Jun 252023
 


William-Adolphe Bouguereau Whisperings of Love 1889

 

US Knew Of Wagner Coup Plans In Advance – NYT (RT)
Prigozhin ‘Exiled’ To Belarus In Exchange For Peace, No Criminal Charges (ZH)
Russia May Ink Contracts With Some Wagner PMC Fighters – Kremlin (TASS)
Kremlin: Situation With Wanger PMC Won’t Affect Russia’s Military Op in Ukraine (Sp.)
US: Coup Attempt In Russia Provides ‘Opportunity’ For Kiev – Politico (RT)
Trump Cautions Those Rooting For A Russian Coup (RT)
Chechen Commandos Leave For Areas Of Tensions – Kadyrov (TASS)
DC Scholars: Ukraine Conflict Shows World Has Grown Weary of US Hegemony (Sp.)
Over 500 Excess Heart Deaths a Week in England Since COVID-19 Began (ET)
The Elite War on Free Thought (Matt Taibbi)
Millions Of Brits Could See Savings Wiped Out (RT)
Many Western States in ‘Critical Situation’ Due to High Public Debt – IMF (Sp.)
Rates, Inflation And Congress (Denninger)
Biden Allies Ignore Voters’ Desire For Primary Debates (Sp.)
The More We Learn About The 2020 Election (Tom Elliott)

 

 


Health expert, 67, vs Science denier, 69

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too many questions. We will find out some things, but much more we never will.

A coup? Is that what this was? Apparently, while Wagner consists of 25,000-50,000 men, only 5,000 joined the march from Rostov to Moscow, a city of 12.5 million which is very well defended these days. How does that become a coup? Sure, Prigozhin may have counted on parts of the “regular army” to join in, but still.

Also, the Americans knew, but Russia did not? Really? I like this take:

“Plot twist: Prigozhin was approached by the US to do a coup in Russia for billions of dollars. He tells Putin about it, Putin agrees. They keep the money.”

US Knew Of Wagner Coup Plans In Advance – NYT (RT)

US intelligence agencies strongly suspected that Evgeny Prigozhin was planning a major move against the Russian government, days before the Wagner chief ordered his troops to march on Moscow, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing sources. According to unnamed US officials interviewed by the paper, the administration of US President Joe Biden and military commanders were briefed on the Wagner preparations as early as Wednesday. As additional details came in, another briefing attended by a narrow group of congressional leaders was reportedly held on Thursday. The situation escalated only on Friday night, when Prigozhin accused the Russian Defense Ministry of launching a deadly missile strike on a Wagner camp, and vowed retaliation. The ministry denied the allegation, accusing him of an “informational provocation.”

In the following hours, Wagner troops captured military facilities in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, while Prigozhin announced that his forces were beginning a “march for justice” with a plan to reach Moscow. On Saturday, the Wagner boss agreed to halt his advance and withdraw his forces in exchange for “security guarantees,” as part of a deal brokered by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko. According to NYT sources, prior to the uprising, Washington officials were in no hurry to alert Russian President Vladimir Putin of an impending threat, as they feared that Moscow could accuse them of orchestrating a coup. Moreover, the US “had little interest” in helping Putin amid the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s stand-off with the West, the article says. Still, US officials were reportedly alarmed by a possible conflict between Prigozhin and Moscow, as they worried that Russia’s descent into chaos could create considerable nuclear risks.

The NYT report was echoed by CNN, which claimed on Saturday that US officials had believed Prigozhin was planning to challenge the Russian military “for quite some time,” but did not know what his ultimate goal was. According to CNN sources, Western officials had prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s preparations, including his efforts to accumulate weapons and ammunition. However, the outlet’s source noted that “it all happened very quickly,” and it was difficult to say whether the Wagner chief was serious about delivering on his threats to the Russian military. On Saturday, when the Wagner insurrection was still in full swing, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned the West that any its attempts to use the unrest “to achieve their Russophobic goals” would be futile. Meanwhile, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev noted that a coup in a major nuclear power could result in catastrophic consequences, and Moscow would never allow this to happen.

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“..Wagner’s fighters will not be persecuted, taking into account their efforts on the frontlines of the Ukraine conflict. Peskov explained that President Vladimir Putin’s team “have always respected their exploits.”

Prigozhin ‘Exiled’ To Belarus In Exchange For Peace, No Criminal Charges (ZH)

This entirely bizarre slightly less than 24-hour short-lived coup attempt has just gotten even stranger, given the terms of the truce which evidently caused Evgeny Prigozhin to announce his Wagner fighter columns would turn around and go back to their bases.= The Wall Street Journal has confirmed based on Kremlin statements that “As part of the agreement, Prigozhin will leave Russia for Belarus, and criminal charges against him will be dropped, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. His fighters will be allowed to sign contracts with the Russian military.” And Russia’s RT provides some further details as follows based on Peskov’s statement: “He added that Wagner’s fighters will not be persecuted, taking into account their efforts on the frontlines of the Ukraine conflict. Peskov explained that President Vladimir Putin’s team “have always respected their exploits.”

Those PMC contractors, who refused to take part in the mutiny – and whole units did not – will be allowed to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry, Peskov stated. Can this even be called “exile”?… given that Kremlin statements at this point aren’t even so much as using the word which has a clear punitive implication. The irony remains that one can get a much harsher punishment for mere Cannabis vape pens in the country. In summary: • charges dropped against Prigozhin, who will leave Russia for Belarus • Wagner fighters who didn’t take part in the uprising will sign contracts with the MOD • Wagner fighters who did take part not charged • No word on potential MOD leadership changes What’s clear is that it does indeed look to be over, with no further immediate danger of civil conflict. Sputnik is further confirming Wagner has handed HQ/bases in Rostov-on-Don back to the regular military.

Despite the slap on the wrist (if even), the Kremlin is still talking “tough”: “The plotters’ adventurist aspirations are essentially aimed at destabilizing the situation in Russia, destroying our unity and undermining Russia’s efforts to reliably ensure international security,” the Foreign Ministry said. “The mutiny plays into the hands of Russia’s external enemies.” “The attempted armed mutiny in our country has aroused strong disapproval in Russian society, which firmly supports President Vladimir Putin,” the Foreign Ministry said. Regardless the speculation has begun, and is likely to continue for the coming days and weeks, over what precisely the world just witnessed here…

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It’s the end of Wagner.

Russia May Ink Contracts With Some Wagner PMC Fighters – Kremlin (TASS)

A part of the Wagner private military company’s troops, who decided against participating in an armed mutiny, will be able to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. “An agreement was reached that PMC Wagner troops would return to their camps and places of deployment. Some of them, if they wish to do so, can later ink contracts with the Defense Ministry,” Peskov said. “It also applies to fighters, who decided against taking part in this ‘armed mutiny.’” The spokesman also said “there were some fighters in the military formations [of Wagner PMC], who changed their minds at the very beginning [of the armed mutiny] and returned immediately.” “They have even requested the assistance of the traffic police as well as other help to return to their permanent places of deployment,” Peskov added.


On the evening of June 23, the Telegram channel of Wagner private military company founder Yevgeny Prigozhin posted several audio records with his statements, in which he claimed that strikes had allegedly been delivered against his formations and accused the country’s military leadership of that. In the wake of this, the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia has opened a criminal case into a call for an armed mutiny. The FSB urged Wagner fighters not to obey Prigozhin’s orders and take measures for his detention. Russia’s Defense Ministry dismissed as untrue the reports that Russian forces had allegedly delivered a strike against “the rear camps of the Wagner private military company.” In his televised address to citizens on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the actions by the Wagner private military company an armed mutiny and betrayal and assured that harsh measures would be taken against the insurgents.

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“..the Belarusian leader has personally known Prigozhin for around 20 years..”

Kremlin: Situation With Wanger PMC Won’t Affect Russia’s Military Op in Ukraine (Sp.)

Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin ordered a halt to Wagner troops’ drive on Moscow and opted for de-escalation on Saturday, accepting a proposal mediated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. “Under no circumstances,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists when asked whether the events with the Wagner PMC would have an impact on the operation in Ukraine. “The special military operation in Ukraine continues, our soldiers at the frontline are demonstrating heroism, they are quite effectively and successfully countering the counteroffensive of Ukraine’s armed forces. And the operation will continue.” He stressed that Wagner troops engaged in the tensions won’t be prosecuted, adding that those wishing to sign a contract with the Russian defense ministry in the future would be able to do so.

