Jun 162023
 


Christopher Makos Andy Warhol piloting John Denver’s bi-plane 1977

 

US Demands Big Results From Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Soon – Politico (RT)
EU Rules Out NATO Troops Openly Fighting In Ukraine (RT)
Valery Zaluzhny, The Man Behind Ukraine’s Counter-Offensive (BBC)
The Government Keeps Lying to Us About Ukraine. Where Is the Outrage? (Tracey)
Biden Admin Weighs ‘Israel Model’ for Ukraine Instead of NATO Membership (Sp.)
Le Pen Says Crimea ‘Has Nothing To Do’ With Conflict In Ukraine (TASS)
A History of Ceasefires & Peace in Ukraine (Wright)
De-Dollarization ‘Could Happen Much Quicker Than Most Think’ (Sp.)
The Bidens ‘Coerced’ Burisma To Pay $10 Million In Bribes – CHS (Fed.)
Internet Ignites as Biden Laughs Off Bribery Question (Sp.)
The Biggest Coverup In Political History (GP)
Ex-Trump Attorney Claims He Witnessed 45 Instances of DOJ Misconduct (Med.)
Why Donald Trump Cannot Get a Top-Tier Lawyer (Dershowitz)
First Roger Waters, Now C.J. Hopkins (Matt Taibbi)
Joe Biden Announces By 2025 All Wildfires Must Be Electric (BBee)

 

 

 

 

Tucker ep 4

 

 

Rogan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669483009383202818
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669464834453143552

 

 

 

 

Comer

 

 

Seymour Hersh: Panic at the State Department over Victoria Nuland. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has resigned, and her last day in office will be June 30, noted journalist Seymour Hersh on his blog. “Her departure sent the State Department into near-panic over the person many fear will be her replacement: Victoria Nuland,” writes Hersh.

As he states, Nuland’s aggressive attitude towards Russia fits perfectly with the views of President Joseph Biden. The famous journalist cites a source with direct knowledge of the details of the situation, who says that various State Department bureaus are complaining that Nuland, currently the undersecretary for political affairs, is “going wild” while Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is on the road.

 

 

“I’m told that [the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Dam] was approved for demolition by Victoria Nuland. She’s been involved in everything happening in Ukraine for at least 14-15 years if not longer.” — Col. Douglas Macgregor

 

 

 

 

“..the Times wrote that “failure would look like a Ukrainian army that has not learned to fight, has lost the equipment given to them in recent months and gained no territory to show for that.”

US Demands Big Results From Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Soon – Politico (RT)

US officials are telling their Ukrainian counterparts that Washington’s support for their war effort hinges on the success of the ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces, Politico reported on Thursday. The offensive has failed so far, with Ukrainian losses counted in the thousands. US President Joe Biden has repeatedly promised to back Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” However, when Ukrainian officials recently asked the US State Department and National Security Council whether they could count on this support to continue through next year’s election season and a potential change of power in the White House, they were told “let’s see how the counteroffensive goes,” Politico reported.

Ukraine’s former deputy prime minister, Ivanna Klimpush-Tsintsadze, told the US news site that these talks left her feeling anxious about the “continuation of the same level of US support to Ukraine after this financial year,” which ends in September. After months of mixed messages from Kiev – and reports of depleted stockpiles and general unreadiness in the Western media – Ukrainian forces launched their long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces almost two weeks ago. Attacking multiple sections of the frontline in Donetsk and Zaporozhye Regions, Ukraine has so far failed to penetrate Russia’s multi-layered labyrinth of defensive trenches, minefields, and anti-tank obstacles.

With Ukraine’s Western-provided air defense systems degraded by constant Russian missile and drone attacks, Russian air support has acted with impunity, inflicting devastating losses on the Ukrainian forces. As of Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry counted 7,500 dead or wounded Ukrainian troops, not counting those hit by high-precision missiles and airstrikes deep behind the front lines Videos of wrecked Western tanks and armored vehicles have circulated online, and Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Wednesday that Kiev has lost “at least 160 tanks and 360 armored vehicles.” The hardware destroyed by Russian troops accounts for between 25% and 30% of all Western military equipment supplied to Ukraine, the president estimated.

Publicly, Western officials have hedged their bets, leaving it up to Kiev to define what a victorious offensive would look like and downplaying expectations of a thrust to Crimea, as Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has promised. According to the New York Times, American and European officials would consider the offensive successful if Ukrainian forces cut off Russia’s land bridge with Crimea and managed to hold any territory seized in this direction. Citing European diplomats, the Times wrote that “failure would look like a Ukrainian army that has not learned to fight, has lost the equipment given to them in recent months and gained no territory to show for that.”

Read more …

Dead end.

EU Rules Out NATO Troops Openly Fighting In Ukraine (RT)

Western countries will not send their soldiers to fight Russia on behalf of Ukraine, Director General of the European Union Military Staff Vice Admiral Herve Blejean said on Wednesday. “To send ground troops to Ukraine is to be a party in a war, to be at war with Russia, and nobody wants that, neither the EU, nor NATO,” Blejean told the French TV channel LCI . “We are not at war with Russia. We are supporting a country attacked by Russia.” Blejean added that the ongoing Ukrainian offensive would “not be the end of the war, regardless of its results.” The French admiral’s remarks came after former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen suggested that individual members, such as Poland and the Baltic states, could ultimately decide to deploy soldiers to Ukraine.


Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, however, said last week that there would not be foreign boots on the ground “before the end of the armed conflict” with Russia. Volunteers from multiple NATO countries are already fighting on Kiev’s side, including Polish nationals who were involved in an armed incursion into Russia’s Belgorod Region earlier this month. Moscow, meanwhile, has long insisted that by supplying Ukraine with heavy weapons and sharing intelligence, NATO countries had made themselves de facto direct participants in the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that NATO was “waging a war” against his country and that it was “ridiculous” to claim otherwise. Last month, the EU agreed to procure €1 billion ($1.08 billion) worth of artillery rounds and missiles for Ukraine. The US has committed more than $100 billion in aid to Kiev since Russia launched its operation in the neighboring state in February 2022.

Read more …

The BBC has this on Zaluzhny. Problem is, he hasn’t been seen in a long time. Maybe not that surprising given the state of the offensive, which he is “behind”.

Also: “The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, is in critical condition at a Bundeswehr hospital in Berlin after being wounded.”

Valery Zaluzhny, The Man Behind Ukraine’s Counter-Offensive (BBC)

Ukraine’s long-awaited attempt to take back the territories in the east and south of the country, occupied by Russia for the past 18 months, is now in full swing. A key figure in planning and executing this operation is Gen Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s 49-year-old commander-in-chief. Little known until recently, his popularity now rivals that of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Gen Zaluzhny, or “our Valera” as friends and old classmates like to call him, was appointed commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military in July 2021. Those who know him well say the appointment, pushed through personally by President Zelensky, came as a surprise to the general and many others too as his promotion involved climbing several steps on the career ladder.

Zaluzhny was already known as an ambitious and modern commander, but also an unpretentious man who liked to joke with his subordinates and didn’t put on airs. Within seven months he was leading Ukraine’s defence against full-scale invasion. By 26 February 2022 it was clear that Russian troops were failing to “take Kyiv in three days”, which had initially seemed a likely outcome. But the reality remained grim and Ukrainian authorities were calling on the public not to panic. Russian troops were advancing in the north, east and south of Ukraine and posed a considerable threat to the capital. One idea floating among Ukraine’s top officials was to start blowing up bridges near Kyiv over the vast Dnipro river, to prevent the Russians crossing from the eastern left bank to the western right bank, where, among other strategic objects, the government quarter was situated.

They phoned Gen Zaluzhny for his view. “Under no circumstances are we to do that,” he is reported to have replied, at the time sitting in a smoke-filled bunker with other top brass. “This will be a betrayal of both civilians and the military remaining on the eastern bank.” The BBC has heard matching accounts from two sources involved in the episode that indicate this is what happened. Many other crucial decisions followed and by early April 2022 Ukrainian troops pushed the Russian army back to the north and east of Kyiv. Born into the family of a Soviet serviceman, Valery Zaluzhny once said he was always committed to distancing himself from the excessive hierarchy of the Soviet Army. By the time he went to military school in the mid-1990s Ukraine was already an independent state.

While his textbooks at military college may have dated back to the Soviet era, he learnt about the reality of war first-hand. In 2014 he was appointed a deputy commander in an area of eastern Ukraine where the conflict with separatists, backed by the Russian army, was getting under way. Colleagues we spoke to say that from the onset of his career he was keen on building relationships of trust with his subordinates as well as delegating command decisions.

Read more …

How they’re trying to sneak in NATO troops:

“..a cross-coalition bill was submitted to the Polish parliament which would make it legal for Polish nationals to fight in the Armed Forces of Ukraine..”

The Government Keeps Lying to Us About Ukraine. Where Is the Outrage? (Tracey)

On June 4, a group referring to itself as the “Polish Volunteer Corps” issued a boastful announcement confirming its participation in a series of cross-border ground offensives into Russia. News of these audacious raids was jarring enough, given the many prior assurances of U.S. and Ukrainian war planners, who insisted no attacks would be carried out inside Russian territory. It was all the more conspicuous that the incursion units were apparently comprised of Polish soldiers. Poland, of course, is not only a NATO member state, but the NATO member state with which the U.S. has most assiduously aligned itself since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine (Polish government officials deny any formal connection to the “Polish Volunteer Corps”). So the raids raised an obvious, yet oft-neglected question: Just what the hell is U.S. policy in Ukraine?

If you turn on the TV, you’ll find pundits on every channel loyally reciting from memory the broad parameters of the U.S. mission—at least as it’s being conveyed in daily rhetorical flourishes by Biden Administration officials, assorted Congressional chest-thumpers, and brave think tank warriors. Freedom and autocracy are locked in a great cosmic battle of good versus evil, or so goes the usual storyline—most often narrated with a degree of moral complexity that can be generously compared to a lower-tier Marvel Movie. But apart from this steady stream of heavily recycled platitudes, was it ever plainly disclosed to Americans—the chief financial sponsors of the Ukraine war effort, after all—that the scope of the war effort they’ve found themselves subsidizing would eventually expand to include platoons of Polish soldiers marching straight into Russia?

Did anyone back in Washington, D.C. sign off on this, or was there ever an opportunity granted for public consideration of its potentially foreboding implications? At least in theory, the U.S. is treaty-bound to come to the defense of Poland in the event of armed attack. And while Poland may nominally disavow the Polish Volunteer Corps, a Polish journalist writing for Poland’s largest digital publication says he was in attendance at a founding organizational meeting in Kyiv this past February, during which the unit was established not as a ragtag group of untested amateurs, but as an elite “sabotage and reconnaissance” force—which from the get-go was “reporting directly to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.” Per this account, the unit was to consist of Poland’s “most experienced soldiers,” with notable imprecision as to where specifically those soldiers hailed from.

Then there’s the fact that shortly before the formation of the “Polish Volunteer Corps,” a cross-coalition bill was submitted to the Polish parliament which would make it legal for Polish nationals to fight in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The war against Russia was to be recognized as “a special situation from the point of view of the national security of the Republic of Poland,” the text reads, “requiring non-standard political and legislative actions on the part of the state.” The “Polish Volunteer Corps” has been conducting joint operations with the “Russian Volunteer Corps,” another fully integrated “special unit within the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine”—euphemistically referred to in “Western” media headlines with plausible-deniability monikers like “Pro-Ukraine group of partisans.”

Read more …

“..opponents of the initiative argue it would escalate the Ukraine conflict and confirm Russia’s justification for the special operation..”

Biden Admin Weighs ‘Israel Model’ for Ukraine Instead of NATO Membership (Sp.)

In 2008, Ukraine was denied membership to NATO, with opponents to Ukraine’s membership citing potential effects on Europe’s relationship with Russia as a major issue. The Biden administration is reportedly considering proposing an ‘Israel model’ for Ukraine in NATO, a deal that would be a limited commitment and not include a collective defense guarantee. US media reports have indicated the Biden White House would pledge to continue providing more military aid to Ukraine, regardless of the outcome of its ongoing counter-offensive. The deal would likely be for a shorter period than the commitment to Israel, which typically runs in 10-year intervals. Kiev and some European allies have been advocating for Ukraine’s full NATO membership, including a collective defense guarantee.

However, opponents of the initiative argue it would escalate the Ukraine conflict and confirm Russia’s justification for the special operation, one of which was NATO’s encroachment across Europe since the start of the century. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has reportedly threatened to boycott the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, next month if he is not given a roadmap for Ukraine joining the military alliance as a full member. Last week, outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reportedly suggested a “compromise” proposal when he spoke to US President Joe Biden. Part of that compromise stipulated a pledge to continue providing the Kiev regime with weapons, regardless of the level of success of its counter-offensive.

The deal would also ascend Ukraine to the council level in NATO, which is the status Russia maintained until 2014, when the relationship between Russia and the West collapsed. US media reported only Germany has so far sided with Biden in his plan for Ukraine; however, other members also have their doubts about Ukraine being ready to join the military bloc. Part of the Biden plan would be to commit the US to Ukraine for longer periods, limiting the amount of public debate in the US over Ukraine aid. Citing Biden administration officials, media reported the plan would “bleed some of the politics out of episodic debates about how much aid to commit to Ukraine in the next six months or a year.”

Read more …

“Residents in Crimea decided to join Russia. This position was also shared by former French Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Valery Giscard d’Estaing, and I stand with them, too, that this issue has nothing to do with today’s conflict in Ukraine..”

Le Pen Says Crimea ‘Has Nothing To Do’ With Conflict In Ukraine (TASS)

Crimea is an inseparable part of Russia and has nothing to do with today’s conflict in Ukraine, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the parliamentary faction of the National Rally party, told France Info radio on Thursday. “Crimea has nothing to do with the conflict in Ukraine,” she maintained. “Residents in Crimea decided to join Russia. This position was also shared by former French Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Valery Giscard d’Estaing, and I stand with them, too, that this issue has nothing to do with today’s conflict in Ukraine,” emphasized Le Pen, who was incumbent French leader Emmanuel Macron’s main rival in the presidential election in 2017 as well as last year. According to the parliamentarian, “the conflict in Ukraine is related to the Minsk agreements, which do not concern Crimea.”

Le Pen underlined that she views Crimea to be a part of Russia. “I have been saying this for 10 years already, and I have not changed my mind,” the far-right politician said. She insists that “the Donbass issue should be central at talks to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.” Taking questions from members of the lower chamber of the French parliament, the National Assembly, in late May, Le Pen said she considers Crimea a legitimate Russian territory. The politician said she had her own impressions from her trips to the peninsula, where she talked to Crimean residents and could see for herself that they are more inclined towards Russia.

Crimea was transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954 at the initiative of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. After a coup in Ukraine in February 2014, the governments of Crimea and Sevastopol held a referendum on the peninsula’s reunification with Russia. The overwhelming majority of voters supported reunification (96.7% in the Republic of Crimea and 95.6% in the City of Sevastopol, respectively), with turnout reaching 80%. Despite the convincing results of the referendum, Kiev and the EU have refused to recognize Crimea as being part of Russia.

Read more …

It’s been done before. Many times.

A History of Ceasefires & Peace in Ukraine (Wright)

Negotiations, ceasefires, armistices and peace agreements are as old as wars themselves. Every war ends with some version of one of them. Wars have been studied endlessly, but lessons learned on how to end the wars have generally been ignored by those conducting the world’s latest wars. To stop the killing in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, people of conscience must do everything they can to make negotiations for a ceasefire become a reality. That was the purpose of the International Summit for Peace in Ukraine held in Vienna last weekend. Over 300 persons from 32 countries attended the conference and participated in the robust program to discuss how to create conditions for a ceasefire and ultimately an agreement to stop the killing. The websites for the International Peace Bureau and the Peace in Ukraine summit were hacked the day after the conference but should be up and running soon.

[..] Using data from 48 conflicts between 1946 and 1997, political scientist Virginia Page Fortna has shown that strong agreements that arrange for demilitarized zones, third-party guarantees, peacekeeping, or joint commissions for dispute resolution and contain specific (versus vague) language produced more lasting cease-fires that provide conditions for dialogue for an armistice or agreement. Figuring out how to make the cease-fire be effective will be the key task. Despite its less-than-stellar track record, the U.S. as a co-belligerent should work with the Ukrainian government to figure out effective cease-fire measures. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has already described any new negotiations as “Minsk 3,” a reference to the two cease-fire deals that were brokered with Russia in the Belarusian capital in 2014 and 2015, after its annexation of Crimea and fighting in the Donbass region.

The Minsk 1 and 2 agreements included no effective mechanisms for ensuring the parties’ compliance and failed to end the violence. Minsk 1 and 2 were later acknowledged by NATO and the European Union as a ploy for “buying time” for the West’s buildup of Ukrainian forces and equipment. Having been in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves for 29 years and working as a U.S. diplomat for 16 years, I can testify to the results of endless studies of the consequences of war. One example is the year-long U.S. Department of State Iraq Study Group, being ignored by U.S. politicians and policy makers, and lessons learned on how to end deadly conflicts being ignored by U.S. military and national security experts.

I suspect that few Ukrainian, Russian, U.S. and NATO policy makers know of the United Nations’ 18-page guide to the Do’s and Don’ts of Ceasefire Agreements, based on their experience in conflicts. Therefore, for the record, I want to mention the main points of the “Do’s and Don’ts of Ceasefire Agreements,” so no one can say, “We Didn’t Know” such work has been done already and the pitfalls of ceasefire agreements well identified.

Read more …

De-Dollarization is happening now. Just not in one big leap.

De-Dollarization ‘Could Happen Much Quicker Than Most Think’ (Sp.)

Sanctions and trade embargoes have accelerated the movement of many nations, including Russia, to boost efforts to shed reliance on the US dollar, which has been increasingly “weaponized” by the West. Recent moves by BRICS countries offer hope that the dominance of the greenback in the world economy will eventually be uprooted. De-dollarization could happen much quicker than most people think, Michael Goddard, president of the Netley Group, said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). SPIEF 2023 entered day two on Thursday, and the unique global economic and business event focused on de-dollarization – a buzzword of late among countries seeking to ditch the hegemony of the American greenback. The BRICS group of countries has been spearheading the movement.

A common currency is one of the bold steps being mulled over among other tools that the bloc, which unites the world’s largest developing economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, has at its disposal to escape the hegemony of the US-dominated economic order. As a number of other countries have expressed desire to join the bloc, including Argentina, Iran, Indonesia, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, the trend towards dumping the dollar is likely to grow even stronger. “A new BRICS currency that’s backed by some kind of asset, gold or a basket of assets, as they’re discussing, from a trade basis, if all the BRICS countries and BRICS+ and others trade that way [it] will almost immediately depress the amount of dollars that are used in trade. And over a period of a few years, that will accelerate greatly,” Michael Goddard told Sputnik.

However, he clarified that that if one nurtures hopes of ditching the dollar, which is the global reserve currency, you “actually need reserve.” The tremendous advantage of the dollar at the moment is the US bond market, Goddard said, adding “One of the ways for the BRICS to replicate that, and then displace it, is to link their bond markets, and the governments and the populace actually start to buy the bonds which are denominated in the new currency. And I believe that if they do that, de-dollarization could happen much quicker than most people think.”To all those skeptics of the BRICS currency who warn of the vast differences of the economies of member-states, Michael Goddard enumerated ways that this “divide” could be overcome successfully.

One way is for BRICS to create a currency “backed either by gold or a basket of commodities that are trusted,” and then “trade with 80 percent of the world.” “And I believe that most people who are not in America, the UK, or Europe, would like an alternative to the dollar, don’t want to be at risk from being sanctioned, their assets being frozen. And I think the momentum of that will actually allow the currency to take root and then grow,” Goddard concluded.

Read more …

“Zlochevsky allegedly told the CHS he was dismayed by Trump’s victory, fearing an investigation would reveal his payments to the Biden family..”

The Bidens ‘Coerced’ Burisma To Pay $10 Million In Bribes – CHS (Fed.)

The Bidens allegedly “coerced” a foreign national to pay them $10 million in bribes, according to individuals familiar with the investigation into the FBI’s handling of the FD-1023 confidential human source report. What, if anything, agents did to investigate these explosive claims remains unknown, however, with sources telling The Federalist the FBI continues to stonewall. On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed a foreign national — identified by individuals with knowledge of the matter as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky — allegedly possessed 17 recordings implicating the Bidens in a pay-to-play scandal. While 15 of the audio recordings consisted of phone calls between Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden, two were of calls the Ukrainian had with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to the FD-1023.

The Federalist has now learned the FD-1023 reported the CHS saying the Bidens “coerced” Zlochevsky to pay the bribes. Sources familiar with the investigation also explained the context of Zlochevsky’s statements, and that context further bolsters the CHS’s reporting. In the FD-1023 from June 30, 2020, the confidential human source summarized earlier meetings he had with Zlochevsky. According to the CHS, in the 2015-2016 timeframe, the CHS, who was providing advice to Zlochevsky, told the Burisma owner to stay away from the Bidens. Then, after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential contest, the CHS asked Zlochevsky if he was upset Trump won.

Zlochevsky allegedly told the CHS he was dismayed by Trump’s victory, fearing an investigation would reveal his payments to the Biden family, which included a $5 million payment to Hunter Biden and a $5 million payment to Joe Biden. According to the CHS, the Burisma executive bemoaned the situation, claiming the Bidens had “coerced” him into paying the bribes. The CHS responded that he hoped Zlochevsky had taken precautions to protect himself. Zlochevsky then allegedly detailed the steps he had taken to avoid detection, stressing he had never paid the “Big Guy” directly and that it would take some 10 years to unravel the various money trails. It was only then that Zlochevsky mentioned the audio recordings he had made of the conversations he had with Hunter and Joe Biden, according to the CHS.

The broader context of this conversation adds to the plausibility of Zlochevsky’s claims that he possessed recordings implicating the Bidens. And we already know from Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer that the FBI considered the CHS, who relayed Zlochevsky’s claims to the FBI, a “highly credible” source. Further, according to individuals familiar with the investigation, the FBI admitted the CHS’s intel was unrelated to the information Rudy Giuliani had provided the Western District of Pennsylvania’s U.S. attorney’s office — the office then-Attorney General William Barr had tasked with reviewing any new information related to Ukraine. Sources told The Federalist that investigators out of the Pittsburgh office, in addition to reviewing Giuliani’s information, searched internal FBI databases and came across an earlier FD-1023 related to the CHS. That earlier FD-1023 then led to agents questioning the CHS on June 30, 2020, uncovering the details concerning Burisma’s alleged bribery of the Bidens.

[..] Biden family business. Those records provide concrete evidence of a pattern of public corruption involving foreign nationals, with Joe Biden at the helm. There are still more banking records to review, along with the many details recently discovered when the whistleblower came forward with the FD-1023. Apparently, Zlochevsky wasn’t far from the mark when he said it would take 10 years to unravel the complex payment path that led to Joe Biden.

Read more …

“Are there tapes that you accepted bribes, President Biden? Is that true?”

Internet Ignites as Biden Laughs Off Bribery Question (Sp.)

The US House Oversight Committee is investigating claims of a political bribery scheme involving a foreign national based on information provided to the FBI by a confidential source who alleges Joe Biden and his son Hunter received a total of $10Mln from Ukrainian energy company Burisma to help end an investigation into the entity. A host of internet critics have lambasted Joe Biden’s response to a question about the alleged bribery scandal in which he has been implicated. “Are there tapes that you accepted bribes, President Biden? Is that true?” a reporter asked the Democratic POTUS. The reporter was referring to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma bribery allegations dating to Biden’s time as vice-president, and the reported existence of audio recordings of his conversations with an executive proving the claims.

But the 80-year-old, who was on his way out of the White House East Room after an event with US diplomats, stopped, turned around, and smirked, while remaining silent. He then shook his head, and ambled down the hallway.
Columnist Miranda Devine tweeted that the president was “laughing in America’s face”. Others chimed in, deploring Biden’s “condescending” and “mocking” response. Republican Senator from Iowa, Chuck Grassley, revealed on Monday that a Burisma whistleblower who allegedly paid Joe Biden and his son Hunter retained 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them as an “insurance policy”. The senator cited the FBI’s unclassified 1023 form drafted in 2020 on the Biden family. The “foreign national” reportedly referred to Joe Biden as the “Big Guy”.

The US House Oversight Committee is investigating a possible political bribery scheme involving a foreign national. The investigation is based on information provided to the FBI by a confidential human source who alleges that Joe Biden and his son Hunter received a total of $10Mln from Ukrainian energy company Burisma to help end a probe into the entity. The president dismissed the allegations without elaborating on details. Earlier in the day, former President Donald Trump promised that if he were elected he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden, his family and others allegedly engaged in corruption that negatively affects the United States.

Read more …

While Trump was being impeached.

The Biggest Coverup In Political History (GP)

In 2019 One America News Network investigative journalist Chanel Rion released a three part made for TV series detailing Joe Biden and Hunter Biden’s criminal dealings in Ukraine. The evidence Chanel Rion and Rudy Giuliani brought forth was enough to start a corruption investigation into Joe Biden. Chanel traveled to Ukraine with Rudy Giuliani to investigate the money laundering schemes by the Biden Crime Family. What they came back with was a trough of evidence and documents that detailed bribes and payments to Hunter Biden for years and at least one bribe to Joe Biden for $900,000 from Ukrainian officials.


Chanel Rion and Rudy Giuliani interviewed several witnesses who destroyed Adam Schiff’s baseless impeachment case against President Trump. In the three part EXCLUSIVE report, Rudy Giuliani debunked the impeachment hoax and exposed Biden family corruption in Ukraine and Latvia. In the series Rudy and Chanel expose the numerous media lies told to the American public by the lemming media to protect Joe Biden The mainstream media is once again exposed as a very corrupt arm of the Democrat Party. Joe Biden should have been jailed years ago. Here is background material The Gateway Pundit published back in 2020 before the presidential election. The DOJ ignored this evidence against Joe Biden.

“Ukrainian Pariamentarian Andriy Derkach held a much publicized press conference last October in Ukraine. In his press conference Derkach revealed that Joe Biden was paid $900,000 for lobbying efforts from Burisma Holdings in Ukraine. Derkach even brought charts and images as proof during his presentation. This is the same organization that paid Hunter Biden over $50,000 a month to sit on their board in an obvious pay-for-play maneuver. Cristina Laila reported on this development back in October last year…” Former Vice President Joe Biden was personally paid $900,000 for lobbying activities from Burisma Holdings, according to Ukrainian MP Andriy Derkach.
Derkach publicized the documents at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency Wednesday as he said the records, “describe the mechanism of getting money by Biden Sr.”


“This was the transfer of Burisma Group’s funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe, personally to Joe Biden through a lobbying company. Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which according to open sources, in particular, the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden. The payment reference was payment for consultative services,” Derkach said. During his press conference Derkach even displayed images and a timeline of Joe Biden’s nefarious dealings in the Ukraine. The entire press conference by Andriy Derkach was recorded and posted online. For some strange reason the liberal mainstream media had NO INTEREST in reporting on this story at the time. They totally ignored the information. In October 2020 Andrii Derkach announced a second laptop belonging to Hunter Biden’s business contacts in Ukraine has been seized by law enforcement. The Gateway Pundit is currently following up on this claim.

Read more …

“And I know, Andy, that you know, had it happened during a jury trial, it would be a mistrial, right there.”

Ex-Trump Attorney Claims He Witnessed 45 Instances of DOJ Misconduct (Med.)

Former Trump attorney Tim Parlatore argued on MSNBC Tuesday that “prosecutorial misconduct” could derail Donald Trump‘s federal trial. Parlatore claimed to a highly skeptical panel that he was in the room and witnessed misconduct during the grand jury proceedings. “What are the issues that you think would lead to this case never going to trial?” Andrew Weissmann asked during an MSNBC panel. “The biggest issue, of course, Andy, is prosecutorial misconduct,” Parlatore said, before laying out his accusations against the federal prosecutors. “This is a case where you have prosecutors who have consistently demonstrated lack of ethics and willingness to lie to federal judges in sealed proceedings.

Willingness to, in the grand jury, openly suggest to the jurors that they may take the invocation of constitutional rights as evidence of guilt. Willingness to meet with an attorney for one of the witnesses and suggest that his application for a judgeship is something that should be considered and is a reason to convince his client to change his mind. ” A skeptical Weissmann interjected to ask how Parlatore knew of the alleged misconduct since grand juries usually operate in secret. “Because I was in the room,” Parlatore said. “It happened right in front of me.” Parlatore was a witness before the grand jury considering the classified documents case against Trump. Weissmann then asked what Parlatore saw.

“Forty-five separate times — I know sounds like I made that number up — but 45 separate times they tried to get into attorney-client privileged information and frequently when the question was asked about conversations between attorney and client, they would turn to the grand jury and say, ‘so you’re refusing to provide that information to the grand jury?’ At a certain point, further exchange ensued where the prosecutor says, ‘well isn’t it possible to waive the privilege? And if President Trump is being so cooperative, why won’t he waive the privilege and allow you to tell the jury about his conversations with you?’ That’s totally improper. And I know, Andy, that you know, had it happened during a jury trial, it would be a mistrial, right there.”

Read more …

“..the threats to the lawyers are greater than at any time since McCarthyism. Nor is the comparison to McCarthyism a stretch.”

Why Donald Trump Cannot Get a Top-Tier Lawyer (Dershowitz)

Former President Donald Trump has now been arraigned and pleaded not guilty. He was represented by two lawyers, neither of whom he apparently wants to lead his defense at trial. He has been interviewing Florida lawyers, and several top ones have declined. I know, because I have spoken to them. There are disturbing suggestions that among the reasons lawyers are declining the case is because they fear legal and career reprisals. There is a nefarious group that calls itself The 65 Project that has as its goal to intimidate lawyers into not representing Trump or anyone associated with him. They have threatened to file bar charges against any such lawyers. When these threats first emerged, I wrote an op-ed offering to defend pro bono any lawyers that The 65 Project goes after.

So The 65 Project immediately went after me, and contrived a charge based on a case in which I was a constitutional consultant, but designed to send a message to potential Trump lawyers: if you defend Trump or anyone associated with him, we will target you and find something to charge you with. The lawyers to whom I spoke are fully aware of this threat — and they are taking it seriously. There may be other reasons as well for why lawyers are reluctant to defend Trump. He is not the easiest client, and he has turned against some of his previous lawyers, as some of his previous lawyers have turned against him. This will be a difficult case to defend and an unpopular one with many in the legal profession and in general population.

Good lawyers, however, generally welcome challenges, especially in high-profile cases. This case is different: the threats to the lawyers are greater than at any time since McCarthyism. Nor is the comparison to McCarthyism a stretch. I recall during the 1950s how civil liberties lawyers, many of whom despised communism, were cancelled, and attacked if they dared to represent people accused of being communists. Even civil liberties organizations stayed away from such cases, for fear that it would affect their fundraising and general standing in the community. It may even be worse today, as I can attest from my own personal experiences, having defended Trump against an unconstitutional impeachment in 2020. I was cancelled by my local library, community center and synagogue. Old friends refused to speak to me and threatened others who did. My wife, who disagreed with my decision to defend Trump, was also ostracized. There were physical threats to my safety.

Read more …

“disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.”

First Roger Waters, Now C.J. Hopkins (Matt Taibbi)

It’s become axiomatic that the United States “lags far behind” Europe when it comes to hate speech law. Everyone from Joe Biden to would-be disinformation Czarina Nina Jankowicz to New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger have suggested the United States needs to move more in Europe’s direction, toward stricter rules and “illegal hate speech,” which “you will have soon also in the U.S.,” as European Commission Vice President for Values Vera Jourova put it at the Davos conference this year. It makes sense. After all, who’s for hate speech? What possible downside can there be to disallowing expressions of racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, transphobia? C.J. Hopkins can answer that. Following a similar case involving Roger Waters, the American playwright, Substack contributor, and editor of Consent Factory has been placed under investigation by a Berlin prosecutor for tweeting an image of his book, The Rise of the New Normal Reich. A scathing criticism of global pandemic policy, his cover features a white mask with a white swastika you have to squint to see:

According to German authorities, the author through this image is “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.”] Here are some other books legally on sale in Germany:

As was the case with Waters, the Nazi imagery in C.J.’s book is used to make a satirical point. Unlike the Waters case, there’s absolutely nothing in C.J.’s outside-of-text history that even theoretically could be used to argue hidden/dangerous subtext. “It would take all of about 20 seconds of anyone looking at my actual work to see how absolutely opposed I am to anything resembling, totalitarianism, fascism, authoritarianism, anything,” he says. I first read C.J. at the outset of the Russiagate scandal, when from the amusing Statler-and-Waldorf remove of expat life he wrote witty columns about how far off the rocker America had fallen. A terrific comic prose stylist, he ripped our culture for obsessing over “Putin-Nazis,” noting the new Russophobia was just “a minor variation on the original War on Terror narrative we’ve been indoctrinated with since 2001.”


