China Archives - Page 2 of 73 - The Automatic Earth

From the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the Biden White House has repeatedly announced large and seemingly random amounts of money that it intends to send to fuel the war in Ukraine. The latest such dispatch of large amounts of U.S. funds, pursuant to an initial $3.5 billion fund authorized by Congress early on, was announced on Friday; “Biden says U.S. will send $1.3 billion in additional military and economic support to Ukraine,” read the CNBC headline. This was preceded by a series of new lavish spending packages for the war, unveiled every two to three weeks, starting on the third day of the war:

Feb. 26: “Biden approves $350 million in military aid for Ukraine”: Reuters; Mar. 16: “Biden announces $800 million in military aid for Ukraine”: The New York Times; Mar. 30: “Ukraine to receive additional $500 million in aid from U.S., Biden announces”: NBC News; Apr. 12: “U.S. to announce $750 million more in weapons for Ukraine, officials say”: Reuters; May 6: “Biden announces new $150 million weapons package for Ukraine”: Reuters. Those amounts by themselves are in excess of $3 billion; by the end of April, the total U.S. expenditure on the war in Ukraine was close to $14 billion, drawn from the additional $13.5 billion Congress authorized in mid-March. While some of that is earmarked for economic and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, most of it will go into the coffers of the weapons industry — including Raytheon, on whose Board of Directors the current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, sat immediately before being chosen by Biden to run the Pentagon.

As CNN put it: “about $6.5 billion, roughly half of the aid package, will go to the US Department of Defense so it can deploy troops to the region and send defense equipment to Ukraine.” As enormous as those sums already are, they were dwarfed by the Biden administration’s announcement on April 28 that it “is asking Congress for $33 billion in funding to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than double the $14 billion in support authorized so far.” The White House itself acknowledges that the vast majority of that new spending package will go to the purchase of weaponry and other military assets: “$20.4 billion in additional security and military assistance for Ukraine and for U.S. efforts to strengthen European security in cooperation with our NATO allies and other partners in the region.”

It is difficult to put into context how enormous these expenditures are — particularly since the war is only ten weeks old, and U.S. officials predict/hope that this war will last not months but years. That ensures that the ultimate amounts will be significantly higher still.

“The ‘Boys from Davos’ plot out the future of the world.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1523927620999475200

These people have no dictionaries.

• Lithuania Lawmakers: Russian Actions in Ukraine ‘Genocide’, ‘Terrorism’ (R.)

Lithuania’s parliament voted unanimously on Tuesday to describe Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “genocide” and “terrorism” and to call for a international tribunal, modelled on the Nuremberg Trials after World War Two, to prosecute suspected war crimes. The motion, co-sponsored by Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, said Russian forces’ war crimes in Ukraine included the deliberate killing of civilians, mass rape, forcible relocation of Ukrainian citizens to Russia and the destruction of economic infrastructure and cultural sites. Moscow denies targeting civilians and calls its invasion, launched on Feb. 24, a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of what it calls anti-Russian nationalists. Ukraine and the West say this is a false pretext for waging an unprovoked war of aggression.

“The Russian Federation, whose military forces deliberately and systematically select civilian targets for bombing, is a state that supports and perpetrates terrorism,” the Lithuanian parliamentary motion said. Lithuania’s move follows a similar unanimous vote by Canadian lawmakers on April 27 to call Russia’s attacks in Ukraine a “genocide”. Leonid Slutsky, head of the International Affairs Committee of Russia’s lower house of parliament, said the resolution was not legally binding and that it merely repeated what he called the United States’ Russophobic views. He said the resolution was part of an “anti-Russia project” and biased actions against Russia that “have nothing to do with reality,” the TASS news agency cited him as saying.

1/3 of Russian gas flows.

• Ukraine Halts Some Russian Gas Flows, Claims Battlefield Gains (R.)