Regarding Prigozhin’s status, the spokesman noted that the businessman would be allowed to leave the country. “A criminal case [against Prigozhin] will be terminated and he will leave for Belarus. If you ask, what is the guarantee that Prigozhin could leave for Belarus, it is the word of the Russian president,” Peskov told reporters. Peskov thanked Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for his mediation in talks with Prigozhin, which were aimed at reaching the “highest goal” of avoiding the conflict. “There was the highest goal of avoiding bloodshed, internal confrontation and clashes with unpredictable results. It is for these goals that Lukashenko’s mediation efforts were made, and President Putin made a relevant decision on that,” Peskov told journalists, adding that the phone call between the two presidents was sincere and “very constructive.”

The presidents agreed on Lukashenko’s brokering efforts since the Belarusian leader has personally known Prigozhin for around 20 years, the official stated, also noting that Lukashenko himself had proposed his talks with the Wagner head. Peskov stated that thanks to the agreement the situation had been resolved without further losses, with members of the Wagner PMC able to return back to their field camps.

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Well, no more.

US: Coup Attempt In Russia Provides ‘Opportunity’ For Kiev – Politico (RT)

US officials believe that the Wagner PMC’s insurrection in Russia will play into Ukraine’s hands, allowing Kiev to revitalize its much-hyped counteroffensive which Moscow says has thus far failed to gain any ground, Politico reported on Saturday. Shortly before the private military company’s leader Evgeny Prigozhin agreed to halt his advance on Moscow and withdraw his troops as part of the deal brokered by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, US officials held several meetings to assess the potential impact of the mutiny, the report says. In the end, they reportedly arrived at the conclusion that the insurrection would keep the Kremlin busy, providing Ukraine’s stalled counteroffensive with a window of opportunity.

“I don’t see how it could hurt them,” one senior official told Politico. Others opined that the development would likely help Kiev, pointing out that Prigozhin had taken control of the HQ of Russia’s Southern Military District in the city of Rostov-on-Don. However, Wagner members have left the city on Saturday evening, according to local officials. With Wagner drama unfolding in Russia, a US official told Politico that policymakers in Washington called their European counterparts, seeking to “reassure them” and tell them to “message neutrality.” “No one should be spiking the football,” he added. According to Politico, the general consensus between Western officials was that Kiev now had “an unprecedented opportunity to advance.”

Some US lawmakers supported this point of view, with Democrat Congressman Jason Crow tweeting that the Wagner insurrection “will almost certainly benefit the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the near term and [Kiev] should move fast to capitalize.” In the early hours of Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukrainian troops were attempting to take advantage of Wagner insurrection by reading two brigades for an offensive thrust near the Donbass town of Artyomovsk (known as Bakhmut in Ukraine). Later, however, it said that while Ukrainian forces tried to mount attacks along several sections of the front, all their attempts to breach Russian lines failed. Ukraine’s offensive, which had been talked up for months, finally kicked off in the early days of June but has so far failed to gain any ground, with Kiev’s troops suffering heavy losses, according to Moscow. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has also admitted that Kiev’s troops had been advancing “slower than desired” in the face of “tough resistance.”

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“This is China’s heretofore unthinkable opportunity – much bigger than Taiwan, which to President Xi can wait.”

Trump Cautions Those Rooting For A Russian Coup (RT)

Former US president Donald Trump has splashed cold water on Western hopes that this week’s conflict between military contractor Wagner Group and Russia’s top generals could lead to the toppling of Moscow’s government, warning that ousting President Vladimir Putin could have unintended consequences. “A big mess in Russia, but be careful what you wish for,” the former president said on Saturday in a Truth Social post. “Next in may be far worse!” Trump reacted to the unrest in Russia just before news broke that Wagner founder Evgeny Prigozhin had agreed to end his rebellion and halt his group’s advance on Moscow. Under an agreement with the Kremlin, the former Putin ally will leave Russia and be spared prosecution.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky cheered the short-lived Wagner uprising, but his Western backers refrained from openly rooting for an overthrow of Putin’s government. US President Joe Biden, who has previously called for regime change in Russia, was reported to be “consulting with allies and partners” on the situation in Moscow. Western media outlets were less restrained in touting the Wagner revolt as an existential crisis for the Russian government. Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to NATO, told CNN that the unrest marked “the end for Putin” and “the beginning of the end of Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

Trump took a shot at his successor, saying Biden would “do about Russia whatever President Xi [Jinping] of China wants him to do.” Alluding to allegations that the Biden family received bribes from business contacts with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, he suggested that the US president was beholden to Xi. “China and Russia, until Biden came along, have always been natural enemies, with China wanting large portions of largely unpopulated Russian land to have for their much larger population,” Trump said. “This is China’s heretofore unthinkable opportunity – much bigger than Taiwan, which to President Xi can wait.”

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This too got old fast. But would Wagner really want to fight the Chechens?

Chechen Commandos Leave For Areas Of Tensions – Kadyrov (TASS)

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has slammed the armed mutiny of the PMC Wagner as betrayal and said that Chechen commandos are on the way to the areas of tensions. “What is happening is not an ultimatum to the Ministry of Defense,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. “It is a challenge to the state. To counter this challenge, it is necessary for the military, security forces, governors and the civilian population to rally all around the national leader. Soldiers of the Ministry of Defense and Chechnya’s units of the National Guard (Rosgvardiya) have already left for the areas of tensions. We will do everything to preserve the unity of Russia and to protect its statehood!” Kadyrov wrote. He is certain Russian President Vladimir Putin takes decisions “in a balanced and scrupulous manner.” “Each of us sees only one part of the map, but he sees it all!


The president noted quite correctly in his address to the nation – this is a military mutiny! There is no excuse for such actions! I fully support Putin’s every word,” Kadyrov said. He urged the servicemen of the North Caucasus Military District not to yield to provocations. “Whatever aims some may declare and whatever promises some may give – at a time like this the security of the state and unity of Russian society is above all! Look at how our enemies in the West are taking advantage of this situation. How many insinuations, how many lies, how many false appeals that frighten our citizens and create the danger of a destabilizing situation are being used. These are the expected consequences of Prigozhin’s treacherous march,” Kadyrov wrote. He reiterated that the current events were a challenge to the state. “It is necessary for the military, security forces, governors and the civilian population to rally around the national leader,” he stressed.

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“..six nations in the Global South – namely, India, Brazil, Turkiye, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa – are set to decide the future of geopolitics..”

DC Scholars: Ukraine Conflict Shows World Has Grown Weary of US Hegemony (Sp.)

Despite having the largest military budget in the world and being the largest operator of military bases abroad, the US is far from being a global hegemon, argues a DC-based think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Over the past decades Washington has demonstrated a capacity for mass destruction – in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere – but “it has won no more than Pyrrhic victories” which led to the erosion of trust in Pax Americana both at home and abroad, according to Responsible Statecraft scholars. The US military spending reached $876.9 billion in 2022, while the nation also operates a whopping 750 foreign military bases. Still, Washington is incapable of persuading the Global South to join anti-Russia sanctions over the latter’s special military operation in Ukraine, the think tank remarks.

“If hegemony means the capacity to get other countries to comply with one’s demands, the United States is far from being a global hegemon,” the report notes. Judging from the so-called Pentagon leak, even some US allies and partners demonstrated hesitance and unwillingness to provide the Kiev regime with shells, jets and armored vehicles. Meanwhile, most nations of the Global South shrugged off the US calls for slapping sanctions on Moscow as contradicting their national interests. US political observers emphasize that six nations in the Global South – namely, India, Brazil, Turkiye, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa – are set to decide the future of geopolitics and insist that the Biden administration needs to win their hearts and minds. At the same time, European commentators argue that developing nations have the right to remain neutral and non-aligned.

[..] Per DC scholars, the emerging trend was articulated by Brookings Institution fellow Fiona Hill, former Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States, in May 2023: “The war in Ukraine is perhaps the event that makes the passing of Pax Americana apparent to everyone. … [Other countries] want to decide, not be told what’s in their interest. In short, in 2023, we hear a resounding no to US domination and see a marked appetite for a world without a hegemon,” she said at a conference in Tallinn, Estonia. According to Hill, the Global South’s resistance to the US and the EU’s demands to slap sanctions on Moscow is nothing short of “an open rebellion.” She noted that “this is a mutiny against what they see as the collective West dominating the international discourse and foisting its problems on everyone else, while brushing aside their priorities on climate change compensation, economic development, and debt relief.”

Western observers also acknowledge that the world’s center of gravity is steadily shifting east, adding that the Biden administration has so far sought to avert this trend by trying to establish “a lasting technological lead over China” and beefing up the US military in Western Pacific. However, “most developing countries, including emerging powers in the Global South, are no longer willing to make zero-sum choices” between Washington and its geopolitical rivals, DC scholars underscore, urging American policymakers to accept the reality that the US is no longer “the indispensable nation.”

