated becomes the dissident, the person who refused to roll over. A young French woman who tried to enter a shopping centre without a covid pass was set upon and beaten by a group of armed police. She was beaten not because she is a public health risk, but because she represents a threat to public order. The push for 100% vaccination has become a project of incorporating the whole population, whether it is in their interests to be vaccinated or not.

It is this political impulse that lies behind the hasty extension of vaccination to younger age groups, who stand to benefit little from the vaccine and could suffer from short-term or future side effects. Macron apparently made the decision to extend vaccines to 12-15 year olds suddenly one morning, when he was told by his scientific advisory committee that he had ‘free rein’ to decide whether to vaccinate the young, partly in order to ‘avoid the slowing down of vaccination’. A more reflective scientific ethics advisory committee complained that it has not been given time to make its recommendations, and criticised the ‘hasty’ decision; it judged that the benefits of the vaccine to adolescents were ‘very limited’ and the existing safety data to be too slim to judge its suitability for this age group. Yet now, this age group is forced to take the vaccine.

Read more …

Statistician Mathew Crawford on the problem with the first 14 days after vaccination.

Gaming Measurement of Vaccine Efficacy (Crawford)

Suppose that tomorrow it is announced that in a Wuhan laboratory—located somewhere between the French-designed Wuhan Institute of Virology and the fabled wet market—that an NIH funded project results in highly valuable intellectual property in the form of the Morris Therapy. After rigorous mandatory testing of the Morris Therapy on Uyghurs, including the high risk elderly, pregnant women, and also children, the Morris Therapy demonstrates 100% efficacy in preventing COVID-19…after day 13. NIAID Princeling, Dr. Anthony Fauci quackly announces an EUA both for the Morris Therapy, and also swift approval of the as of yet unavailable COMorrisY Therapy. Nobody was reached at any governmental organization who could explain which of these has indemnity, and whether citizens pay for those liabilities by giving up their children as they drop them off at school where they are to be treated by swiftly trained gym teachers.

During the first two weeks, 80 million Americans jump at the opportunity to receive Morris Therapy. However, 79.2 million of those Americans seem to be…well…missing. With doctors and morgue owners tight lipped, the CDC reports that indeed, the Morris Therapy has resulted in 100% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 after the first 13 days. Scientists and other people who pay attention to things rush to post videos on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook pointing out that there are nearly a million reports of death in the Highly Profitable Therapy Adverse Events Reporting System (HPTAERS). Fact checkers [just doing their job] point out that causality of those deaths HPTAERS hasn’t been proved, and censor all those reports. University faculty petitioned to silence, reprimand, or simply harass their colleagues who participated in those reports, labeling them with the pejorative “anti-Morrisers”. No autopsies are performed on the 79.2 million Americans who died during the first 13 days after a dose of Morris Therapy.

What happened is that 99% of the people who received the Morris Therapy dropped dead during the first few days. Even worse, many were taken to the hospital, entered into a database as non-Morrised, and as hospital beds filled up, media outlets declared a “pandemic of the un-Morrised”. All the social pressure makes it hard to talk about the problem. Meanwhile, nobody does autopsies on the bodies that might reveal clues to the deaths, such as the presence of spike-Morris protein in organs all over the body. All the 79.2 million deaths are presumed to be COVID-19 deaths, and the media dedicates itself to a 48 hour marathon of fear porn, lamenting that poorer nations are not receiving their equitable share of limited supplies of Morris Therapy.

Meanwhile, health officials and all those devoted to the success of the Morris Therapy as the final solution to the COVID-19 pandemic…”correctly” point out none of the 800,000 survivors of the Morris Therapy have COVID-19 (though nobody really wants to talk about disease etiology as it might link Morris Therapy as a Type II COVID-19). In the end, the entire population of the SARS-CoV-2 virus decided as a “species” (if we can call a virus a species), that invading the U.S. just wasn’t worth it at all, deciding instead to go live amongst the flies, minks, bats, and pangolins.

Read more …

Have they apologized yet?

Now The Lancet U-turns Over Covid Lab Leak Theory (DM)

The Lancet medical journal has bowed to pressure over its heavily-criticised coverage of the disputed origins of the Covid pandemic by publishing an ‘alternative view’ from 16 scientists – calling for an ‘objective, open and transparent debate’ about whether the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory. It was revealed earlier this year that Peter Daszak – a British scientist with long-standing links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology – had secretly orchestrated a landmark statement in The Lancet in February 2020 which attacked ‘conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin’. The now-infamous letter, signed by 27 leading public health experts, said they stood together to ‘strongly condemn’ the theories which they said ‘do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice’.

They also lavished praise on Chinese scientists who they said had ‘worked diligently and effectively to rapidly identify the pathogen behind this outbreak… and share their results transparently with the global health community’. Now, The Lancet has agreed to publish an alternative commentary which discusses the possibility that laboratory research might have played a role in the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It also directly confronts the efforts of science journals to stifle debate by labelling such theories as ‘misinformation’. In the article, the authors argue that ‘there is no direct support for the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2, and a laboratory-related accident is plausible’. They add that the February 2020 statement ‘imparted a silencing effect on the wider scientific debate’.

[..] The new commentary, published in The Lancet on Friday, said: ‘The world will remain mired in dispute without the full engagement of China, including open access to primary data, documents, and relevant stored material to enable a thorough, transparent and objective search for all relevant evidence.’ One of the signatories, Professor Nikolai Petrovsky of Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It might seem small, but after 18 months of complete denial, the very act of [The] Lancet agreeing to publish this letter acknowledging the origins of Covid-19 remains an open verdict, is a very big deal. ‘For a leading medical journal like Lancet to agree to finally open its doors to a letter from scientists highlighting the ongoing uncertain origins of Covid-19, indicates how far we have come in 18 months in requesting an open scientific debate on the topic, but also indicates just how far we still have to go’.

Read more …

“..once we’ve established “anti-vaxxers” don’t deserve healthcare, those other people she’s so careful to mention – smokers and drunk drivers – they’re next. Along with the obese, or the clumsy, or the religious, or the politically inconvenient.”

This Week in the New Normal |(OffG)

Ruth Marcus, a deputy editor at the Washington Post, has had enough of people pussy-footing around this issue and is going “come right out and say it” – unvaccinated people deserve healthcare less than vaccinated people. She at least admits this “conflicts radically with accepted medical ethics”, which is completely true but for some reason that doesn’t seem to change her mind: “..under ordinary circumstances, I agree with those rules. The lung cancer patient who’s been smoking two packs a day for decades is entitled to the same treatment as the one who never took a puff. The drunk driver who kills a family gets a team doing its utmost to save him..”

To be clear then – Ruth considers the unvaccinated as morally inferior to a drunk driver who ran over some kids. Which says a lot more about her, than the unvaccinated. This is one of this feeler pieces. An antennae article, gently feeling the ground to see if can bear the weight of the agenda coming behind it. It’s setting up the conversation. Because once we’ve established “anti-vaxxers” don’t deserve healthcare, those other people she’s so careful to mention – smokers and drunk drivers – they’re next. Along with the obese, or the clumsy, or the religious, or the politically inconvenient.

If you don’t believe me, just check the comments under the article. The WaPo has one of the most scripted comments sections on the internet, whose usual job is to play the “bad cop” to the author’s “good cop”. And, sure enough, BTL is full of hundreds of supposedly real humans saying the author doesn’t go far enough, and we should ration all kinds of healthcare based on personal choices. This particular talking point is already being aired on CNN and by late-night talkshow hosts too. Expect it to spread quickly, especially when the flu season starts.

Read more …

Twitter thread by Girolamo Pandolfi da Casio ditto Carlo Dossi Erba.

Evergrande: Why Most Analysis Is Dead In The Water (Erba)

Evergrande: why most analysis is dead in water and how best to understand and navigate what’s happening? Both denialists and alarmists are getting it wrong. Let’s start by understanding this: what is happening is the result of a CCP-initiated policy change to curb leverage. It started a while back and has seen other defaults, including SOEs. What are the specific policy changes? Most important is the introduction of the 3 red lines a year ago: – L/A < 70% – net leverage < 100% – cash to ST debt > 1. What’s the point of the 3 red lines? First and foremost to forestall a systemic crisis that could have brought down the whole financial sector if left unchecked. Real estate amounts to a significant chunk of China GDP with strong linkages upstream and downstream.


And believe it or not, the sector was levered to the gills. The 3 red lines are hardly draconian, yet all the CCC, a large chunk of the B and a good 1/3 of the BB did not pass them a year ago. Needless to say, it was really not too early. But there is more to it than leverage. One common practice of these construction companies,a game Evergrande excelled at, was to bid land at prices significantly higher than market. It didn’t matter to them, coz the risk got transferred to flat buyers and banks that financed the purchase. That model worked well for local governments, banks and households because house prices were going up. So much so over the last 15 years, that a serious affordability crisis emerged in major cities AND HH debt soared way above disposable inc – below HH debt as % GDP.

So it wasn’t hard to figure out the economic disaster in the making: exponential price rises with explosive HH and Construction leverage. But that’s not all. There is another problem that escapes most China analysts. As a result of years of seeking easy growth through construction and leverage, the misallocation of capital was : 1- capital starving more innovative and high tech sectors (see chart) and 2- creating a headwind for a re-balancing towards a more consumption driven growth. At some point, reigning in lending to the RE sector became vital in order to address the structural issue of capital misallocation. That also explains the curbs on VC investments in RE and most importantly, a curb on all the irregularities that characterized RE.