These columns are worth a re-read. C.J. was ahead of me, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, and others in seeing how Trump-era propaganda campaigns deranged the population. We had uncomfortable correspondence after Covid-19 hit, when I wasn’t so sure we were dealing with the same kinds of official lies this time, and worried about the wisdom, say, of writing “pandemic” in quotation marks. I rolled my eyes when I saw him cite an old quote from Hermann Goering, saying, “All you have to do is tell [people] they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” But he placed it astride this real quote from California State Senator Richard Pan, about “anti-vaxxers”: “These extremists have not yet been held accountable, so they continue to escalate violence against the body public… We must now summon the political will to demand that domestic terrorists face consequences for their words and actions.”

Read more …

“Electric wildfires could burn millions of acres of trees with far less efficiency for only 10 times the price.!”

Joe Biden Announces By 2025 All Wildfires Must Be Electric (BBee)

Speaking from the White House, President Biden announced his administration’s bold plan to require all wildfires be electric by 2025. “My administration is committed to fighting pancakes, I mean climate change, and today we announce our boldest initiative yet!” mumbled the President to a group of dolls gathered in his closet he mistook for reporters gathered on the White House lawn. “By 2025, all wildfires will be powered exclusively by clean, electric energy. Gotta do it, folks! Not a joke! I wonder what that redhead smells like!” The Biden team unveiled details of the plan, including new statutes mandating all wildfires obtain permits for electric usage before being allowed to burn down acres of forest land.

“Electric wildfires are the future of climate technology,” declared Mark Patterson, a representative from the Bureau of Land Management. “I’m thrilled to see our president take a powerful position against destructive, gas-powered wildfires. Electric wildfires could burn millions of acres of trees with far less efficiency for only 10 times the price.!” The Biden administration told reporters they’ve spoken with wildfires across the country and have nearly reached an agreement with the fires, which includes provisions to convert current wood-burning fires into electric-only in just three years. The President hailed the move as another major step forward in his administration’s ongoing commitment to spend as many federal dollars on completely normal, practical, common-sense climate initiatives as possible. Critics say the plan could use up precious cobalt meant for iPhones and Teslas.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Loudest bird
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669317438574415873

 

 

Komodo

 

 

Eagle ray
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669383386832486402

 

 

Young ‘uns

 

 

Owl’s ear
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669363135294078979

 

 

Sequoia
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669357721030914051

 

 

Fuxi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669391436557451267

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jun 152023
 


Georgia O’Keeffe New York Street with Moon 1925

 

Ukraine Lost Some 7,500 People on Contact Line Since June 4 – Russian MoD (Sp.)
House Dems Refuse To Say Whether They Support Cluster Bombs For Ukraine (IC)
US Knew Ukraine Planned To Destroy Kakhovka Dam – Moscow (RT)
Hungary Hope For Trump’s Return To White House To Bring Peace To Ukraine (TASS)
US, Chinese FM’s Phone Call Could Be Precondition for Future Dialogue (Sp.)
West Very Afraid New, Large-Scale War Will Break Out – Lukashenko (TASS)
Moscow Offered To ‘Lease’ Crimea From Kiev – Lukashenko (RT)
How African Leaders Decided To Broker Peace Between Russia And Ukraine (Az.)
Erdogan Nixes Sweden’s NATO Bid (Cradle)
Western Sanctions Backfired – US Analyst (RT)
The Biden Family Multi-Million Dollar Crime Spree (GP)
Burisma Energy Accountant, Who Exposed Biden Bribery Scheme Found Dead (TPV)
$10M Magically Appeared In Biden 2017 Tax Return; House GOP Investigating (TPN)
EU Regulators Seek Breakup Of Google Ad Business Over “Illegal” Practices (ZH)
Confidential Pfizer Document Shows 1.6 Million Adverse Events (Horowitz)

 

 

 

 

600 pages
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669021253594750983

 

 

Nap Macgregor

 

 

 

 

RT trolling

 

 

House Walensky

 

 

 

 

Trump 77th

 

 

Happy BDay

 

 

Capsized refugee boat off Greek coast yesterday. 79 dead, hundreds missing.

Sachs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669016814754443266

 

 

Pepe Escobar @RealPepeEscobar
R.I.P. UKRAINE 1/2
Last month, hush hush, the Kiev gang SOLD Ukraine to $8.5 trillion-worth BlackRock. The deal was sealed by the Government of Ukraine and BlackRock’s VP Philipp Hildebrand. They will set up a Ukrainian Development Fund (UDF) for “reconstruction”.

R.I.P. UKRAINE 2/2
“Reconstruction” of Ukraine by BlackRock will focus on energy, infrastructure, agriculture, industry and IT. ALL remaining valuable assets in rump Ukraine will be gobbled up – from Metinvest and DTEK (energy) to Naftogaz, Ukrainian Railways and Ukrenergo.

 

 

 

 

Add in the Russian deaths and that’s over 1,000 a day. For what?

Ukraine Lost Some 7,500 People on Contact Line Since June 4 – Russian MoD (Sp.)

Ukrainian troops have lost about 7,500 military both killed and injured on the line of contact alone since June 4, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. “In total, since June 4, the Ukrainian armed forces have lost about 7,500 people killed and wounded on the line of contact alone, not counting the dead military personnel as a result of the use of Russian long-range precision weapons and aviation in the depths of Ukrainian territory,” the ministry said in a statement. Over the past day, Ukraine unsuccessfully conducted offensives in the South Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Donetsk directions, continuing to suffer losses, the ministry said. Losses of the Ukrainian army in the Donetsk direction exceeded 205 military and 10 pieces of equipment over the past day, the ministry said.

In the Donetsk direction near the settlements of Pervomaiskoe and Petrovskoe, Russia successfully repulsed two enemy attacks, the ministry said in a statement. “During the fighting, the losses of Ukrainian troops amounted to more than 205 military personnel, two armored combat vehicles, seven vehicles, and two D-20 howitzers,” the ministry said. Near the Vremevka ledge, Russia also repelled two attacks, the ministry said, adding that Ukraine lost 11 armored vehicles, including four tanks. Ukraine lost more than 800 soldiers and 20 tanks in the South Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions in the past day, the ministry said. “In total, in the past day, enemy losses in the South Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions amounted to more than 800 Ukrainian military, 20 tanks, four infantry fighting vehicles, 15 armored combat vehicles, two US-made M777 artillery systems, Msta-B and D-30 howitzers, as well as a Grad multiple rocket launcher combat vehicle,” the ministry said.

Russian aviation prevented the attack of Ukrainian assault units in the Zaporozhye direction near the settlement of Zherebyanky, the ministry added. “[On Tuesday night], the Russian armed forces carried out group strikes with sea and air-based long-range high-precision weapons at places of concentration of reserves of the Ukrainian armed forces and foreign mercenaries, as well as warehouses of ammunition, weapons and military equipment of foreign production,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that all assigned objects are hit. The Russian armed forces carried out missile strikes on Ukrainian reserves, foreign mercenaries, as well as warehouses of foreign-made equipment over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

Read more …

War criminals. 1,000 deaths a day is not enough.

House Dems Refuse To Say Whether They Support Cluster Bombs For Ukraine (IC)

Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said recently that he is keeping the door open to sending cluster munitions — widely banned around the world due to their track record of maiming and killing civilians — to Ukraine. In a May interview with Politico, Smith said that the advantage of cluster munitions “is we have a lot of them. To the extent that we’re unable to provide sufficient ammo in other areas, they could certainly fill that gap.” He also framed the munitions as a potential way to end a conflict with no end in sight. “If our cluster munitions could bring the war to a conclusion sooner, it’s something I’m open to,” Smith said. This followed comments Smith made a week earlier at a Council on Foreign Relations event where he similarly described the pros and cons of sending cluster munitions to Ukraine.

Ukraine has asked the United States to provide it with cluster bombs, which Russian troops have deployed against Ukrainian civilians and which Ukraine has reportedly used as well. The Biden administration has expressed concerns about Ukraine’s requests, but it also hasn’t rejected them outright — and U.S. lawmakers continue to press the administration to provide the weapons. While most of those calls have come from Republicans, Smith’s openness to the idea, amid a general bipartisan consensus on sending arms to Ukraine, shows that congressional pressure is ramping up.

The administration seems unlikely to approve sending cluster munitions to Ukraine, but that the idea is even on the table has raised concerns among international security advocates about the disintegration of humanitarian law and the potential for the U.S. to further erode standing norms of civilian protection. “As long as the administration holds the line, keeping with the approach that so many of our NATO allies and others in the global community takes, that will be positive,” said Jeff Abramson, senior fellow at the Arms Control Association. “It’s frustrating that much of what you’re hearing from [Capitol Hill] is a call for sending cluster munitions. That Representative Smith did not fully cut off the possibility is also wrongheaded. These weapons have not been used by the United States in more than a decade.”

[..] The United States has not used cluster munitions since 2009, when it used the weapons during a strike in Yemen, and cluster munitions have not been produced in the U.S. since the manufacturer Textron shut down production in 2016. Yet the U.S. military maintains massive stockpiles of them. Under a 2017 policy directive, the U.S. military is still authorized to use weapons containing submunitions, in sharp contrast to the dozens of countries that have banned them. The international community has entrenched norms against the use of cluster munitions, said Cesar Jaramillo, executive director at Project Ploughshares, a peace research institute in Canada, namely because they cause indiscriminate harm to civilians and prolong the impacts of war by leaving unexploded munitions. Cluster munitions fracture before impact, sending out a cascade of small bombs that can impact well beyond their intended target.

Read more …

And with US weapons too.

US Knew Ukraine Planned To Destroy Kakhovka Dam – Moscow (RT)

Washington was perfectly aware of Kiev’s plan to destroy the Kakhovka dam since US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers were used in the attack, high-ranking Russian diplomat Konstantin Gavrilov said on Wednesday. HIMARS launchers are “high-precision systems that make use of the US GPS navigation system for targeting,” Gavrilov, who heads Russia’s delegation at the Vienna talks on military security and arms control, said. Any targets picked out by Kiev for these systems are “coordinated with the Americans,” he added. According to the official, Ukrainian forces struck the Kakhovka dam with more than 300 HIMARS missiles over the summer and autumn of 2022. “The Americans knew about it. Yet, they did nothing to prevent the catastrophe,”Gavrilov said.

On Wednesday, Russian officials also presented their estimates of the damage caused by the destruction of the dam. The losses amounted to over 1.2 billion rubles ($14 million), according to the Russian Emergencies Ministry. More than 7,000 people have been evacuated from the risk zone, the ministry added. The dam collapsed last week, leading to both banks of the Dnieper River being flooded and multiple deaths. Moscow and Kiev have since traded accusations over who is to blame for the disaster. Officials in Kiev claimed that Russia blew up the dam to supposedly stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the area. However, this idea was dismissed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said the local terrain was already extremely unfavorable for an attack even before the incident. He also said that Russia would have had no interest in destroying the dam, as it would spell “severe consequences for those territories that we control and which are Russian.”

Last week, Ukraine slammed Türkiye for suggesting a UN-backed three-party investigation into the incident. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said at that time that he was “sick and tired” of calls to probe events that occurred during the conflict. The Ukrainian envoy to the UN, Sergey Kislitsa, claimed that launching such a probe would be“impossible.” Russian officials said they were not surprised by Kiev’s reaction to the Turkish proposal. Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, also accused Washington of attempts to “whitewash” Kiev by shifting the blame onto Russia. The envoy stated that Ukraine’s “patrons” in Washington “never criticize Kiev,” but instead approve of all of its actions.

Read more …

Nice angle.

Hungary Hope For Trump’s Return To White House To Bring Peace To Ukraine (TASS)

Hungary is pinning its hopes on a comeback by former US President Donald Trump, who could then bring the armed conflict in Ukraine to an end, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said. “If President Trump had won the last presidential election here in the United States, this war [in Ukraine] would not have broken out. <…> We do look at his possible return to the White House as a hope for a peaceful future,” the top Hungarian diplomat told Newsmax TV. Szijjarto also wished the former president victory in the 2024 presidential election and a favorable conclusion to all of the lawsuits filed against him. Budapest has repeatedly said that, in its view, not only Ukraine and Russia, but also the US, which is the biggest military and financial backer of the Kiev regime, should engage in peace talks to settle the conflict.

Speaking about Trump, Szijjarto called the politician “a true friend of Hungary” and wished him success in the upcoming lawsuits. “Whenever a conservative leader has a good chance to win an important [presidential] election as [former] President Trump, [who,] as far as we understand, has a good chance to return to the White House, then he or she gets immediately under an enormous attack by the liberal mainstream,” the top diplomat pointed out. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban earlier openly supported Trump. The US District Court for the Southern District of Florida filed two indictments against the former US president. Specifically, he is charged with mishandling classified documents and falsifying the business records of his company, the Trump Organization.

Orban is one of the few world leaders, if not the only one, to publicly support Trump in connection with the lawsuits filed against him. The Hungarian prime minister has long been a supporter of the former US president and openly wished him success in the last presidential election as the candidate of the Republican Party. At the same time, Orban has had tense relations with the administration of Trump’s Democratic successor, President Joe Biden. The US does not approve of Budapest’s independent stance on a number of international issues, including Ukraine, and Budapest in turn accuses Washington of seeking to interfere in Hungary’s domestic affairs and supporting the political opposition.

Read more …

Lukewarm welcome.

US, Chinese FM’s Phone Call Could Be Precondition for Future Dialogue (Sp.)

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang held a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on June 14, a Chinese national broadcaster revealed. The conversation occurred ahead of a reported visit by the top American official to the country. According to the report, during the conversation, the Chinese top diplomat highlighted that China-US relations have faced new difficulties and challenges this year, and “whose responsibility (for this) is clear”. He also stressed that the American side should show respect, refrain from meddling in China’s internal affairs, and stop undermining Beijing’s sovereign interests in security and development under the pretext of competition. Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China, noted that there has been a shift in the bipartisan consensus in the United States regarding pressure on China.

“Business circles in the United States consider the Chinese market to be very important and call for the economy not to be ‘held hostage’ by politics. They advocate adhering to normal principles of economic development and market principles, and avoiding the formulation of an Indo-Pacific strategy or any other form of ideologization,” the expert said. Moreover, there is still a year to go until the presidential elections in the United States, and Trump, who has already declared that he will immediately stop the conflict between Russia and Ukraine if he wins, could be Biden’s potential rival. According to Wang Yiwei, Biden is currently facing two main points of pressure. “First, the need to seek China’s support on the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, hoping that China can play an active role. Second, there is the issue of the US economy and the national debt”.

Although the debt ceiling has been raised, the problem is far from being solved, and the United States hopes that China will continue to buy US Treasury bonds. In fact, the economic chaos in the United States is closely related to the disruption of production chains, to which they themselves have contributed, and this has also led to tremendous pressure from American business circles. Against this backdrop, there are hopes in the United States for closer relations with China. However, the American media recently published fake news claiming that “China is building a surveillance base in Cuba (to spy on the US)”. “Considering that Blinken’s previous visit to China was postponed due to the balloon incident, this phone call could become a precondition for future dialogue in order to prevent further ruptures in contacts,” Wang Yiwei noted.

[..] Earlier, several US media outlets reported that Blinken was planning to make his delayed trip to China in the coming days, with an unnamed US official giving June 18 as the tentative date of his arrival in Beijing. The Chinese Foreign Ministry, however, has not confirmed these reports. If Blinken’s trip goes ahead, it will be the first one for a top US diplomat since 2018. Blinken canceled the February trip after the United States accused China of sending spy balloons into US airspace. Beijing has since denied the allegations.

Read more …

“..Volodya Zelensky. He is a `hero’ now, touring the globe. He is being kissed, hugged and all that. I thought he was smarter..”

West Very Afraid New, Large-Scale War Will Break Out – Lukashenko (TASS)

Despite its latest steps, the West is very afraid about the possibility of a new large-scale war or a nuclear disaster, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with the 60 Minutes talk show on Rossiya-1 television. “I have met with people playing an important role in this, who make radical, drastic and final decisions in the event of an `if’,’” Lukashenko said. “What they fear most is a nuclear disaster, and they have been sincere about this. They are afraid of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. It’s only natural,” he added. Minsk does not want things to play out that way either, Lukashenko assured. “We are not seeking that either, and we, too, are afraid. Because this, experts say, could cause a global catastrophe, and this planet may deorbit, if all these weapons explode,” he maintained.


According to Lukashenko, Russia may use nukes, if the enemy invades its territory or if this act of aggression threatens the existence of the state. He urged talks as long as there is an opportunity for them, but the West, he said, has been banning Ukraine from engaging in any. “I am confident and I have it on good information that the overwhelming majority in Ukraine, including the military who has been fighting and getting killed over there, would like to stop this war now,” the Belarusian leader maintained. “But then there are those hyped-up top-level officials led by [Ukrainian President] Volodya Zelensky. He is a `hero’ now, touring the globe. He is being kissed, hugged and all that. I thought he was smarter,” Lukashenko lamented.

Read more …

Moscow has flatly denied this.

Moscow Offered To ‘Lease’ Crimea From Kiev – Lukashenko (RT)

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed that Russia offered financial compensation to Ukraine for Crimea, when the two nations were engaged in peace talks mediated by Minsk. Speaking to a Russian media outlet on Wednesday, the Belarusian leader said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had shown him a draft document which was provisionally accepted by Moscow and Kiev. The proposed treaty was “fine” and included “some kind of long-term lease” regarding Crimea, Lukashenko stated. “It was a good process, but [the Ukrainians] dropped out of it,” he added. Belarus served as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine for years, and hosted talks in 2014 and 2015 which resulted in the signing of the so-called Minsk agreements, the UN-endorsed roadmap for Kiev’s reconciliation with Donbass.

After open hostilities broke out last year, several rounds of peace negotiations were held in Belarus, but talks later moved to Istanbul. The Türkiye-based round of discussions produced a draft agreement under which Kiev pledged to become a neutral state in exchange for security guarantees. However, it made a U-turn soon after, which Moscow described as Ukraine following a US order to continue fighting. Before Crimea rejected the 2014 armed coup in Kiev and voted in a referendum to rejoin Russia, Moscow paid Kiev an annual lease to use Sevastopol as the home base of its Black Sea Fleet. It was last renewed in 2010, when Moscow offered a gas price discount for the extension. With Crimea’s status changing, the Russian government declared the treaty null and void.

In the interview, Lukashenko claimed that the Minsk agreements had been negotiated in bad faith by Kiev and its backers, who used them to buy time for a military buildup in Ukraine. The resulting lack of trust poses a challenge for all future talks, he suggested, before reiterating his vision on how to stop hostilities. “If we agree to a peace process, the war stops, no movements, no tanks, no troops. If anyone is redeployed, I believe we should use nuclear weapons. That is the only way we can talk to them,” Lukashenko said of Ukraine and its backers. Minsk is a close Russian ally and has allowed the use of its territory for the military operation against Ukraine. In March, Russia announced that it would station some of its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus at Lukashenko’s request.

Read more …

Good thing they’re finding their voice.

How African Leaders Decided To Broker Peace Between Russia And Ukraine (Az.)

In a bold diplomatic move, seven African heads of state are preparing to embark on a journey to Ukraine and Russia later this week, as they bid to engage their counterparts in both countries in peace talks. Coordinated by the Brazzaville Foundation, a renowned non-governmental organization specializing in conflict resolution, the African Peace Initiative delegation is scheduled to meet Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in Kiev on June 16, followed by a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg the next day. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa first announced the African peace plan, now aptly titled ‘The Road to Peace’, on May 16. Although the details of the initiative have not been made public, Ramaphosa said that the team will meet with Putin and Zelensky to discuss how to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.

Mzuvukile Jeff Maqetuka, South Africa’s ambassador to Russia, told RT that the initiative differs from others in that the leaders are not presenting pre-drawn proposals. He stated that they would first sit down with their counterparts from Russia and Ukraine and discuss what caused the conflict. The mission has strategically drawn leaders from the continent’s five regions: southern, northern, central, eastern, and western. Senegalese President Macky Sall will represent West Africa, after leading the first African Union (AU) mission to Russia to plead for peace on the continent’s behalf at the start of the conflict in 2022. The southern region will be led by South Africa’s Ramaphosa and Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema, while Egypt’s Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will represent North Africa. Denis Sassou Nguesso of Central Africa’s Congo will also be making the trip, while Azali Assoumani of Comoros, who serves as president of the African Union, will represent the east of the continent alongside Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni.

These countries have all declared their non-aligned positions in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, refusing to make a unilateral decision. Vladimir Antwi-Danso, director of academic affairs at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, told RT that the mission is significant because it demonstrates that Africa can be proactive in intervening in global affairs. He emphasized that Africa has long taken a backseat to the international community, including the US, regarding action in conflicts that directly affect the continent. Ramaphosa, who is leading the initiative, has described the Ukraine conflict as “devastating,” adding that Africa is also suffering greatly as a result of the fighting. Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso said on Monday that Africa cannot “remain silent” because everyone is “suffering” the consequences.

Philani Mthembu, executive director at the Institute for Global Dialogue, believes the African leaders are trying to shield the continent from Western pressure to pick a side in the conflict, while also seeking to avoid the division that the crisis could cause within the African Union. South Africa, which has maintained a non-aligned stance, has also been pressed to take sides. Its ties with Russia as a BRICS member have led to accusations that the country has backed Moscow. Meanwhile, Confidence Isaiah-MacHarry, a security analyst at SBM Intelligence in Nigeria, said “the African attempt at peace efforts is an important pointer to the fact that Russia is still not isolated.”

Read more …

Hungary’s also a hold-out.

Erdogan Nixes Sweden’s NATO Bid (Cradle)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shot down the notion of Sweden joining the US-led security alliance NATO during next month’s Vilnius summit. According to Erdogan, the Nordic state has failed to uphold Ankara’s requests, as it recently permitted supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to demonstrate on the streets of Stockholm. Earlier this week, while on his way to Azerbaijan, the Turkish president told journalists that “terrorists” were allowed to protest, despite the fact that Stockholm said it was dedicated to meeting Ankara’s requirements to join NATO. These requirements involved extraditing members and supporters of the PKK, which the Turkish government considers “terrorists” due to its long-standing rivalry with Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq.

When asked about NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, an integral figure in pushing Sweden’s NATO bid, Erdogan remarked: “While Stoltenberg was expressing these views to us, unfortunately, at that time, terrorists were demonstrating in the streets again in Sweden,” adding that “now, we cannot approach this work positively within this table.” The presence of individuals linked to the PKK has hindered Sweden’s ability to acquire NATO membership following the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, which broke Sweden and Finland’s neutrality after decades of refraining from joining any security bloc. Despite Ankara’s continued block of Sweden’s ascension, Turkiye officially granted Finland eligibility to join NATO at the end of March.

Turkiye remains indecisive about Sweden’s proposal, claiming Swedish officials have not taken the necessary measures to crack down internally on members of the PKK and allied Kurdish militia groups, many of whom continue to reside in Stockholm. Earlier this year, a far-right Swedish politician burned several copies of the Quran, which further inflamed tensions. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described the act as “extremely serious” and an attempt to sabotage the nation’s NATO application.

Read more …

Day two of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum (SPIEF) today. Over 17,000 participants from 130 countries.. What boycott?

Western Sanctions Backfired – US Analyst (RT)

The attempts by the US and its allies to isolate Russia have failed, while the many rounds of sanctions havebackfired and not crippled the country’s economy as intended, American political analyst and car-industry veteran Douglas Andrew Littleton told RT on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum (SPIEF). Littleton added that he was disappointed with his government’s sanctions policy against Moscow. “I think what happened with the sanctions it’s backfiring on the West, and especially on America, in my humble opinion,” the analyst said. “I’m happy that Russia has been able to bypass and skirt the sanctions in so many ways with their friends and allies,” he added.


The US, EU, and allies have hit Russia with numerous rounds of unprecedented sanctions since the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. The penalties have affected entire sectors of the Russian economy, as well as businesses and individuals, including President Vladimir Putin. Discussing how the Russian economy has handled the Western pressure, Littleton said he believes that what Russia has been able to accomplish is “absolutely fantastic.” When asked about his impression of the St. Petersburg forum, he said: “I am in shock how big this forum is but very pleased to be here.” Over 17,000 participants from 130 countries have reportedly attended the SPIEF, which kicked off on Wednesday. Over the course of the four-day event, participants will discuss key issues related to the Russian and global economy.

Read more …

“..she wanted to testify, but to testify she wanted to be in the Witness Protection program. And she had four colleagues of hers who were willing to testify and support her.”

The Biden Family Multi-Million Dollar Crime Spree (GP)

As TGP reported on Tuesday — there are several eye witnesses with over a dozen audio recordings and numerous bank receipts that detail the Biden Crime Family’s illegal bribery payments. On Saturday America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Rita Cosby on Newsmax that he has a high-level witness who is the former chief accountant at Burisma who is willing to testify on the Biden crimes. She even has the Biden bank account transactions. She has the receipts! Rudy Giuliani: It’s extraordinary. I gave them one witness that any investigator would jump through hoops to go to. Gave them a witness who is a woman who was the chief accountant at this crooked company, Burisma. She was the wife of the former owner who died under suspicious circumstances. And, she was willing to give up all of the offshore bank accounts, including the Bidens’ accounts. She supervised the transfer of a lot more cash to the Bidens and other crooked politicians for Burisma.


On Monday Rudy Giuliani shared more details with the War Room audience. Rudy’s Burisma witness had FOUR COLLEAGUES willing to testify! Rudy Giuliani: “There was one very extraordinary piece of evidence. We had a woman in Ukraine who was the chief accountant for Burisma, the wife of the former partner of Mycola Zlochevsky who owned Burisma and is the major crook who was paying off the Bidens. And she wanted to turn she wanted to testify, but to testify she wanted to be in the Witness Protection program. And she had four colleagues of hers who were willing to testify and support her. She claimed that over an eight year period she supervised all of the offshore illegal bank accounts. All the money laundering went through her. Now, we weren’t sure she was telling the truth but we did have one transaction that I had gotten very early of a complete money laundering transaction for $14 million, some of which went through to Joe Biden with an indication that Joe got $900,000 of it and his family got a total of about 3 million of it.”

Watters
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669008669072142337

Read more …

And there goes Giuliani’s witness… The DOJ wanted nothing to do with her.

Burisma Energy Accountant Who Exposed Biden Bribery Scheme Found Dead (TPV)

The chief accountant at Ukraine’s Burisma Energy, who offered to provide US authorities with damning evidence regarding financial crimes involving Joe and Hunter Biden, has been found dead before she could testify. The Burisma whistleblower, who has been identified as the wife of the former Burisma owner Mykola Lisin, who also died in suspicious circumstances during the years of the Obama administration when vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter were active in Ukraine. Giuliani discussed the fate of the now-deceased whistleblower during an interview on Newsmax’s “Saturday Report” with Rita Cosby. According to Giuliani, who first brought to light Hunter Biden’s notorious “Laptop from Hell”, the whistleblower was the chief accountant at Burisma, the notoriously corrupt Ukrainian energy company.

During Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president under Obama, Burisma compensated Hunter with tens of thousands of dollars per month for his position on the company’s board, despite his complete lack of experience in the energy sector. During that period, then-Vice President Biden withheld U.S. assistance to Ukraine as a means of pressuring the government to dismiss Viktor Shokin, a senior prosecutor who was investigating Burisma and its owner for fraudulent activities. Giuliani, who previously served as President Donald Trump’s attorney, says the whistleblower offered to give a U.S. attorney highly compromising financial information about the Bidens. However, Giuliani says US authorities did everything they could to ignore her, bouncing her case around various offices, in an attempt to make her go away.

He revealed that the Pittsburgh attorney general had initially been investigating the case. But the investigation was later transferred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware, under former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr. Giuliani claims the Delaware office buried the case, despite the whistleblower being under threat of death. He says the whistleblower had evidence that included offshore bank account information that showed millions of dollars in bribes flowing to the Biden family and “other crooked politicians.” Despite the explosive nature of the evidence, Giuliani says prosecutors stonewalled the case and she died suddenly before she could testify. And now the mainstream media are refusing to acknowledge her existence.

“Well, of course, that’s the most ridiculous, idiotic statement to make on a day in which we find out that the Bidens took a $10 million bribe from a Ukrainian Mykola Zlochevsky, which I could have told you, you know, and did tell [the DOJ] three years ago,” Giuliani told Newsmax. “And they followed up on none of the evidence I gave them. They were hoping that people would disappear or die. It’s extraordinary.”

Read more …

Link to China?!

$10M Magically Appeared In Biden 2017 Tax Return; House GOP Investigating (TPN)

House Republicans are demanding increased transparency from President Joe Biden on his personal tax returns after an investigation found one of his corporate entities reported nearly $10 million in revenue without detailing the sources. The president’s critics believe the sudden influx of money may be related to allegations of bribery against the president. CelticCapri Corp, an S-corporation for the president, was not listed on the president’s personal tax returns or campaign website, raising eyebrows as to why the 46th president would conceal such a large income source from the public. While it is common to not list corporate revenue on a personal income statement, politicians running for national office typically disclose all sources of income in an attempt to appear as transparent as possible.

According to Breitbart, the conservative Federalist Society took issue with a 2020 article by USA Today which attempted to hold water for the president by claiming he earned “$15.6 million … from speaking fees and book deals” between 2017 and 2019 and that “more than $10 million of that total income was profits from Biden’s memoir ‘Promise Me, Dad’ and $3 million in profits from Jill Biden’s book.” Following the citations within the USA Today article led readers to no details on the S-corporation, creating what the Federal Society referred to as a “smokescreen.” House Republicans believe they may have found a bone to pick as they race to uncover the truth behind testimony from an FBI informant that President Biden took $5 million in bribes from a Ukrainian official to assist in the firing of another official and easing the path for his son Hunter Biden to conduct business operations in the country.

Members of the Republican caucus told Breitbart that the latest lack of transparency from the president is deeply concerning. “The President seems to find selling out our country funny. We don’t,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). “If he’s serious about proving our allegations wrong he should release his and his family’s unredacted bank records and show the American people where all this money is coming from. The FBI can’t protect him forever.” Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ), a successful businessman in his own right, told Breitbart News Joe Biden should come clean about the money in lieu of the alleged pay-for-pay scheme.

“The fact that there are credible claims signaling that a foreign national bribed the President of the United States with cash in exchange for influence over U.S. policy decisions is appalling. The American people deserve to know who paid the Bidens and what exactly they were paid for,” he said. “Now that we know there are recordings of conversations Joe Biden and his degenerate son had with a Burisma executive, it’s becoming more and more obvious how the indictment of President Trump is meant to be a distraction,” Crane added. “It would shock no one in this town if Joe Biden received millions of dollars from selling out the country in a bribery scheme and then hid that money in shady shell companies.”

Read more …

Yeah, break up that monopoly. It’s a disgrace.

EU Regulators Seek Breakup Of Google Ad Business Over “Illegal” Practices (ZH)

On Wednesday, European Union regulators informed Google that it “breached EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry.” Regulators seek to break up the US multinational technology company’s advertising empire. The European Commission, the European Union’s antitrust regulator, said, “Google abused its dominant positions” in the buying and selling of online ads across third-party apps and websites. ] The commission said that its preliminary view is Google must sell segments of its ad business to resolve the “inherent conflicts of interest” in digital advertising. However, there was no mention of what was to be sold. Regulators said Google “holds a dominant position” on “both sides of the market with its publisher ad server and with its ad-buying tools.” “The Commission preliminarily finds that, in this particular case, a behavioural remedy is likely to be ineffective to prevent the risk that Google continues such self-preferencing conducts or engages in new ones.

“Google is active on both sides of the market with its publisher ad server and with its ad buying tools and holds a dominant position on both ends. Furthermore, it operates the largest ad exchange. This leads to a situation of inherent conflicts of interest for Google. The Commission’s preliminary view is therefore that only the mandatory divestment by Google of part of its services would address its competition concerns.” The EU’s announcement comes months after the US Justice Department and eight states filed a lawsuit over Google’s ad business, claiming it illegally monopolizes the online ad market. This is the second US antitrust suit federal authorities have brought against the company’s ad empire.

“For 15 years, Google has pursued a course of anticompetitive conduct that has allowed it to halt the rise of rival technologies, manipulate auction mechanics, to insulate itself from competition, and force advertisers and publishers to use its tools,” Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote in a press release in January. The outcome of these three cases could have widespread implications for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, which recorded $60 billion in profit last year from advertising.