Flows of Russian gas to Europe through a key transit point in Ukraine dried up on Wednesday, while Kyiv claimed battlefield gains over invading Russian forces, including the recapture of four villages around the second city of Kharkiv. Ukraine has remained a major route for Russian gas to Europe even after President Vladimir Putin ordered what he called a “special military operation” on Feb. 24. Mounting Western sanctions are seeking to ban or phase out the use of Russian energy, a major source of funds for Putin’s war effort and a vulnerability for Europe, especially Germany. Blaming the interference of Russian occupying forces for the suspension, Ukraine’s gas operator said on Tuesday it would redirect gas from the Sokhranivka transit point, which is in an area occupied by Russian forces, to another in a Ukraine-controlled area.

Early Wednesday data from the network operator showed zero nominations for Russian gas through the transit point. Since Russia was forced to abandon an assault on the capital Kyiv at the end of March, its main force has been trying to encircle Ukrainian troops in the eastern Donbas region, using the city of Izyum near Kharkiv, in the northeast, as a base. Ukrainian troops have mostly held out against assaults from three directions, and top U.S. intelligence officials say the war is now at a stalemate. Putin appeared to be preparing for a long conflict, and a Russian victory in the Donbas region might not end the war, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said in Washington on Tuesday. But the counterattack near Kharkiv could signal a new phase, with Ukraine going on the offensive and supply lines into Russia now potentially vulnerable.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian successes were gradually pushing Russian forces out of Kharkiv, which has been under bombardment since the war began. “But I also want to urge all our people … not to spread excessive emotions. We should not create an atmosphere of excessive moral pressure, where victories are expected weekly and even daily,” Zelenskiy said in a video address.

8 years

So West has been paying and training and arming the Ukrainian army for eight years… pic.twitter.com/txV6dB9rNq

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) May 10, 2022

pfrightening

• Are We Pfinding Pfizer Pfraud? -Part 1 (Gato Malo)

The pfizer data dumps are massive and disordered. They drop 50k pages without regard to completeness or order. Here, have a huge box of who knows what! This is a longstanding legal trick. And it works well. It’s the time honored fashion in which big companies bury small legal teams and create a $3 million bill just to sort and read the stuff. But here’s a fun little wrinkle: this time is not going to be like that. Battalions of interested parties are all over it. The documents are posted and reading and sorting them is crowdsourced. And many hands make for light work. And a lot of very skilled sleuths are at work here. No law firm in history has ever had an expert team like this. Never. The FDA and pfizer fought tooth and claw NOT to release this. I have ZERO doubt that they are dumping all the least awful and incriminating things first.

Keep in mind these folks wanted to take 75 years to disclose this. Only a court order pried it loose. But even with this first set of boxes, it’s starting to become apparent why they did not want anyone poking around. They knew all sorts of things they failed to disclose and many are doing good work on this. But what if the trial itself was pfraud? Because that would be seismic. It would not only severely implicate the FDA and pfizer alike, it would likely invalidate the liability protection granted under EUA and suddenly bourla and his merry band of vaxx aficionados might find themselves accountable. Bigly. And wouldn’t that be interesting? So if this looks like a plausible possibility, we really ought to dig in like busy little mice and see what all we can winkle out. Fortunately, some busy little mice have already been doing so. and what they found is, well, pfrightening.

“..1223 people died within 90 days of taking the Pfizer jab..”

Say Pfizer’s own docs. But no lack of reports saying they do not.

• The Covid Vaccine Boomerang (Maajid Nawaz)

Initially, the FDA took a strange step on behalf of Pfizer by demanding a full 75 years before releasing any of their vaccine trial data. Euronews reports: “The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says it now needs 75 years to fully release Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine data to the public – twenty years more than it originally agreed on November 15.” So strange was this attempt, that a judge then had to order the FDA to release the Pfizer data: Reuters reports: “Jan 7 – Score one for transparency. A federal judge in Texas on Thursday ordered the Food and Drug Administration to make public the data it relied on to license Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, imposing a dramatically accelerated schedule that should result in the release of all information within about eight months.”