The issue of irregularities is at the core of what is happening with Evergrande. More on that later. It’s a long introduction, but it seemed important to explain these issues to understand the long term nature of this problem and why its resolution will be tedious. So there is a new paradigm dictated by a set of economic realities that CCP could no longer ignore and most importantly, they can relax the rules a bit, but can’t reverse course. They can’t allow consumers to be bust nor a rogue unproductive sector to balloon further.

Read more …

“It shows our readiness to be hard-headed in defending our interests and challenging unfair practices and malign acts.”

France Accuses Britain Of ‘Retreating To America’s Lap’ (Inews)

France has continued its war of words in the increasingly bitter diplomatic row over the UK’s new defence pact with the US and Australia. Europe Minister Clement Beaune said Britain had returned into the “American lap” after Australia announced it was scrapping its £30 billion French submarine deal in favour of more powerful nuclear-powered vessels acquired with the help of the UK and US. The announcement prompted President Emmanuel Macron to order the recall of the French ambassadors from Washington and Canberra – a move virtually unheard of among such close allies. However, there was no similar order for the French envoy to London to return to Paris for consultations.

But in a series of interviews with French television, Mr Beaune suggested it was because the UK was the “junior partner” which had accepted its “vassalisation” by the US. “Our British friends explained to us they were leaving the EU to create Global Britain. We can see that this is a return into the American lap and a form of accepted vassalisation,” he said. “The UK is clearly trying to find its feet, perhaps there was a lack of thought about the strategic future. Today they are hiding in the American fold. I hope that will not be their policy for the decades to come.” He later added: “We see through this partnership, this strategic alliance and after the Kabul crisis, that Global Britain seems to be more about a US junior partner than working with different allies.”

New Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has defended the pact, saying it showed Britain would be “hard-headed” in defending its interests. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Truss said the UK was a “fierce champion” of freedom and democracy around the world. “It shows our readiness to be hard-headed in defending our interests and challenging unfair practices and malign acts. It also shows our commitment to security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region,” she wrote.

Read more …

Wait. China takes it all over, and that’s supposed to benefit Citi?

BlackRock and Citi Get on Board the Climate Nazi Train (IMan)

There are some things that bring joy to my soul. My pleasures are simple ones. Peanut butter on toast (the food of gods), witnessing Macron getting a slap, and this…

The awesome thing here is that what is taking place is that our competition on bidding for coal assets has disappeared in a cloud of woke smoke. This will quickly become geopolitical, and the question is this: can BlackRock, Citi, Prudential, HSBC, and their other woke mates decide the fate of nations? They are already affecting the fate of nations. Witness Canada and all of Western Europe. But will they do the same to China? Will they do the same to Russia? The answer to that will only be fully revealed in the due course of time, but we don’t really need any crystal balls here as we just watch actions, not words.

“China put 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity into operation in 2020, according to new international research, more than three times the amount built elsewhere around the world and potentially undermining its short-term climate goals.” Nearly all of the 60 new coal plants planned across Eurasia, South America and Africa — 70 gigawatts of coal power in all — are financed almost exclusively by Chinese banks” We see all of this on the ground, and while it is taking place, formerly reputable media outlets such as the FT, Reuters, and Bloomberg tell us that: “China’s belt and road initiative creates a problem for China with respect to their climate goals.”

Really? There is no conflict or problem. Let me explain. Here is what is transpiring. They will keep paying lip service to the woke ideology while capturing the bulk of the energy market, and by the time we all wake up, they’ll control the world’s energy and logistics chains. And once they’ve done that, they’ll be able to control the reserve currency and once they’ve done that… well, they will be the dominant power. Game over. At this rate they’ll get there in a frighteningly rapid period of time. No more than a couple of decades.

Read more …

 

 

 

Before machines the only form of entertainment people really had was relationships.”
~ Douglas Coupland

 

 

 

 

Chris Rock: “there’s no money in the cure. The money’s in the medicine. That’s how a drug dealer makes his money… that’s all the government is, a bunch of drug dealers.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1439792949404045314

 

 

 

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Apr 232021
 


Rembrandt van Rijn Christ and St Mary Magdalene at the Tomb 1638

 

Biden Vows To Cut Nearly Half Of Greenhouse Emissions By 2030 (SAC)
GOP Sen. Ron Johson Criticizes ‘Big Push’ To Get Everyone Vaccinated (F.)
Greek Gov’t Legislates “Legal Impunity” For Epidemiologists’ Committee (KTG)
Greece to Recognize Validity of Sputnik V Vaccine for Travelers (GR)
One Dose Of Pfizer Or Oxford Jab Reduces Covid Infection Rate By 65% (G.)
Japan Rolls Out Vaccine Slowly, Despite Looming Olympics (Y!)
Russia To Withdraw Troops From Deployment On Border With Ukraine (RT)
Russia To Make Areas Of Airspace Inaccessible To Foreign Missiles, Drones (RT)
Russia Behind ‘Directed Energy’ Attacks On US Troops In Syria – Pentagon (ZH)
Who Runs The World? Blackrock and Vanguard (Sardi)
Why The ‘Magic Money Tree’ Suddenly Appeared When Covid-19 Hit (RP)

 

 

Flooding at a coal mine in one of the smallest of 61 counties in #Xinjiang #China shut down 35% of #Bitcoin’s global mining power this weekend.

 

 

Not the Onion. But way over the top.

 

 

Big differences.

 

 

If you find yourself hopeful when seeing this, snap out of it. This is just a way to spend trillions of your money on greenwashing. Here is the pattern that will continue, again:

“..the Obama administration aimed to reduce emissions 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. Currently, the U.S. has not yet reached the halfway point in achieving that goal.”

Replacing one source of energy with another one is useless, only using -a whole lot- less energy works. For that, we will need to redesign our cities and homes. Not our cars. And that will cost a lot of money, which won’t be available anymore, because it’s been spent on grandiose plans for windmills and solar panels to one-on-one replace all present sources. And that’s just the first problem.

Biden Vows To Cut Nearly Half Of Greenhouse Emissions By 2030 (SAC)

President Joe Biden on Earth Day vowed to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52%—compared to 2005 levels—by 2030, as part of a broader goal of achieving net-zero emissions in the country by 2050. “These steps will set America on a path of a net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050,” Biden told a virtual climate summit, attended by 40 leaders from around the world, Thursday morning as he announced the new emissions goal. “Scientists tell us that this is the decisive decade, this is the decade we must make decisions that will avoid the worst consequences of a climate crisis,” Biden said.


“This is a moral imperative. An economic imperative. A moment of peril, but also a moment of extraordinary possibilities,” the president added. The new greenhouse target more than doubles the United States’ previous target under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, when the Obama administration aimed to reduce emissions 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. Currently, the U.S. has not yet reached the halfway point in achieving that goal.

Biden energy boom

Read more …

Heretic.

GOP Sen. Ron Johson Criticizes ‘Big Push’ To Get Everyone Vaccinated (F.)

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) on Thursday questioned the “big push” to ensure everyone is vaccinated against coronavirus, putting him at odds with many of his Senate Republican colleagues who have attempted to close the partisan gap in vaccination rates. In an interview with conservative Wisconsin radio host Vicki McKenna, herself a vocal coronavirus vaccine skeptic, Johnson launched into a condemnation of “vaccine passports,” a credential that would allow businesses to verify vaccination status. But Johnson also went a step further, declaring he sees “no reason to be pushing vaccines on people,” arguing their distribution should be “limited” to those most vulnerable to coronavirus, and asking, “if you have a vaccine, quite honestly, what do you care if your neighbor has one or not?”

Johnson said he is “getting highly suspicious” of the “big push to make sure everybody gets the vaccine,” stating it’s “not a fully approved vaccine” but also arguing that the fact it is 95% effective means only a limited number of people need to be vaccinated. The comments put Johnson at odds with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who spent much of the last Senate recess urging Republican men to get vaccinated amid public opinion polling that shows they are the least likely to do so. Johnson is one of the Senate’s most prolific promoters of coronavirus pseudoscience, holding hearings last year as the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to promote unproven treatments like Hydroxychloroquine.

[..] Johnson has drawn outrage from lawmakers in both parties for some of his recent comments, particularly on the Jan. 6 attack, which he has routinely sought to downplay. He said the attack “didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me” in February, and last month he said the attackers “truly respect law enforcement” and claimed he wasn’t concerned for his safety during the incident – but might have been if the attackers were affiliated with Black Lives Matter.

Read more …

First time I’ve seen this. Many countries will follow. No investigation allowed.

Greek Gov’t Legislates “Legal Impunity” For Epidemiologists’ Committee (KTG)

The Greek government has tabled a amendment to the Parliament to secure legal impunity for the committee of the epidemiologists advising the government on pandemic issues. The regulation comes amid pressure from the opposition to make the minutes of the meetings public. The introduction to provide impunity to infectious disease committee members in charge of the pandemic measures is for sure a unique worldwide. The amendment introduces impunity for the epidemiologists’ committee members from any form of prosecution or even questioning and protects them from having to testify if they were in “conflict of interest.”

The amendment was submitted by the Health Ministry in a legislation of Code of Judicial Officers of the Justice Ministry. It reportedly bears the signatures of the Health and Justice Ministers and other members of the government. It will be voted in the parliament later on Thursday. According to news website news247.gr, Article 4 of the amendment stipulates that members of the National Committee for the Protection of Public Health against the coronavirus disease Covid 19, the Committee for the Management of Public Health Emergencies by Infectious Diseases and the National Vaccination Committee are not liable, not prosecuted and are not examined for opinion they formulated or vote they gave in the exercise of their duties in the context of the operation of the above committees. Prosecution is allowed only for defamation or insult.