“So Google is present at almost all levels of the so-called adtech supply chain. Our preliminary concern is that Google may have used its market position to favour its own intermediation services. Not only did this possibly harm Google’s competitors but also publishers’ interests, while also increasing advertisers’ costs. If confirmed, Google’s practices would be illegal under our competition rules,” Margrethe Vestager, the executive vice president of the European Commission who oversees digital and competition policy, said in a statement. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported the EU was considering ordering a breakup of Google’s ad-tech business. And with pressure on both sides of the Atlantic, the walls are closing in on Google’s ad business.

Read more …

Painful at best.

Confidential Pfizer Document Shows 1.6 Million Adverse Events (Horowitz)

Over 10,000 categories of nearly 1.6 million adverse events – many of them serious and debilitating – brought to you by Pfizer! You might not have heard it in the news, but in recent months, Pfizer’s pharmacovigilance documents requested by the European Union’s drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency, have been released. They show that Pfizer knew about a sickening level of injury early on. An August 2022 document shows that the company already had observed the following scope of vaccine injury: • 508,351 individual case reports of adverse events containing 1,597,673 events; • One-third of the AEs were classified as serious, well above the standard for safety signals usually pegged at 15%; • Women reported AEs at three times the rate of men; • 60% of cases were reported with either “outcome unknown” or “not recovered,” so many of the injuries were not transient; • Highest number of cases occurred in the 31-50 year age group, and 92% did not have any comorbidities, which makes it very likely it was the vaccine causing such widespread, sudden injury.

These numbers alone suggest that all COVID shots should be defunded and Congress must immediately remove liability protections from the manufacturers. But a more recent document released by the Europeans is even more devastating, because it breaks down the 1.6 million adverse events observed by Pfizer by category and subcategory of ailment and injury. The 393-page confidential Pfizer document, dated Aug. 19, 2022, shows that Pfizer observed over 10,000 categories of diagnosis, many of them very severe and very rare. For example:

• Pfizer was aware of 73,542 cases of 264 categories of vascular disorders from the shots. Many of them are rare conditions.
• There were hundreds of categories of nervous system disorders, totaling 696,508 cases.
• There were 61,518 AEs from well over 100 categories of eye disorders, which is unusual for a vaccine injury.
• Likewise, there were over 47,000 ear disorders, including almost 16,000 cases of tinnitus, which even Mayo Clinic researchers observed as a common but often devastating side effect early on.
• There were roughly 225,000 cases of skin and tissue disorders.
• There were roughly 190,000 cases of respiratory disorders.
• Disturbingly, there were over 178,000 cases of reproductive or breast disorders, including disorders you wouldn’t expect, such as 506 cases of erectile dysfunction in men.
• Very disturbingly, there were over 77,000 psychiatric disorders observed following the shots, lending credence to Dr. Peter McCullough’s research observing case studies showing psychosis correlating with vaccination.
• 3,711 cases of tumors – benign and malignant
• Of course, there were almost 127,000 cardiac disorders, running the gamut of about 270 categories of heart damage, including many rare disorders, in addition to myocarditis.
• There were over 100,000 blood and lymphatic disorders, for both of which there’s a wealth of literature linking them to the spike protein.

2009

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Humming

 

 

Magpie
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669017609776373768

 

 

Coconut Crab

 

 

Kids play
https://twitter.com/i/status/1668656979424817160

 

 

Cat masks
https://twitter.com/i/status/1668958969333972992

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jun 132023
 


Edward Hopper The Circle Theater, New York 1936

 

Joe And Hunter Biden Caught On 17 Recordings With Burisma Owner (WE)
Comer Says Will View Additional FBI Documents on Possible Biden Crimes (Sp.)
The Democrats Versus Trump: A Bad Horror Movie? (Ron Paul)
Donald Trump’s Indictment Case has a Looming 2024 End Date (Turley)
Trump Promises “Final Battle” To “Demolish The Deep State” (SN)
We’re Not Finished (Jim Kunstler)
‘Cynical’ Ukrainian Counteroffensive Takes ‘Horrific’ Casualties (Tweedie)
Ukraine’s Counteroffensive To Last For Weeks Or Months – Macron (TASS)
Americans in Pain (Mazzarino)
Fox Sends Tucker Carlson Cease-and-Desist Letter (Axios)
Debt Crisis Was Bipartisan Excuse to ‘Cut Social Spending,’ Not Defense Budget (Sp.)
How The BRI Train Took The Road To Shangri-La (Pepe Escobar)
US Attempts ’Divide and Conquer’ Strategy Against BRICS (Pepe Escobar)

 

 

 

 

Oliver Stone

 

 

 

 

Ed Dowd

 

 

 

 

Sy Hersh Zelensky Embezzling $400 Million from US

 

 

Ritter

 

 

Blood clots
https://twitter.com/i/status/1668242537662803969

 

 

 

 

Insurance policy.

Joe And Hunter Biden Caught On 17 Recordings With Burisma Owner (WE)

A top Senate Republican revealed Monday that an FBI informant said the Ukrainian oligarch involved in an alleged “criminal bribery scheme” with Joe and Hunter Biden also claimed to have 17 recordings of his conversations with the president and his son. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) revealed on the Senate floor that a largely unredacted version of the bureau’s FD-1023 confidential human source form said that “the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them — 17 such recordings.” The Republican senator said, “These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot.”

Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian owner of Burisma, was the “foreign national” involved in the alleged “criminal bribery scheme” detailed in the FBI form, and Zlochevsky referred to Joe Biden as the “big guy” during a conversation several years before the June 2020 date of the bureau document, according to sources familiar with the FBI record who described its contents to the Washington Examiner. Grassley added Monday that, according to the FD-1023, “the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden” and “two audio recordings of phone calls between him and the-Vice President Joe Biden.” The senator also said the FBI record “also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware is handling the ongoing federal criminal investigation into Hunter Biden. It is allegedly up to U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump-appointed holdover, to decide whether to indict the president’s son. In February 2021, Joe Biden asked all Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump for their resignations, with Weiss a rare exception. “What is U.S. Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to the high-stakes bribery scheme?” Grassley asked Monday. Sources previously told the Washington Examiner that the Burisma owner discussed an alleged bribe of $5 million to Joe Biden and of $5 million to Hunter Biden, according to the paid FBI informant who said he heard this from Zlochevsky. The sources said Zlochevsky said he believed it would be difficult to unravel the alleged bribery scheme for at least 10 years because of the number of bank accounts involved.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1668308263350284293

Read more …

“Now, the FBI has told me there are more 1023 forms. I will be granted access to these additional docs..”

Comer Says Will View Additional FBI Documents on Possible Biden Crimes (Sp.)

US House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said on Monday that he will be granted access to additional FBI documents that contain allegations of potential criminal activity by President Joe Biden in his previous capacity as vice president. Earlier this month, lawmakers on the Oversight Committee were granted access to an FD-1023 form, which is used by the FBI to record information from confidential human sources, that alleged then-US Vice President Joe Biden engaged in a bribery scheme involving a foreign national. “Now, the FBI has told me there are more 1023 forms. I will be granted access to these additional docs,” Comer said in a statement via Twitter. The document alleges that the president and his son Hunter received a total of $10 million to help end a probe into Ukrainian energy industry holding company Burisma, US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said last week.


The head of Burisma purportedly told the FBI’s confidential source that the executive retained evidence of the payments to Joe and Hunter Biden, Greene said, characterizing the alleged actions as a “political bribery pay-to-play scheme.” There were two footnotes in the FD-1023 form made accessible to lawmakers that referenced other 1023s, Comer said on Sunday in an interview with Fox News. “There are a lot more of these than what the federal government wants to admit, and the question is, why hasn’t the federal government done anything about it?” Comer said. Biden called the allegations of a bribery scheme involving Burisma “a bunch of malarkey,” when asked about the situation on Thursday.

Read more …

“Democrats were furious that Trump was less than enthusiastic about their plans to use Ukraine as a proxy to go to war with Russia.”

The Democrats Versus Trump: A Bad Horror Movie? (Ron Paul)

The Democrats and Donald Trump reminds me of a bad horror movie, where the hapless protagonists only make the monster stronger with each attempt to eliminate it. So goes the Democrats’ endless attempts to finally rid America of the “scourge” of Donald Trump. Thanks to the Durham Report we now know they started even before Trump was elected president. Hillary Clinton’s campaign – with the full knowledge of the candidate and the sitting president, Barack Obama – cooked up a “dirty trick” to portray Trump as an agent of Russia in their effort to deny Trump the White House. When that didn’t work they weaponized the FBI, CIA and the rest of the “deep state” to undermine and hobble his presidency. They spied on Trump and his campaign staff using false information manufactured by the FBI.

When that didn’t work they impeached him under the false charge that he sought foreign assistance for his 2020 re-election bid. This time a spy, in the person of NSC staffer Alexander Vindman, was sent to listen in on Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian president Zelensky and then make all manner of false charges against Trump based on it. Democrats were furious that Trump was less than enthusiastic about their plans to use Ukraine as a proxy to go to war with Russia. Vindman, though an active-duty US military officer, was of Ukrainian background and was loyal to the country of his origin rather than the country of his citizenship. He also openly defied the military chain-of-command and his commander-in-chief. Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for their “Project Ukraine” infuriated Vindman and he sought his revenge against the US President.

When that didn’t work they impeached Trump again over the false charge that he led an “insurrection” against the US government on January 6, 2021. The more surveillance video we see of this “insurrection,” the more it looks like a false-flag operation cooked up perhaps by Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Washington swamp to finally be rid of Trump. Hundreds of political prisoners have been held in solitary confinement on false accusations that they tried to overthrow the US government. When that didn’t work and Trump’s re-election numbers looked more and more favorable while Biden’s approval rating continued to linger in the political basement, the Democrats have now indicted him over some classified documents apparently discovered in his residence in Florida.

[..] Suddenly Donald Trump, who polling suggests would obliterate Joe Biden in a fair US election, faces 100 years in prison! Where else would you see the head of one political party arrest his main political opponent on cooked up charges? A banana republic! For those of us who love this country, it is truly shocking to see this abuse of power. But there’s one thing these dirty tricksters never seem to understand: the more false evidence and false charges they cook up against Trump, the stronger Trump becomes. With these outrageous and continuous attacks on Trump, the Democratic Party (and plenty of Republicans) has lost all credibility. When this plan fails, and it will, I am afraid to think what they might try next.

Read more …

“..this is a prosecution entirely removed from recent history..”

Donald Trump’s Indictment Case has a Looming 2024 End Date (Turley)

When Special Counsel Jack Smith walked before cameras on Friday after the release of the Trump 44-page indictment against former President Donald Trump, he started with arguably his most difficult case to make. He declared “we have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone.” After years of scandal and documented political bias by key Justice officials, the line likely left many skeptical, assuming many were even watching. The indictment was clearly a pitch to the public that this is a prosecution entirely removed from recent history. We’re also meant to not think about the fact that the Biden Administration is charging the leading candidate opposing him in the upcoming election.

This indictment has merit, but the Justice Department lost the right to expect trust from the citizens years ago — long before the damning Inspector General’s Report and the recent report of Special Counsel John Durham. To make matters worse, the same suspects have surfaced to celebrate Trump’s expected demise — and remind the public of the perceived double standard in Washington. Peter Strzok, the FBI special agent who was fired over his anti-Trump bias in the Russian collusion investigation, cheered the indictment by tweeting a photo of handcuffs with Trump’s image. Strzok seems to think that it is a good thing for Smith to remind everyone of how he promised his colleague and lover Lisa Page that she did not have to worry about Trump being elected because they had an “insurance policy” to “stop it.”

Hillary Clinton went on social media to hawk her line of merchandize mocking the case against her for storing classified material on her personal server and then destroying tens of thousands of emails sought by the Congress. She sent out a picture mocking Trump while wearing her “But Her Emails” hat. With millions of Americans wondering why Trump is being charged but Clinton was given a pass, Clinton decided to do a victory lap. And hey, why not: James Comey is back. [..] In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg related to hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election. Nevertheless, Comey chose this month to declare that, in the 2024 election, “it has to be Joe Biden.” For critics, that is consistent with his views and actions before he was fired as FBI director.

After Trump was indicted in a raw political prosecution in New York, Comey also went public to declare it a “good day.” So in the court of public opinion, past history and hypocrisy may mean that few are swayed about whether they back Trump or not. Which leaves the criminal court. This indictment has some devastating elements, including an audiotape in which Trump tells two visitors about a highly classified attack plan on Iran while admitting that it remained classified. That tape directly contradicts his past claims of declassification and suggests that Trump was using the document as a type of trophy. There are also damaging statements from former staff and counsel alleging that Trump actively sought to conceal documents. Smith is now left in a battle not with Trump but time.

Read more …

He already had 4 years to do it.

Trump Promises “Final Battle” To “Demolish The Deep State” (SN)

During a speech in North Carolina this past weekend, President Trump promised to “demolish the deep state” in what will be “a final battle.” “We are a failing nation. We are a nation in decline. And now these radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement. It’s totally corrupt and we can’t let it happen,” Trump told the crowd. “This is the final battle,” he further urged, adding “With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State, we will expel the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.” Trump continued, “We will roll out the fake news media, we will expose the RINOs for what they are, we will defeat Joe Biden and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.” “We’re going to liberate our country. The silent majority is rising, and under our leadership, the forgotten man or woman will never be forgotten again,” Trump vowed.

Read more …

“..what is so striking in Mr. Kennedy’s performance so far is an absence of fakery. It’s more than refreshing, it’s… startling..”

We’re Not Finished (Jim Kunstler)

[..] we need somebody to steer. Mr. Trump has volunteered to try doing it again. The first time, forces in every quarter of American power set out to bushwhack, sandbag, harass, hector, and hound him. In the process, they just about destroyed the rule of law. Then they simply dis-elected him surreptitiously, something you’re not supposed to say, but there it is, like so much meat on the table. Now they’re trying to hoo-rah him into jail. Whatever you think of his, er, complex personality, you must admire his perseverance through adversity. If he somehow manages to wriggle through the present obstacle course of Lawfare chicanery, his next term would be an extravaganza of retribution. The spectacle would provide much satisfaction but, in the end, it would just be a sideshow, and it is not the same thing as taking care of business.

“Joe Biden,” of course, the man who is not really even there, is only pretending to run for reelection, or at least a coterie around the Oval Office is pretending for him while they try to figure out what to do. They’re in an awful quandary. They hold all the levers of power and they have no other credible candidate, not a living soul, in their own official hatchery. Outside of that ghastly edifice, Robert F. Kennedy is making a determined flanking move, an end-run near the sidelines. The Democratic Party in all its florid and mendacious lunacy is pretending to not notice him, especially their praetorian news media that is the vector for America’s mass mental illness. Mr. Kennedy put it so simply in April when he announced a run to preside over the stupendous mess that is our government.

He said his mission is an experiment to see what happens when you tell Americans the truth. Hold that thought. How long has it been since you thought anything like that was possible? There’s a broad-based assumption across the land, derived from our fading prime artform, the movies, that Americans can’t handle the truth. Like so much else in our national life, that is probably erroneous… fake truth. And what is so striking in Mr. Kennedy’s performance so far is an absence of fakery. It’s more than refreshing, it’s… startling. Makes you blink, a little bit. Makes you remember what it’s like to not be lied-to incessantly. Makes you want to see more of it because it gives you strength when you thought you were finished. Get this now: our world is changing, and deeply, but we’re not finished.

Read more …

“..right now the strategy that the Kiev regime appears to be using to clear the minefields is over the vehicles and bodies of its territorial defense units..”

‘Cynical’ Ukrainian Counteroffensive Takes ‘Horrific’ Casualties (Tweedie)

The Kiev regime appears to be cynically throwing men and machines against solid Russian defenses — but all may not be as it seems, a military commentator says. One week into the Ukrainian counteroffensive and the Ukrainian army has already lost thousands of casualties, along with up to 15 of the vaunted German Leopard 2 tanks, 13 M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) supplied by the US and five of the French AMX-10 RC light tanks. Security Analyst Mark Sleboda told Sputnik that Ukraine’s military chiefs were to blame for sending their troops into the killing fields. “Currently there is fighting along pretty much every line of engagement between Russia and Ukraine right now, except for the Kherson area where the recent flooding has made combat impossible,” Sleboda noted.

He said the Kiev regime was sending troops forward in NATO-supplied IFVs and armoured personnel carriers (APCs), supported by tanks and artillery — including US-made HIMARS rocket launchers. “But they’re doing it into echelon to Russian defenses that have been formed over months,” Sleboda stressed. “Five layers of defense, trenches, concrete fortifications, pillboxes, bunkers, tank obstacles like dragon’s teeth.” But he said that most significant was that Russian forces had “created mazes of minefields” which have taken a significant toll on attacking Ukrainian vehicles. “[..] it sounds rather cynical, but right now the strategy that the Kiev regime appears to be using to clear the minefields is over the vehicles and bodies of its territorial defense units,” Sleboda said. “And the horrific casualties that are resulting from this are pretty high.”

He said the Ukrainian plan right now appeared to be based on “hoping to punch a hole in the line somewhere.” “And then presumably a very large reserve force, supported by a the majority of the western main battle tanks, will seek to exploit that,” Sleboda ventured. “But then even so, to make it even through one line of defense and to face several lines more, each actually progressively more significant than the others, It seems a very bad situation.” But the security expert warned against complacency on the Russian side, saying he expected “something more cunning” from the Ukrainian armed forces.

“Once the waters recede from the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, I expect some kind of multiple pronged attack, including amphibious assaults against a lower Kakhovka reservoir towards Energodar and the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant,” he said. “But I would presume that Russia is also prepared to defend that there as well.” “NATO has been wargaming this out for half a year. This is the most hyped, announced offensive in world history,” Sleboda stressed. “I’m expecting that there has to be a curveball. It can’t be this straight up playing exactly into Russia’s defenses. There’s going to be something. We just haven’t seen it yet.”

Read more …

We want peace, but first we want to kill some more people…

Ukraine’s Counteroffensive To Last For Weeks Or Months – Macron (TASS)

Ukraine’s counteroffensive will last for several weeks or months and France hopes that it will help create conditions for future peace talks, French President Emmanuel Macron told a news conference on Monday. “Ukraine’s counteroffensive began several days ago. It has been thoroughly planned,” he said. “This counteroffensive will last for several weeks or months. We did our best to help it happen within the frames outlined by us since the conflict beginning: to punish Russia in order to stop its military effort, to help Ukraine resist and win back its territory, but to never attack Russia and avoid any forms of escalation of this conflict.”


He reiterated commitment to the long-term support for Kiev and expressed the hope that the Ukrainian army’s offensive operations will be successful as “the transition to the phase of talks in favorable conditions” will depend on that. “It is clear today that Ukraine will not be conquered, that the only peace that is acceptable today is the one which is based on international law and the sovereign choice of the Ukrainian people,” he stressed. “Our enduring support for Ukraine must continue for a long time, be it political, military, economic, humanitarian assistance or assistance linked with [Ukraine’] restoration.”.

Read more …

“it’s easy enough not to meet stressed-out military service members and their families..”

Americans in Pain (Mazzarino)

America’s War on Terror, launched in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has had a staggering impact on our world. The Costs of War Project at Brown University, which I helped found, paints as full a picture as possible of the toll of those “forever wars” both in human lives and in dollars. The wars, we estimate, have killed nearly one million people, including close to 400,000 civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan alone. Worse yet, they sickened or injured several times more than that — leading to illnesses and injuries that, we estimate, resulted in millions of non-battlefield deaths. And don’t forget that those figures include dead and wounded Americans, too. Most of us, however, have little awareness of any of this.

If you live outside the archipelago of American military bases that extends across this country and the planet — an estimated 750 of them outside the U.S. on every continent except Antarctica — it’s easy enough not to meet stressed-out military service members and their families. It’s easy enough, in fact, not to grasp just how America’s wars of this century rippled out to touch military communities. In recent times, those bases have become ever more difficult for the public to enter and often aren’t close to the cities where so many of us live. All of this means that, if you’re a civilian, the odds are you haven’t met the grieving spouses of the soldiers who never came home or the shaken children of the ones who did, forever changed, sometimes with amputated limbs or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I’m thinking of the ones with those far-off gazes and the pain they have to deal with in their heads, their limbs, their backs.

Personally, I find it overwhelmingly hard to write about such human-shaped holes in our disturbed world. That’s probably why the Costs of War Project has a 35-person (and counting) team of journalists, physicians, social scientists, and other experts to portion out the research and the pain that goes with it as they deal with the fact that the monumental death and injury counts they’ve produced are likely to be underestimates.

Read more …

“Tucker will not be silenced by anyone … He is a singularly important voice on matters of public interest in our country, and will remain so.”

Fox Sends Tucker Carlson Cease-and-Desist Letter (Axios)

Fox News has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Tucker Carlson as he ramps up a competing series on Twitter that drew a combined 169 million views for its first two episodes, Axios has learned. The contract battle between Fox and its former top host — who was taken off the air in April, after the network’s historic Dominion settlement — has mighty repercussions for the conservative media ecosystem. With “Tucker on Twitter,” Carlson and his growing production team are working to elevate Elon Musk’s social media site as a news platform. Fox is continuing to pay Carlson, and maintains that his contract keeps his content exclusive to Fox through Dec. 31, 2024. Carlson is making a First Amendment argument for posting on Twitter, and asserts that Fox has committed material breaches of his contract.


Carlson’s first two Twitter episodes were straight-to-camera monologues. He plans to keep iterating with longer, more varied episodes and the addition of guests, Axios is told. Justin Wells, Carlson’s executive producer, tweeted yesterday: “Next Episode of Tucker on Twitter coming Tuesday: Tucker’s response to the indictment of President Donald Trump. Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer who represents Carlson along with Bryan Freedman, said in a statement to Axios: “Fox News continues to ignore the interests of its viewers, not to mention its shareholder obligations.” “Doubling down on the most catastrophic programming decision in the history of the cable news industry, Fox is now demanding that Tucker Carlson be silent until after the 2024 election,” the statement continued. “Tucker will not be silenced by anyone … He is a singularly important voice on matters of public interest in our country, and will remain so.”

Read more …

“Biden wants a free hand to continue to give billions every week to finance the Ukraine proxy war, and he’s got that free hand now..”

Debt Crisis Was Bipartisan Excuse to ‘Cut Social Spending,’ Not Defense Budget (Sp.)

Democrats and Republicans have used the recent debt ceiling stand-off as a pretext for cutting social spending while inflating the military budget. The latest threat of a US Treasury default due to wrangling over the budget between the Democrat-held White House and Republican-controlled Congress has been averted after House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden struck a deal on limited spending cuts. But economist Dr. Jack Rasmus told Sputnik that poverty alleviation programs were the casualty of that battle, while the Pentagon’s budget emerged unscathed and even boosted. “You’ve got to understand that both Democrats and Republicans, a majority of them in Congress, liked the debt ceiling situation because it allows them to put pressure on social programs’ spending,” Rasmus said.

“You know, defense spending is never affected by these deals. That always goes through. You can see it in this deal here, 11 percent in the first year increase in the Pentagon budget alone, not the other defense spending.” But the saga and its outcome was nothing new in Washington DC, the academic pointed out. “You go back to Obama in 2011, last time we had this, and the defense spending increase just blew right through. It had no effect. They only cut a trillion dollars out of social programs spending.” However, the Democratic leadership will be happy as the final budget deal does nothing to rein in their pet project of arming the Kiev regime for a proxy conflict with Russia.

“Biden wants a free hand to continue to give billions every week to finance the Ukraine proxy war, and he’s got that free hand now,” Rasmus said. “And both sides never even made an effort to do any cuts here on the defense side. So Biden got his blank check for raising Pentagon and war spending and financing Ukraine. And the Republicans got all the rest. “So Democrats got what they wanted, at least the corporate Democrats running the party. And the Republicans got a you know, a big bite of the apple of cutting social spending,” he added. “And they’re going to get another bite here when it comes later in the year for passing the budget for the next year.”

Read more …

“..the US/NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is simultaneously a war designed to interrupt the progress of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)..”

How The BRI Train Took The Road To Shangri-La (Pepe Escobar)

It is important to recognize that the US/NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is simultaneously a war designed to interrupt the progress of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). As we approach the 10th anniversary of the BRI, to be marked by the third Belt and Road Forum later this year in Beijing, it is clear the original Silk Road Economic Belt – announced by President Xi Jinping in Astana, Kazakhstan, in September 2013 – has traveled a long way. By January this year, 151 nations had already signed up to the BRI: No less than 75 percent of the world’s population that represents more than half of the global GDP. Even an Atlanticist outfit such as the London-based Center for Economic and Business Research admits that the BRI may increase global GDP by a whopping $7.1 trillion a year by 2040, dispensing “widespread” benefits.

Included in the Chinese Constitution since 2018, BRI constitutes the de facto overarching Chinese foreign policy framework all the way to 2049, marking the centenary of the People’s Republic of China. The BRI advances along several overland connectivity corridors – from the Trans-Siberian to the “middle corridor” along Iran and Turkiye and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) all the way to the Arabian Sea. Meanwhile, on the waterways front, the Maritime Silk Road offers a parallel network from southeast China to the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Swahili Coast, and the Mediterranean Sea. All that is mirrored by the Russian-driven Northern Sea Route, connecting the eastern and western sides of the Arctic, and reducing to and fro sailing time from Europe to Asia from one month to less than two weeks.

Such a massive Make Trade Not War project, centered on connectivity, infrastructure building, sustainable development, and diplomatic acumen – focusing on the Global South – could not but be interpreted by western elites as a supreme geopolitical and geoeconomic threat. And that’s why every geopolitical turbulence across the chessboard is directly or indirectly linked to BRI. Including Ukraine.

Read more …

Meeting without Russia.

US Attempts ’Divide and Conquer’ Strategy Against BRICS (Pepe Escobar)

Something extraordinary, at least on the surface, happened on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore earlier this month – a somewhat pompous affair self-described as “Asia’s premier defense summit”. Intel heads of 24 nations met in de facto semi-secrecy, because in the end the event was duly leaked (Western spin qualified it as an “informal” meeting). Among the 24, the real deal comprised the US and all the other Five Eyes, plus representatives of two BRICS members, China and India. All the others were not identified with certainty or preferred to remain anonymous – presumably due to their “hanger on” status. Crucially, key BRICS member Russia was not represented. Reuters swore the information about the not-so-secret gathering came from five different – unnamed – sources.

A Southeast Asian diplomat independently confirmed the presence of the Five Eyes, China, India and Singapore – and that was it. The de facto sponsor of the meeting was Singapore’s Ministry of Defense. Things gets curioser and curioser when we examine the leak a bit closer. So many sources basically corroborating each other point to a concerted spin – practically on an official level. If this was meant to be really secret, as in the past, that would have been the case, with every involved lip conveniently sealed. So why leak it? Such spy vs. spy meetings, historically, take ages to prepare, especially one involving 24 nations and featuring superpower rivals US and China. That implies countless qualified sherpas redacting documents; very complicated logistics; an ultra-secure environment; and an extremely detailed script covering every intervention.

All of that must have been discussed in excruciating detail for months, side by side with putting together the larger agenda for the Shangri-La Dialogue: and all the while there were no leaks. And then what was leaked, after the meeting, was just that it happened. With only selected participating players fully identified. There’s absolutely nothing on substance. It beggars belief that the Five Eyes would openly discuss Western security fears and/or procedures openly with the Chinese, not to mention the other minor hangers-on. After all the Beijing leadership is fully aware the US-UK is engaged in full hybrid war against China, with the Five Eyes and containment mechanisms such as Quad and AUKUS in tow. The main reason for the leak is a dead giveaway when we see what US Think Tankland is spinning: the US was talking security with China and India behind Russia’s back. Translation: the US is trying to undermine the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) from the inside.

This is purely wishful thinking – because no one knows anything about the substance of the discussions. The meat of the matter was not leaked on purpose. The dead giveaway about the leak being engineered to undermine the BRICS – at least in the Western public sphere – would have to come from the usual suspects themselves: US think tanks, inserted in what the indispensable Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, christened as MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank complex).

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olympos

 

 

Flees

 

 

Mastiff

 

 

 

 

Octopus moonwalk
https://twitter.com/i/status/1668129343451680769

 

 

Cookie monster

 

 


The South Philippine Dwarf Kingfisher was first described 130 years ago and has eluded scientists for over 100 years because of its behavior. Thanks to Miguel David De Leon we get a glimpse of the beautiful bird that is sadly threatened with extinction

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jun 092023
 


Laura Knight The Green Sea, Lamorna 1918

 

Ukraine Has Taken ‘Significant’ Losses This Week – US (RT)
West Has Done Everything For Ukraine – Biden (RT)
Kiev Needs Deadlier Weapons – US Lawmakers (RT)
Ukraine Gave Up Peace Deal With Russia Under US Pressure — Patrushev (TASS)
Kakhovka Attack Lines Up With West’s Scorched Earth Scenario for Ukraine (Sp.)
FBI Document Alleges $5 Million Bribe Paid To Joe Biden By Burisma Exec (ZH)
McCarthy: Unconscionable for Biden to Indict Leading Opposing Candidate (Sp.)
Mar-a-Lago Indictment Designed to Make Trump Reelection ‘Impossible’ (Sp.)
I Didn’t Order Nord Stream Sabotage – Zelensky (RT)
Biden Admin Waging Class War Against Working Americans – Michael Hudson (Sp.)
Russia Being Robbed By The West – Kremlin (RT)
EU Demands Answers Over ‘Instagram Pedophile Network’ (RT)
South Africa Won’t Enforce ICC Putin Warrant – Minister (RT)
Assange Dangerously Close to Extradition After High Court Rejects Appeal (RSF)
Pentagon Struggling To Explain All 437 Earth Genders To Aliens (BBee)

 

 


This is a Royal Mail stamp from 1981 bearing a profile of the late Queen – same hammer symbols, same tyrant uniform. McCarthyite fanatics opposed to any criticism at all of the apartheid Israeli state are trying to cancel this anti-fascist protest from our culture. @rogerwaters

 

 

Stone Putin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1666675508388458500

 

 

 

 

Zel before

 

 

 

 

Sachs China
https://twitter.com/i/status/1666683473426534400

 

 

 

 

JFK Peace Speech

 

 

 

 

 

 

US media say the counteroffensive has started. Ukraine denies. Whatever it is, is a disaster.

Ukraine Has Taken ‘Significant’ Losses This Week – US (RT)

The Ukrainian military has suffered “significant” casualties in its faltering attempt to mount a counteroffensive against Russian forces, US officials told CNN on Thursday. While Kiev has kept quiet about its losses, Moscow estimates that the offensive has already cost Ukraine almost 5,000 lives. Ukrainian troops hoping to break through Russia’s defensive lines have met “greater than expected resistance from Russian forces,”the American network reported, citing anonymous “senior US officials.” CNN’s sources described how Russian forces used anti-tank missiles and mortars to put up “stiff resistance” and inflicted “significant” casualties, as the Ukrainians struggled to get their Western-provided vehicles through densely-laid minefields. After months of delays and mixed messages from Kiev, Ukraine’s counteroffensive began on Sunday with an attack by six mechanized and two tank battalions along five sections of the frontline near Donetsk, and in other regions to the north and south.

Further attacks followed, and although pro-Ukrainian sources described these thrusts as “probing” attacks, it was clear by the beginning of this week that the counteroffensive had begun in earnest. The fiercest fighting took place on Wednesday night along the frontline near Zaporozhye, where the Russian military has spent several months constructing multiple lines of minefields, trenches, gun emplacements, and anti-tank obstacles. The Ukrainian 47th mechanized brigade attacked with a total strength of up to 1,500 troops and 150 armored vehicles, but Russian troops – backed by artillery and air support – repelled the assault, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Thursday. Key to Russia’s defense has been its suppression of Ukraine’s air defense systems, allowing its fighter jets and attack helicopters to operate with impunity over the frontline.

The minister claimed that during a two-hour battle, the enemy lost 30 tanks, 11 armored personnel carriers and up to 350 troops. According to Shoigu’s daily updates, Ukraine has lost around 4,995 soldiers and almost 100 tanks since Sunday. Despite the apparently colossal losses, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN earlier this week that Washington believed “that the Ukrainians will meet with success in this counteroffensive.” However, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, urged caution, telling the network on Monday that it was “too early to tell what outcomes are going to happen.” “Everyone knows perfectly well that any counteroffensive in the world without control in the skies is very dangerous,” Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in a Wall Street Journal interview on Saturday, adding that “a large number of soldiers will die” during the operation.

Read more …

How to distance yourself from failure.