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Long waits for heart care, COVID, anything but vaccines.

Over 500 Excess Heart Deaths a Week in England Since COVID-19 Began (ET)

More than 500 additional deaths a week involving heart diseases have been recorded in England since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) has said. Based on data from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, the BHF revealed in a report (pdf) that, since February 2020, there has been a total of 96,540 excess deaths involving cardiovascular conditions—an umbrella term for a range of heart and blood vessel conditions, including heart attacks and strokes. “It is deeply troubling that so many more people with cardiovascular disease have lost their lives over the past three years,” BHF Chief Executive Dr. Charmaine Griffiths said. In the first year of the pandemic, COVID-19 infection drove high numbers of excess deaths involving cardiovascular disease.

While deaths from COVID-19 have since fallen year-on-year, the number of deaths involving cardiovascular disease have remained high above expected levels, the BHF analysis stated. Dr. Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director at the BHF and consultant cardiologist, said, “COVID-19 no longer fully explains the significant numbers of excess deaths involving cardiovascular disease.” She said there may have been other contributing factors, including the disruptions to the NHS over the past few years. The charity said a major contributing factor has been the “severe, ongoing disruption” to heart care in the NHS. The number of people waiting for time-sensitive cardiac care was at a record high of nearly 390,000 at the end of April in England, according to NHS England.

Average ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes have consistently been more than 30 minutes since the beginning of 2022. There has also been significant disruption to the detection and management of high blood pressure and other conditions that put people at much greater risk of a heart attack or stroke, the charity said. Babu-Narayan said: “Long waits for heart care are dangerous—they put someone at increased risk of avoidable hospital admission, disability due to heart failure, and premature death. Yet people are struggling to get potentially life-saving heart treatment when they need it due to a lack of NHS staff and space, despite cardiovascular disease affecting record numbers of people.”

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Address at Free Speech Event in London, with Russell Brand and Michael Shellenberger.

The Elite War on Free Thought (Matt Taibbi)

[..] Isn’t that a beautiful phrase, a “redress of grievances”? Great, memorable language. Like a lot of Americans, I know the First Amendment by heart. I’ve recited it to myself enough to know it doesn’t say the government gives me the right to speech, assembly, a free press. It says I have those things, already. As a person, as a citizen. This is a very American thing, the idea that rights aren’t conferred, but a part of us, like our livers, and you can’t take them away without destroying who we are. That’s why in other contexts you’ll hear some of us say things like, “I’ll give you this gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands!” Some people roll their eyes and think that sounds crazy, but we know that guy actually means it, and to a lot of us it makes sense. We’re touchy about rights, especially about the first ones: speech, assembly, religion, the free press.

But we’re not here tonight to debate the virtues of American speech law versus the European tradition. Instead, Michael and I are here to tell a horror story that concerns people from all countries. Last year, he and I were offered a unique opportunity to look at the internal documentation of Twitter. I entered that story lugging old-fashioned, legalistic, American views about rights, hoping to answer maybe one or two questions. Had the FBI, for instance, ever told the company what to do in a key speech episode? If so, that would be a First Amendment violation. Big stuff! But after looking at thousands of emails and Slack chats, I first started to get a headache, then became confused. I realized the old-school Enlightenment-era protections I grew up revering were designed to counter authoritarianism as people understood the concept hundreds of years ago, back in the days of tri-cornered hats and streets lined with horse manure.

What Michael and I were looking at was something new, an Internet-age approach to political control that uses brute digital force to alter reality itself. We certainly saw plenty of examples of censorship and de-platforming and government collaboration in those efforts. However, it’s clear that the idea behind the sweeping system of digital surveillance combined with thousands or even millions of subtle rewards and punishments built into the online experience, is to condition people to censor themselves. In fact, after enough time online, users will lose both the knowledge and the vocabulary they would need to even have politically dangerous thoughts. What Michael calls the Censorship-Industrial Complex is really just the institutionalization of orthodoxy, a vast, organized effort to narrow our intellectual horizons.

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“..the average variable-rate home loan in the UK has more than doubled from around 3% to 6.19% as of Thursday morning. This has affected around 4 million UK households..”

Millions Of Brits Could See Savings Wiped Out (RT)

British homeowners may have to pay 50% more on their mortgages by the end of the year as a result of the Bank of England’s (BoE) interest rate hikes, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) warned in a new report published on Thursday. According to the findings, higher mortgage repayments could wipe out the savings of some 1.2 million British families, bringing the total number of insolvent households to 7.8 million, or 28% of the total in the country. The analysts also calculated that the rising repayments in aggregate will erase 0.3% of the UK’s GDP and cost households with home loans a total of £12 billion ($15.2 billion) per year.

The warning from NIESR follows the BoE’s decision on Thursday to raise its base interest rate by 0.5 percentage points to 5% as the regulator tries to tame the persistently high inflation in the country. While annual consumer price inflation remained unchanged at 8.7% in May, core inflation, which excludes volatile energy, food, alcoholic beverages and tobacco, surged to 7.1%, its highest level since 1992. “The rise in interest rates to 5% will push millions of households with mortgages towards the brink of insolvency,” Max Mosley from NIESR stated. He explained that many families who took out mortgages with interest rates of 1-2% may be in for a rate surge of 4 percentage points.

“No lender would expect a household to withstand a shock of this magnitude, so the Government shouldn’t either. Some investment should be done in forbearance agreements, giving households and lenders the ability to create payment plans that work for each other,” he said. Since last year, the average variable-rate home loan in the UK has more than doubled from around 3% to 6.19% as of Thursday morning. This has affected around 4 million UK households that either have variable-rate mortgages or are facing the need to remortgage due to their fixed-rate deals ending. For a household borrowing £300,000 ($381,000) on a 25-year mortgage, monthly repayments have already been pushed up from £1,400 ($1,780) to £2,000 ($2,540), a nearly 50% increase, NIESR calculated, warning that with more interest rate hikes expected, these bills will only grow further.

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“Europe will gradually turn into a region with an average standard of living. This is a tragedy, but I do not see the ability of the authorities to allow pain,..

Many Western States in ‘Critical Situation’ Due to High Public Debt – IMF (Sp.)

Many countries around the world, including Western ones, are in a critical condition due to their high levels of public debt, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Executive Director for Russia Aleksei Mozhin told Sputnik. “After COVID, there was a big recession in the economy; budget deficits increased and had to be financed by increasing public debt. Many countries found themselves in a critical situation in terms of public debt, including Western countries,” Mozhin said. Years of irresponsible budgetary and monetary policy, including pumping money into the economy to revive it, lie at the heart of the current debt crisis, he said. Mohzin pointed out that the example of Japan shows it is possible to kick the can down the road to avoid default for a long time, but at the cost of the Japanese economy not growing for 30 years.

This is the case with other economies as well, the Italian economy has not grown for 20 years, he said. “All these are consequences, first of all, of the skyrocketing level of public debt,” Mozhin said.Almost all European countries are now facing significant levels of debt, including Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, not to mention Greece and Italy, Mozhin noted, characterizing the situation as “simply awful.”At the same time, Mozhin said sick economies must experience pain to get better as there are no other ways to treat them. They must raise interest rates to reduce inflation but that kills economic growth and increases the cost of borrowing.”If there is a huge public debt, it means that ‘budget consolidation,’ achieving budget surplus, is required. This requires either an increase in taxes in order to increase budget revenues or a reduction in budget expenditures. Both kill economic growth,” Mozhin said.

The countries of the collective West cannot cope with these challenges because of the ruling populism there, he said.”The very political system of these countries leads to the fact that they have a complete fixation on short-term indicators,” Mozhin said. “Good growth and low unemployment must be achieved today at all costs, otherwise you may lose the upcoming elections. And elections are held there almost every year.”Mozhin noted that states that find themselves in a critical situation because of high debt are able to avoid defaulting by issuing new government bonds and forcing their own banks to accept the government debt. “Europe will gradually turn into a region with an average standard of living. This is a tragedy, but I do not see the ability of the authorities to allow pain,” Mozhin said.

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” If Congress does not stop deficit spending then the outcome is certain with the only remaining question being time.”

Rates, Inflation And Congress (Denninger)

Inflation will not return to the Fed’s Target, which itself is illegal under the Fed’s mandate for STABLE prices, until and unless Deficit Spending ends. The current price level for many essential goods and services — including housing, food, medical care, insurance of various sorts that are not optional (e.g. vehicle insurance in order to be able to legally drive or homeowners in order to have a mortgage) are impossible to afford across the general public at the present time; they were generated by artificial and impossible to maintain federal government subsidies such as paying people $600/wk to stay at home and get drunk or not having to pay back student loans.