So why did Pfizer and the FDA want to hide their data for 75 years? This week, the first batch of that judge-ordered data was released. Despite predictable media spin disguised as “fact-checking”, the basic and rather shocking revelation that 1233 people died within 90 days of taking the Pfizer jab is true. This is contained within Pfizer’s own adverse events report:

The public and smaller media outlets are finally beginning to wake up to the extent of the problem caused by the experimental mRNA jab in particular. Unherd cites: “On the other hand, Stabell-Benn and her colleagues found no statistically meaningful evidence in the trial data that the mRNA vaccines reduced all-cause mortality. The numbers of deaths from other causes including cardiovascular deaths appear to be increased in this group, compensating for the beneficial effect of the vaccines on Covid” No wonder Pfizer would rather pull out of countries entirely than to allow independent testing of their mRNA jab, locally. Reuters reports: “NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Pfizer Inc said on Friday it had withdrawn an application for emergency-use authorisation of its COVID-19 vaccine in India, after failing to meet the drug regulator’s demand for a local safety and immunogenicity study.”

Immunologist, virologist and the inventor of mRNA technology, Dr Robert Malone summarises the latest developments with Pfizer’s data here: “In my opinion withholding scientific data constitutes fraud, this is scientific fraud in my opinion. If I was to publish a study, in which I had a large body of epidemiological data, and I decided to only publish part of it, because I wanted to advance some agenda, I would be guilty of scientific fraud, the paper would be withdrawn, I would be kicked out of my academic institution. I would be guilty of scientific fraud. That’s what this is. And the CDC..I’ve watched it over the years become more and more and more a political arm, and not serving its function…They no longer release that detailed information.. they have become purely a political organisation, an arm of the Executive Branch and what they have done is in my opinion obscene.

And it is part of what’s under lied the attacks that Peter and I have sustained from the press.. if you think about it, the underlying thesis is: ‘well the CDC didn’t say that, so you’re spreading medical misinformation,’ but now we learn who’s really been spreading medical misinformation is the CDC. I think we’re all owed an apology… I think that this data that they have been withholding …it is a ton of information, they’ve been intentionally withholding it, that’s why we’ve been attacked, it is unjust… it turns out we have been completely vindicated. We have been speaking truth, and it’s a truth that has been hidden from the American public, and more importantly it’s been hidden from other physicians, and it’s been hidden from public health authorities..” Dr Robert Malone.

We know from Pfizer docs that their “vaccine” was never tested on pregnant women, only on 44 rats. So all reports this below is based on is about guinea pigs, tests taking place after it was said to be safe and effective, though nobody could have known that.

• Covid Vaccines Safe For Pregnant Women, Cut Stillbirth Risk – Review (G.)

Doctors have stressed the importance of Covid vaccinations for pregnant women after a major review found the shots were not only safe, but reduced the risk of stillbirth by 15%. Researchers at St George’s, University of London, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists analysed 23 published studies and trials that enrolled 117,552 pregnant women vaccinated against Covid, to assess the safety of the shots. The vast majority of the women received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, which provided 89.5% protection against Covid infection seven days after the second dose. There was no evidence of greater risk from miscarriage, preterm birth or other pregnancy complications.

“We wanted to see if vaccination was safe or not for pregnant women,” said Asma Khalil, professor of obstetrics and maternal fetal medicine at St George’s hospital in London. “It is safe, but what’s surprising, and it’s a positive finding, is that there was a reduction in stillbirths.” “So far, most of the data on vaccines in pregnancy have been about protecting the pregnant woman herself from Covid. Now we have evidence that the vaccines protect the baby too,” she added. The results are published in Nature Communications.

Almost all pregnant women admitted to UK hospitals for Covid treatment are unvaccinated. And while vaccine uptake among pregnant women rose from 23% in August to 54% at the end of last year, doctors believe thousands are still unvaccinated. In December, the UK government’s vaccine watchdog, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, made pregnant women a priority group for jabs after studies found women were more likely to become seriously ill if they caught Covid while pregnant.

All logic is gone now.

• FDA: Youngest Kids Vaccine Won’t Need To Hit 50% Efficacy Mark (EP)

The FDA’s top vaccine leader told a congressional committee on Friday afternoon that although the adult vaccines had to meet a 50% threshold for efficacy against Covid-19 infections, that same standard will not need to be met for the vaccines for the youngest group of children, for which a vaccine is not yet available. The agency is currently reviewing data from Moderna’s two-shot vaccine for this youngest group as it awaits further data from Pfizer on its potential three-dose shot. The agency previously scheduled and then canceled an adcomm to review data on two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine for children under the age of 5.