West Has Done Everything For Ukraine – Biden (RT)

Washington and its allies have exhausted their efforts to arm and prepare Ukraine for its counteroffensive against Russian forces, US President Joe Biden has claimed after meeting with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the White House. “We’ve done everything we could, collectively but individually in the United States, to make them ready, to support ..,” Biden told reporters on Thursday in a joint press briefing with Sunak in Washington. He called Kiev’s faltering attempts to mount an attack “an evolving situation where we’re very optimistic.” The US president made his comments amid reports that Ukrainian forces have suffered “significant” casualties as they battle to break through Russia’s defensive lines in the former Soviet republic. CNN admitted on Thursday that Ukraine’s troops were meeting “greater than expected resistance” and were struggling to get their Western-provided vehicles through minefields.

The long-discussed counteroffensive apparently began with a large-scale attack on Sunday, but met with withering firepower from Russian forces. Kiev admitted that its forces were “shifting to offensive actions” in some areas, but dismissed claims of its failures and losses as Russian propaganda. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian forces lost more than 3,700 troops, 52 tanks and hundreds of armored vehicles during the first three days of their attacks. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Tuesday that only 71 Russian soldiers were killed over the same period. He added on Thursday that Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade retreated after losing 350 men and 30 tanks in the latest attack on the Zaporozhye front. Asked whether he expected to get new funding approvals from the Republican-controlled Congress to continue providing aid to Ukraine, Biden vowed “unwavering support” for Kiev. Lawmakers have approved $113 billion in Ukraine aid since February 2022. NATO members plan to discuss long-term security commitments for Kiev at a summit next month in Vilnius.

“Long-term security to deter future aggression after this war ends is the goal, and we’re advancing this goal by providing the support Ukraine needs now on the battlefield and helping them strengthen their military over the long term,” Biden said. “I believe we’ll have the funding necessary to support Ukraine as long as it takes.” Biden argued that while some lawmakers have begun to question whether the US should continue to provide aid to Ukraine, he sees broad agreement on the consequences of failing to do so. Sunak touted increases in UK defense spending, saying, “We’re lucky to have America’s investment in European security, but we need to share the burden alongside you.” He suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin was betting on NATO members to tire of supporting Kiev. “I think it sends a strong signal to him that there is no point in trying to wait us out. We’re not going anywhere. We will be here for as long as it takes.”

Read more …

They want US missiles to be fired at targets inside Russia.

Kiev Needs Deadlier Weapons – US Lawmakers (RT)

Members of Congress have urged US President Joe Biden to provide even more advanced weaponry to Ukraine, including longer-range missiles that the White House previously warned could trigger World War III. Kiev must be given Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to strike distant targets in Russia’s supply lines, nine lawmakers said in a letter to Biden on Thursday. The bipartisan group, led by Colorado Democrat Jason Crow, dismissed concerns that such weapons could escalate the conflict or leave US missile supplies too depleted. “We also understand the administration’s stated desire to maintain US stockpiles for future fights, but Ukraine is currently on the front lines in a fight for freedom in a war with immediate and long-term US national security implications,” the lawmakers said.

“The fight for global peace and security is playing out in Ukraine, and we believe this merits a drawdown from our existing stocks of this important capability.” ATACMS missiles can strike targets as far as 300 kilometers (190 miles) away. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said last July that the Biden administration wouldn’t send such long-range missiles to Ukraine because such a precedent could provoke a wider conflict if used to attack targets in Russian territory. However, the UK has since supplied Kiev with an unspecified number of its own Storm Shadow long-range missiles, a decision that was apparently run by Washington first. While Britain has consistently pushed its allies to supply Kiev with heavier armaments, nothing happens without the US approval, NBC News reported last week.

Biden’s professed reluctance to take other potentially escalatory steps has crumbled as the conflict drags on. Last month, he agreed to allow US allies to provide F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, while in January he approved plans to send M1 Abrams tanks to Kiev. Those concessions weren’t enough for the representatives behind Thursday’s letter. In addition to pushing for ATACMS missiles, they called for Biden to give more tanks and fighter jets to Ukraine, as well as additional Patriot air-defense systems. “Helping Ukraine fight and win is a US national security imperative and signals to the world that thee US will stand by our fellow democracies,” the nine lawmakers said. They called on Biden to do everything in his power, including using his authority under the Defense Production Act to accelerate weapons output, to give Ukrainian troops everything they need to mount a counteroffensive.

Kiev’s long-heralded attack apparently began on Sunday, and Biden said on Thursday that the US and its Western allies had already done everything they could to support the operation. According to CNN, the Ukrainian military has met with “greater than expected resistance” from Russian forces. Ukraine has lost more than 4,000 troops and dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in its failed attacks this week, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Read more …

“in the morning, they [members of the Ukrainian delegation] gave [the proposals] to us during the negotiations and in the evening they said: ‘No, we give them up.’”

Ukraine Gave Up Peace Deal With Russia Under US Pressure — Patrushev (TASS)

The Ukrainian leadership was ready to settle the conflict with Russia but gave up under the US pressure, Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said on Thursday. “Had it not been for the US pressure on those whom they installed at the head of Ukraine, this situation would have not happened, Even the Ukrainian leaders themselves were ready for signing a peace treaty and gave Russia written proposals that we, in principle, approved,” Patrushev said, obviously referring to the negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Turkey in March last year. However, as Patrushev went on to say, “in the morning, they [members of the Ukrainian delegation] gave [the proposals] to us during the negotiations and in the evening they said: ‘No, we give them up.’”

“This happened only because the United States had put pressure on them and said that no negotiations must be held,” the secretary of Russia’s Security Council stressed. As Patrushev pointed out, “there are interested parties in this conflict,” first and foremost, the United States and Great Britain. The first Russian-Ukrainian negotiations after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine took place in Belarus in early March 2022 but the talks yielded no tangible results.

A new round of negotiations took place in Istanbul on March 29, 2022, following which Russian Delegation Head, Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky announced that Moscow had for the first time received Kiev’s principles of a possible future agreement in witting, stipulating, in particular, Ukraine’s neutral, non-aligned status commitments and its refusal to deploy foreign troops and armaments, including nuclear weapons, on its soil. Russia pulled out its forces from the Kiev and Chernigov areas. However, the negotiations on the peaceful settlement were totally frozen after that and, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said, Kiev gave up the accords reached in Istanbul. In October last year, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky enacted a decision by the country’s National Security and Defense Council on banning any talks with Putin.

Read more …

“For Russia, these same territories are a kind of “shrine,” he said. “These lands were settled and developed by our ancestors. We fought for these lands in two world wars. We are not indifferent to these territories, or the people living there.”

Kakhovka Attack Lines Up With West’s Scorched Earth Scenario for Ukraine (Sp.)

The fallout from Tuesday’s attack on the Kakhovka dam continues to mount, with the Kremlin characterizing the incident as a “barbaric act” ordered “at the suggestion of [Kiev’s] Western curators,” and a calamity which has unleashed a “large-scale environmental and human disaster. A US-based private Earth imaging company released before and after satellite photos showing the consequences of the flooding, with much of the town of Novaya Kakhovka in Russia’s Kherson completely submerged in water, together with other settlements on both the Russian and Ukrainian-controlled sides of the river. A European Space Agency satellite tracking water levels June 5, 6, and 7 showed the extent of the rising water levels across the region over the three days.

Ukrainian and NATO officials quickly blamed Moscow for the disaster, calling it an “ecological catastrophe.” Russia, which has borne an equal share of the direct fallout of the flooding, plus the prospects of the loss of water in the North Crimean Canal and cooling water for the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, dismissed the claims, pointing out that Kiev had been attacking the Kakhovka hydroplant and its environs for well over a year before Tuesday morning’s fatal blow. The Kakhovka dam attack is another example of the Zelensky regime’s absolute disregard for casualties and destruction in the ongoing NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine, and another demonstration of the West’s cynical maxim of “fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian,” says prominent Russian military observer Alexey Leonkov.

“When there are no impressive battlefield victories, but one needs to raise the degree of the demonization of Russia, one can really go all out. The regime in Kiev and those who control it do not care whatsoever about what happens to Ukraine in the future, or speaking more precisely, its people. They want to leave for Russia a territory in accordance with scorched earth tactics – destruction, an embittered population, preferably with environmental pollution, radioactive residues or perhaps [the fallout from] biological weapons,” Leonkov, the editor of Arsenal Otechestva, a Russian military affairs magazine, told Sputnik. Leonkov is convinced that Ukraine’s military and government lack any real independence, and carry out the policy of Western powers paying the bills.

Kiev’s patrons are “absolutely uninterested in Ukraine’s lands or the people who live there…They do not care how many people will die, how many cities and villages are destroyed, how many environmental disasters and other calamities they face. They don’t give a damn about it,” the observer said. For Russia, these same territories are a kind of “shrine,” he said. “These lands were settled and developed by our ancestors. We fought for these lands in two world wars. We are not indifferent to these territories, or the people living there. That’s why we are trying to conduct a military operation, not an all-out war that destroys everything and everyone…Our enemy, and this is clear, consists of [30 countries], all of them members of the NATO bloc. This adversary…has already stated that they will [strive to] realize their goals ‘to the last Ukrainian.’

Read more …

The FBI has known for 3 years that Biden was paid for services to Burisma when as VP he was in charge of Ukraine for Obama. “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired..”

FBI Document Alleges $5 Million Bribe Paid To Joe Biden By Burisma Exec (ZH)

Someone has leaked the contents of the stonewalled FBI document, form FD-1023, which alleges that President Joe Biden was paid $5 million by an executive of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, where his son Hunter sat on the board. This, according to a confidential human source, who told this to the FBI during a June 2020 interview, according to Fox News. The form, dated June 30, 2020, is from a “highly credible” confidential human source who had detailed multiple meetings and conversations they had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, beginning in 2015. The CHS had been working with the FBI as a regular, reliable source of information since 2010, and has been paid approximately $200,000 by the bureau.

The Burisma executive sought the advice of the confidential source, a business professional, on gaining U.S. oil rights and getting involved with a U.S. oil company, the sources familiar with the documdnt said. The Burisma executive was speaking with the confidential source to “get advice on the best way to go forward” in 2015 and 2016 According to the FD-1023 form, the confidential human source said the Burisma executive discussed Hunter’s role on the board. The confidential human source questioned why the Burisma executive needed his or her advice in acquiring access to U.S. oil if he had Hunter Biden on the board. The Burisma executive answered by referring to Hunter Biden as “dumb.” -Fox News According to the Burisma executive, the company had to “pay the Bidens” because Ukraine’s lead prosecutor, Victor Shokin, was investigating Burisma.

According to the CHS, he suggested that the Burisma executive “pay the Bidens $50,000 each,” to which the Burisma executive replied “not $50,000,” it is “$5 million.” “$5 million for one Biden, $5 million for the other Biden,” the executive reportedly said. The $5 million payments appeared to reference some sort of “retainer” Burisma intended to pay the Bidens in order to ‘clean up’ several issues – including the investigation led by Shokin. Another source told Fox it was a “pay-to-play” scheme. The CHS believes that the $5 million payment to Joe Biden and $5 million to Hunter happened, as the Burisma executive said he “paid” the Bidens is a way “through so many different bank accounts” that investigators would not be able to “unravel this for at least 10 years.” The document also makes reference to ‘the Big Guy,’ thought (and as seen on Hunter’s laptop) to be a reference to Joe Biden.

According to the Burisma executive, they “didn’t pay the Big Guy directly.” Meanwhile, sources tell Fox that the Burisma executive appears to be at a “very, very high level” of the company, with one source suggesting it could be the president, Mykola Zlochevsky – though the executive’s name is redacted in the document. Biden notably bragged on camera about a quid-pro-quo arrangement to have Shokin fired. “I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in,’ I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden said in 2018 at a Council for Foreign Relations event, recalling a conversation with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired,” he continued. “And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

Read more …

“..Trump is facing seven counts that include willful retention of national defense information, corruptly concealing docs, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and false statements.”

McCarthy: Unconscionable for Biden to Indict Leading Opposing Candidate (Sp.)

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Thursday it was “unconscionable” for US President Joe Biden to indict “the leading candidate opposing him” – ex-President Donald Trump. “Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America. It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him,” McCarthy said on Twitter. “Joe Biden kept classified documents for decades. I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.” McCarthy’s remarks reiterated similar sentiments aired by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who blasted the “weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies” as a “mortal threat to a free society.”

“We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation,” he continued, claiming that a DeSantis White House would “excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.” Earlier Thursday, Trump revealed on Truth Social that “the corrupt Biden administration” had informed his lawyers that he had been indicted in a federal investigation over alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Florida residency, and was summoned to appear in court on Tuesday. The ex-president expressed despair over the indictment, pointing out that he is being prosecuted as polls show he is by far the leading candidate among both Republicans and Democrats.

US media reported on Thursday that Trump is facing seven counts that include willful retention of national defense information, corruptly concealing docs, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and false statements. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the classified documents case and the other three criminal probes he is involved in, including charges of falsifying business records and the former president’s alleged involvement in the events on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

Read more …

“Joe Biden is a Democrat and therefore his classified documents are a mere oversight and not the foundation–shaking treachery Trump’s documents represent..”

Mar-a-Lago Indictment Designed to Make Trump Reelection ‘Impossible’ (Sp.)

Former US President Donald Trump earlier reported that his legal team had been informed that he was being indicted over his retainment of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence. The revelation came just after it was reported prosecutors had formally informed Trump’s lawyers that he was the subject of their Florida investigation. Michael Shannon, a political commentator and columnist for Newsmax, told Sputnik that he believes the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents and alleged obstruction of justice is part of a larger politically-motivated scheme designed to prevent the former president from running for his old seat in the 2024 election.
“This is all part of the process to indict Trump and make it difficult — if not impossible — for him to run for reelection,” Shannon asserted. “The entire investigation, raid on Mar–a–Lago and subsequent developments are entirely political and constitute a genuine attack on democracy.”


Shannon pointed to classified documents that were found at US President Joe Biden’s Delaware home and at the Biden Penn Center in Washington, DC, as evidence that the Mar-a-Lago investigation is politically driven. Earlier reports revealed that documents had been retrieved from the garage area of one of Biden’s homes, a development that later saw the president joke that they were secured along his beloved Corvette. “Joe Biden is a Democrat and therefore his classified documents are a mere oversight and not the foundation–shaking treachery Trump’s documents represent,” Shannon said. The commentator added that while classified documents were also found in the possession of former US Vice President Mike Pence, “the left doesn’t view him as a threat to Biden, the Pence documents are also no big deal.”

Read more …

We know.

I Didn’t Order Nord Stream Sabotage – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed he had no knowledge of an alleged plot by his government to blow up the Nord Stream gas pipelines. The plan was reportedly uncovered by a European nation, which subsequently informed Washington. “I am president and I give orders accordingly,” Zelensky said, as cited by Politico on Thursday. “Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way.” The alleged intelligence tip was reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday, based on leaked classified Pentagon materials. The pipelines, which were built to carry gas from Russia to Germany, were ruptured by powerful explosions last September, and the newspaper claimed that the US had learned of Ukrainian preparations for a sabotage operation three months prior from an unidentified ally.

The alleged mission was run by Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, rather than rogue agents, the Post claimed. Zaluzhny was placed in charge so that Zelensky “wouldn’t know about the operation” and could maintain plausible deniability, it was reported. “I didn’t know anything, 100%,” the president said in the interview. “I said, ‘Show us proof. If our military is supposed to have done this, show us proof.’” According to the Post, Ukraine wanted to blow up the pipelines following NATO’s BALTOPS naval exercise in June 2022. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh previously claimed that the drills were used as cover to plant remotely triggered explosives, but stated that it was US and Norwegian divers who had done so, acting on orders from US President Joe Biden. Washington and Oslo have denied Hersh’s allegations.

Zelensky’s ability to control his own secret services was previously placed in question by other materials in the trove of leaked Pentagon documents, which were allegedly shared by US Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira. One of the documents stated that the US believed that the Ukrainian agents behind an attack in March on a Russian airborne radar stationed in Belarus had not informed the president about their plans.

Read more …

“..there is no way that the government was going to default on its Treasury debt because, after all, the Treasury debt is held by the wealthiest 10%..”

Biden Admin Waging Class War Against Working Americans – Michael Hudson (Sp.)

US President Joe Biden’s economic policies have further enriched financial elites at the expense of working class Americans, Prof. Michael Hudson, US economist and former Wall Street analyst, told Sputnik’s New Rules podcast. Biden struck a debt ceiling deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy with a great deal of fanfare late last month following Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s apocalyptic prognoses with regard to a US “imminent” default. According to Hudson, however, these dramatic warnings were meant to obfuscate the Biden administration’s real objectives “There was never any debt crisis at all,” Hudson told Sputnik. “The government could have simply continued to pay its bills for projects that Congress had already approved, there is no way that the government was going to default on its Treasury debt because, after all, the Treasury debt is held by the wealthiest 10% and the government is not going to do anything that hurts the 10% and benefits the 90%.”

What really happened, as per economist, was a bipartisan agreement on a further redistribution of wealth from the 90% to the 10%. However, the Democrats could not just go for it as they have always positioned themselves as a pro-labor and pro-economic justice party. Hence, there had been a month-long “good guy-vs-bad guy wrestling match” between the president and the GOP, according to Hudson. Eventually, Biden “reluctantly” agreed on cuts to social programs, cancellation of support to the poor. One should bear in mind that Joe Biden is from Delaware – a “state where most corporations in America have their head offices because the Delaware rules are so pro-corporate and anti-labor that corporations want to be there.” “It’s all just a made up,” Hudson continued. “When they talk about cutting back the government debt, what they mean is cutting back social services.

They would like to do what Biden and [Barack] Obama wanted to do after 2009. They want to cut back Social Security. They want to privatize it as if that will somehow solve the problem. They want to cut back medical care. They want to cut back most social programs, so that the money that the government does spend will be exclusively to support the financial sector, the military sector, the insurance sector, and the real estate sector.” To illustrate his point Hudson referred to the fact that just a day after the debt agreement was struck and social programs were cut, some GOP congressmen, namely Senator Susan Collins from Maine, called for greater military spending to help fund the US proxy war in Ukraine. These military budget increases would come at the expense of US social programs, the economist pointed out.

Read more …

“..as of mid-May, EU countries had frozen more than €200 billion ($215 billion) in assets belonging to the Bank of Russia, as well as over $25 billion in private funds..”

Russia Being Robbed By The West – Kremlin (RT)

The seizure of Russian state assets and reserves and those of its citizens, by Western countries, should be perceived as outright theft, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has insisted. He made the statement during a press briefing on Thursday, having been asked about Russian investors’ intentions to prepare a class action lawsuit to unlock the frozen assets. “In different ways, but the government and the entrepreneurs have been robbed by the West,” he stated. According to Peskov, the Russian government and the country’s businesses are looking for ways to protect their interests and return the seized assets, though that is likely to be a very long and difficult process. Peskov noted that Russian entrepreneurs are limited in their rights in EU courts, while the efforts to defend their rights are absolutely justified and should be continued.


Moscow has been hit by multiple waves of Western sanctions since the conflict with Ukraine broke out last February. European Commission spokesman, Christian Wiegand, said recently that as of mid-May, EU countries had frozen more than €200 billion ($215 billion) in assets belonging to the Bank of Russia, as well as over $25 billion in private funds. He argued that the European Union had a legal avenue allowing it to seize frozen Russian assets and use them for the subsequent reconstruction of Ukraine. Moscow has described Western attempts to transfer the seized assets to Ukraine as “barbarism,” and “theft” that violate international law. The Kremlin has also warned that Russia will respond in kind if necessary.

Read more …

Pizza.

EU Demands Answers Over ‘Instagram Pedophile Network’ (RT)

The European Union’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton has called on social media giant Meta to take “immediate action” against child pornography on its platforms, after the Wall Street Journal and Stanford University identified Instagram as a major hub for illicit material. Breton commented on the WSJ report in a tweet on Thursday, saying that Meta’s voluntary code on child protection “seems not to work” while vowing to personally question company CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the issue at an upcoming event.“Zuckerberg must now explain [and] take immediate action. I will discuss [this] with him at Meta’s HQ in Menlo Park on 23 June,” he said, adding that new regulations under the EU’s Digital Services Act will force tech firms to “demonstrate measures to us or face heavy sanctions” after they take effect on August 25.

Published Wednesday, the Journal report was a result of a joint investigation between the outlet and researchers at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, finding that Meta’s Instagram “helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of underage-sex content.” Algorithms on the social media site actively promote such illegal material, the researchers claimed, even helping to guide users to those selling child pornography through Instagram’s “recommendation systems,” which were said to “excel at linking those who share niche interests.” While Meta acknowledged that it is not able to remove all underage sexual content on Instagram, the company told the Journal that it has created a special task force for that purpose, claiming it has taken down 27 different “pedophile networks” over the last two years.

It added that it had removed thousands of hashtags which sexualize children and altered the site’s recommendation scheme since speaking to the WSJ. Instagram is not the only large social media platform found to host child pornography, with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk vowing make the issue “Priority #1” after purchasing Twitter last year. Another Meta-owned site, Facebook, has also struggled to get a handle on child exploitation content circulating online.Together with Instagram, the company flagged more than 20 million examples of such material in 2020, well outpacing Meta’s competitors, according to data gathered by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Read more …

“..if Putin were to be arrested by “say, Germany… all our missiles would fly to the Bundestag, to the Chancellor’s office.”

South Africa Won’t Enforce ICC Putin Warrant – Minister (RT)

South Africa will not enforce the International Criminal Court’s warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Thursday. “The Deputy Chairperson of the Security Council of Russia has indicated that anyone who arrests President Putin will be tantamount to a declaration of war,” Ntshavheni said, referring to a statement by Dmitry Medvedev in March. At the time, Medvedev declared that if Putin were to be arrested by “say, Germany… all our missiles would fly to the Bundestag, to the Chancellor’s office.” “I don’t think this country wants us to declare war with Russia,” Ntshavheni added.

In mid-March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the presidential commissioner for children’s rights. The court accused them of the “forcible transfer of population,” referring to Moscow’s efforts to evacuate children from combat zones amid hostilities with Ukraine. As a signatory to the 2002 Rome Statute, South Africa is obliged to enforce the warrant. However, the country is also hosting this year’s BRICS summit in August, at which the leaders of the world’s largest emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are due to meet.

Despite media reports suggesting that South Africa had asked China to host the summit, Ntshavheni told reporters that “nothing has changed,” and that the meeting would still go ahead in Johannesburg as planned. Moscow dismissed those reports as a hoax last week. Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, Obed Bapela, a deputy minister in the South African presidency, said that the government was working on legislation that would make its national law outrank that of the ICC. If parliament passes the bill, Pretoria could then “give itself exemptions of who to arrest and who not to arrest,” Bapela explained.

Read more …

“It is absurd that a single judge can issue a three-page decision that could land Julian Assange in prison for the rest of his life,,“

Assange Dangerously Close to Extradition After High Court Rejects Appeal (RSF)

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is deeply concerned by the UK High Court’s decision rejecting WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s appeal against his extradition order, bringing him dangerously close to being extradited to the United States, where he could face the rest of his life in prison for publishing leaked classified documents in 2010. In a three-page written decision issued on 6 June, a single judge, Justice Swift, rejected all eight grounds of Assange’s appeal against the extradition order signed by then-UK Home Secretary Priti Patel in June 2022. This leaves only one final step in the UK courts, as the defence has five working days to submit an appeal of only 20 pages to a panel of two judges, who will convene a public hearing. Further appeals will not be possible at the domestic level, but Assange could bring a case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Rebecca Vincent, RSF’s Director of Campaigns: “It is absurd that a single judge can issue a three-page decision that could land Julian Assange in prison for the rest of his life and permanently impact the climate for journalism around the world. The historical weight of what happens next cannot be overstated; it is time to put a stop to this relentless targeting of Assange and act instead to protect journalism and press freedom. Our call on President Biden is now more urgent than ever: drop these charges, close the case against Assange, and allow for his release without further delay.

Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, made a statement on Twitter: “On Tuesday next week my husband Julian Assange will make a renewed application for appeal to the High Court. The matter will then proceed to a public hearing before two new judges at the High Court and we remain optimistic that we will prevail and that Julian will not be extradited to the United States where he faces charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison for publishing true information that revealed war crimes committed by the U.S. government.”

This is the latest stage in more than three years of legal proceedings in UK courts, as the US government has made its case to extradite Assange in order to try him on 18 counts in connection with WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked classified documents that informed public interest reporting around the world. Although the first instance court ruled against extradition on mental health grounds, the Court of Appeals overturned the decision in consideration of diplomatic assurances presented by the US government. Assange would be the first publisher prosecuted under the Espionage Act, which lacks a public interest defence. He faces a combined total sentence of a possible 175 years in prison.

Read more …

“Everything is gender,” SecDef Austin explained. “Even this table is gender.”

Pentagon Struggling To Explain All 437 Earth Genders To Aliens (BBee)

Interstellar peace talks broke down Wednesday after Pentagon officials were unable to adequately explain the intricacies of all 437 Earth genders to aliens from outer space. “Okay, for the last time,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin during the third hour of talks with extraterrestrials. “Demigender are people who identify partially with one gender at the same time as another. This is totally different from Bigender, which is when a person identifies as two genders and can switch between them. Do you understand now?” “This isn’t at all confusing.”

The aliens spoke via telepathy, communicating easily without the hindrance of language barriers, yet were still unable to understand why their human counterparts kept derailing talks about joining an alliance of free planets to argue that sex and gender are two different things — or even that a developmental condition such as autism can be a gender. “Everything is gender,” SecDef Austin explained. “Even this table is gender.” President Biden was present at the meeting but was unable to communicate due to a failure by alien lifeforms to create a telepathic link to his brain. [Is this man even alive?] asked Xylor Sieth IV. [Is corpse a gender?]


“It can be,” SecDef Austin answered. “You’re catching on!” Pentagon spokesperson Jean Tangerine told reporters, “Honestly, this is a big part of why the government has kept alien life a secret for so long. They’re super bigoted and not ready for the public.” At publishing time, Xylor Sieth IV had asked to speak to Tucker Carlson instead.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1666822364963942402

 

 

Gray whale

 

 


The first case of a crocodile who made herself pregnant has been identified in Costa Rica. She produced a foetus 99.9% genetically identical to herself. The phenomenon was observed in birds, fish, other reptiles, but never before in crocodiles

 

 

Baby thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 132023
 


John William Godward Dolce Far Niente (Sweet Idleness, or A Pompeian Fishpond) 1904

 

Waiting For The End of The World (Pepe Escobar)
Zelensky, Team Stole At Least $400 Million Of Western Aid – Seymour Hersh (RT)
US Admin Losing Trust Among Its Intelligence Community – Seymour Hersh (TASS)
Musk Calls Out BBC Reporter Over ‘Lies’ (RT)
Six Things We Learned From Elon Musk Interview (BBC)
Ukrainian Counteroffensive Could Be Postponed – PM (RT)
US Planning For ‘Wild Card’ Scenarios In Ukraine – NYT (RT)
Xi Warns Armed Forces To Prepare For ‘Actual Combat’ – Chinese Media (RT)
Putin Warrant Could Derail BRICS Summit – South Africa (RT)
Joe Biden Boosted Ukraine Gas Industry As Hunter Took Burisma Role (NYP)
Trump Files $500 Million Lawsuit vs Michael Cohen (RT)
Ten Men, $1 Trillion, and the Personalization of American Capitalism (Schultz)
The Retreat From the Enlightenment Can be Stopped (BI)
The COVID Vaccines Were Never Tested for Safety (Kirsch)
Doctors Received Millions in Bonuses for Vaccinating Medicaid Patients (CHD)
US Government Borrows $6 Billion a Day (Whitehead)

 

 

Polish PM Morawiecki visited the White House

 

 


According to Russia, the Ukrainian biolabs were/are testing 200+ deadly pathogens

 

 

Ritter Geneva

 

 

 

 

Agenda21
https://twitter.com/i/status/1645581639119151105

 

 

Candace
https://twitter.com/i/status/1645870936959389700

 

 

Trump Tucker

 

 

Surovikin : I don’t want to sacrifice any more Russian soldiers in a guerrilla war against hordes of fanatics armed by NATO. We have enough forces & technical means to bring Ukraine to complete surrender”

 

 

 

 

“Xi and Putin, with one Sun Tzu move, immobilized Orientalism, Eurocentrism, Exceptionalism and, last but not least, Neo-Colonialism..”

Waiting For The End of The World (Pepe Escobar)

We cannot even begin to fathom the non-stop ripple effects deriving from the 2023 geopolitical earthquake that shook the world: Putin and Xi, in Moscow, de facto signaling the beginning of the end of Pax Americana. This has been the ultimate anathema for rarified Anglo-American hegemonic elites for over a century: a signed, sealed, comprehensive strategic partnership of two peer competitors, intertwining a massive manufacturing base and pre-eminence in supply of natural resources – with value-added Russian state of the art weaponry and diplomatic nous. From the point of view of these elites, whose Plan A was always a debased version of the Roman Empire’s Divide and Rule, this was never supposed to happen. In fact, blinded by hubris, they never saw it coming.

Historically, this does not even qualify as a remix of the Tournament of Shadows; it’s more like Tawdry Empire Left in the Shade, “foaming at the mouth” (copyright Maria Zakharova). Xi and Putin, with one Sun Tzu move, immobilized Orientalism, Eurocentrism, Exceptionalism and, last but not least, Neo-Colonialism. No wonder the Global South was riveted by what developed in Moscow. Adding insult to injury, we have China, the world’s largest economy by far when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), as well as the largest exporter. And we have Russia, an economy that by PPP is equivalent or even larger than Germany’s – with the added advantages of being the world’s largest energy exporter and not forced to de-industrialize. Together, in synch, they are focused on creating the necessary conditions to bypass the US dollar.

Cue to one of President Putin’s crucial one-liners: “We are in favor of using the Chinese yuan for settlements between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.” A key consequence of this geopolitical and geoeconomic alliance, carefully designed throughout the past few years, is already in play: the emergence of a possible triad in terms of global trade relations and, in many aspects, a Global Trade War. Eurasia is being led – and largely organized – by the Russia-China partnership. China will also play a key role across the Global South, but India may also become quite influential, agglutinating what would be a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on steroids. And then there is the former “indispensable nation” ruling over the EU vassals and the Anglosphere rounded up in the Five Eyes.

The Hegemon, under its self-concocted “rules-based international order”, essentially never did diplomacy. Divide and Rule, by definition, precludes diplomacy. Now their version of “diplomacy” has degenerated even further into crude insults by an array of US, EU and UK’s intellectually challenged and frankly moronic functionaries. It’s no wonder that a true gentleman, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, has been forced to admit, “Russia is no longer a partner of the EU… The European Union ‘lost’ Russia. But the Union itself is to blame. After all, EU member states… openly declare that Russia should be dealt a strategic defeat. That is why we consider the EU to be an enemy organization.” And yet the new Russian foreign policy concept, announced by Putin on March 31st, makes it quite clear: Russia does not consider itself an “enemy of the West” and does not seek isolation.

Read more …

“..Zelensky “was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals..”

Zelensky, Team Stole At Least $400 Million Of Western Aid – Seymour Hersh (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his senior officials are skimming American taxpayer dollars by the hundreds of millions, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed on Wednesday. The alleged grift even includes schemes involving trade with Russia itself. Zelensky and his entourage embezzled at least $400 million from US funds meant for diesel procurement last year, Hersh claimed in a new article on Substack, citing a CIA estimate. Meanwhile, Kiev has allegedly been buying diesel fuel, which is essential for the war effort, from Russia itself – and in the process skimming large sums of US funds earmarked for diesel payments. Reports had earlier surfaced about how oil products originating in Russia had made their way to Ukraine through Bulgaria and Latvia. The scheme involving the Baltic state, which was reported in detail by the Latvian television program Neka Personiga, may have violated the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions.

An expert cited by Hersh compared the level of corruption in Ukrainian procurement to what was seen in Afghanistan, when a US-backed government was in charge in Kabul. According to his sources, ministries in Kiev compete to set up front firms in order to export weapons and ammunition, with the relevant officials profiting from kickbacks. The US government , meanwhile, has stated that it has seen no evidence of Western-supplied weapons in Ukraine being diverted elsewhere. Hersh cited an intelligence source who referred to the January meeting between Zelensky and CIA Director William Burns. The US official allegedly presented a list of 35 generals and ministers known to the CIA to be corrupt. Senior Ukrainian officials also complained that Zelensky “was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals,” the source explained, comparing the meeting to a scene from a 1950s mob movie.

Hersh contends that the Ukrainian leader’s response was to fire staff from the Cabinet of Ministers, regional administrations, and other parts of the Ukrainian government. Kiev claimed the move was part of its anti-corruption strategy. Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov, who became mired in a scandal over purchases of overpriced food for troops, was widely expected to be sacked at the time, but he survived the purge. Hersh’s sources blamed Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan for the ongoing crisis in the US government, which allegedly suffers from discord between the White House and intelligence community. The two top foreign policy officials have shown “strident ideology and lack of political skill” over the Ukraine conflict, according to the sources.