Particularly troubling, notes the website, is the provision that committee members are not prosecuted but can not even be questioned. It raises questions about what this means in the event that either a public prosecutor’s investigation or a possible pre-investigation committee of the Parliament is conducted in the future. In this case, it is possible that the members of the committee may not even be called as witnesses. It should be noted that this regulation comes after the intense pressure from the opposition to make public the minutes of the infectious disease committees and also in a period of the pandemic where the decisions of the committee are extremely important. At the same time, it comes in the middle of the vaccination process and also concerns the vaccination committee.

It is worth recalling that there have already been complaints from the opposition about conflicts of interest between members of the committee and their professional activities, notes news247. It should also be recalled that there has been recently a debate about the committee decisions and how much the members obey the government s plans to open or close activities than the scientific dictates. The gradual lifting of the lockdown and the opening of tourism in mid-May (unofficially on April 19) with daily infections are over 3000 and an average of 75 deaths per day while had many Greeks wonder why there was a 5.5 months lockdown anyway. [..] The government, ministers and lawmakers have immunity anyway.

Read more …

Also: “Germany to buy 30 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine”. EU Covid management is crumbling.

Greece to Recognize Validity of Sputnik V Vaccine for Travelers (GR)

Greece is taking all possible necessary precautions to ensure a successful launch of the 2021 tourism season on May 14 to avoid last year’s losses — including accepting the validity of Russia’s “Sputnik V” vaccine in allowing Russians to visit the country. The vaccine, dubbed the “traveling companion,” has a 97.6% efficacy rate under trial conditions, according to its makers. This was based on data analysis on the infection rate among people receiving both shots of the vaccine. The Sputnik V vaccine was registered in 60 countries worldwide as of April 19, 2021 from Argentina and Mexico to Israel and the Philippines. Russian officials say they have signed deals to produce it in South Korea and India. Via a post on Twitter on April 6, 2021, the distributor confirmed that it could supply Greece with the vaccine for 500,000 people in May.


A soft opening of the tourism sector in Greece commenced on Monday, April 20, by lifting its seven-day quarantine requirements for international travelers arriving from the EU, the Schengen Area, the US, the UK, Israel, Serbia, and the United Arab Emirates upon proof of vaccination, immunity, or a negative PCR test on arrival. Expected in this is group is hundreds of thousands of tourists from Russia as a result of joint efforts to resume tourism activity between the two countries. However, the Sputnik V is still under review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). There are not enough doses of other vaccines available in the EU to satisfy demand, so the desire for new options is substantial. The EU Green Passport regulation, due to be adopted soon, does not recognize vaccines that have not yet been approved by the EMA. However, it is flexible enough to allow EU member states to accept the validity of certain vaccines, such as Russia’s Sputnik V, on what it calls a “bilateral level.”

Read more …

That’s less effective than ivermectin. Good thing they didn’t research that, so they can keep saying: well, there’s no research! The only way to keep the EUA.

One Dose Of Pfizer Or Oxford Jab Reduces Covid Infection Rate By 65% (G.)

One shot of the Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine reduces coronavirus infections by nearly two-thirds and protects older and more vulnerable people as much as younger, healthy individuals, a study has found. The results from Oxford University and the Office for National Statistics are a welcome boost to the vaccination programme and the first to show the impact on new infections and immune responses in a large group of adults in the general population. By driving down rates of infection the vaccines will not only prevent hospitalisations and deaths but help break chains of transmission and so reduce the risk of a damaging resurgence of disease as the UK reopens.

The researchers analysed Covid test results from more than 350,000 people in the UK between December and April. They found that 21 days after a first jab – the time it takes the immune system to mount a decent response – new Covid infections dropped by 65%. The vaccines were more effective against symptomatic than asymptomatic infections, reducing rates by 72% and 57% respectively, compared with those seen in the unvaccinated population. A second shot of the Pfizer vaccine boosted protection further, causing symptomatic infections to fall by 90% and asymptomatic infections by 70%. Because the Oxford vaccine was approved and rolled out later, it is too early to assess the impact of those second doses.

Scientists on the team said the findings supported the UK’s decision to prioritise giving first shots to elderly and more vulnerable people by delaying second doses. “There was no evidence that the vaccines were less effective among older adults or those with long-term health conditions,” said Dr Koen Pouwels, a researcher on the team.

Read more …

“A majority of Japanese already oppose holding the Games this summer..”

Japan Rolls Out Vaccine Slowly, Despite Looming Olympics (Y!)

Three months before it hosts the Olympics – the biggest international event since the pandemic began – Japan has fully vaccinated less than one percent of its population in a cautious, slow-moving programme. Olympic organisers and local officials stress vaccines are not a prerequisite for the Games. Participants will not have to be inoculated before arrival and there are no plans to prioritise vaccination of Japanese athletes or volunteers. But the slow rollout in the world’s third-largest economy, which experts say is driven by a mixture of caution and entrenched bureaucratic hurdles, is starting to weigh on public opinion. The government has emphasised caution to build trust in the vaccine, said Takakazu Yamagishi, director of the Center for International Affairs at Nanzan University, who researches health policy.

But, seeing speedy vaccinations elsewhere, “more and more people are realising that the delayed vaccination process has put Japan in a difficult position to hold the Olympics,” he told AFP. This could “weaken their support for the Games”. A majority of Japanese already oppose holding the Games this summer, and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who faces a general election this year, has been under pressure for months over his coronavirus response. The country’s outbreak has been comparatively small so far, with fewer than 10,000 deaths. But several regions, including Tokyo, requested new virus states of emergency this week over a fresh wave of cases that has already overwhelmed some local healthcare systems.

Writing in the British Medical Journal this month, four health experts cited Japan’s “sluggish vaccine rollout” among other factors in urging plans to hold the Games “be reconsidered as a matter of urgency”. Polls show three-quarters of Japan’s public consider the rollout slow, with 60 percent saying they are dissatisfied with the programme. Olympic organisers insist the rollout’s pace will not impact the Games. “We’ll be able to deliver the Games even without vaccination,” Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto told reporters on Wednesday.

Read more …

A big nothing. But a warning at the same time.

Russia To Withdraw Troops From Deployment On Border With Ukraine (RT)

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has announced that troops deployed in the west and south of the country in recent days will soon begin returning to base, saying they have now passed tests of their combat readiness. The chief of the country’s military revealed on Thursday that a number of units of the regular army and airborne divisions had been transferred to the area, near the shared border with Ukraine, as part of surprise military exercises. The buildup had caused alarm in Kiev, and been cited by Western nations as a potential precursor to an invasion, which the Kremlin repeatedly denied.


According to Shoigu, “the goals of the sudden inspection have been fully achieved. The troops demonstrated their ability to ensure reliable defense of the country.” As a result, he has now ordered commanders to “plan and begin the return of troops to their places of regular deployment, beginning from April 23.” By the end of the month, the minister said, “the personnel of the 58th Army of the Southern Military District, the 41st Army of the Central Military District, the 7th, 76th Air Assault and 98th Airborne Divisions of the Airborne Forces” will return to their normal bases. However, he warned that the army would “react and respond adequately to all changes in the situation near Russian borders.”

Read more …

“.. render foreign satellite navigation systems completely useless, disabling an enemy’s high-precision weapons.”

Russia To Make Areas Of Airspace Inaccessible To Foreign Missiles, Drones (RT)

Russia’s electronic warfare specialists will practice creating ‘protection areas’ in the country’s airspace that could render foreign satellite navigation systems completely useless, disabling an enemy’s high-precision weapons. According to Moscow daily Izvestia, citing a source in the Defense Ministry, radio-electronic warfare troops will practice using the technology during exercises this year, with the practice to be held nationwide in 2022. The system, known as Field-21, creates interference that disorients foreign satellite navigation systems, including the American GPS NAVSTAR. According to experts, the creation of special zones could be used to protect military facilities, as well as industrial areas, making the airspace virtually impenetrable. They believe the new approach will radically increase national security.


With satellite navigation foiled, enemy high-precision weapons and drones will not be able to direct themselves towards their target. “Electronic warfare systems hit several cruise missile systems at once,” military historian Dmitry Boltenkov told Izvestia. “Satellite navigation interference causes them to get ‘lost’ in space and dramatically reduces their accuracy. If the radio altimeter signal is suppressed, the ammunition will also not be able to perform its combat mission as expected.” Radio-electronic troops have already been deployed in Syria, where an electronic warfare protection dome has been created over the areas of Tartus and Khmeimim, protecting the military from attacks by militant drones. Russia has been involved in the Syrian Civil War since 2015, when it was invited by the Damascus government, led by President Bashar Assad, to help fight against a terrorist insurgency in the country.

Read more …

One thing about flimsy nonsensical narratives is you must keep feeding them. Then when someone asks for proof, you can point to all the other “cases” and say: see?! it fits a pattern.

Russia Behind ‘Directed Energy’ Attacks On US Troops In Syria – Pentagon (ZH)

In the newest dramatic allegations against suspected Russian malfeasance, the Department of Defense (DoD) on Thursday revealed that it believes the Russian military targeted US troops in Syria with ‘directed energy attacks’ in order to make them ill and unable to conduct normal operations. Apparently some US troops occupying the country began reporting “flu-like symptoms” which caused the DoD to investigate possible linkage to microwave or directed energy weapons on the battlefield of Syria. Politico reports that “officials identified Russia as a likely culprit, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.” DoD officials said they briefed top lawmakers on intelligence which they say points to Russia being behind a series of these suspected high tech attacks.