According to a readout of the meeting from the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, Marks explained that the FDA would not withhold authorization — despite previous guidance — for a pediatric vaccine solely because it did not reach a 50% efficacy threshold at blocking symptomatic infections. All of the other adult and children’s vaccines currently authorized in the US have lost significant amounts of efficacy due to the Omicron variant, but they still remain effective at reducing the risk of severe disease, hospitalization and death. “If these vaccines seem to be mirroring efficacy in adults and just seem to be less effective against Omicron like they are for adults, we will probably still authorize,” Marks said.

Meanwhile, Marks directly addressed concerns that the agency might slow-play the Moderna application and wait to review both applications together, saying that the VRBPAC meetings set for next month will be moved up if necessary. “Obviously if we get through reviews faster, then we will send them to committees sooner,” Marks said, according to Rep. Jim Clyburn’s account of the meeting. Marks also told Clyburn and his staff that VRBPAC members have reserved earlier dates, enabling FDA to potentially “move dates up even by a week for any of these reviews.” But he also explained that reviewing these vaccines for the youngest children involves more “complexity” than the review of adult vaccines, and the agency’s review process may require more time.

He also said that the emergence of new variants made the process of reviewing vaccines more complex, explaining it “was a little simpler for the original submissions in late 2020 when we didn’t have the variants and tons of immunogenicity data to go through.

What a surprise.

• $350 Million in Secret Payments to Fauci, Collins, Others at NIH Uncovered (ET)

An estimated $350 million in undisclosed royalties were paid to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and hundreds of its scientists, including the agency’s recently departed director, Dr. Francis Collins, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, according to a nonprofit government watchdog. “We estimate that up to $350 million in royalties from third parties were paid to NIH scientists during the fiscal years between 2010 and 2020,” Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski told reporters in a telephone news conference on May 9. “We draw that conclusion because, in the first five years, there has been $134 million that we have been able to quantify of top-line numbers that flowed from third-party payers, meaning pharmaceutical companies or other payers, to NIH scientists.”

The first five years, from 2010 to 2014, constitute 40 percent of the total, he said. “We now know that there are 1,675 scientists that received payments during that period, at least one payment. In fiscal year 2014, for instance, $36 million was paid out and that is on average $21,100 per scientist,” Andrzejewski said. “We also find that during this period, leadership at NIH was involved in receiving third-party payments. For instance, Francis Collins, the immediate past director of NIH, received 14 payments. Dr. Anthony Fauci received 23 payments and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received eight payments.” Collins resigned as NIH director in December 2021 after 12 years of leading the world’s largest public health agency.

Fauci is the longtime head of NIH’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as well as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. Lane is the deputy director of NIAID, under Fauci. The top five NIH employees measured in terms of the number of royalty payments that they received while on the government payroll, according to a fact sheet published by Open the Books, include Robert Gallo, National Cancer Institute, 271 payments; Ira Pastan, National Cancer Institute, 250 payments; Mikulas Popovic, National Cancer Institute, 191 payments; Flossie Wong-Staal, National Cancer Institute, 190 payments; and Mangalasseril Sarngadharan, National Cancer Institute, 188 payments. Only Pastan continues to be employed by NIH, according to Open the Books.

“If the WHO says every person on the planet needs to have a vaccine passport and digital identity to ensure vaccination compliance, then that’s what every country will be forced to implement, even if the people have rejected such plans using local democratic processes.”

• WHO Pandemic Treaty: What It Is, Why It Matters and How to Stop It (Mercola)

As noted by anti-extremism activist Maajid Nawaz in an April 28 Twitter post, the “WHO pandemic treaty serves as a backdoor to global empire.” COVID-19, while potentially deadly to certain vulnerable groups, simply isn’t a valid justification for handing over more power to the WHO, especially in light of its many inexplicable “mistakes” in this and previous pandemics. As just one example, the WHO didn’t publicly admit SARS-CoV-2 was airborne until the end of December 2021, yet scientists knew the virus was airborne within weeks of the pandemic being declared. The WHO also ignored early advice about airborne transmission. So, it seems clear that the effort to now hand over more power to the WHO is about something other than them being the most qualified to make health decisions that benefit and protect everyone.