Read more …

“..depicting Blinken “as little more than a ‘jumped-up congressional staffer’ and Sullivan as ‘a political campaign manager’.”

US Admin Losing Trust Among Its Intelligence Community – Seymour Hersh (TASS)

The indecisiveness and indifference of US President Joe Biden’s administration on a number of issues is leading to a breakdown in trust between the White House and some arms of the intelligence community, US investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh said in an article posted on the Substack subscription network on Wednesday. A lack of leadership is “leading to a ‘total breakdown’ of trust between the White House and some elements of the intelligence community,” he wrote.


Among other things, the work of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is a source of dissatisfaction for the intelligence community, since “the president and his two main foreign policy advisers ‘live in different worlds’ than the experienced diplomats and military and intelligence officers assigned to the White House,” he wrote. Hersh quoted “a prominent retired American diplomat who strenuously opposes Biden’s foreign policy toward China and Russia” as depicting Blinken “as little more than a ‘jumped-up congressional staffer’ and Sullivan as ‘a political campaign manager’.” The diplomat qualified them as ‘decent pols’ who “suddenly find themselves front and center in the world of high-powered diplomacy ‘with no empathy for the opposition’,” Hersh said.

Read more …

Apart perhaps from global political leaders, Musk is one of the most interesting people for a news outlet to interview. The BBC gets the chance, and what do they do? They send in amateur hour.

BBC: “Hate speech has risen on twitter. I’ve seen it personally” @elonmusk “Can you name an example”. BBC reporter: “No, because I don’t use that feed after you took it over..

Musk Calls Out BBC Reporter Over ‘Lies’ (RT)

Elon Musk has accused a BBC reporter of lying about hate speech on Twitter. An audio excerpt from a Twitter Spaces discussion showed US-based tech journalist James Clayton struggling to justify his own questions on the alleged rise of offensive content on the social media platform. At one point in the interview, Clayton asked Musk to respond to claims that hate speech had become more prevalent on Twitter, and that there was not enough moderation staff after Musk admitted to laying off over 80% of the company’s workforce since his takeover last October. After Musk asked the reporter to clarify the allegations, Clayton claimed that he had personally seen more “hateful content” in his ‘For You’ feed since the billionaire took over the company.

Musk BBC

The Twitter CEO then asked the journalist to define what he meant by “hateful content” and to provide at least one example of an offensive post he had seen. Clayton replied that he views “hateful content” as “slightly racist” and “slightly sexist,” but struggled to provide any examples, admitting that hadn’t actually used the feed for several weeks. “Then, I say, sir, that you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Musk interjected. You can’t provide a single example of hateful content, not even one Tweet. And yet, you claimed that hateful content was high. That is false. You just lied. The BBC reporter insisted that there are “many organizations” that have noted a rise in offensive content on the platform. Musk dismissed that notion, stating that “people say all sorts of nonsense,” which prompted Clayton to move on to the next topic.


The journalist then asked Musk about Twitter changing its Covid misinformation rules. The billionaire replied that “Covid is no longer an issue” and argued that the BBC itself could be accused of spreading misinformation about the virus and failing to report on the side-effects of vaccinations. “And what about the fact that the BBC was put under pressure by the British government to change their editorial policy?” Musk asked. Clayton deflected by saying the interview “wasn’t about the BBC.” The British broadcaster later aired parts of the interview and simply ran with the headline: “Elon Musk speaks to the BBC.” Despite his criticism of the broadcaster, Musk said during the interview that Twitter will change the BBC’s recently added “government-funded organization” label on the social media platform to say that it is “publicly-funded” instead.

Read more …

And no, BBC, you can’t make up for that interview disaster.

Six Things We Learned From Elon Musk Interview (BBC)

1. He denies hate speech on Twitter has spiked. Mr Musk refused to accept there was more hateful content on the platform since he took over. Speaking to the BBC earlier this year, some Twitter insiders have argued that the company is no longer able to protect users from trolling, state-coordinated disinformation and child sexual exploitation, following lay-offs and changes under owner Mr Musk. In March, Twitter said it removed 400,000 accounts in one month alone to help “make Twitter safer”. In order to assess Mr Musk’s claims fully you’d need two things which we don’t have at present – access to Twitter’s data before and after his takeover and, crucially, a clear understanding of how he defines misinformation and hate speech. There is no blanket definition of hate speech under American law, which is generally much more permissive than other countries because of the first amendment to the US Constitution.

[..] 3. He says Twitter is beating the bots in war on disinfo. Mr Musk claimed his efforts to delete bots – automated accounts – had decreased misinformation on Twitter after his takeover. “My experience is there is less misinformation rather than more,” he told our reporter. Some outside experts disagree. A study from Newsguard which tracks online misinformation – and there are quite a few other studies along the same lines – found that engagement with popular, misinformation-spreading accounts spiked after Mr Musk’s takeover. In the week following his acquisition of Twitter, the most popular, untrustworthy accounts enjoyed an almost 60% increase in engagement in the form of likes and retweets, according to the survey. The BBC has also independently analysed more than 1,000 previously-banned accounts that had been let back on Twitter after Mr Musk’s takeover, and found that since being reinstated, over a third of them had spread abuse or misinformation. This included false anti-vax claims, misogyny and anti-LGBT rhetoric, and the denial of the 2020 US election result.

4. He’s against banning TikTok. Mr Musk says he doesn’t use the most downloaded app in the US but he is against any moves to close it down. The US is considering a ban due to security concerns over TikTok’s Chinese ownership. Some other countries have banned it from the phones of government employees. “I’m generally against banning things,” said Mr Musk, although he says a ban would benefit Twitter because it may mean more people spending time on his platform.

5. He would turn down $44bn for Twitter. Mr Musk initially claimed in the interview that if someone offered to buy Twitter right now for what he paid for it, he’d refuse. If he did sell, he said it would be more important to find a buyer who cherishes the “truth” rather than how much they’d pay because, as he says: “I don’t care about the money.” But is that true? Remember, he desperately tried to back out of the deal. Mr Musk said Twitter had just months left to live when he took over and was being run like a non-profit. Twitter’s costs were outstripping the amount of revenue it was generating. In its last full-year results published before Mr Musk took over, total sales hit $5bn in 2021 but costs and expenses reached $5.5bn. In fact, it has only had two profitable years since 2012. He reckons Twitter is now close to breaking even. No wonder – sacking 6,500 workers does tend to lighten one’s costs.

But he has also been proactive in finding ways to boost sales through things such as changing Twitter users for “blue tick” verification. So yes, Twitter might be nearing breaking even now because of drastic cost-cutting. But the question is whether it can sustain that path to profitability and make the company worth that $44bn price tag.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1646152389122981888

Read more …

“..Kiev faced significant “force generation and sustainment shortfalls.”

Ukrainian Counteroffensive Could Be Postponed – PM (RT)

The much-touted Ukrainian counteroffensive may not get underway until this summer, the country’s prime minister has told The Hill. Denis Shmigal also called on Kiev’s Western backers to provide it with more weapons, including fighter jets, to ensure that Ukraine prevails on the battlefield. In an interview published by the US outlet on Tuesday, Shmigal claimed that Ukraine does not “feel the pressure from our friends and partners vis-a-vis the start of the offensive.” Instead, he argued it is the Ukrainian public that is demanding decisive action soon. The senior official noted that there is consensus among Kiev’s backers that it needs to be “100%, and even more percent prepared” before launching its push.

“To be prepared for [a] counteroffensive, we need more artillery, ammunition. We need more middle, or average and long-range missiles, we need tanks and we will need fighter jets,” Shmigal asserted. While expressing gratitude for the defense aid already provided by the US, the premier did criticize Washington for its reluctance to consider Ukraine’s accession to NATO in the foreseeable future. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing alleged leaked Pentagon documents, that US intelligence had been skeptical in February as to whether Ukraine would be able to make significant territorial gains with a counteroffensive. According to a supposedly classified document, Kiev faced significant “force generation and sustainment shortfalls.”

A separate part of the leaked trove suggested that five out of the 12 “combat credible” new brigades expected to spearhead the counteroffensive had yet to start training at that point. Half of those fresh brigades badly lacked the necessary equipment as of late February, the paper claimed, citing supposed analysis by the US military. The Pentagon is also said to have raised the alarm over the depletion of Kiev’s air defenses – another factor that could prevent the anticipated counteroffensive from being a success, the Post reported. While some of the documents from the trove appear to have been doctored, US defense officials have acknowledged that at least some of the information could be “sensitive and highly-classified material.” An investigation has been launched to establish the source of the leak.

Ritter Wagner

Read more …

“The four outcomes considered by the DIA are the deaths of either Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky or Russian President Vladimir Putin, the removal of leadership within the Russian Armed Forces, or a Ukrainian strike on the Kremlin.”

US Planning For ‘Wild Card’ Scenarios In Ukraine – NYT (RT)

The Pentagon has gamed out four “wild card” scenarios that could affect the conflict in Ukraine, including the sudden deaths of the presidents of Russia or Ukraine, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing a leaked document. According to the NYT, the document was compiled by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in February and published on social media in recent weeks, along with a trove of other classified files, most relating to the US’ involvement in the Ukraine conflict. The four outcomes considered by the DIA are the deaths of either Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky or Russian President Vladimir Putin, the removal of leadership within the Russian Armed Forces, or a Ukrainian strike on the Kremlin. The DIA reportedly believes that a Ukrainian strike on the Kremlin could lead to “a full-scale military mobilization” in Russia or a threat by Putin to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Alternately, the American planners think that such a brazen escalation by Kiev could force Putin “to negotiate a settlement to the war.” The NYT did not elaborate on which outcome the Pentagon views as most realistic, or on the likelihood – in Washington’s eyes – of a Ukrainian strike on Moscow. The newspaper also declined to spell out the consequences of Zelensky or Putin’s deaths, or a leadership rotation within the Russian military. Original copies of the document appear to have been scrubbed from the Discord server where they were initially posted, leaving this article the only immediately-available source. US officials did not confirm whether the document was genuine, but did not dispute its authenticity, the NYT noted. The Pentagon has taken a similar stance on all of the recent Ukraine-related leaks, acknowledging that some of the material is “similar in format” to its intelligence briefings, without issuing a direct confirmation.

Other files in the leak detail the US’ war plans and the number of NATO special forces on the ground in Ukraine, Kiev’s rapidly deteriorating ammunition situation and military readiness, and other “sensitive” material related to Ukraine, China, the Middle East, and terrorism. Moscow is considering the possibility that the documents could be forgeries, disseminated to the media in order to lull the Kremlin into a false sense of security about Ukraine’s military capabilities. “Because the US is a party in the conflict [in Ukraine] and is essentially waging a hybrid war against us, such tricks to deceive the enemy, meaning Russia, are possible,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Wednesday.

Read more …

“Formally, Washington still professes to adhere to the ‘One-China’ principle.”

Xi Warns Armed Forces To Prepare For ‘Actual Combat’ – Chinese Media (RT)

President Xi Jinping has urged the Chinese military to prepare for real combat, national media reported on Wednesday. The remarks came days after Beijing held massive military drills around Taiwan which reportedly involved the simulation of precision strikes on the self-governing island. Addressing military personnel at a navy base in Southern China on Tuesday, Xi called for the strengthening of “military training oriented toward actual combat,” as quoted by the state-run CCTV channel. The Chinese leader is reported to have named the defense of Beijing’s “territorial sovereignty and maritime interests” as well as the protection of “overall peripheral stability” as the navy’s core mission. On Saturday, China launched three-day military exercises codenamed ‘United Sharp Sword’ in the vicinity of Taiwan.

According to Taipei’s military, it detected nine warships and some 71 warplanes in the area the following day. Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesman for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command, described the vessels and aircraft as “encircling” the island. He clarified that the drills were meant as a warning “against the collusion between separatist forces seeking ‘Taiwan independence’ and external forces, and against their provocative activities.” The military maneuvers came on the back of a visit by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to the US last week, when she met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The meeting was the second time Tsai had sat down with a US House speaker in less than a year. A visit by McCarthy’s predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan in August infuriated Beijing, which responded with its largest-ever drills in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan has been de facto independent since 1949, when the losing side in the Chinese civil war fled to the island and established its own administration. While only a handful of nations have recognized Taiwan as a sovereign state, the US has long maintained close, unofficial ties with Taipei, both militarily and economically. Formally, Washington still professes to adhere to the ‘One-China’ principle. Beijing considers the island to be an inalienable part of its territory that has been seized by separatists, and accuses the US of meddling in its domestic affairs and encouraging “secessionist” politicians. While the Chinese leadership says it prioritizes a peaceful ‘reunification’, it has not ruled out military options.

Maersheimer

Read more …

“..South African officials applied to withdraw from the court, a decision that was later reversed after a High Court ruling determined that such a move was unconstitutional..”

Putin Warrant Could Derail BRICS Summit – South Africa (RT)

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin has thrown a “spanner in the works” of an upcoming BRICS summit in South Africa in August, a spokesman for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Wednesday. As a signatory to the 2002 Rome Statute, South Africa is obliged to enforce the ICC’s warrant for Putin’s arrest. However, the country is also hosting this year’s BRICS summit, at which the leaders of the world’s largest emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are due to meet. “All heads of state would be expected to attend the summit. But now we have a spanner in the works in the form of this ICC warrant,” Ramaphosa’s spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, told reporters.

“What that dictates is that there be further engagements in terms of how that is going to be managed, and those engagements are underway,” Magwenya continued. “Once they’ve been concluded, the necessary announcements will be made.” Ramaphosa’s government has been aware of the dilemma surrounding the warrant since its issue, with Magwenya last month declining to say whether Pretoria would enforce it. Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday that he would dispatch an envoy to Washington to clarify his “non-aligned” stance on the Ukraine conflict. South Africa and Russia have been close partners since the Soviet Union backed the anti-apartheid African National Congress, which today is led by Ramaphosa. Under his leadership, South Africa has refused to condemn Russia’s military operation in Ukraine or impose sanctions on Moscow, while the country’s military took part in joint exercises with Russian and Chinese forces earlier this year.

Pretoria has its own issues with the ICC, and was chastised by the court in 2017 for failing to arrest former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir when he visited the country in 2015 for an African leaders’ summit. Following the incident, South African officials applied to withdraw from the court, a decision that was later reversed after a High Court ruling determined that such a move was unconstitutional. In issuing the warrant, the court accused Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the “unlawful deportation” of children from “occupied areas of Ukraine.” The charges refer to Russia’s efforts to evacuate civilians away from areas – mostly in the predominantly Russian-speaking region of Donbass – shelled by the Ukrainian military. Russia – which like the US, China, and India, does not recognize the court’s authority – has dismissed the warrant as “null and void from the legal standpoint.”

Read more …

Looking at Biden and Trump, it’s clear there’s no such thing as equal justice in the US. That is a threat.

Joe Biden Boosted Ukraine Gas Industry As Hunter Took Burisma Role (NYP)

Then-Vice President Joe Biden visited Ukraine on a mission to bolster the country’s energy industry days after his son Hunter joined the board of natural gas company Burisma in 2014 — which a former White House stenographer claims implicates the now-80-year-old in a foreign influence-peddling “kickback scheme.” Mike McCormick says he was with current national security adviser Jake Sullivan — then a Biden aide — in the press cabin of Air Force Two en route to Kyiv on April 21, 2014, as he outlined how the world’s wealthiest country would help the deeply corrupt post-Soviet state build its gas industry. Giving a rundown of Biden’s priorities for the trip, Sullivan — described as a “senior administration official” — said the then-vice president would “discuss with [Ukrainian officials] medium- and long-term strategies to boost conventional gas production, and also to begin to take advantage of the unconventional gas reserves that are in Ukraine.”

Asked for details, the Biden aide said the US was interested in providing “technical assistance to help [Ukraine] be able to boost production in their conventional gas fields, where presently they aren’t getting the maximum of what they could be” while offering “technical assistance relating to a regulatory framework, and also the technology that would be required to extract unconventional gas resources; and Ukraine has meaningful reserves of unconventional gas according to the latest estimates.” In December of that year, amid broader Obama administration support for Ukraine, Congress approved $50 million to support the country’s energy sector, including the natural gas industry. McCormick, who worked more than a decade at the White House, told The Post this week he believes the timeline of events demonstrates Joe Biden was using his position to help his son’s foreign business interests.

“Joe Biden was over there telling them, ‘You can’t be corrupt! You can’t be corrupt!’ while he was corrupt,” McCormick says. “Look, this is Air Force Two. This is Joe Biden’s plane. He’s in control of it. Jake Sullivan was in the front of the plane with Joe Biden in a meeting and then he walks back in the plane to talk to the press.” Now, McCormick tells The Post that he wants to testify before the federal grand jury in Delaware considering charges against Hunter — saying he has relevant information that the FBI ignored. “They’ve been looking at Hunter Biden, but this ties Joe Biden and [Sullivan] into promoting a kickback scheme with Ukraine,” he said. “It’s the timeline that does it.”

Read more …

“..the former president and “those in his orbit” should be held accountable “because it saves and it preserves democracy.”

Trump Files $500 Million Lawsuit vs Michael Cohen (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has sued Michael Cohen for more than $500 million in damages, saying his former lawyer damaged his reputation by spreading falsehoods about him and releasing confidential information that he was contractually and legally required to keep secret. The lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday in US District Court in Miami, accuses Cohen of violating attorney-client privilege and breaching a confidentiality agreement “with malicious intent and to wholly self-serving ends.” The filing comes one week after Trump was arrested on a 34-count criminal indictment in New York City, where Cohen is expected to serve as a key witness to allegations that his then-boss falsified business records to cover up violations of election laws during his successful 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen began breaching his fiduciary duty as Trump’s lawyer and violating his confidentiality agreement around 2018, when he was facing federal charges for tax evasion, fraud and campaign finance violations, the lawsuit claimed. The most “egregious” breaches occurred in Cohen’s two books and his podcast, the filing said. He also made multiple media appearances, accusing Trump of being racist and suggesting that he might turn over state secrets to America’s enemies to ward off prosecution. The lawsuit claimed Cohen used insider information about Trump and “numerous inflammatory and false statements” to unjustly enrich himself. He also allegedly overstated his expenses as a Trump employee, claiming $74,000 in fictitious costs.

A $130,000 hush-money payment that Cohen allegedly made to porn star Stormy Daniels on behalf of Trump is at the center of the New York criminal case against the former president. Prosecutors claim that Trump falsely reported the cost as a legal expense. Trump’s lawsuit alleged that Cohen decided on his own to pay off Daniels to keep silent about her claims of an affair with the billionaire real state mogul. Trump said he relied on Cohen’s legal advice and acted out of a desire to protect his family from “malicious and false claims” by Daniels. Cohen told CBS News earlier this month that the indictment against Trump is about accountability. “I should not be held accountable for Donald Trump’s dirty deeds,” he said. He added that the former president and “those in his orbit” should be held accountable “because it saves and it preserves democracy.”

Read more …

“.. it has fallen to become one of the least equal among any countries in the world that likes to consider themselves democracies.”

Ten Men, $1 Trillion, and the Personalization of American Capitalism (Schultz)

Capitalism has always been about the accumulation and the concentration of wealth. Marx and Engels first described that phenomena in their 1848 Communist Manifesto. Thomas Piketty has also reminded us of that. But what they never focused on was the personalization of wealth in capitalism and what that means for society. The latest rankings of the richest individuals in America reminds us of the persistence and personalization of wealth. Forbes just released its ranking of the richest individuals in the world. Topping the list is Frenchman Bernard Arnault of LVHM, the fashion and cosmetics empire, with a net wealth of $211 billion. Yet if we focus simply the ten wealthiest in the world, seven of them are located in the US, with a combined wealth of $786 billion. The ten richest Americans, including the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Michael Bloomberg, total $1 trillion dollars.

And this list does not even include the Waltons who own the Walmart empire or the Koch family. Of the twenty-five richest individuals in the world seventeen are American. For some this is God Bless America! It is the story of the American dream where any of us can become billionaires, or if all else fails, at least millionaires. Yes while the US has the greatest number of billionaires in the world and perhaps the greatest density of billionaires per capita, it’s Gini coefficient, which measures economic inequality on a scale of 0 (totally equality) to 100 (extreme inequality), has fallen from 0.39 in 1970 to 0.43 in 1990 to 0.49 in 2022. While the US was never an economically egalitarian nation, at least in recent history, it has fallen to become one of the least equal among any countries in the world that likes to consider themselves democracies.

Combine this with the decline in social mobility in the US that is getting progressively worse by generation, and it is hard to conclude that the American Dream does exist except for a few. Capitalism has always been personalized, especially in the US. It was once the story of the Vanderbilts, Duponts, Carnegies, and the Rockefellers who made money in railroads, finance, or oil. They made billions at the expense of the workers whom they exploit, and then we lionize the latter as heroes and beg for their money when they created charitable trusts or foundations. We view them as benevolent and generous, forgetting how they made their money. They were literally the faces of nineteenth and twentieth century American capitalism. Today’s personification is Silicon Valley, social media, and tech. In addition to Musk, Bezos, Ellison, and Bloomberg, it is also Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Larry Page, and Steve Ballmer. It is still an American plutocracy, except the nature of the capitalist wealth and their faces have changed.

But we should not forget the other faces of American capitalism These are the faces that John Steinbeck talked of in his Grapes of Wrath to Michael Harington’s The Other America to Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed to apropos Faces of Povertythe documentary. We have nearly thirty-eight million people officially in poverty, each a story of how the American dream is merely a dream for them. It is no coincidence that there is a connection between poverty and billionaires. The more that a fewer and fewer number of individuals are rich the greater the number of individuals who will be poor. Compare the $1 trillion in wealth for ten Americans to the fact that the bottom fifty percent of Americans—roughly 165 million individuals—have a combined wealth of $4.1 trillion. If your net worth is between $43,760 and $201,800, you are in the middle class. Once you get below the middle class, there is no net worth—individuals are in the hole and owe more than they own.

Read more …

Enlightenment vs globalism.

The Retreat From the Enlightenment Can be Stopped (BI)

The war that the Enlightenment is now having to fight to defend itself against the globalists seems like a David and Goliath match-up. Western state bureaucracies and the big companies that have infiltrated them are encircling their populations with propaganda, digital money, travel passes, renewed and more abhorrent sin stories and deepening poverty for the many, while ‘the bosses’ get richer. Mainstream media colludes by vomiting out a steady stream of exaggerated emergencies, ranging from climate change to Chinese hegemony to nitrogen pollution, to keep the population distracted, fearful, and docile. Our health systems push anxiety and big companies’ specious products rather than helping populations to become healthier, while our educational institutions have embarked upon an all-out war on patriotism and cultural unity, which ordinarily would be natural counterbalances to globalism. Our schools produce traumatised children, alienated from each other and their parents, unable to engage in critical thinking. Social media circuitry wires it all together by enabling rapid communication of agitprop and fear. The Enlightenment is in full retreat.


Bright spots exist. We’ve seen Elon Musk break ranks with other billionaires by opening the door just a crack on Twitter to permit reasoned debate. But even this was a pyrrhic victory, considering that Twitter’s advertising revenue dropped 71 percent in December 2022 when more than half of the company’s top 1,000 advertisers pulled the plug amid a concerted pushback from Big Business. The EU turned its censorious Twitter thumbscrews tighter, with not a whimper of protest from the US government for this blatant disregard for the US Constitution. Indeed, it is clear Washington is telling those EU bureaucrats what censorship to enforce in the US. Still, scratch a little deeper and you will find reasons for optimism if you, like us, are working and hoping for a new Enlightenment. Here we discuss five.

Read more …

“The tests are cheap and dispositive. We can fix this in a New York minute, but nobody wants to know the answer.”

The COVID Vaccines Were Never Tested for Safety (Kirsch)

There were 31.2% higher deaths in the “gold standard” Pfizer Phase 3 clinical trials. There is only one way to know whether or not the vaccine caused any of the deaths in the 21 vaccinated patients who died: proper histopathology. Pfizer never did it and the FDA never asked for it. This was the biggest mistake in the pandemic and nobody has acknowledged that or lifted a finger to correct it (as I point out below). Had they done the proper testing on the 21 deaths, the vaccine would never have been approved. In lieu of the proper tests, there were assurances from Pfizer that nobody died from the vaccine. That’s absurd. We need the tests, not assurances. The tests are cheap and dispositive.

We can fix this in a New York minute, but nobody wants to know the answer. Today, only Ryan Cole is doing the proper histopathology and in 100% of the cases he’s been asked to look at, he can attribute the deaths to the vaccine. Someday, I hope that we’ll have leadership at the CDC that is not corrupt and that will ask Medical examiners to do the proper tests. This can literally happen instantly. For example, the CDC says that tomorrow, every Medical Examiner in the US should do histopathology looking for the vaccine as a cause of death on the next person who dies. This is no big extra burden for a medical examiner… just a few extra steps.

Or they can ask just a few medical examiners in highly vaccinated regions to run the extra tests on everyone who has an autopsy for the next 30 days (and to make sure that everyone who “dies suddenly” gets an autopsy done). The bottom line is this: we could almost instantly have proof of whether the vaccine is safe and effective or not and the costs in time and money is de minimis. The CDC is simply not interested in finding the truth about the vaccines, even though their job is to protect America from health threats.

Read more …

But the oath… Sue them all.

Doctors Received Millions in Bonuses for Vaccinating Medicaid Patients (CHD)

The federal government and insurers incentivized healthcare providers in Kentucky and California to vaccinate Medicaid patients against COVID-19 by offering bonuses based on the percentage of patients successfully vaccinated. “[This is] truly sickening and I am embarrassed for my profession by this,” Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist and biological warfare epidemiologist, wrote on her Substack, where she posted several documents relating to the COVID-19 vaccine provider incentive programs. The documents help to draw a picture of the broader effort at the federal, state and local levels to unleash a range of strategies targeting low-income and people-of-color communities, which tended to have lower vaccination rates.

The strategies included providing hundreds of millions of dollars for the creation of “culturally tailored” pro-vaccine materials and for training “trusted” and “influential messengers” to promote COVID-19 and flu vaccines to communities of color in every state. Nass’ revelations showed these efforts went beyond advertising, fear campaigns, payments to patients and payments to trusted community actors and included, in some cases, direct financial incentives to healthcare providers. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medicaid in Kentucky told physicians in 2021 it would “recognize your hard work by offering incentives for helping patients make the choice to become vaccinated.” The more people vaccinated, the higher the per-person incentive.

For physicians who treated an Anthem Medicaid cohort with a minimum of 25 patients in their practice, Anthem Medicaid offered incentives for vaccination by Sept. 1, 2021, that ranged from a $20 bonus per vaccinated person for physicians who vaccinated 30% of the cohort, to $125 per vaccinated person for those who vaccinated 75% of the cohort, with several incremental steps in between. As time went on, the rates increased. Between Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, 2021, physicians received payments ranging from $100 per newly vaccinated person for those who vaccinated 30% of their patient cohort, to $250 per newly vaccinated person for those who vaccinated 75% of their patient cohort.

In 2022, the Anthem provider incentive program changed to a flat rate. Providers received $50 per newly vaccinated Medicaid patient. This included children ages 6 months to 4 years and kids 12 and older vaccinated between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2022, and children ages 5 to 11 vaccinated between June 1 and Dec. 31, 2022. The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) on Aug. 6, 2021, announced $350 million in incentive payments — $250 million to providers and $100 million for direct non-monetary payments, such as gift cards, to vaccine recipients — to encourage vaccination among Medi-Cal’s 14 million beneficiaries. Of the $350 million, $175 million came from state general funds and $175 million from federal funding. The funding period lasted from Sept. 2, 2021, through Feb. 29, 2022.

Read more …

“The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) is $31 trillion and will grow another $19 trillion by 2033.”

US Government Borrows $6 Billion a Day (Whitehead)

We’re not living the American dream. We’re living a financial nightmare. The U.S. government is funding its existence with a credit card. The government—and that includes the current administration—is spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford, and “we the taxpayers” are the ones being forced to foot the bill for the government’s fiscal insanity. According to the number crunchers with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the government is borrowing roughly $6 billion a day. As the Editorial Board for the Washington Post warns: “The nation has reached a hazardous moment where what it owes, as a percentage of the total size of the economy, is the highest since World War II. If nothing changes, the United States will soon be in an uncharted scenario that weakens its national security, imperils its ability to invest in the future, unfairly burdens generations to come, and will require cuts to critical programs such as Social Security and Medicare. It is not a future anyone wants.”

Let’s talk numbers, shall we? The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) is $31 trillion and will grow another $19 trillion by 2033. That translates to roughly $246,000 per taxpayer or $94,000 for every single person in the country. The bulk of that debt has been amassed over the past two decades, thanks in large part to the fiscal shenanigans of four presidents, 10 sessions of Congress and two wars. It’s estimated that the amount this country owes is now 130% greater than its gross domestic product (all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens). In other words, the government is spending more than it brings in. The U.S. ranks as the 12th most indebted nation in the world, with much of that debt owed to the Federal Reserve, large investment funds and foreign governments, namely, Japan and China.

Interest payments on the national debt are estimated to top $395 billion this year, which is significantly more than the government spends on veterans’ benefits and services, and according to Pew Research Center, more than it will spend on elementary and secondary education, disaster relief, agriculture, science and space programs, foreign aid, and natural resources and environmental protection combined. According to the Committee for a Reasonable Federal Budget, the interest we’ve paid on this borrowed money is “nearly twice what the federal government will spend on transportation infrastructure, over four times as much as it will spend on K-12 education, almost four times what it will spend on housing, and over eight times what it will spend on science, space, and technology.” In ten years, those interest payments will exceed our entire military budget. This is financial tyranny.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Gaur
https://twitter.com/i/status/1646109211267416066

 

 

Fibonacci

 

 


The Konark Sun temple located in India, presents an iconography on a grand scale. It has 24 elaborately carved stone wheels which are nearly 3.7 m in diameter which are also sundials, and can be used to calculate time accurately to a minute

 

 

Octopuses
https://twitter.com/i/status/1645864294838419456

 

 

Murmuration
https://twitter.com/i/status/1646138779717992450

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 012022
 


Rembrandt van Rijn Diana Bathing with her Nymphs with Actaeon and Callisto 1634

 

The Consequences of Humiliating Russia (Brenner)
Putin Slams West’s ‘Empire Of Lies’ (RT)
Bulgarian Defense Minister Fired Over Ukraine Comments (RT)
Zelensky’s Saakashvili Moment (Daniel McAdams)
London Takes Back ‘Putin Regime Change’ Claim (RT)
Putin The Apostate (Matt Taibbi)
Freeland Caught Holding Pro-Nazi Banner At Ukraine Protest (TNC)
Hunter Biden Business Associate Sentenced To Prison For Fraud Scheme (JTN)
Pfizer mRNA Does Indeed Integrate Into Our DNA (RioTimes)
Back to Reality: We are All Children of Oil (Ugo Bardi)

 

 

 

 

Ukraine army shelling its own people
https://twitter.com/i/status/1498224087822487556

 

 

No invasion
https://twitter.com/i/status/1498391194199592960

 

 

US expat

 

 

System pigs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1498280206766854144

 

 

Michael Brenner is a professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Consequences of Humiliating Russia (Brenner)

The Mafia is not known for its creative use of language beyond terms like “hitman,” “go to the mattresses,” “living with the fishes” and suchlike. There are, though, a few pithy sayings that carry enduring wisdom. One concerns honor and revenge: “If you are going to humiliate someone publicly in a really crass manner, make sure that he doesn’t survive to take his inevitable revenge.” Violate it at your peril. That enduring truth has been demonstrated by Russia’s actions in the Ukraine which, to a great extent, are the culmination of the numerous humiliations that the West, under American instigation, has inflicted on Russia’s rulers and the country as a whole over the past 30 years.

[..] The West nostalgically celebrates the Yeltsin years as the Golden Age of Russian Democracy – an age when life expectancy dropped sharply, when alcoholism rose and mental health declined, when the tanking economy threw millions into poverty, when the oligarchs strutted their stuff, when the presidential chauffeur was the most influential man in the country, and when everyone was free to shoot his mouth off since nobody else heard him in the din of their own voices. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs – to coin a phrase. Vladimir Putin, of course, was made of sterner stuff. He put an end to the buffoonery, successfully took on the Herculean task of reconstituting Russia as a viable state, and presented himself as ruler of an equal sovereign in cultivating relations with his neighbors. In addition, he insisted that the civil rights and culture of Russians stranded in the Near Abroad be respected.