This follows a major investigation being conducted since last year of similar mysterious attacks against US personnel across the globe. Controversy has raged since late 2016 into 2017 and the “Havana syndrome” story, which involved some 50 diplomatic officials working at the US Embassy in Cuba coming down with strange illnesses and symptoms which many blamed on high tech ‘sonic attacks’ of some sort. Personnel reported experiencing everything from vomiting to concussions to chronic headaches to minor brain injuries. But analysts and scientists have been deeply divided on the issue, with speculation ranging from high pitched sounds from crickets or even mass hysteria causing the illness.

But Politico reports of these newest allegations of the potential targeting of Americans in northeast Syria as follows: “The briefings included information about injuries sustained by U.S. troops in Syria, the people said. The investigation includes one incident in Syria in the fall of 2020 in which several troops developed flu-like symptoms, two people familiar with the Pentagon probe said.” The CIA is said to also be looking into these suspected attacks via its own task force. Strangely, the Politico report also included a denial that troops in Syria were ever found to be victims of such weapons by the Pentagon press spokesperson, strongly suggesting this is a continuation of the current, highly politicized “just blame Russia” climate in Washington…

A Pentagon spokesperson, however, said the department is not aware of directed-energy attacks against U.S. troops in Syria. The spokesperson declined further comment on the Pentagon’s interactions with Capitol Hill or any internal investigation. “The incidents of suspected directed-energy attacks by Russia on Americans abroad became so concerning that the Pentagon’s office of special operations and low-intensity conflict began investigating last year, according to two former national security officials involved in the effort. It’s unclear exactly how many troops were injured, or the extent of their injuries.”

Read more …

Pretty brilliant exposé. By someone calling herself Covid Lie.

Who Runs The World? Blackrock and Vanguard (Sardi)

If you’ve been wondering how the world economy has been hijacked and humanity has been kidnapped by a completely bogus narrative, look no further than this video by Dutch creator, Covid Lie. What she uncovers is that the stock of the world’s largest corporations are owned by the same institutional investors. They all own each other. This means that “competing” brands, like Coke and Pepsi aren’t really competitors, at all, since their stock is owned by exactly the same investment companies, investment funds, insurance companies, banks and in some cases, governments. This is the case, across all industries. As she says:

“The smaller investors are owned by larger investors. Those are owned by even bigger investors. The visible top of this pyramid shows only two companies whose names we have often seen…They are Vanguard and BlackRock. The power of these two companies is beyond your imagination. Not only do they own a large part of the stocks of nearly all big companies but also the stocks of the investors in those companies. This gives them a complete monopoly. A Bloomberg report states that both these companies in the year 2028, together will have investments in the amount of 20 trillion dollars. That means that they will own almost everything. Bloomberg calls BlackRock “The fourth branch of government”, because it’s the only private agency that closely works with the central banks.

BlackRock lends money to the central bank but it’s also the advisor. It also develops the software the central bank uses. Many BlackRock employees were in the White House with Bush and Obama. Its CEO. Larry Fink can count on a warm welcome from leaders and politicians. Not so strange, if you know that he is the front man of the ruling company but Larry Fink does not pull the strings himself. BlackRock, itself is also owned by shareholders. Who are those shareholders? We come to a strange conclusion. The biggest shareholder is Vanguard. But now he gets murky. Vanguard is a private company and we cannot see who the shareholders are.

The elite who own Vanguard apparently do not like being in the spotlight but of course they cannot hide from who is willing to dig. Reports from Oxfam and Bloomberg say that 1% of the world, together owns more money than the other 99%. Even worse, Oxfam says that 82% of all earned money in 2017 went to this 1%. In other words, these two investment companies, Vanguard and BlackRock hold a monopoly in all industries in the world and they, in turn are owned by the richest families in the world, some of whom are royalty and who have been very rich since before the Industrial Revolution. Why doesn’t everybody know this? Why aren’t there movies and documentaries about this? Why isn’t it in the news? Because 90% of the international media is owned by nine media conglomerates.

Read more …

How did we get from austerity to spending trillions?

Why The ‘Magic Money Tree’ Suddenly Appeared When Covid-19 Hit (RP)

Coronavirus has proven that austerity was a political choice and that the ‘Magic Money Tree’ really does exist, progressive economists have said. Whether it be Joe Biden’s $1.9trillion relief bill or Rishi Sunak’s £50billion furlough scheme, centrist and conservative governments have suddenly found a way to spend in the public’s interest. All it took was a pandemic. In an event for Let’s Talk It Over entitled ‘The Austerity Doctrine in the Time of Coronavirus’, Yanis Varoufakis, Stephanie Kelton, Naomi Klein and Brian Eno discussed whether the “pandemic has ended the reign of austerity as policy and mindset”. Stephanie Kelton, a former economic adviser to Bernie Sanders, said: “Everything was in a budgeting framework and then Covid happened.

“Governments started committing huge sums of money. So where does it come from? The CARE act, for example, was Congress’ way of ordering up $2.2billion from the Federal Reserve. “They can commit to spending money that they do not have. If the votes are there, then the money follows. “Almost no-one believes any longer that the ‘coffers’ can be empty. “Everyone can now see that the government no longer needs to keep its powder dry. As Kelton explains in her now famous tome, countries that print their own money can easily spend their way towards economic prosperity without any notion of paying it back – as long as the economic potential of the nation is not reached. In the US, the total federal debt is nearing $30trillion – but does it really matter? To enact austerity to ‘pay for’ a year of generous public spending would not achieve anything except for a downward economic spiral, Varoufakis said.

The former Greek Finance Minister added: “I’m calling in from the epicentre of austerity. If there was a New Deal in 2011, after we had lost 25 percent of our GDP (in the crisis), it would have been a majestic success. “But instead, we continued and had a downward spiral. “We need to have major debt restructuring at the public and private level for countries that don’t have the same privilege as the United States in printing their own money. “The nightmare of the powerful is that the weak have alternatives. So when they hear about Universal Basic Income and job creation schemes they think it will become a nightmare for them. “As oligarchs, they are following the right instincts. Using the ‘magic money tree’ to empower the power is seriously circumscribing their own power.”

In essence, the powerful adore austerity and malign public debt because anything close to Modern Monetary Theory would give working people too many alternatives, Varoufakis said. Naomi Klein claimed that tax rises after the pandemic are a necessity – but only on the rich. Modern Monetary Theory dictates that one of the roles of taxation, in addition to curbing inflation, is to reduce inequality. She explained: “In theory, we need to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy not because we need to do it, but because of the levels of inequality. “It’s also a moral hazard for the wealthy to not have to live in the mess that they made. We’ve seen the wealthy retreat into their castles, as it were, and the pandemic has made this even more apparent. “Austerity is about disciplining a workforce.”

Read more …

 

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Dec 022020
 


Ford Madox Brown King Lear and Cordelia c1851

 

UK Becomes First Country To Approve Pfizer-BioNTech COVID19 Vaccine (NBC)
With Tanden Choice, Democrats Stick it to Sanders Voters (Taibbi)
We Know Joe (Jacobs)
Putting a BlackRock Alum in Charge of Greening the Economy (TNR)
Trump Raises At Least $150 Million Since Election Day (JTN)
Whistleblowers Allege Ballots Crossed State Lines, Disappear, Backdating (JTN)
Why the Fed Needs Public Banks (Ellen Brown)
The Rich Cheer Wall Street’s Latest Records. The Rest Drain 401(k)s (CP)
Ray Dalio’s Chart Hints At What Beijing Is Really Up To (Xie)
Debenhams ‘Never Recovered From Private Equity Ownership’ (G.)
One Of Biology’s Biggest Mysteries ‘Largely Solved’ By AI (BBC)

 

 

 

 

The rest of us should be happy they will be the guinea pigs. I’ve seen one too many doctors and scientists say they’ll sit this one out.

UK Becomes First Country To Approve Pfizer-BioNTech COVID19 Vaccine (NBC)

The U.K. has become the first country to approve the use of the Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, and will begin inoculations next week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said early Wednesday. “For so long we’ve been saying that if a vaccine is developed, then things will get better in 2021, and now we can say when this vaccine is rolled out things will get better,” Hancock told the BBC. The U.K. has ordered 40 million vaccine doses from Pfizer — enough for up to a third of the population. The vaccine was found to be 95 percent effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19, the drugmaker said after clinical trials.


The pharmaceutical giant submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration on Nov. 20 for an emergency use authorization in the U.S. A vaccine committee will now decide which groups will first get the vaccine, such as care home residents, health and care staff, the elderly and people who are clinically vulnerable. “This authorization is a goal we have been working toward since we first declared that science will win,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in a news release. The Pfizer shots must be stored at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit — far colder than standard cooling systems. To help accommodate the extra refrigeration requirement, Pfizer has developed a supercool storage unit packed with dry ice.

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She looks like a no-go. But many of the other neocons will be in.