Therefore even a complete halt to inflation is insufficient; the price level must drop to approximately, in income-adjusted terms, including for those on fixed incomes, to pre-pandemic levels and in fact likely to pre-2006 levels, because the gross subsidies via credit emission at the federal level has been going on and embedded itself into the American psyche for that long or even longer. Congress has been imbued with the idea that the Federal Government can spend more than it takes in plus the increase in productivity. Of course when productivity is negative this means the delta in spending must also be negative to retain balance, but Congress never does that, do they? The most-gross abuses are in CMS but hardly the only ones.

Markets appear to believe that there is no limit to this insanity either. You can somewhat explain that given the last 20 years or so of history but that externalizing your costs (e.g. by offshoring labor and production, thereby “hiding” the inflation by using an externality) appears to “work” but since this planet is finite in size, mass and resource there’s a limit to how long you can hide all that before it either stops working or worse, comes back at you.We’re seeing this now. This issue does not belong to The Fed; the Federal Reserve’s is only charged with, and in fact only can, respond to what Congress does. They do not have the power to alter what Congress does; that is neither in their remit or within their capacity. If Congress does not stop deficit spending then the outcome is certain with the only remaining question being time.

As I pointed out this issue is resolvable but doing it requires kneecapping the medical monopolists. No new laws are required to do that; only an Executive that will enforce existing laws. However, since Congress controls in every instance the purse that responsibility is in fact on Congress as well since they can demand that said laws be enforced or they will zero the budgets of any agency that refuses.We as Americans may not like these options but whether we like them or not isn’t part of the disucssion. This is about mathematics and whether or not we wish to have a peaceable nation or whether we will continue to play this game until civil society breaks down in catastrophic and possibly-unrecoverable ways. The choice is ours — not theirs.

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”There is nothing unusual about the incumbent not participating in primary debates: in fact, no sitting president has taken part in the event since at least 1948..”

Biden Allies Ignore Voters’ Desire For Primary Debates (Sp.)

Democratic strategists believe there is no need for President Joe Biden to participate in primary debates, but the US public thinks otherwise. Top Democrats have made it clear that Joe Biden won’t cross swords with his Democratic opponents, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson, let alone third-party candidate Cornel West. There is nothing unusual about the incumbent not participating in primary debates: in fact, no sitting president has taken part in the event since at least 1948. Neither Donald Trump, nor Barack Obama held primary debates when they sought re-election.In addition, Democratic operatives claim that Kennedy and Williamson are “gadflies” who don’t deserve to debate a sitting president.

According to them, Biden’s “marginal” opponents could score political points by sharing a stage with the incumbent, while the latter is unlikely to gain anything. They also cite Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial vaccine remarks and an unorthodox position on the conflict in Ukraine. Meanwhile, a number of surveys indicate that the American people want to see a series of Democratic debates during the 2024 campaign. Per the Suffolk University poll, eight in 10 Democratic primary voters share this stance. A Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey shows that 68% of eligible voters believe that the Dems should hold primary debates. The figure is even higher among those who voted for Joe in 2020: 79% of them have agreed that there must be a televised event.

During the 2020 election cycle Joe Biden did not hold large rallies, but took part in Democratic National Committee debates where his soon-to-be veep, Kamala Harris, pressed him on race issues. He also attended all debates with his rival in the general election, then-sitting President Trump. While it’s unlikely that Democrat top brass and Biden change their mind, some US media suggests that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not as “fringe” candidate as one might imagine. In early June it turned out that Silicon Valley moguls decided to throw weight behind RFK Jr., insisting that he could outperform both Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Furthermore, RFK Jr. commands a 15-20% support among Democratic voters and has a “media-ready image” being an heir to the famous political dynasty. As per Axios, Kennedy’s growing popularity may increase the pressure on Joe Biden to participate in a debate with the representative of the famous political clan. “Of course, there should be debates in a democratic system as a way to help voters choose the candidate that best represents their views,” a campaign spokesperson for Kennedy told the US media. “Debates can also help voters evaluate a candidate’s character.”

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Twitter thread.

The More We Learn About The 2020 Election (Tom Elliott)

The more we learn about the 2020 election, the more undeniable it becomes that Biden owes his “victory” to blatant political corruption. To wit:

1) An IRS probe into the Bidens money laundering payments from hostile nations — the normal outcome of which would have ended his candidacy — was instead given a stand-down order

2) The FBI & IRS wanted to search Biden’s house in September 2020 but were given a stand down order.

3) The FBI authenticated Hunter’s laptop a year before the NYPost first reported on its contents

4) Rather than use the laptop’s voluminous documentation of myriad felonies to initiate criminal investigations, the FBI hatched a plot to warn social media companies of an imminent “hack & leak” operation of what they heavily suggested was Russian disinformation

5) The FBI used its 2016 Russia collusion probe — which the Durham probe has since proven was essentially an extension of the Clinton campaign — to rationalize its meddling in the 2020 election.

6) The FBI also conducted an influence operation with various reporters at major newspapers to convince them that forthcoming damaging reporting about Biden that they knew was true was in fact not

7) The FBI was spying on Giuliani when he shared the laptop’s contents with the NYPost

8) When the FBI told Twitter & Facebook a Russian disinformation campaign was coming, they had already concluded Russia wasn’t trying to game the election

9) In their attempt to corroborate their own rumor of Russian electoral influence, the FBI became aggressive with its demands for user data from Twitter, eventually getting shutdown for seeking users’ private info without a warrant

10) Nonetheless, in the preceding years, the FBI established a beachhead inside Twitter, with an operations center of former agents who communicated via their own dedicated slack channel. These ex-agents included Jim Baker, the FBI’s former top counsel who played a central role in the FBI’s Trump/Russia scam, as well as Comey’s former chief of staff, Dawn Burton, who started the FBI’s Russia collusion probe.

11) The CIA, in collusion with the Biden campaign, seeded disinformation claiming the laptop was itself Russian disinformation. The major media used this as a pretext to avoid reporting on its contents and instead attack those who were.

12) The FBI also arranged a meeting with Sens. Grassley & Johnson about supposed Russian disinformation & Hunter Biden.

13) The FBI then used this briefing with the senators to justify quashing their own agents’ probe into the Bidens’ corruption.

14) When the story broke mere weeks before the election — one that polling later indicated would have altered enough Democrat votes to send Trump to a second term — Twitter & Facebook orchestrated an unprecedented & anti-democratic mass censorship campaign.

15) When Twitter initially resisted censoring the story, it was Jim Baker who convinced them to do so (despite the FBI having known for a year the informartion was true).

16) In December 2020, after the operation’s success and Biden’s “victory,” the FBI agents working at & with Twitter celebrated the outcome.

17) The FBI subsequently paid Twitter $3.5 million for the staff hours expended on their influence operations.

18) At the time Trump was being impeached for asking Ukraine to investigate Biden’s alleged corruption in Ukraine, the FBI & IRS already knew the Bidens had indeed laundered more than $10 million from Burisma, via fake companies and dozens of bank accounts, while at the same time VP Biden had used U.S. aid as leverage in getting the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma fired.

P.S. And that’s to say nothing of Democrats orchestrating a state-by-state campaign to change voting rules to enable the widespread adoption of voting boxes … Left-wing activist groups, funded in part by Facebook, facilitated the exploitation of these drop-off boxes on behalf of the Democratic Party. That part may not have been illegal since they simply changed the rules, but it’s especially shady since it was done alongside federal health agencies then-knowingly overstating the threat of Covid, which was used as the rationale for the change of rules in the first place.

P.P.S. And this is just what we know despite the feds’ best efforts. Imagine how much we don’t.

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Image created by a Japanese neurologist. It stays still when you are calm. It begins to move when you experience a slight amount of pressure. It moves like a carousel when under a great deal of stress.

How are you doing?

 

 

Baby owls

 

 

Octopus

 

 

 

 

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May 072023
 


Gustav Klimt Litzlberg am Attersee 1914-15

 

Russian Forces Take Control Over 95% Of Bakhmut – Prigozhin (TASS)
Wagner To Hand Bakhmut Over To Chechens – Prigozhin (RT)
Chechen Commandos Wait For Orders To Push Towards Bakhmut – Kadyrov (TASS)
Western Politicians Advise Kiev Not To Attack Crimea – Ukraine Official (RT)
Grain Deal Talks In Deadlock – UN (RT)
Moscow Blasts Kiev Over Use Of Grain Corridor To Attack Russia (Az.)
Tucker Carlson Forced Off Air By Fox Contract – NYT (RT)
The UK vs the ECtHR (VB)
US National Security Advisor To Meet With MbS (Cradle)
IMF Issues Grim Warning About Global Economy (RT)
Pakistan Switching To Yuan To Buy Russian Oil – Media (RT)
De-Dollarization Is Spreading And It’s Not Hard To See (Radhika Desai)
Over 2,000 of 4,800 US Banks Are Insolvent – Telegraph (RT)
MSNBC Spins Possible Hunter Biden Charges In Rare Joe Biden Interview (Turley)
In London, Brazil’s Lula Calls For Efforts To Free Assange (ABC)

 

 

 

 

 

 

RFK Jr. talks to Douglas Macgregor

 

 

 

 

Joe 29(?!)
https://twitter.com/i/status/1654766235027136512

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The remaining 5% do not play any role for the so-called development of progress and the march of the ‘Red Army’ further to the West..”