Still, he gave no sign by word or deed that he contemplated using coercive means to restore the integration of Russian and Ukraine that had existed for more than 300 years. True, he opposed Western attempts to sever the ties between the two by incorporating Ukraine into their collective institutions – most notably the NATO declaration of 2008 stating that Ukraine (along with Georgia) were in the alliance’s antechamber being readied for entrance. Putin’s restraint contrasted with the audacity of Washington and its European subordinates who instigated the Maidan coup toppling the democratically elected president and promoting an American puppet in his place. In effect, the United States has been Ukraine’s overseer ever since – a sort of absentee landlord.

Putin’s views about the preferred principles of organization and conduct that should govern inter-state relations have been elaborated in a series of speeches and articles over the years. The picture it draws is far different from the cartoonish distortion created and disseminated in the West. It clearly delineates ways and means to constrain and limit the element of conflict, above all military conflict, the requirement for rules-of-the-road that should serve as the systems software, the necessity of recognizing that the future will be more multipolar – yet more multilateral – than it has been since 1991. At the same time, he stresses that every state has its legitimate national interests and the right to promote them as a sovereign entity so long as it does not endanger world peace and stability.

Read more …

“All [the US] satellites not only dutifully agree, sing along to its music, but also copy its behavior, and enthusiastically accept the rules they are offered.”

Putin Slams West’s ‘Empire Of Lies’ (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the West an “empire of lies,” responding to a new wave of sanctions that hit the country over its special military operation in neighboring Ukraine. Speaking to top government officials on Monday, he said: “I invited you to discuss economic and financial issues … bearing in mind the sanctions that the so-called Western community — an empire of lies, as I called it in my address — is trying to implement against our country.” The “empire of lies” term was coined by Russia’s president last Thursday, when he announced the launch of the offensive in Ukraine. Since the US is a “system-forming power,” the whole collective West has become such an “empire,” he said then. “By the way, American politicians, political scientists, and journalists themselves write and say that, in recent years, an actual ‘empire of lies’ has been created inside the United States. It’s hard to disagree with that, as it’s true,” Putin stated.


All [the US] satellites not only dutifully agree, sing along to its music, but also copy its behavior, and enthusiastically accept the rules they are offered. Therefore, with good reason, we can confidently say that the entire so-called Western bloc, formed by the United States in its own image and likeness, all of it is an ‘empire of lies.’ Russia’s operation in Ukraine has become the only option left to prevent further bloodshed in the country and stop Kiev from trying to launch an all-out assault on the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in the country’s east, the Kremlin has explained. Ahead of the offensive, Moscow formally recognized the People’s Republics there as independent states.

Peter Hitchens

Read more …

“Our suffering motherland does not deserve to be sacrificed in the game of the great powers.”

Bulgarian Defense Minister Fired Over Ukraine Comments (RT)

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov has fired defense chief Stefan Yanev over his word choices in describing the Russia-Ukraine conflict, calling the situation a “military intervention” or an “operation” rather than a “war.” “My defense minister cannot use the word operation instead of the word war,” Petkov told reporters on Monday. “You cannot call it an operation when thousands of soldiers from the one and the other side are already killed.” The prime minister added that “the Bulgarian interest is not in bending our heads down.” Rather, “When we see something we do not agree with, something so obvious, we cannot keep quiet.” All four parties in Bulgaria’s ruling coalition agreed to call for Yanev’s resignation, Petkov noted. A new defense minister – reportedly Todor Tagarev, who held the position in 2013 – will be appointed in an extraordinary session of Parliament that will be held on Tuesday.


The firing came in reaction to a Facebook post by Yanev. Commenting on the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the defense minister warned against using the word “war.” He said there was no need for Bulgaria to side with Russia, the US, or European allies in the conflict, adding, “Our suffering motherland does not deserve to be sacrificed in the game of the great powers.” Petkov chided him for the post, saying, “No minister can attempt to do foreign policymaking on his own, especially on Facebook.” Yanev argued that he was being targeted for removal so the government could install a defense minister who will be more willing to serve foreign interests, in some cases at the expense of Bulgaria’s security.

Read more …

“Then later in the day, perhaps around cocktail hour, he demanded that President Biden enforce a “no-fly” zone over much of Ukraine..”

Zelensky’s Saakashvili Moment (Daniel McAdams)

Perhaps Putin is the apotheosis of evil after all, and everyone who dares challenge this modern-day golem is destined for madness. Or maybe not. Whatever the case, Zelensky is sounding a bit unhinged of late. No one will dispute that he’s a man of many talents… However, when the chips are down, as they are, he seems to be a tie-muncher at the end of the day. Take his frenetic activities yesterday, starting with his signing a formal application to join the European Union – about as likely as my being chosen “Miss Sweden.” Then later in the day, perhaps around cocktail hour, he demanded that President Biden enforce a “no-fly” zone over much of Ukraine, assuring Biden that Ukraine “can beat the aggressor if the Western allies do their part.”

At that point even hawkishly-unhinged Senator Marco Rubio had to descend from the ether of Washington’s war machine. Poor Biden drunk-walked across the White House lawn as reporters asked him legitimate questions about the threat of nuclear war. But the fact is quite plain: for the US to (attempt to) impose a “no-fly” zone over Ukraine would require that the United States military annihilate every single S-400 and S-500 air defense system located inside Russian territory. In other words, were Washington to abide the fake frontline warrior Zelensky’s request it would require the initiation of a civilization-destroying World War III. How many American sheeple who have subbed out their “Wear the damn mask!” Facebook profile pictures for “Save Ukraine” or “Pray for Ukraine” are willing to see the end of life on earth as we know it to “save” a country that nearly seven in ten Americans literally cannot locate on a map of the globe?

It’s all fun and games until the world blows up. Soon it will become obvious that the comedian-president who has openly welcomed child soldiers, is forcing men from 18-60 to fight, has released hardened criminals from prison to fight on the front lines, and has called for foreign mercenaries to come fight for Ukraine is not currently scoring an overwhelming victory against the Russian military, as the Pravda-esque US mainstream media continues to report. America: you get the heroes you deserve. How do you like your tie?

Read more …

The first person I saw tweet about regime change in Russia was Carl Bildt, former Swedish PM and Co-Chair European Council on Foreign Relations.

London Takes Back ‘Putin Regime Change’ Claim (RT)

Toppling Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is the goal of the new wave of international sanctions introduced in response to Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, a spokesman for Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters on Monday. Downing Street later clarified that the spokesperson had “misspoken”. “The measures we are introducing, that large parts of the world are introducing, are to bring down the Putin regime,” the unnamed official said. The restrictions, centered around Russia’s financial sector, are aimed to “inflict financial pain on Putin”, the spokesman went on. The sanctions are also meant to “stymie the Russian war machine as it attempts to subjugate a democratic European country,” he added, referring to the Ukraine conflict.

Further enquiry on the “regime” change remark, however, prompted the spokesman to somewhat quickly backtrack, insisting that London has not actually been actively seeking to do so. “We are not seeking anything in terms of regime change, what we are talking about here clearly is how we stop Russia seeking to subjugate a democratic country,” the spokesman said, warning “that businesses should think very carefully if they are still continuing to do anything that props up the Putin regime.” Downing Street then later said the PM’s spokesman “misspoke” when he claimed that the sanctions aimed “to bring down the Putin regime.”

The new wave of Western restrictions, that included personal sanctions against Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and against President Putin, come amid Moscow’s special military operation in neighboring Ukraine launched last week. The operation’s stated goal is to protect the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk from an allegedly imminent all-out offensive by the Kiev forces, Moscow has claimed. Days before the launch of the operation, Russia formally recognized the republics as independent states.

Read more …

And the president of the Council of Foreign Relations does it too:

Putin The Apostate (Matt Taibbi)

The president of the Council of Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, made an extraordinary statement over the weekend. “Just days ago much of the world was focused on the unwanted prospect of regime change in Ukraine,” he tweeted. “Now the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia.” Senior Brookings Institute fellow Benjamin Wittes was even more explicit:

For anyone expecting me to be outraged about this — I am, after all, almost daily denounced as a Putin-lover and apologist, so surely I must want the Great Leader to stay in power forever — I have to disappoint. If Vladimir Putin were captured tomorrow and fired into space, I wouldn’t bat an eye. I would like to point out that we already tried regime change in Russia. I remember, because I was there. And, thanks to a lot of lurid history that’s being scrubbed now with furious intensity, it ended with Vladimir Putin in power. Not as an accident, or as the face of a populist revolt against Western influence — that came later — but precisely because we made a long series of intentional decisions to help put him there.

Once, Putin’s KGB past, far from being seen as a negative, was viewed with relief by the American diplomatic community, which had been exhausted by the organizational incompetence of our vodka-soaked first partner, Boris Yeltsin. Putin by contrast was “a man we can do business with,” a “liberal, humane, and decent European” of “alert, controlled poise” and “well-briefed acuity,” who was open to anything, even Russia joining NATO. “I don’t see why not,” Putin said. “I would not rule out such a possibility.” The New York Times Magazine, noting that the KGB of the seventies that Putin joined was no longer really a murder factory but just another “thinking corporation,” even compared him once to Russia’s first true Western-looking leader:

In him, Russia has found a humane version of Peter the Great, a ruler who will open the country to the influence of a world at once gentler and more dynamic than Russia has ever been. I’ve been bitter in commentary about Putin in recent years because I never forgot the way the West smoothed his rise, and pretends now that it didn’t. It’s infuriating also that many of us who were critical of him from the start are denounced now as Putin apologists, I think in part because we have inconvenient memories about who said what at the start of his story. The effort to wipe that history clean is reaching a fever pitch this week. Before they finish the job, it seemed worth getting it all down.

Read more …

She’s Ukrainian. She knows exactly what the banner is. In a 2nd photoshopped version the banner is gone.

Freeland Caught Holding Pro-Nazi Banner At Ukraine Protest (TNC)

Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland was photographed on Sunday with a scarf promoting a far-right Ukrainian Nationalist movement linked to Neo-Nazis and extremism. Remarkably, Freeland (or more likely, a member of her staff) posted the photo to her own official social media accounts, apparently ignorant of the radical far-right movement the scarf represents. Freeland posted the photo, which also shows Toronto Mayor John Tory, to her Twitter and Instagram accounts on Monday morning. These posts were deleted, without any comment or acknowledgement of why they were taken down. She reposted the same message on Twitter by mid-morning on Monday, but with a new photo where the scarf had been removed.

The red and black flag has historically represented the Bandera movement in Ukraine. Stepan Bandera was a Nationalist Ukrainian politician during the Second World War who is accused of war crimes and leading atrocities against Jewish and Polish people. He is an incredibly polarizing political figure in Ukraine, as some view him a national hero who fought for Ukrainian independence. Bandera helped create the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (UPA), an organization that legacy media reports have described as being “far-right” and “extremist” and who have been characterized as “Neo-Nazis.” In April 2021, Euro News described Bandera and the UPA as Nazi-collaborators and war criminals.


“Bandera, Shukhevych, and the UPA are controversial for several reasons. Critics point to the mass killings of up to 100,000 Jews and Poles and the fact that UPA cooperated with Nazi Germany at the beginning of WW2 until it became clear that Nazi Germany wouldn’t recognize Ukrainian independence.” Chrystia Freeland describes herself as a Ukrainian-Canadian and has recently begun speaking and sharing posts in Ukrainian. She presents herself as a politically savvy international player who is incredibly well-versed in Ukrainian politics and culture. It begs the question of why she would be willing to be in a photo, and then personally post it, with a flag representing a militant insurgency group and the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi-linked far-right.

Read more …

Small world.

“Five days later, Vice President Biden visited Ukraine..”

Hunter Biden Business Associate Sentenced To Prison For Fraud Scheme (JTN)

Devon Archer, a former business partner of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was sentenced on Monday to just over a year in prison for defrauding a Native American tribe of $60 million in bonds. Manhattan Judge Ronnie Abrams, an Obama appointee, sentenced Archer to one year and one day in federal prison for “defrauding a Native American tribal entity and various investment advisory clients” of more than $60 million. From March 2014 to April 2016, Archer worked with others on the scheme that caused the Wakpamni Lake Community Corporation, a tribal entity, to issue a series of tribal bonds through “lies and misrepresentations,” the Department of Justice press release states.

Archer, who has maintained his innocence, was ordered to forfeit more than $15 million and pay over $43 million in restitution. He will also have one year of supervised release after prison. “There’s no dispute about the harm caused to real people,” Abrams said, the New York Post reports. She also noted that the fraud was “too serious” to let him out without prison time and that the victims are part of one of the poorest tribes in the nation, the Oglala Sioux. [..] Before being arrested, Archer served with Hunter Biden on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings. Biden has not been connected to the tribal fraud scheme that Archer was sentenced for. A 2020 report from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Senate Committee and the Senate Finance Committee shows Archer’s close ties to the Biden family.

Archer is mentioned in the second paragraph of the report, 42 times total. “On April 16, 2014, Vice President Biden met with his son’s business partner, Devon Archer, at the White House. Five days later, Vice President Biden visited Ukraine,” the report states, adding that within a month both Archer and Hunter Biden were appointed to the Burisma board. “Over the course of the next several years, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were paid millions of dollars from a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch for their participation on the board,” the 87-page report alleges.

Read more …

Stop vaccinating. Start testing. See you in 5 years.

Maybe people will understand now just how experimental the mRNA vaccines are.

Pfizer mRNA Does Indeed Integrate Into Our DNA (RioTimes)

Swedish lab studies show that mRNA from the ‘vaccines’ does integrate itself into human cellular DNA. This means that a shot of the Pfizer vaccine, taken even once, permanently changes the DNA of affected cells. For over a year, we’ve been told that mRNA vaccines, including Pfizer and Moderna, don’t integrate with human cell DNA. What the article shows is that in vitro, using a human liver cell line, the Pfizer mRNA vaccine uses a natural reverse transcriptase enzyme called LINE-1, and the genetic code of the vaccine is reverse transcribed into the DNA. It also explains that vaccine mRNA actually does travel to the liver as one of the preferred sites (the other sites, as we heard, are ovaries and more).

Pfizer 12% effective

What does it mean? Normally, our cells do the reverse: the cell nucleus, where the DNA is, expresses certain DNA code based on conditions of the cell and produces natural, human messenger RNA. That messenger RNA travels out of the nucleus, where it is expressed into proteins needed for cell building. This is how growing organisms express different genetic programs to grow muscle cells or brain cells, etc. This process is called “transcription”. For many years, Central Dogma of Molecular Biology stated that the “reverse transcription” — moving genetic code from RNA back into the sacred cellular nuclear and recoding the DNA — was impossible. Eventually, scientists realized that it is possible under various conditions. For example, the HIV RNA virus is able to do so and it reprograms our DNA to produce copies of it. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.

To effect reverse transcription, enzymes called “reverse transcriptases” are needed. One of them is called LINE-1. Apparently, the Pfizer mRNA vaccine causes cells to produce that LINE-1 enzyme, says the study. After seeing LINE-1 reverse transcriptase rise, they tested for alterations to the DNA, making sure they are not picking up the RNA instead. Considering that Sars-Cov-2 “spike protein” has a cancer code from Moderna 2017’ patent 9,587,003, it is imperative to find out the implications of this reverse transcription, and whether the vaccinated now have any undesirable genetic code embedded into their DNA. Of particular interest is whether this mRNA-induced reverse transcription affects the “germ line”, such as eggs and sperm cells, and whether it also affects the fetus of pregnant mothers.

Read more …

“..when you deal with Nature, everything is up for negotiations. And Nature always wins the game..”

Back to Reality: We are All Children of Oil (Ugo Bardi)

In the early 2000s, Colin Campbell proposed that the peak of “conventional” oil production would come around 2012. It probably did, but the peak was masked by the production of non-conventional resources. “Shale oil” bought us another decade of growth, although at a modest rate and at a high cost. So, we had more than 20 years to prepare from when, in 1998, Colin Campbell and Jean Lahérrere had first flagged the problem with an article published on “Scientific American.” But, as we should have expected, nothing serious was done. On the contrary, the entity called “humanity” showed the maturity and wisdom of someone in the grip of convulsions, possessed by demonic forces. We have seen 20 years of a roller coaster in the desperate search for an enemy to destroy and turn the clock back, to when things were good.

The enemy has been singled out as Osama, Saddam, Assad, Qaddafi, and many others, destroyed only to be replaced by the new monster of the year. For two years, then, the monster was not a human being, but a microscopic peduncled creature that nicely played its role of bugaboo, until it was officially vaporized by the microscopic equivalent of carpet bombing. Now, it is over, and a new, more conventional monster is advancing: the soulless Vladimir Putin. Chances are that he will not be the last monster in the demonization chain. Every time we seemed to have destroyed our arch-enemy, it came back in another form, bigger and uglier than before. And each time, in the fight against the monster on duty, we lost something of our wisdom, our freedom, our humanity.

We never realized that what we were fighting was not a monster, but a reflection of ourselves in the desperate search for a way to continue a way of life that some of our leaders defined as “not up for negotiations.” But when you deal with Nature, everything is up for negotiations. And Nature always wins the game. Peak oil never reached the level of the official monster of the day, but it was also demonized. It could not be bombed, there was no vaccine against it. But we marginalized it, ridiculed it, and made it disappear from view as if we had bombed it to smithereens. Yet, it is returning, even though not mentioned, during the current crisis. We are 8 billion on this planet, and everyone is a child of crude oil. Without crude oil and other fossil fuels, most of us simply wouldn’t exist. And without crude oil, we cannot continue to exist. As a monster, peak oil is much scarier than any of the bugaboos that the mainstream media have been proposing to us.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Controlling what people think is our job
https://twitter.com/i/status/1497933106040344576

 

 

 

 

A New Global Treaty
https://twitter.com/i/status/1498223375264595968

 

 

 

 

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

 

Oct 162020
 


Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1896

 

Hunter Biden Tried To Cash In Big On Behalf Of Family With Chinese Firm (NYP)
House GOP Asks If FBI Had Hunter Biden Laptop During Trump Impeachment (Fox)
Obama Conference Call Leaked To Burisma: Biden Emails (NYP)
Biden Campaign: VP May Have Had ‘Informal’ Meeting With Burisma Exec (DW)
Twitter, Facebook Protecting Biden After Execs Join Transition Team (ZH)
POTUS Punk vs. Dem Dementia (Escobar)
Facebook, Twitter Cross Line Far More Dangerous Than What They Censor (IC)
Weissmann Made Rosenstein Take Ownership of Michael Flynn Targeting (sundance)
Antiviral Drug Remdesivir Proves Ineffective In Treating COVID19 – WHO (F.)
WHO Europe Director Says Governments Should Stop Enforcing Lockdowns (PJW)

 

 

We’re in a communication vacuum. or maybe that should read: two separate vacuums. Even townhalls are not townhalls anymore. Everyone’s a liar, and everyone’s a winner.

 

 

 

 

$10 million a year. And then some.

Hunter Biden Tried To Cash In Big On Behalf Of Family With Chinese Firm (NYP)

Hunter Biden pursued lucrative deals involving China’s largest private energy company — including one that he said would be “interesting for me and my family,” emails obtained by The Post show. One email sent to Biden on May 13, 2017, with the subject line “Expectations,” included details of “remuneration packages” for six people involved in an unspecified business venture. Biden was identified as “Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC,” an apparent reference to the former Shanghai-based conglomerate CEFC China Energy Co. His pay was pegged at “850” and the email also noted that “Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate.”


In addition, the email outlined a “provisional agreement” under which 80 percent of the “equity,” or shares in the new company, would be split equally among four people whose initials correspond to the sender and three recipients, with “H” apparently referring to Biden. The deal also listed “10 Jim” and “10 held by H for the big guy?” Neither Jim nor the “big guy” was identified further. The email’s author, James Gilliar of the international consulting firm J2cR, also noted, “I am happy to raise any detail with Zang if there is [sic] shortfalls ?” “Zang” is an apparent reference to Zang Jian Jun, the former executive director of CEFC China. The email is contained in a trove of data that the owner of a computer repair shop in Delaware said was recovered from a MacBook Pro laptop that was dropped off in April 2019 and never retrieved.

Tucker Burisma

Read more …

They did. And nothing happened.

House GOP Asks If FBI Had Hunter Biden Laptop During Trump Impeachment (Fox)

House Republicans are calling on the FBI to reveal whether it was in possession of a laptop that reportedly contained emails by Hunter Biden during the impeachment of President Trump — and claiming the agency committed a “gross error in judgement” if it did not inform the White House. “If the FBI was, in fact, in possession of this evidence and failed to alert the White House to its existence that would have given even more weight to the president’s legal defense, this was a gross error in judgement and a severe violation of trust,” the letter says. The letter was signed by 19 House Republicans, including Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.; Louie Gohmert, R-Texas; Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz.; and Jody Hice, R-Ga.

The letter was written after the New York Post published emails suggesting that Hunter Biden introduced his father to a top executive at Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings in 2015 — one year before his father allegedly pressured the country’s government to fire a prosecutor who had launched an investigation into the company. The Post reported that the FBI was in possession of the laptop on which the emails were found in December 2019 — right in the middle of the impeachment of President Trump over remarks he made to the Ukrainian president about Biden’s conduct in the country.

[..] “A large portion of the president’s legal defense case revolved around strong evidence that former Vice President Biden’s son Hunter was peddling his influence to his father to land lucrative jobs overseas that he might not have otherwise been qualified for,” the letter says. The lawmakers ask whether the FBI was in possession of the laptop and drive as documented in the Post, whether it took steps to authenticate the drive and the data, and if anyone at the FBI briefed officials at the Department of Justice or White House after December.

Tucker Enjeti
https://twitter.com/i/status/1316547616239353856

Read more …

A Burisma PR firm was listening in on the call. WTF?

Obama Conference Call Leaked To Burisma: Biden Emails (NYP)

The Obama administration let a Democratic p.r. company that worked for Ukrainian energy firm Burisma take part in a conference call about an upcoming visit to Ukraine by then-Vice President Joe Biden, emails obtained by The Post show. An associate at Blue Star Strategies then emailed a memo with minutes of the conference call hosted by the White House to a top Burisma executive, Vadym Pozharskyi, as well as to Joe Biden’s son Hunter and Hunter’s business partner, Devon Archer, both of whom sat on Burisma’s board. The trip, in December 2015, turned out to be the one during which Biden later bragged about forcing Ukrainian officials to fire a state prosecutor who was investigating Burisma by threatening to withhold a $1 billion US loan guarantee.


The memo, sent shortly after the Dec. 2, 2015, call, also “outlined the trip’s agenda and addressed several questions regarding US policy toward Ukraine.” Blue Star has said it began working for Burisma and contacting Ukrainian officials on its behalf in November 2015, and an email shows that on Nov. 18, 2015, Pozharskyi sent the Blue Star contract to Hunter Biden, Archer and Eric Schwerin, president of the Rosemont Seneca Partners investment firm. Hunter Biden and Archer were among RSP’s founders, along with former Secretary of State John Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz, Reuters has reported. “Could you kindly have BS countersign it and forward back to me?” Pozharskyi wrote. “I am kindly asking you to schedule either a conf call or advise us as to the foreseen action plan for November-December 2015, and if anything has been already done by BS, could kindly you ask them to share with us this information?”

Read more …

Didn’t you just deny this yesterday?

Biden Campaign: VP May Have Had ‘Informal’ Meeting With Burisma Exec (DW)

The campaign for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden admitted that it’s possible that Biden may have met with an executive for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, during his time as vice president when his son was a board member of the company. The Biden campaign released a statement condemning reporting from the New York Post that revealed an email alleging that Biden’s son Hunter brokered a meeting between his father and Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to Burisma’s board. The campaign ruled out any official meetings between Pozharskyi and the former vice president but could not say that the two never met.


“We have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told Politico. “Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as ‘not legitimate’ and political by a GOP colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing. Trump administration officials have attested to these facts under oath.” Despite the strong condemnation, Bates could not say for certain that Vice President Biden and Pozharskyi did not meet in an informal setting, however.

Read more …

They always had the power. And now they’re using it. But when Twitter suspended the Trump campaign and blocked the House Judiciary, that may have been a step too far.

Twitter, Facebook Protecting Biden After Execs Join Transition Team (ZH)

As if anyone needed more evidence of Silicon Valley’s overt political bias – just weeks before Twitter and Facebook nuked Biden corruption revelations from their platforms with the intensity of a thousand suns, executives from both companies joined the Biden transition team. [..] Perhaps the selective enforcement of content which is politically harmful to Democrats can be explained by recent hires by the Biden transition team. According to Breitbart, Twitter Public Policy Director Carlos Monje left the social media giant to join Biden’s transition team in September. He will reportedly serve as co-chair of Biden’s infrastructure policy committee, and helped organize a fundraiser for the former VP this week, according to an invitation from Politico.

Monje has worked in the world of presidential transition politics in the past, previously serving as the director of agency review on the team that prepared for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s administration, which failed to take flight. Monje also worked on the Obama administration team’s 2008 national security working group according to his LinkedIn profile. Monje also acted as deputy policy director during Obama’s first run for office and subsequently served as a senior policy advisor and special assistant to the president on the Domestic Policy Council. Monje’s final years in the administration were spent in the Transporation Department before he departed for Twitter. -Breitbart

Meanwhile in October, Biden’s transition team hired Facebook executive Jessica Hertz to its general counsel to deal with ‘ethics’ issues. Notably, Facebook was the first platform to ban the Post article – with former Democrat staffer and Facebook communications team member Andy Stone tweeting that the company would be ‘reducing its distribution.’

Read more …

“Evidence shows that on The Walking Dead’s rallies, there are more people from the Biden bus and reporters than flesh-and-blood Dem voters. ”

POTUS Punk vs. Dem Dementia (Escobar)

All manner of polls are circulating like whirling dervishes. Most highlight myriad Dem paths to victory and an inexorable Highway to Hell for Trump. A poll by The Economist gives Joe “Walking Dead” Biden a whopping 91% chance – remember Hillary in 2016? – of winning the Electoral College. A Dem-fueled consensus is emerging that Trump – relentlessly depicted as a deranged, lunatic proto-fascist who’s bad for business worldwide – will dispute results in any Republican-led state which he may narrowly lose, as in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Yet on the campaign trail, it’s a completely different story. Evidence shows that on The Walking Dead’s rallies, there are more people from the Biden bus and reporters than flesh-and-blood Dem voters.

The Biden-Harris campaign, demonstrating its matchless P.R. skills, spins these rallies as campaign secrets. Team Trump’s long-shot strategy seems to have been unveiled by the President himself: “We are going to be counting ballots for the next two years (…) We have the advantage if we go back to Congress. I think it’s 26 to 22 or something because it’s counted one vote per state.” That was a reference to the 12th Amendment to the Constitution: if state electors can’t agree on a president, the decision goes to the House. And then each of the 50 states gets one vote. So picture small GOP-controlled states such as Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming (each with one Republican in the House) having the same weight as California (52 members in the House, 45 of them Democrats.)

Advantage Trump: as it stands, it’s indeed 26 to 22, with two – Pennsylvania and Michigan – basically tied. Internal GOP polls show that while the Biden-Harris campaign is not knocking on any doors, Trump volunteers have actually swarmed no less than 20 million homes in swing states. Combine it with a new Gallup Poll showing that 56% of Americans state they are better off now under Trump than four years ago under Obama/Biden. Call it the return of “It’s the economy, stupid.” The Trafalgar Group – which correctly called the 2106 election – bets that Trump narrowly wins the Electoral College with 275 votes.

JPMorgan’s top quant Marko Kolanovic has exhaustively mapped changes in voter registration to dismiss virtually every poll showing a Dem sweep. This implies that Trump may well end up winning the Holy Trinity: Pennsylvania (20 votes), Florida (29 votes) and North Carolina (15 votes). And to top it off, something more exotic than a black hole eating a star has happened in this October Surprise-laden week: CNN decided to practice real journalism and eviscerated Nancy Pelosi on camera. That may be quite a bad omen for President-in-Waiting Kamala Harris, who very few remember was forged as the heir to the Obama-Pelosi axis in a secret meeting in the Hamptons way back in the summer of 2017.

Read more …

@Jack is expected on Capitol Hill next week.

Facebook, Twitter Cross Line Far More Dangerous Than What They Censor (IC)

In sum, the two Silicon Valley giants, with little explanation, united to prevent the sharing and dissemination of this article. As Los Angeles Times reporter Matt Pearce put it, “Facebook limiting distribution is a bit like if a company that owned newspaper delivery trucks decided not to drive because it didn’t like a story. Does a truck company edit the newspaper? It does now, apparently.” That the first amendment right of free speech is inapplicable to these questions goes without saying. That constitutional guarantee restricts the actions of governments, not private corporations such as Facebook and Twitter. But glibly pointing this out does not come close to resolving this controversy. That actions by gigantic corporations are constitutional does not mean that they are benign.

State censorship is not the only kind of censorship. Private-sector repression of speech and thought, particularly in the internet era, can be as dangerous and consequential. Imagine, for instance, if these two Silicon Valley giants united with Google to declare: henceforth we will ban all content that is critical of President Trump and/or the Republican Party, but will actively promote criticisms of Joe Biden and the Democrats. Would anyone encounter difficultly understanding why such a decree would constitute dangerous corporate censorship? Would Democrats respond to such a policy by simply shrugging it off on the radical libertarian ground that private corporations have the right to do whatever they want? To ask that question is to answer it.

To begin with, Twitter and particularly Facebook are no ordinary companies. Facebook, as the owner not just of its massive social media platform but also other key communication services it has gobbled up such as Instagram and WhatsApp, is one of the most powerful companies ever to exist, if not the most powerful. In June, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law launched an investigation into the consolidated power of Facebook and three other companies — Google, Amazon and Apple — and just last week issued a sweeping report which, as Ars Technica explained, found: “Facebook outright “has monopoly power in the market for social networking,” and that power is “firmly entrenched and unlikely to be eroded by competitive pressure” from anyone at all due to “high entry barriers—including strong network effects, high switching costs, and Facebook’s significant data advantage—that discourage direct competition by other firms to offer new products and services.”

Read more …

Bit too many screenshots would be needed. See the original.

Weissmann Made Rosenstein Take Ownership of Michael Flynn Targeting (sundance)

On June 3, 2020, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss his role in how Main Justice was operating while Andrew Weissmann’s special counsel was in charge. What he said in that hearing never quite made sense until yesterday. Those who closely followed the arc of the Weissmann/Mueller investigation; and those who joined us in following that investigation; already knew the SCO was in complete control from May 2017 to April 2019. Everything taking place inside the DOJ in the two years of the Mueller/Weissmann probe was completely and unequivocally controlled by the Weissmann team. Few journalists have ever grasped the ramifications of that control.


That control included every release and non-release of information during their two year tenure. However, Rosenstein’s tone when questioned about the scope memos he authorized during the special counsel time-frame was very odd in that June hearing. Rosenstein had a very guilty conscience and it was on full display as he attempted to justify his action. You see, there was always a missing scope memo from October 20, 2017, that no-one in the DOJ ever discussed. The nature of the scope memo was mentioned by Weissmann and Mueller in part of their Russia report; but until yesterday it was hidden. Here is the only mention of the October 20, 2017, scope memo prior to yesterday:

As you can see above the special counsel’s office used that October 20th scope memo to expand their investigative authorities. Specifically the second redacted name is very important because this specific memo authorized Andrew Weissmann to target Michael Flynn Jr as pressure to coerce a guilty plea from Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn a month later. During his apologetic senate testimony Rosenstein told congress he never questioned the authority of the special counsel team and never once questioned their “investigative process“, those are his words. Additionally, Rosenstein testified he signed all the scope memos because he felt it was his “responsibility” to facilitate the SCO needs regardless of what they requested; and every request was considered an “investigative process” by him.


Yesterday the mysteriously avoided October 20, 2017, scope memo was finally released to Catherine Herridge from the Senate Homeland Security Committee (Chairman Ron Johnson). Within the scope memo we can now see exactly what reference point Rosenstein was carrying during his June testimony. The scope memo was written by the special counsel’s office and the last page shows the motive and intent of Weissmann’s crew. Notice the tone and direction of the memo as that aspect also conveys a message; and do not overlook the specific phrase “jointly undertaken activity.” That approach was used by the SCO to target Flynn Jr.:

Read more …

“The gains Gilead experienced in the stock market during the pandemic have all but dissipated.”

Antiviral Drug Remdesivir Proves Ineffective In Treating COVID19 – WHO (F.)

The antiviral drug remdesivir had little or no effect in treating patients hospitalized with Covid-19, according to a study that has not yet been peer reviewed, but was coordinated by the World Health Organization and released on Thursday, casting doubt on one of the few promising treatments for the coronavirus. Deeming it “the world’s largest randomized control trial on Covid-19 therapeutics,” the six-month long study of four drugs—remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon—proved “unpromising.” “The main outcomes of mortality, initiation of ventilation and hospitalization duration were not clearly reduced by any study drug,” the study reads. Over 11,000 adults across 30 countries and 405 hospitals were studied to come to these results.