With Tanden Choice, Democrats Stick it to Sanders Voters (Taibbi)

The Democratic Party is not known for its sense of humor, but news that Joe Biden will appoint longtime Center for American Progress chief Neera Tanden to his government qualifies as a rare, well-earned laugh line. Tanden is famous for two things: having a puddle of DNC talking points in place of a cerebrum, and despising Bernie Sanders. She was #Resistance’s most visible anti-Sanders foil, spending awe-inspiring amounts of time on Twitter bludgeoning Sanders and his supporters as a deviant mob of Russian tools and covert “horseshoe theory” Trump-lovers. She has, to put it gently, an ardent social media following. Every prominent media figure with even a vague connection to Sanders learned in recent years to expect mud-drenched pushback from waves of “Neera trolls” after any public comment crossing DNC narratives.

No name in blue politics is more associated with seething opposition to Sanders than Tanden. Biden is making this person Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Sanders is the ranking member (and, perhaps, future chair) of the Senate Budget Committee. Every time Bernie even thinks about doing Committee business, he’ll be looking up at Neera Tanden. For a party whose normal idea of humor is ten thousand consecutive jokes about Trump being gay with Putin, that’s quite a creative “fuck you.” The Democrats still have to reckon with Trumpism in both the short and long term, but the Sanders movement on their other flank has at least temporarily been routed as a serious oppositional force. The Democrats know this, which is part of the joke of the Tanden appointment. While the party’s labors to oppose Trump have been incoherent at best, the campaign to kneecap Sanders has been, let’s admit it, brilliant.


The Blue Apparat has always despised Bernie and his various precursor movements far more than it hated Republicans, and for good reason. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Clintonite hacks in cushy Washington sinecures who would have retained their spots in the event of a loss to Trump. A Sanders win would have put them all out of the politics business for a while. It was unsurprising to see the party mainstream marshaling all of what passes for its brainpower to devise a long game to crate-train Sanders, who in less than a year went from oppositional favorite to seize the Democratic nomination to obedient afterthought.

Tucker Greenwald on Tanden

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And Joe knows everyone who counts. Except perhaps himself.

We Know Joe (Jacobs)

We know this man Joe Biden. We know the politics he champions. We know his corporate and financial backers. We know what we’re up against. Barack Obama and the Clintons operated in the same neoliberal and essentially reactionary sphere. The faces in power may be female, Black, Latino and gay, but the policies are designed to keep the power from the people, the money from the vast numbers of working people, and the war machine’s troops around the globe. We cannot afford to get fooled again. Inauguration Day is the opening of a new front in the battle for the planet and those creatures who live on it. The Trump years were, more than anything, a forced retreat. The fascist and other reactionary forces unleashed by his occupation of the White House made major gains and they are determined to hang on to those gains.

The eight years that preceded him were, in essence, not a forced retreat but part of a decades long retreat, nonetheless. It’s good that Biden is a conventional establishment politician. It is also bad. The history of the last four decades (with the exception of the Trump years) is the history of a nation ruled by conventional establishment politicians. It is good because we know their strategies and tricks. It is bad because those strategies and tricks can lull people into a political sleep. Without the personal outrage a Trump can cause, elected officials, their appointees, and the monetary forces they serve can do a lot of damage under the guise of doing good. Whether it is Reagan’s privatization of the government, Clinton’s destruction of the social welfare system, the Bush’s bloody wars on the people of the Mideast, or Obama’s continuation of all those policies, the reality is these actions took place with most US residents’ assent.

Liberals fell for Reagan’s folksy lies, letting themselves be led by their investments into a world where the poor were once again blamed for their circumstances. When their man Clinton was in office, they supported his intensification of the war on the poor, all the while pointing to their 401Ks as proof the American Dream still worked. And the wars just went on. There was opposition, but never to the point that the troops would not be sent to fight or completely withdrawn once they got there. Indeed, too much of the antiwar leadership abandoned its constituents and joined up with the Obama campaign in 2007, just as the war on Iraq was escalating. That war, and the war on the Afghans continues to this moment. In addition, there are tens of thousands of US forces—military and mercenary—wreaking death and destruction around the globe.

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Predictable.

Putting a BlackRock Alum in Charge of Greening the Economy (TNR)

This week, the Biden campaign is expected to announce officially that it’s tapped former Obama adviser and current BlackRock executive Brian Deese to head the National Economic Council. The appointment will make Deese the president’s top economic adviser. And in addition to worrying climate activists, the news has again raised concerns about BlackRock’s outsize influence in U.S. politics. Deese has long been on the no-go lists of progressives tracking Biden appointments, thanks to his BlackRock background. New York Communities for Change and the Sunrise Movement protested the rumors of Deese’s appointment outside the company’s Manhattan headquarters last week.

His advocates and defenders, including climate wonks and Obama alums, have praised his character, record on conservation, role in helping negotiate the Paris Agreement, as well as the fact that he joined BlackRock to head the investment management giant’s sustainable investment strategy after his brief stint working on climate issues for Obama. Many are excited by the prospect of having an NEC head who spends time thinking about climate change. By all accounts, Deese is indeed a nice guy. But to suggest his record makes him a good fit for a position steering and greening the U.S. economy rests on fundamental misunderstandings of Deese’s climate credentials, BlackRock’s ambitions, and the crisis at hand.

Deese has now spent more time advising BlackRock on climate than the White House. But his governmental record deserves scrutiny, too. Before taking over the climate portfolio from John Podesta, he worked for the NEC and as deputy and then acting director of the Office of Management. He described his role as “showing the American people how we can do more effectively with less” and preached “fiscal discipline”—a troubling inclination given how desperately the current economy and climate crisis need government spending. He also championed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have doubled U.S. exposure to pernicious investor-state dispute settlements, allowing companies to sue governments that infringe on their profits (for example, through robust climate policy). During his two years as Obama’s climate adviser, Deese defended Arctic drilling and boasted about increases in “both renewable and traditional” energy production, though he did also work to withdraw certain portions of the Arctic Ocean from mineral leasing.

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Dind’t Trump just yesterday say: See you in 2024?

Trump Raises At Least $150 Million Since Election Day (JTN)

President Trump has raised at least $150 million since Election Day nearly one month ago, according to multiple news reports. The donations have poured in, as the Trump campaign continues to solicit donations to fuel its legal efforts in several key states to uncover voter fraud and overturn the results of the election. The campaign has raised as much as $170 million, according to The New York Times, while other news outlets have reported an amount closer to $150 million. Either amount is approximately equivalent to the numbers coming in to the campaign coffers at the height of the president’s reelection bid.


The Times also reports that 75% of each donation will go to a new political action committee established by Trump and his staff called “Save America.” The other 25% will go to the Republican National Committee. The donations will allow the campaign to pay off outstanding, post-election debt. It will also allow the president to fund post-presidency political activities. Trump has not publicly stated his political intentions should his election challenges fail.

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Everyone deserves to be heard.

Whistleblowers Allege Ballots Crossed State Lines, Disappear, Backdating (JTN)

Sworn testimony of several whistleblowers on Tuesday alleged what one election integrity activist is calling “potential ballot fraud on a massive scale,” with multiple eyewitnesses testifying to alleged suspicious behavior in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In a press conference in Arlington, Va., the Amistad Project — a civil liberties initiative of the Thomas More Society — presented the testimony of three individuals who claim to have witnessed apparent voting malfeasance during the 2020 election. One, Jesse Morgan, a truck driver for a subcontractor with the United States Postal Service, claimed that a trailer he was driving, one full of potentially upwards of 288,000 ballots, disappeared from its parked location at a Lancaster, Pa. USPS depot after Morgan dropped it off there. Morgan had transported those ballots from Bethpage, N.Y.

The subcontractor also reportedly experienced “odd behaviors” from USPS personnel, behaviors which postal experts have said in sworn statements “grossly deviate[d] from normal procedure and behavior,” according to a press release from the Amistad Project. Another whistleblower, Nathan Pease of Madison, Wisc. — himself also a subcontractor for USPS — alleged that he was told the postal service was planning to backdate tens of thousands of ballots in the days after the Nov. 3 election in order to circumvent the ballot submission deadline. A third witness, Gregory Stenstrom — who testified at a Pennsylvania legislature hearing in Gettysburg last week — claimed to have witnessed a Dominion Voting Systems vendor inserting jump drives into voting aggregation machines in Delaware County, Pa.

Election officials also reportedly commingled various jump drives from aggregation machines, potentially frustrating the ability of auditors to properly certify the election results. In its press release, Amistad Project Director Phill Kline said the testimonies are “compelling” and that they provide “powerful eyewitness accounts of potential ballot fraud on a massive scale.” “This evidence joins with unlawful conduct by state and local election officials, including accepting millions of dollars of private funds, to undermine the integrity of this election,” Kline said. In the press release, the Amistad Project says it has collected sworn expert testimony alleging that “over 300,000 ballots are at issue in Arizona, 548,000 in Michigan, 204,000 in Georgia, and over 121,000 in Pennsylvania.”

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Bernie’s ideas.

Why the Fed Needs Public Banks (Ellen Brown)

The Fed’s policy tools – interest rate manipulation, quantitative easing, and “Special Purpose Vehicles” – have all failed to revive local economies suffering from government-mandated shutdowns. . The Fed must rely on private banks to inject credit into Main Street, and private banks are currently unable or unwilling to do it. The tools the Fed actually needs are public banks, which could and would do the job. [..] Private banks are not following through on the Fed’s attempted money injections, but publicly-owned banks would. In countries with strong government-owned banking systems, public banks have historically increased their lending when private banks pulled back. Public banks have a mandate to stimulate their local economies; and unlike private banks, they can do it and still turn a profit, because they have lower costs.