Russian Forces Take Control Over 95% Of Bakhmut – Prigozhin (TASS)

Russian forces control about 95% of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) and the remaining 5% have no influence on the progress of the special military operation, Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin says. “Almost 95% of the city territory has been captured in Artyomovsk to date. The remaining 5% do not play any role for the so-called development of progress and the march of the ‘Red Army’ further to the West. Two square kilometers do not influence the progress of the military operation at all,” he said, cited by the Prigozhin’s press office in its Telegram channel. Nobody communicated with him about the shortage of ammunition, Prigozhin said. “The personnel of Wagner PMC will be preserved for the next operations in interests of Russia,” he noted. The Wagner PMC founder also said he had no ambitions of leaving his mark as the person “that took Artyomovsk.” “I have ambitions to be of service to our nation and state,” he added.

Chrystia Freeland tells Hillary Clinton

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“Prigozhin said that the operation of the Wagner group had fulfilled its task in Bakhmut. According to him, the goal of the Bakhmut meat grinder was not to take the city, but to grind the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He said that 95% of the territory of Bakhmut is now under the control of Russian forces, and the remaining 5%, according to him, “do not play any role”. He said that he doesn’t care about being in the history books as the one who took Bakhmut, he cares about serving his own people” — RIA

Wagner To Hand Bakhmut Over To Chechens – Prigozhin (RT)

The Wagner Group private military company will withdraw from the key Donbass city of Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut) on May 10, the group’s chief, Evgeny Prigozhin, has announced. The PMC’s positions will be taken over by the Chechen Special Forces Unit ‘Akhmat’, he said. Prigozhin claimed to have been in contact with Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, to perform the maneuver. The Wagner leader expressed confidence that the Chechen units will capture Artyomovsk completely, of which just a few blocks in the city’s western part remain under the control of Ukrainian forces.

“I am already in contact with [Kadyrov’s] representatives in order to start transferring positions immediately, so that on May 10, at 00:00, exactly at the moment when, according to our calculations, we will completely exhaust our combat potential, our comrades will take our places and continue the assault on the city of Bakhmut,” Prigozhin said in a statement on Saturday. Later in the day, Kadyrov released a short video address stating that he has already raised the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, notifying him of his willingness to replace the Wagner fighters in the city. The Akhmat fighters are already on standby and ready to be redeployed to Artyomovsk, he added.

“The soldiers are on high alert, we are only waiting for orders. Several units have already set off towards the special military operation zone,” Kadyrov stated. Prigozhin announced the looming withdrawal of his forces from the city earlier this week, citing heavy losses and a shortage of artillery munitions. The group will be redeployed from the frontlines to rear camps to “lick their wounds,”he said. Artyomovsk has seen intense fighting in recent months, with the raging battle commonly referred to as the “Bakhmut meat grinder.”The city is a key road and rail junction in Donbass, with both sides reportedly suffering significant casualties during the struggle for control over it. Kiev has continuously poured reserves into the city, which remains partially surrounded by Wagner and other Russian troops.

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“We have already begun to develop our own strategy for this area together with the Russian Defense Ministry..”

Chechen Commandos Wait For Orders To Push Towards Bakhmut – Kadyrov (TASS)

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said that the Akhmat commando force is ready to move into Artemovsk (Ukrainian name Bakhmut). “Akhmat [commando] units are ready to move to Artemovsk (Bakhmut). I have already signed the corresponding message to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief saying the Akhmat units are ready to take control of the city and to clear it from NATO and Ukrainian satanists. The fighters are in combat readiness. We are only waiting for the orders. Several units are already on the way to the zone of the special military operation,” Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel on Saturday.


The Chechen leader is certain that Artyomovsk will soon be liberated. “In the near future we will liberate the city, despite all sorts of fake news about some terrible counterattack by the Ukrainian army. We have already begun to develop our own strategy for this area together with the Russian Defense Ministry and with due regard for the tactics being used by the enemy and the resources available to us. Believe me, the tactic will yield positive results,” Kadyrov added.

Scott Ritter

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Who’s more likely to use nukes?

Western Politicians Advise Kiev Not To Attack Crimea – Ukraine Official (RT)

Some Western politicians have warned Ukraine against attempting to retake Crimea by force, President Vladimir Zelensky’s representative claims. Tamila Tasheva, who is tasked with Crimea-related issues, says their reservations stem from fears that if faced with losing the region, Russia might respond with tactical nuclear weapons. Speaking to Poland’s PAP news agency on Friday, Tasheva said Kiev’s preparations for a major counteroffensive have sparked discussions among Western elites regarding the potential repercussions. “Some Western politicians – not states – are warning Ukraine. They claim that the recapture of Crimea could lead to a nuclear war,” she said. According to Tasheva, these politicians argue that while an operation like this is feasible, the fallout could be severe.

Other voices have called into question whether Crimea has ever really been a part of Ukraine, she said. “In their opinion, we should completely give up trying to regain it.” Zelensky’s representative dismissed concerns over a potential nuclear response by Russia as unlikely. She went on to insist that there has long been a bond between Crimea and Ukraine, adding that pro-Kiev saboteurs are active on the peninsula. Multiple drone attacks have taken place in Crimea in recent weeks, targeting Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and an oil storage facility. The Russian authorities say they believe Ukraine was behind the strike on the storage facility, which led to a massive blaze last Saturday. The Ukrainian military, while stopping short of claiming responsibility, hinted that the attack was part of preparations ahead of Kiev’s much-hyped counteroffensive.

Speaking to Scandinavian media outlets last Friday, President Zelensky expressed hope that Ukraine’s forces will be able to “de-occupy” Crimea, as well as Russia’s newly-incorporated territories – the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions. The predominantly-Russian speaking Crimea joined Russia in 2014 following a referendum that was held after the Maidan coup in Kiev that same year.

French journo

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“The deal also requires Western countries to unblock Russian grain and fertilizer exports..”

Grain Deal Talks In Deadlock – UN (RT)

Another round of talks aimed at prolonging the Black Sea grain deal has ended in deadlock, Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for UN secretary-general, told the media. Technical personnel from Russia, Türkiye, Ukraine, and the UN met in Istanbul on Friday, ahead of a senior-level meeting scheduled for next week. According to the UN spokesperson, the parties failed to agree on the authorization of new vessels to join the Black Sea shipments. Nevertheless, daily inspection work on the previously authorized vessels will continue. “We urge all parties to continue their discussions, overcome operational challenges and work towards the full implementation and continuation of the initiative,”Farhan Haq said. Last year, the UN and Türkiye brokered an agreement which allows the safe export of Ukrainian grain though the Black Sea. The deal also requires Western countries to unblock Russian grain and fertilizer exports.


In March, Russia agreed to extend the deal by 60 days, to May 18. The Kremlin has said that not all parties are fulfilling their part of the agreement. Moscow has also complained that wealthy countries, rather than those at serious risk of food shortages, receive the majority of agricultural goods from Ukraine. Among its conditions, Moscow has demanded that the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) be reconnected to the international SWIFT payment system. Earlier this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the possibility of allowing the bank to return to SWIFT is part of the discussions on extending the grain deal. According to Cavusoglu, while the parties are actively collaborating, there are no guarantees that the deal will be extended.

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“..unfortunately, it was used by the Ukrainian side, in particular, to organize terrorist attacks against Sevastopol, which is absolutely unacceptable.”

Moscow Blasts Kiev Over Use Of Grain Corridor To Attack Russia (Az.)

Ukraine’s attempts to exploit the Black Sea grain corridor to stage terrorist attacks on Crimea, Russia cannot be tolerated, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said in an exclusive interview with RT released on Saturday. Speaking after talks with the United Nations Trade and Development chief on the renewal of the landmark UN- and Türkiye-brokered grain deal with Ukraine, which is set to expire on May 18, Vershinin signaled that Russia is not satisfied with the way the agreement is being implemented. He said that while the talks turned out to be useful, as they allowed the headway being made to be measured, Russia “is not happy with the progress.” Vershinin explained that the part of the agreement unblocking Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea has yielded “real results,” but not without caveats.