Regimens involving the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine have already been proven ineffective, but remdesivir appeared to be one of the few therapies to prove effective in combating Covid-19 symptoms. The WHO’s results come just a week after a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found remdesivir shortened the time of recovery for adults hospitalized with Covid-19. President Trump, who contracted Covid-19 and spent time at Walter Reed hospital upon suffering from symptoms, was administered remdesivir as part of his treatment. Remdesivir is the only specific drug with an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. [..] The gains Gilead experienced in the stock market during the pandemic have all but dissipated. Its price rose as much as 29% since the start of the year before falling 3% below its position in January.

Read more …

Contradictory messages are lethal for an organization like the WHO.

WHO Europe Director Says Governments Should Stop Enforcing Lockdowns (PJW)

The World Health Organization’s Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge says governments should stop enforcing lockdowns, unless as a “last resort,” because the impact on other areas of health and mental well-being is more damaging. In an interview with Euro News, Kluge cautioned against the imposition of more lockdowns unless they are “absolutely necessary.” “He says damage to other health areas, mental health, domestic violence, schools and cancer treatment is too great,” tweeted reporter Darren McCaffrey. Kluge’s warning matches that of the WHO’s special envoy on COVID-19, Dr David Nabarro, who recently told the Spectator in an interview that world leaders should stop imposing lockdowns as a reflex reaction because they are making “poor people an awful lot poorer.”

It also resonates with numerous other experts who have desperately tried to warn governments that lockdowns will end up killing more people than the virus itself, but have been largely ignored. Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd Muller, recently warned that COVID-19 lockdowns will result in “one of the biggest” hunger and poverty crises in history. “We expect an additional 400,000 deaths from malaria and HIV this year on the African continent alone,” Muller said, adding that “half a million more will die from tuberculosis.” Muller’s comments arrived months after a leaked study from inside the German Ministry of the Interior revealed that the impact of the country’s lockdown could end up killing more people than the coronavirus due to victims of other serious illnesses not receiving treatment.

Another study found that lockdowns will conservatively “destroy at least seven times more years of human life” than they save. Professor Richard Sullivan also warned that there will be more excess cancer deaths in the UK than total coronavirus deaths due to people’s access to screenings and treatment being restricted as a result of the lockdown. His comments were echoed by Peter Nilsson, a Swedish professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at Lund University, who said, “It’s so important to understand that the deaths of COVID-19 will be far less than the deaths caused by societal lockdown when the economy is ruined.” According to Professor Karol Sikora, an NHS consultant oncologist, there could be 50,000 excess deaths from cancer as a result of routine screenings being suspended during the lockdown in the UK.

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site.

Click at the top of the sidebars for Paypal and Patreon donations. Thank you for your support.

 

 

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Saint-Exupéry

 

 

Laura Wolk. Powerful.

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime, election time, all the time. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

Oct 152020
 


Jan van Eyck Saint Barbara 1437

 

Hunter Biden Introduced Burisma Businessman to VP Dad (NYP)
WH Press Secretary Locked Out Of Twitter For Sharing Hunter Biden Story (NYP)
Media Reverts To Form In Responding To Biden/Burisma Report (RT)
Twitter Blocks Links To NYPost Story, Invokes ‘Hacked Materials’ Policy (RT)
Facebook’s Democratic Comms Chief Admits To Shadowbanning NYPost Story (RT)
Feds Chased Foreign Link To Trump’s 2016 Campaign Cash For 3 Years (CNN)
Laundry Operation: Bruce Ohr Left DOJ Shortly Before Being Sacked (sundance)
Judge Rules Clinton Foundation Whistleblower Complaint Can Proceed (ET)
Golden Dawn Leadership Sentenced To 13 Years In Prison (K.)
Covid Crisis Shows Trump Sees Older Voters As ‘Expendable’, Says Biden (G.)
Single Dose of 300,000 IU Vit D May Prevent, Treat COVID19 (NIH)
Putin Announces 2nd Russian Covid19 Vaccine, 3rd On The Way (RT)

 

 

What completely crazy times we wake up to find ourselves in. There’s a story about Hunter Biden based on tons of evidence found on an old laptop, a story that involves Joe Biden too, and his campaign doesn’t deny it, but merely says a meeting never took place because it wasn’t on his agenda. But then we switch immediately and seamlessly to “Russian disinformation” and Facebook and Twitter try to ban the story, close down accounts of the paper that published the story, as well as the White House press secretary and many others. Twitter evokes its “hacked materials” policy 1st time ever, without any evidence any hacking took place.

Tucker provides a decent overview. I know, it’s Tucker and it’s Fox, but in these crazy times you won’t see this dealt with in the New York Times or WaPo or CNN.

 

 

Hypothetically speaking: ACB

 

 

What’s the biggest story, that Joe and Hunter were less than honest about Burisma, or that Big Tech tries to bury that they were/are?

Hunter Biden Introduced Burisma Businessman to VP Dad (NYP)

Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to e-mails obtained by The Post. The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month. “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the e-mail reads.

An earlier e-mail from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf. The blockbuster correspondence — which flies in the face of Joe Biden’s claim that he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings” — is contained in a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer. The computer was dropped off at a repair shop in Biden’s home state of Delaware in April 2019, according to the store’s owner. Other material extracted from the computer includes a raunchy, 12-minute video that appears to show Hunter, who’s admitted struggling with addiction problems, smoking crack while engaged in a sex act with an unidentified woman, as well as numerous other sexually explicit images.

The customer who brought in the water-damaged MacBook Pro for repair never paid for the service or retrieved it or a hard drive on which its contents were stored, according to the shop owner, who said he tried repeatedly to contact the client. The shop owner couldn’t positively identify the customer as Hunter Biden, but said the laptop bore a sticker from the Beau Biden Foundation, named after Hunter’s late brother and former Delaware attorney general. Photos of a Delaware federal court subpoena given to The Post show that both the computer and hard drive were seized by the FBI in December, after the shop’s owner says he alerted the feds to their existence. But before turning over the gear, the shop owner says he made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello. Steve Bannon, former adviser to President Trump, told The Post about the existence of the hard drive in late September and Giuliani provided The Post with a copy of it on Sunday.

Read more …

But here we can’t help thinking about Julian Assange: “I will not comply with censoring reporting that may not fit the ideology of Silicon Valley. This is abominable and not the American way.”

WH Press Secretary Locked Out Of Twitter For Sharing Hunter Biden Story (NYP)

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday was locked out of her personal Twitter account for sharing The Post’s bombshell cover story on Hunter Biden’s alleged hard drive and an email linking Joe Biden to his son’s job at a Ukrainian energy company. “Your account has been locked,” a message from the social media network informed McEnany, whose account has more than 1 million followers. “We have determined that this account violated the Twitter Rules,” the network said, highlighting her prior tweet with a link to The Post’s article. Without providing any evidence, Twitter said McEnany — who shared a screenshot with The Post — violated “our rules against distribution of hacked material.”

McEnany told The Post she will not comply with Twitter’s request that she delete her tweet to restore access to her account. “This is a story reported by the New York Post and Fox News with the Biden campaign notably not disputing the authenticity of the emails,” McEnany said. “I will not comply with censoring reporting that may not fit the ideology of Silicon Valley. This is abominable and not the American way.” Twitter on Wednesday blocked users from sharing The Post’s link to the story, which describes an alleged 2015 email from Burisma energy executive Vadym Pozharskyi thanking Hunter Biden for “giving an opportunity to meet your father.”

[..] Twitter said Wednesday it prevented users from tweeting or direct-messaging a link to the article because it violated a ban on distributing hacked material, the same reason it locked McEnany’s account. The alleged Hunter Biden hard drive was given to The Post by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney to Trump, after he received it from a Delaware computer repairman. The repairman says he legally accessed the content under an abandonment contract clause when Hunter Biden did not collect a damaged laptop within 90 days.Facebook, meanwhile, said it was taking unspecified steps to limit distribution of The Post’s article pending “fact-checking.”

Read more …

“.. the talking point that Russia “hacked Burisma in January” and was somehow the source of the documents was seriously making the rounds on Wednesday afternoon. ”

Media Reverts To Form In Responding To Biden/Burisma Report (RT)

The only thing more absurd than insisting Hunter Biden’s employment by Ukrainian gas company Burisma was above board is arguing that Russia is somehow behind the revelation it wasn’t. So of course that’s precisely what happened. A last-minute development before the November election is somewhat of a tradition in US politics, so much so there’s a name for it – “October surprise” – going back to 1980 or so. In 2016, it was supposed to be Donald Trump’s ‘Access Hollywood’ tape, only to be overshadowed by the WikiLeaks publication of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails – which Democrats later blamed on Russia.

This time it seems to be the New York Post story, citing emails from a laptop found in a Delaware repair shop to claim that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden knew about his son Hunter’s involvement with the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Hunter’s Burisma job was not exactly a secret, but the emails suggest his father – Barack Obama’s vice-president at the time – was aware of it, which Joe Biden had previously denied. The absolutely unhinged reaction of the media and political establishment to the Post story suggests it hit close to home. Facebook declared it would suppress it until it was vetted by “independent fact-checkers.” Twitter labeled the link to it “unsafe.”

Mainstream media journalists who dared mention it at all, even to criticize, got piled on as if violating a mafia code of silence. It did not take long for the same people who pushed the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy theory for years to do it again, claiming that the documents obtained by the Post were really from a “Russian hack.” The Biden campaign hasn’t actually challenged the authenticity of the emails and the photos – merely asserting that the meeting involving the VP and a Burisma executive referenced in an email wasn’t on any “official schedule.” No matter, the talking point that Russia “hacked Burisma in January” and was somehow the source of the documents was seriously making the rounds on Wednesday afternoon.

Mind you, this comes after the media establishment completely ignored the revelation that the FBI was using them – as in, media reports – to “corroborate” claims in the Clinton-funded Steele Dossier, which British spy Christopher Steele seeded in the press himself. It was a shocking example of circular reporting and comprehensive failure of both law enforcement and intelligence. Steele’s dossier was used to get warrants for spying on Trump’s campaign, which then continued for almost a year after the 2016 election – even as the FBI knew the dossier was bogus.

Read more …

A first for ‘Hacked Materials’. And again, there is no proof that anything was hacked.

Twitter Blocks Links To NYPost Story, Invokes ‘Hacked Materials’ Policy (RT)

Twitter has one-upped Facebook’s censorship regarding a story based on alleged emails from Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter about his Ukraine dealings, blocking all users from sharing it via tweet or direct message. Twitter users were blocked on Wednesday from sharing the New York Post story critical of the Bidens published just that morning. The decision was based on a never-before-invoked “hacked materials policy” that Twitter announced hours after Facebook had stomped on the same story. The Post cited emails that appeared to show Joe Biden – then vice president to Barack Obama – had met with Ukrainian Burisma exec Vadim Pozharskyi at the behest of his son and Burisma adviser Hunter Biden, less than a year before the current Democratic presidential candidate allegedly demanded Kiev fire its top prosecutor.


Twitter “errors” started pouring in just a few hours after Andy Stone, a Facebook executive with a long history of working for the Democratic Party, warned Facebook was “reducing [the Hunter Biden story’s] distribution” on its platform and seemingly invited Facebook’s fact-checkers to tear the story apart. While Twitter users were able to share the offending Post link for hours after Stone tagged it for destruction, what Twitter lacked in temporal primacy it made up in intensity. Users who attempted to share the story on Wednesday afternoon were informed they could not retweet the “potentially harmful” link. Unlike typical Twitter warning screens that can be clicked through, the link to the Post story was not even allowed to be posted.

Read more …

All together now.

Facebook’s Democratic Comms Chief Admits To Shadowbanning NYPost Story (RT)

A former Democratic Party staffer now working for Facebook has admitted to shadowbanning a viral story allegedly exposing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s Ukrainian ties and has encouraged “fact-checkers” to shred it. As a New York Post story claiming Biden scion Hunter had introduced his father to a Ukrainian energy executive less than a year before the then-Vice-President pressured Kiev into firing the country’s top prosecutor swept across social media on Wednesday morning, Facebook communications exec Andy Stone announced the social media behemoth was “reducing [the story’s] distribution on our platform.”


The reduced distribution was only a temporary measure until “Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners” could stamp their seal of (dis)approval on the story, Stone clarified in a later tweet, apparently confirming he’d preemptively flagged the story as disinformation. Stone openly touts his history with the Democratic Party in his Twitter profile, which shows he worked with the House Majority Political Action Committee, California Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and California Democrat Rep. Jerry McNerney.

Read more …

And came up with diddly-squat. Interesting that in this allegedly highly secretive operation, CNN has “more than a dozen sources”.

Feds Chased Foreign Link To Trump’s 2016 Campaign Cash For 3 Years (CNN)

For more than three years, federal prosecutors investigated whether money flowing through an Egyptian state-owned bank could have backed millions of dollars Donald Trump donated to his own campaign days before he won the 2016 election, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN. The investigation, which both predated and outlasted special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, examined whether there was an illegal foreign campaign contribution. It represents one of the most prolonged efforts by federal investigators to understand the President’s foreign financial ties, and became a significant but hidden part of the special counsel’s pursuits.

The investigation was kept so secret that at one point investigators locked down an entire floor of a federal courthouse in Washington, DC, so Mueller’s team could fight for the Egyptian bank’s records in closed-door court proceedings following a grand jury subpoena. The probe, which closed this summer with no charges filed, has never before been described publicly. Prosecutors suspected there could be a link between the Egyptian bank and Trump’s campaign contribution, according to several of the sources, but they could never prove a connection. It’s not clear that investigators ever had concrete evidence of a relevant bank transfer from the Egyptian bank. But multiple sources said there was sufficient information to justify the subpoena and keep the criminal campaign finance investigation open after the Mueller probe ended.

CNN learned of the Egypt investigation from more than a dozen sources familiar with the effort, as well as through hints in public records, including newly released court documents and Mueller witness interview summaries, called 302s, that CNN and Buzzfeed obtained through lawsuits. In a court filing last month, the Justice Department confirmed that when the special counsel’s office shut down in 2019, Mueller transferred an ongoing foreign campaign contribution investigation to prosecutors in Washington. Some of CNN’s sources have confirmed that the case, which Mueller cryptically called a “foreign campaign contribution” probe, was in fact the Egypt investigation.

The probe was confirmed this week by a Justice Department senior official who responded to CNN’s queries: “The case was first looked at by the Special Counsel investigators who failed to bring a case, and then it was looked at by the US attorney’s office, and career prosecutors in the national security section, who also were unable to bring a case. Based upon the recommendations of both the FBI and those career prosecutors, Michael Sherwin, the acting US attorney, formally closed the case in July.”

Read more …

And there’s still more…

Laundry Operation: Bruce Ohr Left DOJ Shortly Before Being Sacked (sundance)

Bruce Ohr was part of the laundry operation for Fusion-GPS and Chris Steele’s dossier. Bruce’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was working for Glenn Simpson at Fusion-GPS feeding information to Steele for the Dossier assembly. Steele then transmitted the same information back to Bruce who then received and provided it to FBI investigators giving the patina of an official intelligence product. The FBI wrote interview notes with Bruce Ohr from a series of 15 interviews. Those “302’s” were later released as part of the information showing how the operation was being handled. Despite receiving a $28,000 bonus for his efforts, Bruce Ohr was demoted twice and then seemingly remained employed in some unknown capacity within the DOJ as the months and years progressed.

Note, analysis of the Bruce Ohr 302 documents is complex because the investigative notes need to be reviewed as simply one overlay in a series of timelines and documents. That means taking the Ohr 302’s (the content as a timeline) then comparing/overlaying them to: (1) the Bruce Ohr emails with Chris Steele; (2) the text messages with Peter Strzok and Lisa Page on the same dates as the Ohr interviews; (3) the text messages from SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Steele’s lawyer Adam Waldman; (4) the content of the Comey memos; and (5) what was going on -inside the DC investigation- at the time these interviews were taking place. It’s a layered onion with markers that align at specific points and tell a much bigger story. Example below.

As Bruce Ohr is discussing the possibility of the “SIC” (Senate Intelligence Committee) traveling to the U.K. to interview Steele, you cross reference the committee Vice-Chair Mark Warner text messages (w/ Steele’s lawyer Adam Waldman) and the Ohr interview substance gives you the bigger picture of the conspiracy:

Now overlay Democrat Senator Mark Warner (SIC) attempting to organize a meeting with Christopher Steele without “a paper trail”, during the height of the effort to organize the ‘soft-coup’ impeachment evidence.

Keep in mind as you review, SSCI Mark Warner attempting covert contact, for the expressed political purpose of conducting a ‘soft coup’….. the Vice-Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Mark Warner, is also a member of a very specific group known as the oversight “Gang-of-Eight”; and has contact with the most sensitive and secret covert government operations. This is why the Weissmann/Mueller team needed to water-down the explosive connection between the activity of Warner and the SSCI to the overall operation. This is why Weissmann/Mueller released those text messages on Feb 9, 2018, to coordinate a cover-story for the back-channel communication.

Read more …

“..Based on their research, Doyle and Moynihan believe the Clintons owe taxes on between $400 million and $2.5 billion..”

Judge Rules Clinton Foundation Whistleblower Complaint Can Proceed (ET)

A federal judge on Oct. 8 ruled that a whistleblower complaint against the Clinton Foundation can proceed, saying that the IRS “abused its discretion” in attempting to dismiss allegations of wrongdoing by the nonprofit organization. U.S. Tax Court Judge David Gustafson last week found that the complaint, brought by whistleblowers Lawrence Doyle, a corporate tax compliance expert, and John Moynihan. a former Drug Enforcement Agency official, “provided ‘specific credible documentation’ supporting their allegations” that the Clinton Foundation potentially evaded paying taxes on millions if not billions of dollars. The judge struck down the IRS’s request for a summary judgment.

He said that its Whistleblower Office (WBO) was wrong in denying the whistleblowers’ claims, based on an email from the agency’s Criminal Investigation (CI) office that said the complaint was closed. The record “fails to support the WBO’s conclusion that CI hadn’t proceeded with any action based on petitioners’ information. Accordingly, we deny the motion on the grounds that the WBO abused its discretion in reaching its conclusion, because not all of its factual determinations underlying that conclusion are supported by that record,” Gustafson wrote. Gustafson also said that based on evidence, he had reason to believe that the FBI was involved in an IRS investigation. He cited information contained within IRS records that had until now been kept from the public, in which Doyle and Moynihan discuss their contacts with law enforcement officials.

[..] Based on their research, Doyle and Moynihan believe the Clintons owe taxes on between $400 million and $2.5 billion; if the IRS finds that the foundation isn’t a charity, its donors might also be liable for taxes owed on their contributions. They also said that, while not looking for this specifically, they did find instances of “pay-to-play” behavior between the donors, the foundation, and Hillary Clinton’s position as secretary of state, which she held from 2009 to 2013.

Read more …

Apparently there is still a Golden Dawn member in the European Parliament.

Golden Dawn Leadership Sentenced To 13 Years In Prison (K.)

A Greek court sentenced the leadership of the extreme-right Golden Dawn party to 13 years in prison Wednesday, imposing the near-maximum penalty for running a criminal organization blamed for numerous violent hate crimes. Presiding judge Maria Lepenioti read out the sentences against party leader Nikos Michaloliakos and seven other former lawmakers. The landmark ruling follows a five-year trial of dozens of top officials, members and supporters of Golden Dawn, an organization founded as a neo-Nazi group in the 1980s that rose to become Greece’s third-largest political during a major financial crisis in the previous decade.


Eleven other former parliament members were jailed for between five and seven years for membership of a criminal organization, while a party associate was given a life sentence for the murder of Greek rap singer Pavlos Fyssas in a 2013 attack that triggered the crackdown against the party. Arrests will be carried out after the court hears final arguments for probation considerations.

Read more …

That’s probably just you and Nancy, Joe.

Covid Crisis Shows Trump Sees Older Voters As ‘Expendable’, Says Biden (G.)

Joe Biden has said Donald Trump views older voters as “expendable” and “forgettable” as the Democratic presidential candidate sought to win fresh support in the battleground state of Florida. Biden’s visit on Tuesday came a day after the president’s own trip to Florida – his first outside Washington since his Covid-19 diagnosis. Speaking to about 50 people at a socially distanced event in Broward County in South Florida, Biden said Trump had recklessly dismissed the threat that the virus had posed to their at-risk population. “To Donald Trump, you’re expendable. You’re forgettable. You’re virtually nobody. That’s how he sees seniors. That’s how he sees you,” Biden said.

He added said he was disappointed that Trump’s bout with the virus had not left him more chastened about his approach to the pandemic. “The longer Donald Trump is president, the more reckless he seems to get,” Biden said. “Thank God we only have three weeks left to go.” A Biden win in Florida would seriously jeopardise the president’s chances of re-election, and most recent opinion polls show the Democrat ahead with key demographic groups in the state, particularly seniors. Trump won Florida in 2016 by 1.2 percentage points.

An Opinium Research and Guardian opinion poll shows Biden’s lead over Trump surging to a record 17 points. Some 57% of likely voters said they intended to vote for Biden, while just 40% say they would vote for the incumbent president. The 17-point gap is even bigger than than 57%-41% margin found by CNN earlier this month.

Read more …

Published at the NIH website.

Single Dose of 300,000 IU Vit D May Prevent, Treat COVID19 (NIH)

Abstract: There is no specific and effective medication for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and avaccine is not available in recent months. Here, we hypothesize that a single large dose of vitamin D (Vit D) could be an option for trial in COVID-19. Vit D deficiency or insufficiency is very common in the general population as well as in patients with COVID-19. It has been shown that low Vit D level is associated with viral infection, and Vit D supplementation is beneficial for people infected with viruses, such as HIV and hepatitis C virus. Although COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, the morbidity and mortality of this disease are driven by coagulopathy. Clinical studies have shown that Vit D can exert anticoagulant effects. Vit D, a lipid-soluble vitamin, can be administered as a draught. Vit D supplementation is safe and has rare toxic events. In addition, the cost of Vit D is fairly low. Based on these observations, we speculate that a single dose of 300,000 IU Vit D may have a role in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

Read more …

“..the president expressed his will for all doses produced in Russia to remain within the country..”

Putin Announces 2nd Russian Covid19 Vaccine, 3rd On The Way (RT)

President Vladimir Putin announced on Wednesday that Russia has registered its second domestic Covid-19 vaccine, with a third already on the way. A phase-three trial, with 40,000 volunteers, is due to begin in the near future. In August, Russia was the first country to announce the registration of a Covid-19 vaccine, which has since been taken by thousands of Muscovites, as part of its final trial phase. With a second formula registered and another around the corner, Russia will soon have a wide range of options. The name of the new vaccine is EpiVacCorona and it is being produced in Siberia by Vector, a biological research center. Located near the city of Novosibirsk, Vector is a world-class virology and biotechnology facility, and has one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of viruses, including Ebola, SARS, and smallpox.


According to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, 60,000 doses of the vaccine are due to be released soon. She also said that 40,000 volunteers will participate in a third-phase clinical trial, including people over 65 years-old. Thus far, just 100 volunteers have taken the vaccine. Speaking to Golikova, the president expressed his will for all doses produced in Russia to remain within the country, explaining that formulas for the use of foreign nations should be made abroad. The third vaccine is being produced by the Chumakov Federal Scientific Center, in Moscow. According to Alexander Ryzhikov, the head of Vector’s zoonotic infections and influenza department, the second Russian vaccine should create immunity for at least six months, and is made in a way that people can be vaccinated multiple times. “It forms a targeted immune response, and there is no need to worry about (the) long-term effects of revaccination,” he said.

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site.

Click at the top of the sidebars for Paypal and Patreon donations. Thank you for your support.

 

 

Lauri Love

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime, election time, all the time. Click at the top of the sidebars for Paypal and Patreon.

 

Oct 032020
 


René Magritte Le Cri du Coeur 1960

 

Trump Checks Into Walter Reed Medical Center As Precaution For COVID19 (JTN)
From Gloating To Tears (LA Times)
CNN Thrills With Airing Of Secret Taping of First Lady (Turley)
Just Before Obama Left Office, US Officials Feared Burisma Paid 2nd Bribe (JTN)
Media Willfully Ignore Hunter Biden Scandal (Hemingway)
Michigan Supreme Court Rules Governor Exceeded Her Lockdown Powers (CT)
40% of Seoul Residents Have Mental Health Issues Due To COVID19 (KT)
Why Is The Assange Case Unloved By The Media? (Crikey)
Reps. Tulsi Gabbard, Massie Call For Charges Against Assange To Be Dropped

 

 

Europe is getting out of control.

 

 

This made me laugh so hard. The Trump campaign should turn it into a TV ad and play it 100 times a day.

 

 

Seems a bit more than just precaution.

Trump is taking Regeneron’s experimental polyclonan antibody cocktail, zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, a daily aspirin, and Remdesivir. But no HCQ.

Trump Checks Into Walter Reed Medical Center As Precaution For COVID19 (JTN)

President Trump is being transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center roughly eighteen hours after he announced that he and the First Lady had tested positive for COVID-19, the White House said in a statement. The president was seen departing the White House late Friday afternoon, wearing a suit and a face covering while walking to an awaiting helicopter on the South Lawn. “Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the President will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement late Friday afternoon.


The president “remains in good spirts, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day,” she added. The president received an experimental antibiotic “cocktail” after his diagnosis with COVID-19, White House physician Sean Conley said earlier in the day. In a memorandum released on Friday afternoon, Conley said Trump had received “a single 8 gram dose of Regeneron’s polyclonan antibody cocktail.” He is also taking “zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin,” Conley added. “As of this afternoon the President remains fatigued but in good spirits,” Conley continued, stating that the president is “being evaluated by a team of experts.”

Read more …

So many people on Twitter wished for Trump to die that the company issued a statement saying such Tweets will be removed. In other words, as someone also tweeted, Twitter will have a busy weekend.

From Gloating To Tears (LA Times)

In Atlanta, property appraiser Leslie Sublett cried as she discussed his diagnosis with co-workers, suspicious that it was a lie to minimize the pandemic and to manipulate the battle around the election and the U.S. Supreme Court. Sublett, a 50-year-old Democrat, could not shake the feeling that the United States was collapsing. “I’ve had it up to here,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “If we can’t depend on the basic tenets of our democracy, we’re Rome in the end stages. We will cease to be. Gosh, it sounds so dark and terrible, but that’s what I’m crying over.” In Lake Charles, La., Republican Kevin Lavergne was anxious too — not about the pandemic, which he still believes is exaggerated, but about election security, the U.S. Postal Service and the economy, especially since Hurricane Laura devastated his town in August.

“People are losing their lives, committing suicide because of the stress,” said Lavergne, 48, a construction worker who’s been unemployed since the pandemic effectively shut down the local economy. “If we don’t have it up and running and people making money, how are we going to survive?” The president’s diagnosis came as the coronavirus continued its relentless spread, as did protests over police brutality and complaints of voter suppression and election fraud. Americans across the political spectrum were unnerved and grappling with more upheavals than they have since marches over civil rights and the Vietnam War decades ago.

“We used to call the 1960s tumultuous. The ’20s are looking to be a nation unspooling. We’re losing the threads of our democracy, busting apart,” said professor Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “It’s been probably the hardest American year since 1968. It’s been one day of bad news after another.” Concern about whether free and fair elections are possible is particularly acute, he said, especially after the first debate between Trump and Joe Biden this week devolved into “a grotesque carnival.” “As a country, we’ve had hard times before,” Brinkley said, but now America feels divided along party lines as they wage a “neo-civil war.” “Everybody is spinning and there’s a kind of depression and our traditional optimism is gone,” he said.

Read more …

How this can be turned into another scandal is beyond me. Melania “bashed” Christmas Decorations! Details at 8! She tried to help the children, but was told she couldn’t. She gets upset that the press question her but not the Obama’s. That’s was she’s addressing when she says “Give me a f****** break.” That Obama separated children too. But by cutting it off there, they can make it look like she doesn’t care about the children.

“OK, and then I do it and I say that I’m working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, ‘Oh, what about the children that they were separated?’ Give me a f****** break. Where they were saying anything when Obama did that? I can not go, I was trying get the kid reunited with the mom. I didn’t have a chance — needs to go through the process and through the law.””

CNN Thrills With Airing Of Secret Taping of First Lady (Turley)

Years ago, American politics left all notion of decency behind in our age of rage. That was evident when the media and liberals celebrated the disgraceful conduct of Maryanne Trump betraying her aunt’s confidence in secretly recording her talking about her brother. The same people reveled in the unethical conduct of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen who not only secretly recorded his client, President Donald Trump, but has been violating any notion of confidentiality in pushing his own tell all book. Now, CNN’s Anderson Cooper has been reduced to shilling for Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the former assistant and friend of Melania Trump who secretly recorded their confidential chats and is now selling a book by playing embarrassing snip bits.

What is incredible about these people is that, while currying favors as false friends or counsels, they were actively taping people who trusted them in case they wanted to later cash in on their access. In the latest example, CNN ran an entirely valueless significant in primetime to simply show the First Lady swearing and complaining about Christmas obligations. Melania “bashed” Christmas Decorations! Details at 8! This used to be the network of figures like Bernard Shaw. As Melania Trump unburdened herself to her friend, Wolkoff kept recording and hoping for something juicy. What she got was this line “I’m working… my ass off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?”

That thrilled Anderson Cooper, who once would have become physically ill at the notion of running such ill-gotten tripe. Instead, he exclaims “Talk about a war on Christmas! It’s funny that she would be leading that.” Talk about a war on journalism! CNN is now trafficking in material that would make the National Inquirer blush. By the way . . . funny? Is that the most descriptive term for this story. What about pursuing the utter betrayal and dishonesty shown by Wolkoff in setting up a friend and boss? There is nothing “funny” about CNN leading with this type of matter, of course. The most newsworthy aspect of this story was the one largely untouched: the despicable level of dishonesty that motivates this type of banking of secret recordings by people like Wolkoff.

It is the very reason that viewers are abandoning the network and media has plummeted in polling in terms of perceived accuracy and honesty. I still view Cooper as an insightful and intelligent journalist but this is an example of how corrupting the current environment has become for many. There is a new sense of an absolute license to engage in any attack or distort any fact for the greater good. Indeed, we now have leading journalism professors denouncing the very concept of objectivity in journalism.

Read more …

The usual suspects: Yovanovich, Victoria Nuland. And both Bidens. Note how the mood and message changed the moment Obama left.

Just Before Obama Left Office, US Officials Feared Burisma Paid 2nd Bribe (JTN)

Twenty-two days before President Obama left office, the U.S. ambassador to Kiev wrote top officials in Washington that she feared Burisma Holdings had made a second bribe to Ukrainian officials — shortly before a corruption probe against Hunter Biden’s natural gas employer was abruptly closed before Donald Trump took office. The concerns are detailed in new memos belatedly released to Just the News under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department. The suit was brought on behalf of the news organization by the public interest law firm the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

Then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s concerns were first raised in a Ukrainian news story about a Russian-backed fugitive lawmaker in Ukraine, who alleged Burisma had dumped low-priced natural gas into the market for officials near Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to buy low and sell high, making a bribe disguised as a profit. The scheme was confirmed by U.S. officials before Yovanovitch alerted the top State official for Ukraine and Russia policy in Washington at the time, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the memos show. “There are accusations that Burisma allegedly had a subsidiary dump natural gas as a way to pay bribes,” Yovanovitch wrote Nuland on Dec. 29, 2016, noting the story “mentions that Hunter Biden and former Polish President Kwasniewski are on the Burisma Board.”

The alert was the second in two years in which the embassy alleged Burisma had paid a bribe while Vice President Joe Biden’s son served on its board. Back in February 2015, then-embassy official George Kent reported to the U.S. Justice Department evidence that Burisma had made a $7 million cash bribe to Ukrainian prosecutors before those prosecutors killed a separate corruption probe in the United Kingdom by failing to produce required evidence. The second alleged bribe in December 2016 was brought to the attention of Yovanovitch and Kent, then a top aide to the ambassador, shortly after the Christmas holiday when a story appeared in the Ukrainian press. “Lots of accusations/innuendo,” Yovanovitch was told in an email. “Mentions Biden’s son and Kwasniewski are on board of Burisma, which allegedly had a subsidiary dump natural gas recently as a way to pay bribes to P2 inner circle.”

P2 was the shorthand State officials in the U.S. embassy in Kiev used to refer to Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president, who was close to Vice President Biden. Because the allegations were first raised by Oleksander Onyschenko, a fugitive in Ukraine who was tied to Russian sources, as well as Radical Party Leader Oleg Lyashko, embassy officials checked them out and confirmed them before telling Nuland. “The dumping part is true,” the embassy’s deputy economic counselor wrote Yovanovitch a few hours after the story surfaced and before Nuland was alerted. The official told the ambassador a major Ukrainian figure close to Poroshenko was “photographed meeting with [Burisma founder Mykola] Zlochevsky in a Vienna restaurant over the weekend, and Zlochevsky may have handed over a suitcase. You can’t make this up.”