They have eliminated the parasitic profit-extracting middlemen, and they do not have to focus on short-term profits to please their shareholders. They can pour their resources into improving the long-term prospects of the economy and its infrastructure, stimulating local productivity and strengthening the tax base. Three promising new bills are before Congress that would facilitate the establishment of a public banking system in the US. HR 8721, ”The Public Banking Act”, was introduced on Oct. 30, 2020. As described on Vox, the Act would “foster the creation of public [state and local government-owned] banks across the country by providing them a pathway to getting started, establishing an infrastructure for liquidity and credit facilities for them via the Federal Reserve, and setting up federal guidelines for them to be regulated. Essentially, it would make it easier for public banks to exist, and it would give some of them grant money to get started.”

In September, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Kirsten Gillibrand also introduced The Postal Banking Act, which they said would • Create $9 billion in revenue for the postal service, saving it from privatization; • Protect low-income or rural families and communities from predatory lending; and • Reestablish postal banking to provide basic, low-cost financial services to those who cannot access banks. The third bill, HR 6422, “The National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2020,” is modeled on Franklin Roosevelt’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which funded the rebuilding of the US economy in the Great Depression of the 1930s. According to its advocates, HR 6422 will build or restore over $4 trillion in infrastructure and create up to 25 million union jobs, while being “revenue neutral” (not burdening the federal government’s budget).

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Trickling up.

The Rich Cheer Wall Street’s Latest Records. The Rest Drain 401(k)s (CP)

The all-time record highs that Wall Street has registered this week have given some Americans — the nation’s already rich — considerable cause for celebration. And the rest of the nation? Tens of millions of Americans are paying precious little attention to the chirpy tale of Wall Street’s ticker. The simple reason: They own no stocks at all. Millions of other Americans who do own stocks don’t see any reason to celebrate either. They’re finding themselves forced, amid pandemic economic collapse, to start selling the stocks that make up the bulk of their retirement savings. How best to start understanding this story? The best place to begin: The latest numbers on stock ownership from the Federal Reserve. Fed researchers have been tracking who exactly owns the stocks that trade every business day on Wall Street ever since 1989.

Back nearly 30 years ago, in 1992, the share of stock nationally that belongs to America’s poorest half of households hit an all-time high. That “high” amounted to all of a miniscule 1.6 percent. How much of America’s stock wealth does the bottom 50 percent hold these days? At the end of this past June, the most recent Federal Reserve data point available, the nation’s poorest half held less than 1 percent of the nation’s stock holdings, just 0.6 percent. The nation’s poorest 90 percent, all combined, now hold just 11.8 percent of the nation’s stocks. Numbers like these help explain why massive numbers of Americans didn’t rush out onto the streets to cheer earlier this week when two top Wall Street benchmarks, the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500, hit their own all-time record summits.

Shares of stock — either held directly or through mutual funds — make up just 2.3 percent of the total assets of households in the bottom 50 percent and a mere 7.6 percent of the assets the rest of the bottom 90 percent hold. America’s richest 1 percent, on the other hand, have plenty of reason to celebrate Wall Street records. Stock holdings make up over 40 percent of top 1 percent household wealth. These 1 percenters, overall, hold 52.4 percent of the nation’s stock, a share almost five times greater than all the stock that households in the bottom 90 percent hold. This top 1 percent share has been steadily increasing. Since 1989, the year the Fed started keeping track, the top 1 percent share of the nation’s stock holdings has jumped 22 percent. The bottom 90 percent share has dropped 33 percent.

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“..the buzz in Beijing is that the financial industry should serve the real economy and people..”

Ray Dalio’s Chart Hints At What Beijing Is Really Up To (Xie)

Another day, another stock record. The S&P 500 soared to a fresh all-time high on Tuesday, while the yield curve steepened on optimism about more fiscal stimulus and the imminent deployment of vaccines. The seeming disconnect between financial markets and the economy is kind of surreal, considering that 11 million people remain unemployed and the virus is spiraling out of control. The fact that U.S. policy makers are still pedal-to-the-metal with monetary stimulus stands in sharp contrast to China, where officials have set their sights on an exit from loose policy. Consider recent events: Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, described China’s property market as the biggest “gray rhino” – an obvious yet ignored financial risk.


Guo also pledged to impose “special and innovative regulatory measures” on financial technology behemoths such as Jack Ma’s Ant Group. The recent regulation changes have essentially put these fin-tech companies under the similar supervision umbrella as traditional banks to avoid excessive leverage. Beijing has allowed a number of SOEs to default, breaking the implicit government guarantee. PBOC Governor Yi Gang vowed to avoid monetizing government debt. In addition, officials have said low interest rates contributed to social inequality. Clearly, there’s a sense of urgency to address financial risks and close the gap between markets and the economy. In the meantime, the buzz in Beijing is that the financial industry should serve the real economy and people.

What China is doing makes perfect sense in the context of the big economic cycle described by Ray Dalio. In his latest essay published Tuesday, Bridgewater’s founder showed that China is in the midst of a debt bubble and the beginning of widening wealth gap. Apparently, China wants to tackle both before it’s too late. In contrast, the U.S. has passed the peak of its economic power, settling into the stage of money printing after the burst of the debt bubble, according to Dalio. “It is in this stage when there are bad financial conditions and intensifying conflict,” wrote Dalio. “Classically this stage comes after periods of great excesses in spending and debt and the widening of wealth and political gaps and before there are revolutions and civil wars. United States is at a tipping point in which it could go from manageable internal tension to revolution and/or civil war.”

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Vultures all around.

Debenhams ‘Never Recovered From Private Equity Ownership’ (G.)

Coronavirus store closures may have been the final nail in the coffin for Debenhams but retail experts argue the department store chain never recovered from a brutal period in the hands of priv ate equity. The retailer was taken over in 2003 by a private equity consortium. The trio of funds, TPG, CVC Capital and Merrill Lynch, made huge returns from their £600m investment, collecting £1.2bn in dividends despite owning the company for less than three years. Debenhams owed around £100m when it was taken private but, by the time it returned to the stock market in 2006, that debt had swollen to more than £1bn. After the retailer’s subsequent poor performance, the deal came to epitomise the worst excesses of the private equity model – the “quick flip” whereby investors buy a listed business cheaply, load it with debt and then refloat it at a big profit.


The private equity consortium installed Rob Templeman, fresh from lucrative private equity revamps of Homebase and Halfords, to overhaul Debenhams. His plan was to cut costs at the same time as increasing sales and profit margins. He also used price cuts to clear products that weren’t selling, but regular discounting was blamed for dragging the brand downmarket. The consortium had used £1.1bn of debt to acquire the business and Templeman cut borrowing costs by remortgaging some of the stores. In 2005, 23 shops were sold for £495m. Debenhams leased the stores back, on expensive rent deals up to 35 years in length. Blaming private equity for Debenhams’ demise is “100% justified”, said veteran retail analyst Richard Hyman. “At the very time when the sort of massive changes we’re seeing today were embryonic, Debenhams’ wherewithal to react, ie money, was removed. It was removed into the bank accounts of private equity investors. That is the truth of it.”

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AI and complexity.

One Of Biology’s Biggest Mysteries ‘Largely Solved’ By AI (BBC)

One of biology’s biggest mysteries has been solved using artificial intelligence, experts have announced. Predicting how a protein folds into a unique three-dimensional shape has puzzled scientists for half a century. London-based AI lab, DeepMind, has largely cracked the problem, said the organisers of a scientific challenge. A better understanding of protein shapes could play a pivotal role in the development of novel drugs to treat disease. The advance by Google-owned DeepMind is expected to accelerate research into a host of illnesses, including Covid-19. Their program determined the shape of proteins at a level of accuracy comparable to expensive and time-consuming lab methods, said independent scientists.

Dr Andriy Kryshtafovych, from University of California (UC), Davis in the US, one of the panel of scientific adjudicators, described the achievement as “truly remarkable”. “Being able to investigate the shape of proteins quickly and accurately has the potential to revolutionise life sciences,” he said. Proteins are present in all living things where they play a central role in the chemical processes essential for life. Made up of strings of amino acids, they fold up in an infinite number of ways into elaborate shapes that hold the key to how they carry out their vital functions.Many diseases are linked to the roles of proteins in catalysing chemical reactions (enzymes), fighting disease (antibodies) or acting as chemical messengers (hormones such as insulin).

“Even tiny rearrangements of these vital molecules can have catastrophic effects on our health, so one of the most efficient ways to understand disease and find new treatments is to study the proteins involved,” said Dr John Moult of the University of Maryland, US, the chair of the panel of scientific adjudicators. “There are tens of thousands of human proteins and many billions in other species, including bacteria and viruses, but working out the shape of just one requires expensive equipment and can take years.”


A DeepMind model of a protein from the Legionnaire’s disease bacteria (Casp-14)

Read more …

 

 

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Prisons are built with stones of law; brothels with bricks of religion

– William Blake

 

 

 

 

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Jun 232020
 


G. G. Bain Katherine Stinson, “the flying schoolgirl,” Sheepshead Bay Speedway, Brooklyn 1918

 

Protesters Fail To Bring Down Andrew Jackson Statue Near White House (R.)
To Kill A Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn Banned From Minnesota Syllabuses (SOTT)
WHO Reports Largest Single-Day Increase In COVID19 Cases (SCMP)
Mexico Reports 5,343 New Coronavirus Infections And 1,044 Deaths (R.)
Surge In Coronavirus Cases Linked To More Texans In Their 20s (TT)
Complete Shutdown Could Be Only Way To Stop Coronavirus in Utah (SacBee)
Judge’s Ruling Opens Door For Bolton To Be Sued Or Prosecuted (JTN)
Jerry Nadler Preparing To Subpoena Bill Barr (NBC)
Fired NY Prosecutor Given Biden-Ukraine Info In 2018, Didn’t Follow Up (JTN)
Ghislaine Maxwell Hiding Behind French Extradition Laws (ZH)
Bayer Wins Court Ruling Restricting California’s Roundup Warning (R.)
BlackRock, the New Great Vampire Squid (Ellen Brown)

 

 

I have a hard time getting back to the daily grind. Also think maybe I should adapt the format somewhat. It’s clear that the virus will be with us for a long time. Deaths are increasing again:

 

 

 

Worldometer reports new cases for June 22 (midnight to midnight GMT+0) at + 138,975 .