“We are drawing attention to the fact that the grain… is probably being exported to the most developed countries… However, the very idea that was put forward by the UN secretary general [Antonio Guterres] to ensure food security in the world, as it turns out, is not actually happening.” Vershinin said the parties to the deal are working on the international humanitarian corridor to export grain, “but everyone knows that, unfortunately, it was used by the Ukrainian side, in particular, to organize terrorist attacks against Sevastopol, which is absolutely unacceptable.” The deputy foreign minister went on to tout Russia’s potential in ensuring global food security. “It is well-known, if we remove barriers for our agricultural exports, and for the exports of our fertilizers, many countries of the world will benefit.”

Concluded last July, the landmark grain deal with Ukraine has since hit some stumbling blocks. Russian officials have repeatedly complained that while the deal indeed unblocked Ukrainian grain exports, it failed to unblock deliveries of Russian food and fertilizers to global markets, mostly due to the Western sanctions. The deal has also been marred by several Ukrainian attacks using the grain corridor, resulting in Russia briefly suspending its participation in the agreement in October 2022. In April, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that Ukraine had broken its promise not to use the grain corridor for military purposes after several unmanned boats attacked the Black Sea Fleet bases in Sevastopol, as well as civilian infrastructure on two occasions, potentially threatening the deal’s renewal.

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“..he has no choice but to stay off the airwaves until after the 2024 election unless he is able to negotiate an exit.”

Tucker Carlson Forced Off Air By Fox Contract – NYT (RT)

Recently-fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson may be sidelined from television news entirely until after the 2024 election unless he can extricate himself from his previous employment contract, according to multiple sources who spoke to the New York Times on Friday. The anchorman is restrained by a common clause known as ‘pay or play’ that restricts him from working for a competitor until the contract expires, an inside source told the outlet. Carlson’s contract is valid through January 2025, meaning he has no choice but to stay off the airwaves until after the 2024 election unless he is able to negotiate an exit. Carlson has reportedly retained entertainment lawyer Bryan Freedman to work out a settlement with his former employer.

Numerous outlets, both traditional and internet-based, are said to be courting the conservative pundit, including Rumble, the Daily Wire, Newsmax, and One America News. Carlson was let go last month hours before he was scheduled to go on the air, supposedly at the request of Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox Corporation, and Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News Media, according to a source who spoke to the Times. Media outlets including the Times have suggested his ouster was due to a text message discovered while the network was preparing for Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit to go to trial in which Carlson acknowledged the humanity of an Antifa protester. He had enjoyed watching the “creep”get beaten up, he admitted, even though “it’s not how white men fight.”

Other leaked texts from Carlson show him calling Trump lawyer Sidney Powell “cruel and reckless” for pushing the theory that Dominion was flipping votes for then-candidate Joe Biden. The network ultimately did not allow the Dominion suit to go to trial, settling with the voting machine manufacturer for $787 million. Carlson has remained largely silent about the circumstances of his departure, save for a two-minute clip he posted to Twitter decrying how “unbelievably stupid” most TV news content was and lamenting the absence of “undeniably big topics” on the airwaves. The clip has garnered over 24 million views in just two weeks, while Fox’s own ratings have plummeted, with the network losing half its audience in the coveted 25 to 54 demographic.

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The Bill of Rights Bill

“Anatomy of A Politically Engineered Collision Course”

The UK vs the ECtHR (VB)

In recent months, the UK government has tabled two Bills before Parliament which would have the consequence – and almost certainly have the intention – of setting the UK on a collision course with the Council of Europe, and especially the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Both the Bill of Rights Bill and the Illegal Migration Bill, introduced on 22 June 2022 and 7 March 2023 respectively, contain provisions that openly flout the UK’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). While the former is currently in parliamentary limbo, the Illegal Migration Bill will probably become law, following extensive amendment by the House of Lords, which will debate it on 10 May.

This post details how the Bills serve to undermine the UK’s obligations under the ECHR and explains their significance within the larger debate surrounding the UK’s possible withdrawal from the Convention. It places this debate in the context of the rarely-convened Council of Europe summit of heads of state and government in Reykjavik in May 2023, whose ambitious agenda is to protect the ‘common heritage’ of respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the face of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and other existential threats. The Bill of Rights Bill would repeal and replace the Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998, which gives effect in UK law to most of the rights and freedoms in the Convention. It is the product of a near decade long fixation by the – now former – Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, with abolishing the HRA and loosening the UK’s ties with Strasbourg, dating back to his 2011 polemic on the prisoner voting issue.

Several of the Bill’s provisions would create significant divergence between the UK and Strasbourg. The Bill would remove the current requirement under section 2 of the HRA for the UK courts to take relevant case law of the ECtHR into account and would encourage a more originalist reading of the Convention. The interpretive duty found in section 3 of the HRA would also be removed. This requires courts to interpret Acts of Parliament so that the rights, duties and powers they establish are exercised in ways that are compatible with Convention rights. Further, it would prevent UK judges from interpreting Convention rights in ways that create positive obligations on public authorities – and even discourage them from applying positive obligations that have already been identified in previous cases, creating inevitable contradiction with Strasbourg case law.

The Bill also instructs UK courts not to have regard to any interim measure (or urgent injunction) issued by the ECtHR, which would directly contravene the UK’s obligations under the Convention. The parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) urged the Government not to proceed with the Bill, since: ‘it weakens rights protections, it undermines the universality of rights, it shows disregard for our international legal obligations; it creates legal uncertainty and hinders effective enforcement; it will lead to an increased caseload in Strasbourg; and will damage our international reputation as guardians of human rights’.

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MbS cannot go back.

US National Security Advisor To Meet With MbS (Cradle)

White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan will visit Saudi Arabia this weekend for talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), as the White House seeks to improve ties with Riyadh, Reuters reported on 5 May. Speaking at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), Sullivan said he would be traveling to Saudi Arabia on Saturday for talks with Saudi leaders. Sources speaking with Reuters said Sullivan would meet with Crown Prince MbS. Sullivan said the Biden administration seeks a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear program and criticized the Trump administration’s 2018 decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by President Obama in 2015. The deal placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

“Yes, we will take the necessary action to ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon,” Sullivan said in his WINEP speech. Iranian leaders say they have no intention to develop nuclear weapons and that the country’s nuclear program is for peaceful civilian purposes. Oil production cuts by Saudi-led OPEC+ last October and differences between the US and Saudi Arabia over the 2018 assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi –carried out by agents close to MbS — hurt relations between the two historical allies. White House officials have also viewed Saudi Arabia’s recent decision to resume ties with Iran and Syria negatively. Representatives from India and the UAE will also join Sullivan’s trip to discuss “new areas of cooperation between New Delhi and the Gulf as well as the United States and the rest of the region.”

Sullivan said the US was working hard to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. “Ultimately getting to full normalization is a declared national security interest of the United States. We have been clear about that,” he said. “Now as a sign of my seriousness about how much we’re focused on this, and how seriously we are taking this, I am not going to say anything further lest I upset the efforts we are undertaking on this issue,” he added.

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Maybe it should be “Global Economy Issues Grim Warning About IMF”.

IMF Issues Grim Warning About Global Economy (RT)

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that the world is on the edge of geo-economic fragmentation, which she believes could add more “cold water” to already anemic global growth. Speaking by video-link at the Brussels Economic Forum on Wednesday, Kristalina Georgieva called for cooperation at a time when growth across the globe is extremely weak by historical standards. “After decades of increasing global integration, there is a growing risk that the world may split into rival economic blocs,” the IMF chief said. “And that’s a scenario that would be bad for everyone, including for people in Europe.” She warned that growth prospects were increasingly bleak at a time when the global outlook is weak both in the near and medium term.

The IMF projects growth to remain around 3% over the next five years, the lowest medium-term forecast in more than three decades. “And yet, central bankers cannot take their eyes off the ball until stubborn inflation is firmly under control,” Georgieva pointed out. “The required monetary tightening is weighing on growth and exposing some financial vulnerabilities.” Reviving multilateral cooperation is vital for long-term growth everywhere, according to the official, who warned that trade fragmentation could cost up to 7% to the global economy in the long term. That’s “roughly equivalent to the combined annual output of Germany and Japan,” she said, adding that some nations could see GDP losses of up to 12% if technological decoupling is added.

“We cannot ignore these costs,” Georgieva stressed. The IMF boss had previously said that the shocks of the past few years, including the Covid pandemic, Russia-Ukraine conflict, and spike in interest rates after years of loose monetary policy, have been a drag on the global economy.