Read more …

He shall not be named has also not been seen in ages.

Media Willfully Ignore Hunter Biden Scandal (Hemingway)

Last week, a Senate Intelligence Committee report detailed how the son of a major presidential candidate, who has an extensive history of shady foreign business dealings, received a $3.5-million wire transfer from the wife of a Russian politician. The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and most major media outlets didn’t cover the story at all. Four years ago, not reporting such a story was a possibility too absurd to even contemplate – but then again, no one would have predicted the candidate with the shady Russia ties is not Donald Trump, but Joe Biden. People often talk about how Trump is responsible for destroying political norms, and that’s a valid concern.

However, one of the truly frightening things about the Trump era is how institutions have exploited a perceived crisis in truth-telling to justify abandoning their own standards by blaming it on Trump. Increasingly, we see major stories break where the media establishment decides on a collective omertà because the story undermines its own credibility or might sway voters in directions it doesn’t approve of. When that happens, no news is good news. The problem with hiding the truth is that you can’t suppress it forever, let alone a week, in this news environment. After the initial blackout, we are finally starting to see some coverage of Hunter Biden’s suspect wire transfer – but only after Trump himself raised the issue in the recent presidential debate and forced the media’s hand. The little coverage the issue has received is instructive, and not in a good way.

When Trump raised the issue at the debate, Joe Biden responded by saying the claim was “Totally discredited. Totally discredited.” Given that it’s a direct allegation in a government document and Biden is flatly denying it, you’d think this would be a perfect opportunity for the media to dig in and sort out the truth of the claim. Instead, they have essentially punted on the issue. According to PolitiFact, which refused to rate the claim either true or false, the facts are in dispute because “Biden’s lawyer says he did not co-found the partnership [that received the money] and had no stake in it,” and “Democrats say they reviewed the Republicans’ documentation but did not find a specific link to Hunter Biden.”

[..] So why does the Senate intel committee report that Biden was a “co-founder” of the firm in question? Well, one clue might be that committee members read it in the media. A lengthy New Yorker profile of Hunter Biden from last year, which clearly had extensive cooperation from the Biden team, reported the following: “In June, 2009, five months after Joe Biden became Vice-President, Hunter co-founded a second company, Rosemont Seneca Partners, with Christopher Heinz, Senator John Kerry’s stepson.” That was 15 months ago. For the Biden camp to be disputing this key fact now seems awfully convenient. Further, in that same magazine article, Hunter Biden admits to taking an $80,000 bribe from a Communist Chinese Party-connected tycoon, in the form of a 2.8-carat diamond delivered to his hotel room.

[..] For Joe Biden to tell the American people this accusation is “totally discredited,” when the media hadn’t even touched the story, well, honest fact-checkers would tell it like it is: Joe Biden stood up in front of tens of millions of Americans on Tuesday night and told a self-serving lie – a lie that would have been called a four-alarm trouser conflagration if Trump had said it.

Devin Nunes

Read more …

“..the governor is obligated to terminate the state of emergency or state of disaster after 28 days..”

Michigan Supreme Court Rules Governor Exceeded Her Lockdown Powers (CT)

The supreme court in Michigan has ruled that Governor Gretchen Whitmer exceeded her constitutional authority under state law in the arbitrary enforcement of her unilateral decrees to mitigate the COVID-19 virus. [pdf here] As the court wrote in the opinion rebuking the governor: “The people of this state have been denied a voice and a seat at the table in decisions that have impacted every facet of their lives and their futures over the past eight months. They deserve to have their representatives bring their voice and their concerns into this decision-making process.”

At the heart of the governor’s legal argument was a 1945 law allowing the governor to declare a state of disaster or emergency if she finds one to exist and it remains in place for 28 days, unless the Legislature extends it. The legislature did not extend the declaration, yet the governor continued to restrict the citizens without any representative voice. “MICHIGAN – […] In the 4-3 ruling, the court determined the governor did not have the authority under state law to issue any additional emergency declarations pertaining to the pandemic after April 30. That was the last date when the legislature allowed the governor to declare an emergency. “The governor’s declaration of a state of emergency or state of disaster may only endure for 28 days absent legislative approval of an extension. So, if the Legislature does nothing, as it did here, the governor is obligated to terminate the state of emergency or state of disaster after 28 days,” said the majority opinion, written by Judge Stephen Markman.

[…] “Put simply, and our criticism is not of the Governor in this regard but of the statute in dispute — almost certainly, no individual in the history of this state has ever been vested with as much concentrated and standardless power to regulate the lives of our people, free of the inconvenience of having to act in accord with other accountable branches of government and free of any need to subject her decisions to the ordinary interplay of our system of separated powers and checks and balances, with even the ending date of this exercise of power reposing exclusively in her own judgment and discretion,” the majority wrote.

Read more …

People need people. Quelle surprise.

40% of Seoul Residents Have Mental Health Issues Due To COVID19 (KT)

The prolonged coronavirus pandemic has seen the mental health of Seoul citizens deteriorate more than their physical health, according to a recent survey by Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG). According to the survey results released on Monday, 1,489 of 3,983 respondents -almost 40%- said their mental health has deteriorated since the start of the pandemic, whereas 22 percent felt it has worsened their physical health. A total of 3,983 Seoul residents aged between 10 and 90 took part in the survey. The poll, organized in cooperation with IBM, was conducted via chatbots.

The main reasons offered for declining mental health were refraining from outdoor activities under social distancing measures, economic hardship, discomfort from wearing face masks, overall lethargy in daily routine, and the absence of human interaction. The survey also revealed that people feel more stressed about isolation than unemployment or decreased income. One third of the respondents stated that restricted leisure activities including travel bans were the main reason for mental stress. It was followed by lack of social interaction, chosen by 26 percent, followed by job loss or pay cuts, which was selected by 24 percent of respondents. “It is normal for people to easily become depressed when they lack physical activity, as physical and mental health are deeply connected.

Engaging in indoor activities such as home workouts or yoga will help,” said Lee Dong-gui, a professor of psychology at Yonsei University. “As COVID-19 has become a part of our daily lives, it may be better for our brains to view the pandemic as a marathon and prepare for it, rather than hoping it will soon come to an end,” advised Lee. Regarding the government’s social distancing measures, a vast majority -92%- consider the measures necessary and effective in containing the spread of the virus..

Read more …

View from his homeland.

Why Is The Assange Case Unloved By The Media? (Crikey)

A former employee of a Spanish security firm has told Julian Assange’s extradition hearing of a plan to abduct and even poison the Australian as part of a widespread surveillance operation said to have been ordered by an associate of US President Donald Trump. This revelation, concerning an Australian citizen who is facing 175 years in jail on espionage charges, made it to page 23 of The Sydney Morning Herald. In The Australian, it was given a small corner on page nine in the world news section, beneath a page of analysis on the first presidential debate. Yet the story would appear to have everything. Witnesses fearful for their lives alleging a conspiracy, tangentially involving the US president, to poison or kidnap a significant Australian figure.


Reports on the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexander Navalny, allegedly by the Russian government, got higher billing than Assange in the SMH (on top of an opinion piece declaring Navalny a hero). This is typical of the coverage of the Assange case. You can’t accuse the mainstream media of exactly ignoring the case, but it generally comes “mid-paper” (in print and online). It’s just another thing that’s happening in the world. But isn’t the trial of a Walkley award winner a case about press freedom? Compare this to the blanket front page coverage that followed the Right to Know campaign, where mainstream media outlets talked about the impediments they themselves regularly encounter on account of national security laws they otherwise cheer on.

Read more …

Go Tulsi!

Reps. Tulsi Gabbard, Massie Call For Charges Against Assange To Be Dropped

Today, Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) and Thomas Massie (KY-04) introduced H.Res.1175, a resolution that defends the freedom of the press, noting that newsgathering activities and news organizations ability to acquire and publish information are protected under the First Amendment. The resolution calls for the United States to drop all charges and efforts to extradite Julian Assange.

“Freedom of the press is a vital function of a free democracy in which the government is accountable to the people. Julian Assange published information that exposed lies and abuses of power at the highest levels of our government. His indictment under the Espionage Act sends a chilling message to every member of the media and all Americans,” said Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. “U.S. government prosecutors now claim that any journalist or news organization that publishes classified material is liable to prosecution under the Espionage Act — which would have led to the indictment of the Washington Post for the publication of the Pentagon Papers. The Federal government’s prosecution of Julian Assange sets a dangerous precedent. All extradition efforts and charges under the Espionage Act against Julian Assange must be dropped now.”

“At a time when government officials claim the right to perform warrantless surveillance upon all American citizens, there is an urgent need to zealously guard freedom of the press and to demand government transparency and accountability. The ongoing attempts to prosecute Julian Assange threaten our First Amendment rights, and should be opposed by all who wish to safeguard our constitutional rights now and in the years to come. I join my colleague, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, in calling for an immediate end to all charges against Mr. Assange,” said Rep. Thomas Massie.

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site.

Click at the top of the sidebars for Paypal and Patreon donations. Thank you for your support.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime, election time, all the time.

 

Sep 262020
 


Botticelli Renaissance man (aka Medallion, Young man holding a medallion) 1480-85

 

Trump To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court (ZH)
‘Rank Religious Bigotry’: Black Church Leaders Defend Amy Coney Barrett (DC)
Trump $500B Black America Plan Names KKK, Antifa Terrorist Organizations (Fox)
Likely Voters: In-Person Presidential Debates Important This Year (JTN)
FBI Agent: Never Russia Collusion But Mueller Team Had ‘Get Trump’ Goal (JTN)
How Joe Biden Pushed To Quash Investigation Of Burisma (Smith)
Female Problems (Kunstler)
Scientists Urge UK Not To Follow Sweden’s Approach To Pandemic (Ind.)
Cantillon Effect 101 (Bloom)
Queen To Receive Government ‘Bailout’ To Top Up Income (Ind.)
The Difference Between ‘Villain’ Assange & ‘Intrepid’ Woodward (Camp)
Trump Will Only Leave Office If A Challenger Beats Him In Ritual Combat (BBee)

 

 

We’re going to hit 1 million global deaths tomorrow. No matter how twisted the numbers may be, that’s still a milestone.

 

 

 

 

Matt Taibbi has it exactly right: attacking Barrett for her faith is a very slippery slope. No matter how you feel about Roe vs. Wade. Which would appear to be just about impossible to denounce anyway.

 

 

“Senator Diane Feinstein generated considerable controversy when she said to Barrett: “The dogma lives loudly in you.”

One big problem with attacking her religious beliefs is that Joe Biden labels himself a devout Catholic, too.

Trump To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court (ZH)

Trump’s likely nominees to replace RBG on The US Supreme Court – 7th Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, 11th Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, and 4th Circuit Judge Allison Jones Rushing – have, according to sources who have leaked their information to The New York Times, been narrowed down to Judge Amy Coney Barrett: President Trump has selected Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the favorite candidate of conservatives, to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and will try to force Senate confirmation before Election Day in a move that would significantly alter the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court for years. Mr. Trump plans to announce on Saturday that she is his choice, according to people close to the process who asked not to be identified disclosing the decision in advance.

The president met with Judge Barrett at the White House this week and came away impressed with a jurist that leading conservatives told him would be a female Antonin Scalia, referring to the justice who died in 2016 and for whom Judge Barrett clerked. Barrett is the most feared by liberals, some of whom concede that she has “a topnotch legal mind.” Many have focused on Judge Barrett’s devout catholicism – and therefore the abortion debate… “She is the perfect combination of brilliant jurist and a woman who brings the argument to the court that is potentially the contrary to the views of the sitting women justices,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political group, who has praised Mr. Trump’s entire shortlist.

Additionally, as NYT noted earlier in the week, liberal groups have been sounding the alarm over Judge Barrett for two years because of concerns over how she might rule on abortion and the Affordable Care Act. “Amy Coney Barrett meets Donald Trump’s two main litmus tests: She has made clear she would invalidate the A.C.A. and take health care away from millions of people and undermine a woman’s reproductive freedom,” said Nan Aron, the president of Alliance for Justice, a liberal group. In a 2017 law review article written before she joined the appeals court, Judge Barrett was critical of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s 2012 opinion sustaining a central provision of the Affordable Care Act, saying he had betrayed the commands of textualism. “Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute,” she wrote.

The court will again hear arguments on the fate of the law in November, and Judge Barrett’s article suggested that she would give its challengers a sympathetic hearing. However, in one of her most revealing opinions, Barrett took an expansive view of the Second Amendment – dissenting to the right of two colleagues who were appointed by President Ronald Reagan. In the world of conservative judges, she has particularly strong credentials. Judge Barrett began clerking for Justice Antonin Scalia 22 years ago, and her fellow clerks are quick to say she was his favorite. She graduated summa cum laude from Notre Dame Law School and joined the faculty in 2002, earning praise from colleagues as an astute scholar and jurist even if they did not always agree on her jurisprudential premises.

But, as a reminder, Alan Dershowitz notes that when Judge Barrett came before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for her nomination to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Senator Diane Feinstein generated considerable controversy when she said to Barrett: “The dogma lives loudly in you.” This was a reference to Barrett’s deep Catholic faith. Under our Constitution, Senator Feinstein’s statement crossed the line. Ours was the first Constitution in history to provide that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Although Feinstein did not explicitly impose a religious test, she suggested that personal religious views — which she called dogma — might disqualify a nominee from being confirmed.

Read more …

Attacking someone for their religion doesn’t sound overly American to begin with.

‘Rank Religious Bigotry’: Black Church Leaders Defend Amy Coney Barrett (DC)

Black religious leaders rallied Friday to defend reported Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett against criticisms of her Catholic faith. “We do not know whether she will be nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States, for which she is by all reports under consideration,” said the letter, which was signed by Charismatic Christian and Black Pentecostal leaders including clergy, scholars and pastors. “But we do know that attacks on her Christian beliefs and her membership in a charismatic Christian community reflect rank religious bigotry that has no legitimate place in our political debates or public life,” the letter said. President Donald Trump reportedly has selected Barrett as the Supreme Court nominee, multiple outlets reported Friday.


The letter continued: “We condemn these vile attacks—which began three years ago during the process of her confirmation for the judicial post she currently holds. As the descendants of slaves we are particularly sensitive to acts of discrimination and we demand an end to this reprehensible conduct.” The letter, titled “A Black Defense of Freedom of Conscience and Amy Coney Barrett,” was published by the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies, an institution dedicated to educating and training black church leaders. The defense comes after Democrats suggested at Barrett’s 2017 confirmation hearings that her Catholicism made her unfit to serve as a judge. Barrett’s Catholic faith has also been called “extreme,” and media has attempted to link a Catholic group associated with Barrett to the fictional dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Read more …

“.. they abandoned you and sold you out..”

Trump $500B Black America Plan Names KKK, Antifa Terrorist Organizations (Fox)

President Trump’s plan for Black America designates the KKK and Antifa as terrorist organizations and calls for making lynching a national hate crime, while pledging to increase access to capital in Black communities by nearly $500 billion, Fox News has learned. The president on Friday is expected to roll out details of what the campaign is calling the “Platinum Plan,” which details “opportunity,” “security,” “prosperity,” and “fairness” for the Black Community. “For decades, Democrat politicians like Joe Biden have taken Black voters for granted. They made you big promises before every election—and then the moment they got to Washington, they abandoned you and sold you out,” the president is expected to say Friday, according to remarks exclusively obtained by Fox News.

“The Democrats will always take Black voters for granted until large numbers of Black Americans vote Republican.” The president is expected to tout the plan as “a bold vision that we can and will achieve over the next four years.” The president’s plan, according to the campaign, will increase access to capital in Black communities by almost $500 billion, help to create 500,000 new Black-owned businesses, and help to create 3 million new jobs for the Black community. Fox News obtained a copy of the “Platinum Plan.” It states that it will “prosecute the KKK and ANTIFA as terrorist organizations and make lynching a national hate crime.” The president’s plan also vows to make Juneteenth a national holiday.

Meanwhile, the president is also expected to commit to working on a “Second Step Act,” and provide access to better jobs and training opportunities for those in Black communities. The Platinum Plan also pledges to give Black churches the ability to compete for federal resources for their communities; bring better and tailored healthcare to address what the campaign called “historic disparities,” and advance home ownership opportunities and enhance financial literacy in Black communities.

Read more …

Better show up, Joe.

Likely Voters: In-Person Presidential Debates Important This Year (JTN)

A strong majority of likely U.S. voters say in-person, face-to-face presidential debates between President Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden are important in terms of their expected vote, according to a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen. Among the likely voters surveyed, 75% said the debates were important. Just 24% said they were not, while 1% were unsure. Notably, Republicans were significantly more likely than Democrats (69% – 42%) to say the debates were “very important.” Independents were closer to Democrats on the question, with 46% attaching major importance to the debates. Rasmussen pointed out that, historically speaking, debates “are built up as a significant event, like a prize fight.”


“Political junkies and pundits thoroughly enjoy them,” he said, but overall the debates “rarely move the needle in terms of voting intentions.” “It is possible that this year could be different because voters have seen so little of Joe Biden,” he also said. Holding the 2020 presidential debates on a live stage was somewhat in doubt earlier in the year, with speculation that the coronavirus pandemic might lead to the event being held virtually. Over the summer, there were also indications that Democrats might be shying away from letting Biden participate, with Nancy Pelosi in August suggesting that no debates should be held at all.

Read more …

38 days left?!

FBI Agent: Never Russia Collusion But Mueller Team Had ‘Get Trump’ Goal (JTN)

An FBI agent who played a lead role investigating Michael Flynn told the Justice Department there was never evidence of wrongdoing by the retired general or Russian collusion by President Trump, but the probe was kept open by Special Counsel Robert Mueller because his team had a “get Trump” goal, according to an explosive interview released Friday. Agent William Barnett’s interview with Justice Department prosecutors earlier this month provided a bombshell claim that both FBI superiors under agency Director James Comey and Mueller’s team exhibited bias in their pursuit of Trump that upended the normal investigative decisions, tactics and commitment to pursue evidence neutrally.

The interview emerged just one day after the Justice Department released text messages showing FBI analysts bought liability insurance in January 2017 because they feared they could be sued for misconduct committed during the Russia probe. “BARNETT thought that the TRUMP campaign may have been aware the Russians were attempting to impact the election but that was far different from the TRUMP campaign and the Russians having a deal and/or working together quid pro quo,” the report of his Sept. 17 interview reads. “BARNETT” and others joked about how the investigation into collusion could be made into a game, which they referred to as “Collusion Clue.”

In the hypothetical game, investigators were able to choose any character conducting any activity in any location and pair this individual with another character and interpret it as evidence of collusion. Barnett added: “With respect to Flynn’s [phone call] with the Russian ambassador in December 2016 BARNETT did not believe Flynn was being directed by TRUMP. BARNETT did not believe FLYNN had any additional information to provide SCO. Barnett believed the prosecution of Flynn by SCO was used as a means to ‘get TRUMP.’ ”

Barnett described how the top levels of the FBI, including now-fired Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, suddenly took over the investigation after Trump won the November 2016 election and continued to keep the case going even though there was “little detail concerning specific evidence of criminal events.” “BARNETT still did not see any evidence of collusion between the TRUMP campaign and the Russian government,” the interview report stated. “Barnett was willing to follow any instructions being given by the deputy director as long as it was not a violation of the law.”

Read more …

Excerpt of the book “Permanent Coup”. Not new, but good to point out that the story came from the NYT.

How Joe Biden Pushed To Quash Investigation Of Burisma (Smith)

“Well, son of a bitch,” said Joe Biden. “He got fired.” The audience laughed. Biden always knew how to make people laugh. He had the common touch. But these weren’t common people — it was an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan, and Biden was trying to impress them with a story about himself as a man who got things done. It is easier to get things done using the resources of the U.S. government. Biden was talking about a trip he made to Kiev to speak with Ukrainian officials. “I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee,” Biden said. He said that he had a commitment from the Ukrainian president and prime minister to fire the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the Ukrainian company that paid his son more than $80,000 a month. Unlike his father, who made many business trips to Kiev, Hunter never visited.

The Ukrainian heads of state and government tried to deflect Biden’s demands. “We’re not going to give you the billion dollars,” Biden told the Ukrainians. “They said, ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president.'” Biden dared them to call Obama. “I said, call him.” The Manhattan audience laughed again. “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.” Biden had implicated the former president in an extortion scheme, in front of an audience. His statements were on videotape for anyone to view online. Of course no one was going to prosecute Obama or Biden. The making of foreign policy requires the use of various instruments to advance the national interest. Whether leveraging U.S. taxpayer money to get the vice president’s son out of trouble served the national interest is another question.

Biden said he never asked Hunter about his business, but he should have warned him that doing business in Kiev was a bad idea, for him and for U.S. national security. Hunter’s problems with money, women, and substance abuse would have flagged the attention of foreign intelligence services looking to influence the United States through the troubled son of the vice president. His job on the board of a company under investigation for corruption in a country known for corruption also would have made him and U.S. national security vulnerable. It was the duty of the chief executive to find out what, if anything, had happened. Donald Trump was impeached, in part, to punish him for asking what Joe and Hunter Biden had been up to in Ukraine. Democrats and the media knew the Bidens were involved in questionable practices.

In December 2015, the New York Times had reported that Hunter’s work for a corrupt Ukrainian energy company called Burisma compromised the vice president. But four years later, the context in which those facts had appeared changed. Hillary Clinton and Biden were no longer vying with each other for the 2016 nomination. Clinton was no longer the establishment pick, and her campaign had no reason to dump dirt on Biden to hurt his candidacy. In 2019, the story was nakedly about Democratic party corruption. So according to the left, facts describing Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine became components of a right-wing conspiracy theory, even though those facts appeared in the Times.

Read more …

“The Democrats are not just having a tantrum, now they’re chewing up the furniture, ululating, beating their flanks, discharging gobs of snot, peeing their panties, and foaming at the mouth..”

Female Problems (Kunstler)

History-the-trickster has paradoxically anointed the Great Disrupter, Mr. Trump, as the agent of order while the Democrats seek to bring chaos into every quarter of American life, a party of shrieking “Karens” and men acting like women. Such as: Tom Friedman of The New York Times mewling like a little girl to Anderson Cooper on CNN Thursday night that he was “living in terror,” that “everybody should be terrified,” because Mr. Trump “refuses to commit to accepting the election results.” Is that so? I think it was Hillary Clinton who declared just a few weeks ago that “Joe Biden should not concede the election under any circumstances” — for instance, the circumstance that he loses the election.

Of course, Mr. Trump, troll supremo, is simply punking his adversaries by proposing to play fair, that is, to play by the same rules they play by. And this only causes the Democrats to retreat into the chaos that is their comfort zone, where they hop up and down like fourteen-year-old girls in a tantrum. They are provoked, you understand, because Mr. Trump actually represents the thing they hate most: Daddy! Daddy’s in da house, the White House, as a matter of fact, and this baleful symbolic circumstance has driven the Democrats out of their gourds for four years, turning them into a party of hysterical women and men acting like hysterical women. Would you want to get on an airplane in bad weather piloted by a crew of hysterical women? That’s kind of the Big Question going into this national election 2020.

Tantrums, tantrums everywhere! The hysterical women (including men) of the Democratic Party have enlisted Black Lives Matter as their official agents of chaos. It must be so, because every time chaos erupts in an American city, and buildings catch on fire, and businesses are looted and burnt down, and police are bushwhacked, the local Democrats in charge where these things happen do not offer a peep of objection. And neither Kamala Harris nor her sidekick Joe Biden send any message aimed at quelling the violent hysteria. One must conclude that they’re on-board with rioting, arson, looting, and bushwhacking. Like I said: chaos = their comfort zone.

[..] The death of Justice RBG has amplified the hysteria. The Democrats are not just having a tantrum, now they’re chewing up the furniture, ululating, beating their flanks, discharging gobs of snot, peeing their panties, and foaming at the mouth. If he was anyone else but Daddy, Mr. Trump might have to take them out and have them shot. Instead, the President is going to nominate a sane and reasonable Mommy to the Supreme Court, and Uncle Cocaine Mitch is going to see that she is confirmed, and there is an excellent chance that together they will bring order back to this deranged household — and then perhaps we can turn our attention to the real existential problems of financial crisis and economic collapse.

Read more …

Why not make Finland our ideal instead?

Scientists Urge UK Not To Follow Sweden’s Approach To Pandemic (Ind.)

Sweden’s handling of coronavirus has been “ineffective” and its controversial approach to the pandemic should not be given credence in the UK, a group of scientists have warned. Independent Sage – a collection of experts mirroring the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies – said the success of the country’s light-touch approach had been overstated in some quarters. In a briefing on Friday, Dr Gabriel Scally, a member of the group and president of epidemiology at the Royal Society of Medicine, said that compared to its neighbouring countries, Sweden had been unsuccessful in preventing fatalities related to Covid-19.

His remarks came after it emerged Boris Johnson and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, had received advice from scientists outside the official Sage group on Sunday, including Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, who devised the controversial approach to the pandemic. Unlike many other European nations, the country did not enter lockdown at the outset of the pandemic, keeping bars, restaurants and pubs open while most children remained at school. The country instead placed emphasis on personal responsibility to socially distance. However, some restrictions were introduced, including workers being advised to work from home if possible, a ban on gatherings of more than 50, and travel was restricted from outside the European Union.

Dr Scally said there had been a great deal of discussion about the Swedish model as a way of approaching the pandemic, but warned: “We’ve been concerned about this because we have noted the very different performance of Nordic countries: Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway. We are extremely concerned that that model may be given some credence.” He added: “We believe it is ineffective. Sweden has had an enormous number of deaths per head of population: 5,880 deaths, representing 580 deaths per million population. Compared to its neighbours it has been unsuccessful in preventing deaths. Finland, for example, has had exactly 343 deaths, which equals 62 deaths per million population.

Read more …

Forget about Trickle Down. This guy knew that 300 years ago.

Cantillon Effect 101 (Bloom)

With the recent money printing activity and an expanding wealth inequality problem, talk of the “Cantillon Effect” has taken center stage. But what is the Cantillon Effect and how does it work? Richard Cantillon was an Irish-French banker, philosopher, and economist born in the 1680s. His “Essay on the Nature of Commerce in General” is considered a foundational work in the study of the political economy, though it was not published until 1755, well after his death. While published 265 years ago, the essay has many insights that remain relevant today. He posited that the early recipients of new money entering an economy will enjoy a much higher standard of living than those it trickles down to. The “flow path” of new money matters! Let’s use a simple story to illustrate his point.

Imagine you live in a small, simple island society. One morning, you find a package has been delivered to your doorstep from your long lost Uncle FEDerico (who lives in a far away land). The package has $1 million in it. No one else knows you have received this package. You now secretly have $1 million. So naturally, you start spending it and investing it very quickly. Prices are still low, because no one knows these new dollars exist yet! Your standard of living improves rapidly. You buy yourself the nicest house, the most beautiful clothes, tons of land, and still have some money left over. But now, people are aware that new money is flowing through the system. Prices begin to rise as supply has yet to “catch up” to the new demand.


So while the money allowed you to invest, spend, and dramatically improve your lifestyle, it did not benefit others in the society in the same way. The sellers of the goods, who received your cash, now face rising prices when they want to consume.The flow path mattered! This is an ultra-simplified example, but gets at the essence of what the Cantillon Effect describes. Those receiving the new money injected in an economy first are generally much better off than those receiving it via the trickle down. This may lead to inequality.The Cantillon Effect is often discussed when examining the impact of “money printing” of Central Banks globally. With an injection point of the “new money” at the top, asset owners benefit while the working class may experiencing rising prices for everyday goods like food.

Read more …

Cantillon in present-day life.

Queen To Receive Government ‘Bailout’ To Top Up Income (Ind.)

Boris Johnson’s government has confirmed it will top up the Queen’s income following a significant slump in the Crown Estate’s revenue during the coronavirus crisis. The royal family takes in rental receipts from shops in London’s Regent Street, alongside malls and retail parks around the country – but the value of its portfolio has fallen by more than £500m since the pandemic hit. The Treasury said it would provide the estate with extra money to meet any shortfall in profits and make sure the Queen’s sovereign grant remains at its current level. “In the event of a reduction in the Crown Estate’s profits, the sovereign grant is set at the same level as the previous year,” a spokesperson said told The Independent.

“The revenue from the Crown Estate helps pay for our vital public services – over the last 10 years it has returned a total of £2.8bn to the Exchequer. The sovereign grant funds the official business of the monarchy, and does not provide a private income to any member of the royal family.” More details on the next sovereign grant are expected to be set out on Friday – but legislation governing the formula prevents the overall amount given to the Queen from ever being allowed to fall. Graham Smith, of the anti-monarchy campaign group Republic, described it as a “golden ratchet”, adding: “Once the grant goes up it can never come down, and the taxpayer loses out.”

Robert Palmer, the head of Tax Justice UK, added: “This royal bailout will be tough to stomach for people who love the Queen but have lost their jobs and businesses during the pandemic.” Any profits made by the Crown Estate are passed to the Treasury which, in turn, hands 25 per cent of the profits back to the Queen through the sovereign grant.

Read more …

Where would we be without hypocrisy?

The Difference Between ‘Villain’ Assange & ‘Intrepid’ Woodward (Camp)

Right now, one journalist, Julian Assange, is on trial while being held in a maximum security prison in London. Another journalist, Bob Woodward, is in a very different situation. The liberal Establishment is preparing to chisel his likeness out of a small boulder and display it next to the Lincoln Memorial. They love him because he got President Donald Trump to do interviews wherein Trump, as always, sounds like a lying buffoon. Among other things the president admits he knew Covid-19 was “deadly stuff” back in at least February, but played it down anyway. But this is nothing new. Every time Bob Woodward puts out a book, the mainstream media fan-girls all over him. Myriad kings and queens of televised logorrhea describe him as a “veteran reporter,” a “famed reporter,” or “synonymous with investigative journalism!”

So what’s the difference between liberal-hero journalist Bob Woodward and dastardly evil villain cannibal-pedophile Julian Assange (who Hillary Clinton famously said we should drone bomb)? Well, Julian is on trial for obtaining and disclosing classified information from the U.S. government. Liberal superhero Bob Woodward would never do such a thing like that! …Oh, that’s right. He actually said in his own online journalism class — “I have rarely found a significant story where there isn’t a document. …Often you can’t get it because it’s classified but… it’s there, and if you can get somebody to assist you, it will indeed help you with your story. …The hardest documents [to get] are intelligence documents. …And I’ve had them and printed them.”

Hmm, so the icon of investigative journalism actually brags about printing classified information. Well, maybe the difference between Assange (currently being fed to the lions) and Woodward (currently being lionized) is that Assange supposedly pressured people into giving him classified information whereas Woodward would never do that. For Bob the information just arrives at his door unsolicited.…Oh, wait a second. On video Woodward recently said, “Documents rarely just arrive in the mail out of the blue. …You have to go to human beings and say, ‘Will you give it to me?’ You say, ‘Come on, let’s talk. Let’s, uh, not be chickenshit about this.’” Soooo, the guy that has the entire mainstream media licking his shoes has been involved in obtaining and publishing classified information, and in fact pressuring sources into supplying him those documents?

Wow. Bob Woodward and Julian Assange are exactly the same except Assange has actually not been proven to have pressured sources into giving him documents. And there’s one other difference between the Almighty Bob Woodward and the so-called servant of Lucifer, Julian Assange. Nothing WikiLeaks has ever published has been proven false. Not one sentence. Whereas, the outlets Woodward works with like The Washington Post and The New York Times publish false information all the time.

Read more …

Simple question: who of you amongst our US readers would vote for Pelosi if she were the Democrat candidate?

Trump Will Only Leave Office If A Challenger Beats Him In Ritual Combat (BBee)

Clad in tribal furs and leather, President Trump shouted this morning that he will only transfer power if a challenger beats him in a one-on-one spear fight. Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, saying the only way to dethrone him would be for a challenger to beat him in ritual combat, per Wakandan tradition. The winner of the fight will receive the presidency and a cool suit that grants him super strength to go around the world and punch commies and stuff.


“It will not be a peaceful transfer of power,” Trump said. “It will instead be a fun, entertaining transfer of power, and that’s much more important. We can gather together all the tribal people and they can chant and bang their spears down and stuff. Totally tremendous and remarkable event. Really spectacular.” Biden then wandered up to Trump and said he’d challenge the president to a push-up contest. “I don’t even know who you are,” Trump growled. “Yeah, me neither,” Biden replied, wandering away again. “This is the way,” Trump concluded. He was then informed that was the wrong franchise.

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site.

Click at the top of the sidebars for Paypal and Patreon donations. Thank you for your support.

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.