 

 

 

 

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-:

 

 

From Worldometer:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live:

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1274940547824783360

 

 

 

 

I told you guys: you’re going to have to rename the capital AND the country.

Protesters Fail To Bring Down Andrew Jackson Statue Near White House (R.)

Protesters tried tearing down a statue of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, in a park near the White House on Monday, scrawling “killer scum” on its pedestal and pulling on the monument with ropes before police intervened. The confrontation unfolded in Lafayette Square, where crowds peacefully protesting the death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer were forcibly displaced three weeks ago to make way for staged photos of President Trump holding up a bible in front of a nearby church. The thwarted effort to topple the famed bronze likeness of Jackson astride a rearing horse was the latest bid, in protests fuelled by Floyd’s death, to destroy monuments of historical figures considered racist or divisive.

President Donald Trump took to Twitter here saying that many people were arrested for the “disgraceful vandalism” in Lafayette Park and also for defacing the exterior of St. John’s Church. “Ten years in prison under the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act. Beware!” he warned. Monday’s incident began around dusk with scores of protesters, most wearing masks against coronavirus infection, breaking through a 6-foot-tall fence erected in recent days around the statute at the center of the park.

Protesters then climbed onto the monument, fastening ropes and cords around the sculpted heads of both Jackson and his horse and dousing the marble pedestal with yellow paint before the crowd began trying to yank the statute from its base. Dozens of law enforcement officers, led by U.S. Park Police, stormed into the square, swinging batons and firing chemical agents to scatter protesters. By dark, police had taken control and outnumbered demonstrators in the immediate area. Jackson, a former U.S. Army general nicknamed “Old Hickory,” served two terms in the White House, from 1829 to 1837, espousing a populist political style that has sometimes been compared with that of Trump.

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This is a story that has no beginning and no end. There are some pretty offensive stories in the Bible. Go for it.

To Kill A Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn Banned From Minnesota Syllabuses (SOTT)

Two classic American novels have been banned from syllabuses at schools in Minnesota, USA. The reason being a concern that racial slurs used in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, could make pupils feel “humiliated or marginalised”. According to The Telegraph, The Duluth school district, which includes over 20 schools, is removing the books from the curriculum for ninth and 11th grade English classes. However, copies of Lee and Twain’s classics will remain in the school libraries. While Duluth district’s curriculum director Michael Cary has said To Kill A Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn will be replaced by books that “teach the same lessons” without using racial slurs.

The American Library Association have listed the two novels as among the most banned books from 2001-2009, mainly due to the offensive language used by some characters. To Kill a Mockingbird deals with racial injustice in segregated 1930s Alabama. While Huckleberry Finn is set in the 19th century before slavery was abolished. The American Library Association stated that most of the complaints were from black parents concerned about books on the curriculum containing racial slurs. Both books were temporarily removed from Virginia schools in 2016 after a parental complaint. While just this October Mississippi schools banned To Kill a Mockingbird from their syllabuses. However, students with parental permission can take part in a study of Lee’s novel.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author died in 2016 after publishing just two books. The second was Go Set a Watchman, her first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, written decades ago and published in 2015. Amazon said it was their most pre-ordered book ever since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007. Last year, Harry Potter books were banned from a school in Nashville, Tennessee. According to The Tennessean, pupils at St Edward Catholic School will no longer be able to borrow JK Rowling’s fantasy books to read from its library. The magical adventures have been censored from the school library because of their content, after Reverend Dan Reehil, a pastor of the Roman Catholic school wrote an email voicing his concerns. The email said: “These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception.”

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They did it only 3 days after I signaled this. Keep your eye on India, Mexico.

WHO Reports Largest Single-Day Increase In COVID19 Cases (SCMP)

The World Health Organisation on Sunday reported the largest single-day increase in coronavirus cases by its count, at more than 183,000 new cases in the latest 24 hours. The UN health agency said Brazil led the way with 54,771 cases tallied. The Brazilian government has since announced that the country’s death toll has passed 50,000. The US was next at 36,617 infections, while over 15,400 were in India. Experts said rising case counts can reflect multiple factors including more widespread testing as well as broader infection. Testing continues to be a contentious issue in the US, with a White House aide defending President Donald Trump’s latest remarks on the issue.

Trump had drawn criticism after saying at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday that the US has tested 25 million people, but the “bad part” is that it found more cases. “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases,” Trump said. “So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please’.” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on CNN that Trump was being “tongue-in-cheek” and made the comment in a “light mood.” Democratic rival Joe Biden’s campaign accused Trump of “putting politics ahead of the safety and economic well-being of the American people”.

The US has the world’s highest number of reported infections, over 2.2 million, and the highest death toll, at about 120,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Health officials say robust testing is vital for tracking outbreaks and keeping the virus in check. Overall in the pandemic, WHO reported 8,708,008 cases – 183,020 in the last 24 hours – with 461,715 deaths worldwide, with a daily increase of 4,743. More than two-thirds of those new deaths were reported in the Americas. Brazil’s Health Ministry said on Monday that the country had a total of 1,085,038 confirmed cases and 50,617 deaths.

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This was on Sunday. Yesterday they had “only” 758 deaths.

Mexico Reports 5,343 New Coronavirus Infections And 1,044 Deaths (R.)

Mexico on Sunday reported 5,343 new infections and 1,044 additional deaths from the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the health ministry said, bringing the totals for the country to 180,545 cases and 21,825 deaths. The government has said the actual number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.

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Party!

Surge In Coronavirus Cases Linked To More Texans In Their 20s (TT)

Texans under the age of 30 are testing positive for the new coronavirus at a higher rate than previously seen since the pandemic began, contributing to a recent surge in the number of cases in the state, Gov. Greg Abbott said during a press conference Tuesday. Data from several counties and health experts confirms the trend in younger people testing positive across Texas. “There are certain counties where a majority of the people who are tested positive in that county are under the age of 30, and this typically results from people going to bars,” Abbott said during the conference. “That is the case in Lubbock County, Bexar County, Cameron County.” mAbbott said that it’s unclear why more young people are contracting the virus, but he speculated that it could be from increased activity over Memorial Day weekend, visits to bars or other types of social gatherings.


This comes as Texas businesses have begun to reopen with relaxed restrictions under Abbott’s executive orders. As of last Friday, restaurants can operate at 75% capacity, while almost all other businesses can operate at 50%. Texas water parks and amusement parks have been allowed to reopen as well. In recent weeks, thousands of Texans have also flooded the streets of some of the largest cities to protest police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death. One of the areas of concern Abbott mentioned was Hays County, where 476 of the 938 confirmed cases are people ages 20 to 29. People in their 20s accounted for 50.7% of all the cases in Hays County as of Monday, an increase from Friday, when the age group made up 42% of total cases.

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Not just in Utah, I would venture.

Complete Shutdown Could Be Only Way To Stop Coronavirus in Utah (SacBee)

With coronavirus cases climbing fast in Utah, the state’s top health official is warning that if something doesn’t change soon, a full-scale shutdown will be the only way to control the virus’ spread, outlets report. “We are quickly getting to a point where the only viable option to manage spread and deaths will be a complete shutdown,” a memo state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn shared with state and local health officials, said, according to KUTV Dunn went on to say that Utah must achieve an average daily case count of 200, for seven consecutive days, by July 1, KUTV reported, or else raise the threat level to orange.


Doing so “will send the message to Utahns that this outbreak continues to be a serious problem, and state leadership is committed to saving lives and preventing a complete economic shutdown.” Gov. Gary Herbert downgraded the alert status to yellow on May 15, and 12 days later, coronavirus spread began to accelerate, Dunn said, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. The memo, released on Friday, came the same day Gov. Herbert downgraded most of rural Utah’s status to green, the lowest alert level, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

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“These guys shouldn’t be joining administrations to write books and enrich themselves..”

Judge’s Ruling Opens Door For Bolton To Be Sued Or Prosecuted (JTN)

John Bolton’s legal troubles may be far from over. The former National Security Advisor won a limited but notable victory in court Saturday when a federal judge ruled that he would not prevent his tell-all book, “The Room Where It Happened,” from being published. The Trump administration had sued to stop the book’s publication, claiming it contained classified information that would endanger national security if it were to be released to the general public. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled in favor of Bolton, stating that since the book has already been circulated among numerous journalists and media outlets the question of injunction was mostly moot. Yet he acknowledged in his ruling that Bolton may still have “expose[d] himself to criminal liability” in publishing the exposé.

Alan Dershowitz agreed. Dershowitz, the storied Harvard law professor and noted proponent of civil liberties, told Just the News on Saturday that there “may be a basis for a lawsuit against Bolton by the government.” Dershowitz pointed to the 1980 Supreme Court case Snepp v. United States as the controlling precedent. In that case, Frank Snepp — a CIA intelligence analyst in Saigon during the Vietnam War —published the book “Decent Interval” following his departure from the agency. The government sued Snepp over the book, which was drawn from an after-action report he had written for the CIA following his service in Saigon. The government argued that Snepp had broken his contractual obligation to submit his book to the CIA prior to publication.