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“The deal is expected to provide relief to cash-strapped Pakistan, which is facing a balance of payments crisis and critically low foreign exchange reserves.”

Pakistan Switching To Yuan To Buy Russian Oil – Media (RT)

Pakistan is likely to pay for shipments of crude oil from Russia in Chinese yuan, local media reported on Saturday, citing government sources. The first cargo of 750,000 barrels is expected to dock as soon as in June. An unnamed official from the Ministry of Energy told The News International that the transaction would be facilitated by the Bank of China. The sources haven’t provided details about the mode of payment or the exact discount that Pakistan will receive, saying that making the information public is not in the interest of either buyer or seller. “Russia will provide URAL crude in the test cargo and most probably Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL) will be tasked to refine the Russian crude,” the official said.


Other sources told the media that Pakistan has agreed a per-barrel price of around $50-52, compared to the G7 price cap on Russian oil of $60 per barrel. In December, the EU, G7, and their allies introduced a collective ban on Russian seaborne oil exports, along with a price cap of $60 per barrel. Another embargo banning almost all imports of Russian oil products, as well as introducing price caps on diesel and other petroleum products, kicked in on February 5. In January, Moscow and Islamabad reached “conceptual” agreements on supplies of Russian oil and petroleum products to Pakistan. The deal is expected to provide relief to cash-strapped Pakistan, which is facing a balance of payments crisis and critically low foreign exchange reserves.

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“..the larger the US deficits, the greater the downward pressure on the dollar..”

De-Dollarization Is Spreading And It’s Not Hard To See (Radhika Desai)

New sources of non-dollar finance are emerging. There are new bilateral agreements to trade and lend in currencies other than the US dollar. Even more importantly, major oil trade buyers and sellers – Moscow and Riyadh as much as Beijing and New Delhi – are agreeing to trade it in non-dollar currencies. These deals are destroying one of the main pillars of dollar dominance since OPEC quadrupled and then doubled oil prices in the 1970s, giving countries around the world a major reason to demand and hold dollars. However, many analysts continue to write as if the dollar’s dominance remains intact. Of course, these arguments are based on all sorts of false assumptions. For instance, they claim the dollar will continue dominating until another country’currency replaces it or that this will only happen if other countries pursue forms of internationalization that mimic that of the US dollar today.

In a sense, the discussion is a little like that depicted in The Big Short, a film about a small band of bankers who bet against the housing market and the securities resting on it in the 2000s. Having made their bets, they waited for the market to collapse. It did. However, for a time, while mortgage defaults increased, the securities they are based on continued to rise in value. Prices were buoyed by investors primed by Alan Greenspan’s famous claim that there could not possibly be a housing market bubble. Nor were the securities downgraded. The rating agencies had not only given high scores to investment rubbish, they had come to believe their own lies. Only when the losses piled up and actually began to filter through the system in the form of payment shortfalls was the truth acknowledged.

De-dollarization also has its equivalent of the losses and payment shortfalls. Consider the recent Financial Times story, ‘China’s ‘men in black’ step up scrutiny of foreign corporate sleuths’. It describes the Chinese Ministry of State Security using “methods familiar to spies and private detectives” to crack down on “foreign corporate sleuths” performing “due diligence” on investments. They cite the process of checking whether a supply chain involved “forced labor from Xinjiang” as an example, stating that such due diligence is critical for attracting US investment. The piece adds that earlier, “the due diligence groups felt they had ample space to operate and that authorities understood their importance,” but now Beijing has stepped up scrutiny of these scrutineers on grounds of national security. They lament that “spy companies were the gatekeepers for money,” but now, “[t]hat sense of a mutually beneficial relationship is gone.”

Now, the Chinese government has no shortage of reasons for stepping up its scrutiny of the information being gathered by foreign, particularly US entities. After all, it is the target of a US hybrid war whose fronts multiply daily. However, this is not the only significance of the story. It goes deeper than that and testifies to de-dollarization. Since 1971 the US currency’s global role has rested on the claim that the dollar-denominated financial system was the world’s most sophisticated, with the broadest and deepest pools of capital from which the rest of the world’s investors could drink their fill. Certainly, the expansion of financial activity, also known as financialization, has been critical. By increasing financial demand for the dollar, it counteracted the Triffin Dilemma caused by the US deficits that provided the world with liquidity, meaning that the larger the US deficits, the greater the downward pressure on the dollar.

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Pick them off one by one..

Over 2,000 of 4,800 US Banks Are Insolvent – Telegraph (RT)

Almost half of the 4,800 banks in the US are nearly insolvent, as they have burned through their capital buffers, The Telegraph reported earlier this week, citing a group of banking experts. According to Professor Amit Seru, a banking expert at Stanford University, around half of US lenders are underwater. “Let’s not pretend that this is just about Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic,” he said. “A lot of the US banking system is potentially insolvent.” Last week, First Republic was seized by US financial regulators and acquired by JPMorgan, the country’s biggest bank. The San Francisco-based lender had previously received a $30-billion rescue shot from a group of Wall Street banks in the form of deposits. The sale of First Republic Bank followed massive deposit runs in March, which caused two regional lenders, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, to fail within days.


On Thursday, shares of Los Angeles-based PacWest and Arizona’s Western Alliance were suspended after their prices fell dramatically. Earlier in the week, shares of several regional US lenders plunged by at least 15%, triggering investor concerns about the financial health of other mid-sized banks. Around 2,315 banks across the US are currently sitting on assets worth less than their liabilities, according to a Hoover Institution report by Professor Seru and a group of banking experts, as cited by the media. The market value of the loan portfolios of these lenders is reportedly $2 trillion lower than the stated book value. Professor Seru raised questions over the steps taken by US financial watchdogs to tackle the problems faced by crisis-hit mid-sized lenders. The regulators can contain the immediate liquidity crisis by guaranteeing all deposits temporarily, according to Seru, who said, however, that this would not address the greater solvency crisis.

Bank crisis
https://twitter.com/i/status/1654823464853708802

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Set up to let Joe distance himself from the mess.

MSNBC Spins Possible Hunter Biden Charges In Rare Joe Biden Interview (Turley)

Last night, President Joe Biden did what is a relatively rare thing. He sat down with an actual reporter ostensibly to answer questions. While earlier promising a “major press conference” for the media as a whole to ask him questions, Biden instead did a low-risk interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. In the interview, Ruhle briefly touched on the possible criminal charges awaiting Hunter Biden. Despite reports of a whistleblower alleging a bribery scandal involving the President, Ruhle assured the President (and the viewers) that the still unknown charges will involve “no ties to you.” Moreover, the interview is most interesting for what it did not address. It was a vivid example of what I previously called “the art of scandal implosion.” During the interview, Ruhle asked “Sir, there is something personal that’s affecting you. Your son — while there [are] no ties to you — could be charged by your Department of Justice. How will that impact your presidency?”

Biden answered, “First of all, my son’s done nothing wrong. I trust him. I have faith in him. And it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him.” Note the framing: it is a “personal” not a “criminal” matter for the President that involves only his son. We still do not know what the charges might be, though there have been steady leaks indicating that the Delaware U.S. Attorney is focusing on tax and gun charges. Yet, there are mounting allegations over the President’s involvement in his son’s influence peddling and recent allegations of potential criminal conduct by the President. It would seem worthy of some inquiry or curiosity. This framing is only possible because the Justice Department and the media have worked tirelessly to avoid ties between Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings and the President. While influence peddling may not be a crime in itself, it often involves crimes to cover up the schemes from tax violations to false statements to unlawful financial transfers.

Last year, I wrote about a shift in the media after it was forced to belatedly acknowledge the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop: “Due to the continued work of a small number of media outlets like the New York Post, it is no longer possible to bury the story or continue the false claim that it is “Russian disinformation.” The hope now appears to be a “controlled demolition” where Hunter is indicted on limited grounds without causing collateral damage to the political and media establishment. Scandal implosion is as much an art as it is a science and could be the most brilliant achievement in this ongoing scandal.”This effort has been greatly advanced with the help of Attorney General Merrick Garland who has inexplicably refused to appoint a special counsel despite mounting evidence of influence peddling by the Biden family with Joe Biden as the object of those efforts.

Garland has effectively blocked the risk of a report on the extensive influence peddling, including the repeated references to President Biden as the “Big Guy” in emails who stood to gain from a 10 percent cut on a deal with a Chinese energy firm as well as other benefits. Emails also refer to Hunter Biden paying portions of his father’s expenses and taxes. Witnesses have come forward that directly link the President to these deals. Yet, none of that remotely interests reporters and MSNBC is not alone. The media continues to struggle to avoid even referencing the allegations against the Bidens. NPR had to correct a story that attempted to dismiss the entire laptop story as disinformation even after media acknowledged the authenticity of the laptop. This is why the narrow focus of the Justice Department is critical to imploding this scandal.