The Supreme Court eventually ruled against Snepp, forcing him to surrender his monetary earnings to the federal government and enjoining him from future publication without prepublication review from the government. Dershowitz represented Snepp in the controlling case. “We argued the rule was unconstitutional. We lost,” he told Just the News. “I don’t approve of that decision,” he said. “I think it’s wrong on the law, and I think it’s wrong on the Constitution. But it may be a basis for a lawsuit against Bolton by the government.”

Kevin Brock, meanwhile — the former FBI assistant director for intelligence — suggested that it appeared Bolton had worked for the Trump administration just to line his own pockets. “Everybody who’s at the SCS level in government has to sign documentation that they’re not going to disclose information that they collect while they’re performing their duties without first getting approval,” Brock said. “It seems like more and more executives are ignoring that, and the courts haven’t really tested it or enforced it that I’m aware of.” “These guys shouldn’t be joining administrations to write books and enrich themselves,” he said. “It’s like they’re accepting jobs with an eye to enriching themselves after serving.”

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Sure, subpoena people who are willing to come voluntarily, and then talk about it on the Rachel Maddow show. Prediction: Barr will come when he wants, not Nadler.

Jerry Nadler Preparing To Subpoena Bill Barr (NBC)

The Democrat who leads the House Judiciary Committee is set to subpoena Attorney General William Barr for testimony early next month, NBC News has confirmed. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., is preparing to subpoena testimony on July 2, a committee spokesperson confirmed Monday night. “We have begun the process to issue that subpoena,” Nadler said Monday night on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” News of the planned subpoena was reported earlier Monday by Axios. Barr has been criticized in recent days for the abrupt removal of the top prosecutor for the influential Southern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, over the weekend.

Nadler said Sunday on CNN that Barr deserves to be impeached but that doing so would be a waste of time because the majority-Republican Senate would never convict him. Barr had been scheduled to testify before the Judiciary Committee in March, but his testimony was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. In a letter, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, acknowledged that Nadler intends to subpoena Barr, but he objected to it. “Attorney General Barr remains willing to testify voluntarily once the pandemic concludes,” wrote Jordan, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump’s. “Accordingly, there is no legitimate basis for you to compel his testimony at this time.”

Jordan also wrote that circumstances had not changed enough since March to warrant a subpoena. When Barr and House Democrats reached an agreement on testimony this spring, Democrats wrote that they planned to ask him about the Justice Department’s decision to overrule career prosecutors and propose a reduction in the prison sentence for Trump confidant Roger Stone.

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To be continued.

Fired NY Prosecutor Given Biden-Ukraine Info In 2018, Didn’t Follow Up (JTN)

Could the impeachment scandal have been prevented if the now-fired U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman had followed up on Ukrainian allegations about Joe Biden and his family in 2018? That’s the tantalizing question raised by emails from fall 2018 between an American lawyer and the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan that were obtained by Just the News. The memos show that well before Ukrainian prosecutors reached out to Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer, in 2019 to talk about the Bidens and alleged 2016 election interference they first approached Berman’s office in New York in October 2018 via another American lawyer.

The memos show Little Rock, Ark., lawyer Bud Cummins, a former U.S. attorney himself, reached out at least five times in October 2018 to Berman seeking to arrange a meeting with then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko.Lutsenko, who emerged as a key figure in the impeachment scandal, wanted to confidentially share with federal prosecutors in New York evidence he claimed to possess that raised concerns about the Bidens’ behavior as well as alleged wrongdoing in the Paul Manafort corruption case. “Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko is offering to come to U.S. meet with high-level law enforcement to share the fruits of investigations within Ukraine which have produced evidence of two basic alleged crimes,” Cummins wrote Berman on Oct. 4, 2018, one day after the two had talked on the phone about the allegations.

The allegations included that Joe Biden had “exercised influence to protect Burisma Holdings” after his son Hunter and his son’s business partner Devon Archer had joined the Ukrainian gas company’s board of directors and “substantial sums of money were paid to them,” Cummins wrote. At the time Hunter Biden and Archer joined Burisma in 2014, the company was under criminal investigation in both England and Ukraine for alleged corruption. The British case was dropped in 2015, and the Ukraine cases were eventually settled in the final days of the Obama administration.

Joe Biden boasted during a 2018 public appearance that he forced the firing on Lutsenko’s predecessor, Viktor Shokin, back in 2016by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine. At the time, Shokin was leading the investigation into Burisma. Biden denies the investigation factored into his decision. Biden’s and Archer’s firm received more than $3 million in payments from Burisma between 2014 and 2016, bank records obtained by the FBI show.

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“Under French law anyone born on French soil is safe from extradition to another country, regardless of the alleged crime.”

Ghislaine Maxwell Hiding Behind French Extradition Laws (ZH)

Jeffrey Epstein’s accused ‘madam’ is reportedly holed up in a luxury apartment on Paris’s Avenue Matignon – just a five minute drive from the dead pedophile’s $8.6 million flat, according to the Daily Mail. Maxwell “is moving locations every month to keep private investigators off her tail and is staying at the residences of trusted colleagues and contacts,” according to a source. “She wants to remain in France for as long as she can to take advantage of extradition laws and has a huge network of contacts willing to keep her hidden,” they added. “Under French law anyone born on French soil is safe from extradition to another country, regardless of the alleged crime.”

It doesn’t mean she won’t be prosecuted for her links to Epstein but if she does end up facing charges it will be in France and not the US. The French apartment is linked to a Normandy-based business contact, according to the report. Epstein and Maxwell began dating in the early 1990s, after which she became his ‘madam’ and helicopter pilot – allegedly ferrying underage girls to his multiple properties around the world. In 2003, Epstein told a reporter with Vanity Fair that Maxwell was his “best friend.”

Maxwell comes from money. Her father was publisher Robert Maxwell – who himself faced accusations of being a Mossad double (and possibly triple) agent and a “bad character” who was “almost certainly financed by Russia,” according to the British Foreign Office. Robert Maxwell died in 1991 when he fell from his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine – however the circumstances surrounding his demise have been rife with speculation (including that it was a Mossad assassination – a theory which attorney and longtime Epstein associate Alan Dershowitz slammed in a 2003 op-ed). Ghislaine has been accused by three women of procuring and training young girls to perform massage and sexual acts on Epstein and his associates.

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Whenever Bayer wins, everyone else loses..

Bayer Wins Court Ruling Restricting California’s Roundup Warning (R.)

Bayer AG won a court ruling blocking California from requiring the German-based company to tell consumers that a chemical in its Roundup herbicide is known to cause cancer, Bloomberg News reported on Monday. A federal judge in Sacramento on Monday granted Bayer’s request to block the state from requiring the company or any businesses from providing a “clear and reasonable warning before exposing any individual to glyphosate,” the report said. Bayer, which acquired Roundup manufacturer Monsanto in a $63 billion deal in 2018, to date has faced three juries over claims that Roundup causes cancer. The company has denied the allegations made by more than 42,700 plaintiffs in the United States, saying decades of studies have shown Roundup and glyphosate are safe for human use.

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“It is the world’s largest asset manager and “shadow bank,” larger than the world’s largest bank (which is in China)..”

BlackRock, the New Great Vampire Squid (Ellen Brown)

To most people, if they are familiar with it at all, BlackRock is an asset manager that helps pension funds and retirees manage their savings through “passive” investments that track the stock market. But working behind the scenes, it is much more than that. BlackRock has been called “the most powerful institution in the financial system,” “the most powerful company in the world” and the “secret power.” It is the world’s largest asset manager and “shadow bank,” larger than the world’s largest bank (which is in China), with over $7 trillion in assets under direct management and another $20 trillion managed through its Aladdin risk-monitoring software. BlackRock has also been called “the fourth branch of government” and “almost a shadow government”, but no part of it actually belongs to the government.

Despite its size and global power, BlackRock is not even regulated as a “Systemically Important Financial Institution” under the Dodd-Frank Act, thanks to pressure from its CEO Larry Fink, who has long had “cozy” relationships with government officials. BlackRock’s strategic importance and political weight were evident when four BlackRock executives, led by former Swiss National Bank head Philipp Hildebrand, presented a proposal at the annual meeting of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in August 2019 for an economic reset that was actually put into effect in March 2020. Acknowledging that central bankers were running out of ammunition for controlling the money supply and the economy, the BlackRock group argued that it was time for the central bank to abandon its long-vaunted independence and join monetary policy (the usual province of the central bank) with fiscal policy (the usual province of the legislature).

They proposed that the central bank maintain a “Standing Emergency Fiscal Facility” that would be activated when interest rate manipulation was no longer working to avoid deflation. The Facility would be deployed by an “independent expert” appointed by the central bank. The COVID-19 crisis presented the perfect opportunity to execute this proposal in the US, with BlackRock itself appointed to administer it. In March 2020, it was awarded a no-bid contract under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) to deploy a $454 billion slush fund established by the Treasury in partnership with the Federal Reserve. This fund in turn could be leveraged to provide over $4 trillion in Federal Reserve credit. While the public was distracted with protests, riots and lockdowns, BlackRock suddenly emerged from the shadows to become the “fourth branch of government,” managing the controls to the central bank’s print-on-demand fiat money.

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