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“He said he had forgotten to discuss the matter with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak..”

In London, Brazil’s Lula Calls For Efforts To Free Assange (ABC)

After attending the coronation of King Charles III in London, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva denounced the lack of concerted efforts to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has spent four years in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison. “It is an embarrassment that a journalist who denounced trickery by one state against another is arrested, condemned to die in jail and we do nothing to free him. It’s a crazy thing,” Lula told reporters. “We talk about freedom of expression; the guy is in prison because he denounced wrongdoing. And the press doesn’t do anything in defense of this journalist. I can’t understand it.” Lula offered the remarks in response to a question about Assange, who is a native Australian. He said he had forgotten to discuss the matter with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, but that he would write to him upon returning to Brazil.


Assange has been fighting extradition to the United States, and Lula’s comments come at a moment that he has shown little reluctance to voice his differences of opinion with Washington regarding geopolitical matters, particularly in his opposition to providing arms to Ukraine for its war against Russia, and accusing the US and Europe of encouraging the fighting. His stance and repeated statements have drawn sharp rebukes from the White House and Europe. For its part, Australia has been stepping up diplomatic pressure on the US government to call off its prosecution of Assange. On Friday, Australia’s Prime Minister Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview that “ enough is enough. There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration.” Last November, Albanese told Parliament that his “position is clear and has been made clear to the U.S. administration: That it is time that this matter be brought to a close.”

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Badger

 

 

 

 

Manes
https://twitter.com/i/status/1654766110724734977

 

 

Baby shark
https://twitter.com/i/status/1654899065023283210

 

 

 

 

King
https://twitter.com/i/status/1654821347812585473

 

 

 

 

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Apr 142018
 


Pieter Bruegel the Elder The Fall of the Rebel Angels 1562

 

 

Lots of rants today, obviously, lots of -slightly- different angles.. Here’s Dr. D’s. He beat me to it…

 

 

Dr. D: Too annoyed to comment on the attack. But hey, really NOT attacking would be the change here.

There was a recent article, falsely saying:

“[H]is successful repression of the Chechen revolt…hardly endeared Putin to the Chechens.”

Oddly, this was from Russia Today. No, the Chechen war was a gruesome and unpopular war, however it was just part of the MacKinderesque plan of first lying, killing, then robbing Russia up front by lowering the price of Russia’s exports gold and oil (using Saudi oil and Canadian gold), starting an arms race, then collapsing the ruble and empowering every corrupt, criminal oligarch we could find using pallets of $100 bills. No joke, official record. Russia’s collapse and the Chechen war was no “accident”, no natural consequence of the socialism system or collapse, but a soup-to-nuts military operation. We had the nuts, and they were in the soup. The “accident” here was trusting anything the West says, ever. Haven’t they ever heard about the Indians?

Anyway, the 100-year-old plan of MacKinder, father of geopolitics, was believed by other tottering dinosaurs like Brzezinski in an age no longer run by the horse and cannon and that plan was to cut open the “long, soft underbelly” of Russia, which started with funding Islamic fighters (terrorists) out of Afghanistan (admitted and applauded), then move on through Islamic Chechens, Uzbeks, Kazaks, etc. Although completely crippled, Putin – who was put in power BY the west, BY Clinton – nevertheless stopped them in Chechnya, and was naturally savaged by the West for defending his nation in a proxy Civil War. For beyond hating men and families, they hate nations, for all these things restrain murderous self-serving psychopathy.

 

It’s a little more complicated than that as the USSR was broken up, there were cross-protectorate treaties, but that’s very typically 1,000-year Russian way. They don’t have ethnic and religious problems, or not in the western sense, because they do what America claims to do (with the States for example) and leave people alone, to be individual states, customs, religions, and people. They also don’t have a problem with Putin, as the Russian Way is really a sort of monarchism in the old sense, with a king and court and advisors, and always has been back through him, the Soviets, Stalin, Romanov, Peter, and back since they were Russian.

What’s my point? They don’t think about things the way we do. Not entirely. Chechnya was not “breaking away” and “fighting Russia” as reported, it was subverted by the West TO attack Russia. Chechens know this, but like all CIA ops, half of the target country were for and half were against. So when Putin wouldn’t stop sending the army in and leveled the country (like we’ve done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and everywhere else we’ve ever been) half the Chechen people were in support of Putin – or anyone! – to restore law, order, Chechen customs, and peace against the ISIS-like radical Wahhabists who were funded by Saudi Arabia as indeed he did, in the brutal respect-only-strength way they do things in that part of the world.

What? That’s crazy. Yes? So how do you explain that the present Chechen leader — a nation as sovereign as Canada — told Putin at the start of the Syrian war he would send any number of Chechen fighters to any place on the planet, and kill anybody Putin wanted, and consider it an personal honor. And these are deeply Islamic, hard-core militants. You see, despite also being hard-core Islamists and all around hard-bodies, they too hate Saudi Arabia, Wahhabists, and the intervention of the West that devastated their country. Killing millions of southern Russians for the goal of killing more northern Russians, as it were, every child growing up in rubble-filled war zone. What’s not to hate?

…But why would we report that? That we made a treaty with Russia, invaded on all sides anyway, then killed +2 million with Disaster Capitalism and +2 million more in the ‘Stans with the intent of wiping Russia off the map?

 

You see Reagan didn’t want to WIN the Cold War. He wanted to END it. The Cheney-Rumsfeld-Dr. Strangelove wing could never forgive that. His body wasn’t cold before they were back, this time behind Clinton, to finish the occupation of Russia as the last step to world domination. This is why the crazies back in the PNAC days were desperate to nuke the helpless Russia even then. They were right. If you didn’t nuke them, openly attack them, they would survive and escape, which would ultimamtely thwart the Neocon/Deep State plans to take over the world. And so they have.

But as we see today, they never give up. They’re still aching to start a world-wide nuclear exchange and openly agitating 24/7 on CNN to do so. No amount of bombing is enough, no number of bankrupted, shattered cities are too many just to get Russia out of the way, whose historic job, sadly but heroically, is to crush and utterly destroy the idiotic plans of meglomaniac warmongers from the West like Hitler and Napoleon, and dash them to pieces on the rocks of reality. Because the West never restrains its maniacs, it empowers them.

Being a country the size of Canada, Russia doesn’t escape this, but in the irrefutable monkey-hammering Russia gives, like say destroying 30 German divisions and 5 Million men with little more than hunting rifles and force of will – most of all the fighting in WWII – or killing 500,000 of Napoleon’s 650,000 and sending him back barefoot, well, even the western propaganda and passion for self-delusion can’t hide that…but it doesn’t help Russia any to get shot when finally facing down their violent, meth-addled neighbors. Russia knows this, and they will in fact bomb the West with iron resolve if we don’t cut it out, yet we show no signs of coming to our senses. We never have before. Russia is what stops them, going way back.

 

You’d think we’d learn something. Brzezinski did. Just before he died he said his life-long plan to destroy Russia, culminating in WWIII by cutting off the Ukraine with the New Charge of the Light Brigade was a complete failure. This is the 100 year plan of MacKinder, and these dinosaurs just won’t die. They won’t learn. They have no imagination, doing the same failed thing over and over, generation after generation. Maybe we’ll have to as well.

Maybe we — or rather the Deep State — won’t stop until Russia drops a Satan-II missile, a single one of which would destroy New England. Or a nuclear sub drone hits NY. Or their pop-up stealth pods level Charleston. Or they sink every U.S. surface ship on the planet in 5 minutes using the Sunburn missile. Easy as pushing a button. U.S. military power is leveled, the people set back 75 years, 120 Million dead. Is that what you want America? On behalf of whom? Dick Cheney, HSBC, the City of London?

But there is reason to hope, as core right figurehead Tucker Carlson recently gave a steely antiwar commentary to reach the dinosaur viewers of Fox News, Republicans-by-name. Although driven back to the darkest corners, what remains of the real Left is historically anti-war, although you’d never know it by the way 90% of the party acts. That’s seen in this far-left (or rather the People’s Left) far-left (or rather the People’s Left) Jimmy Dore video.

But if the Right and Left come together against collective bankruptcy and suicide, then they can only unite against the Deep State of Dr. Strangelove, and turn back to human priorities, against the God-knows-what priority of killing everyone on earth they can find, one by one, for any reason they can come up with. Doesn’t it sound like we should be against this? I am. Are you?

“Never fight a land war in Asia” — Princess Bride