It seems far more likely that the WHO is being installed as a de facto governing body for the global Deep State. Through the WHO, under the guise of biosecurity, the globalist cabal who seek to own everything and control everyone will then be able to implement their wishes across the whole world in one fell swoop. With this treaty in place, all member nations will be subject to the WHO’s dictates. If the WHO says every person on the planet needs to have a vaccine passport and digital identity to ensure vaccination compliance, then that’s what every country will be forced to implement, even if the people have rejected such plans using local democratic processes.

[..] Under the guise of a global pandemic, the WHO, the World Economic Forum and all its installed leaders in government and private business were able to roll out a plan that had already been decades in the making. The pandemic was a perfect cover. In the name of keeping everyone “safe” from infection, the globalists justified unprecedented attacks on democracy, civil liberties and personal freedoms, including the right to choose your own medical treatment. Now, the WHO is gearing up to make its pandemic leadership permanent, extend it into the healthcare systems of every nation and eventually implement a universal or “socialist-like” healthcare system as part of The Great Reset.

Empty apartments.

• The Chinese Slowdown: Much More Than Covid (Lacalle)

The most recent macroeconomic figures show that the Chinese slowdown is much more severe than expected and not only attributable to the covid-19 lockdowns. The lockdowns have an enormous impact. Twenty-six of 31 China mainland provinces have rising covid cases and the fear of a Shanghai-style lockdown is enormous. The information coming from Shanghai proves that these drastic lockdowns create an enormous damage to the population. Millions of citizens without food or medicine and rising suicides have shown that the infamous “zero covid” policy often disguises mass population control and repression. It is easy to use the covid-19 lockdowns as the reason for the weakening of the Chinese economy but that would be a gross simplification. The problem is deeper.

China is going through a severe slowdown caused by the burst of the enormous real estate bubble and the crackdown on the private sector, which has led to a cut in investment growth. According to Nomura Research, China faces the worst slowdown since the covid outbreak in 2020 and the world should be worried about a further slide, as the challenges persist. Official gross domestic product (GDP) figures may be massaged to deliver the government’s target, but all other macro figures point to a much weaker growth. We must remember that there are two ways in which the Chinese government “boosts” real GDP: By publishing a low inflation and GDP deflator figure and by massively increasing credit and infrastructure spending. However, those two cannot disguise the importance of the weakening of the Chinese economy, because it is now structural.

The collapse of the real estate bubble is the biggest problem. A research paper by Kenneth Rogoff and Yuanchen Yang estimated that the real estate sector accounts for around 29 percent of China’s GDP. It is impossible for the Chinese government to offset the impact of such a massive part of the economy with other high-growth sectors. Furthermore, real estate’s impact on the job market is hard to substitute. Economist George Magnus warned that the impact of the real estate collapse would last for years.

“..while the number of weather-related disasters [..] has risen in the past 50 years, the number of deaths caused by them has fallen..”

• BBC Climate Editor Made False Claims On Global Warming (DM)

A BBC Panorama documentary about global warming made a number of false claims, an internal investigation by the broadcaster has found. The programme Wild Weather, presented by climate editor Justin Rowlatt, said deaths worldwide were rising due to extreme weather caused by climate change – whereas the opposite is true. It also claimed Madagascar was on the verge of the first famine caused by climate change – despite other factors being involved. The programme, broadcast last November to coincide with the COP26 climate conference, sparked two complaints investigated by the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU). Last year Rowlatt’s sister Cordelia was among a number of Insulate Britain activists arrested for staging a protest at junction 3 of the M25.

Miss Rowlatt, who once appeared on TV advising her brother on how to be more environmentally friendly, pleaded guilty by post at Crawley Magistrates’ Court. She was fined £300 with £85 court costs and a £34 surcharge for committing a public nuisance on a highway. The introduction of Wild Weather said ‘the death toll is rising around the world and the forecast is that worse is to come’. The ECU said this risked giving the impression the rate of deaths from extreme weather-related events was increasing. In fact, as noted by a recent report from the World Meteorological Organisation, while the number of weather-related disasters – such as floods, storms and drought – has risen in the past 50 years, the number of deaths caused by them has fallen because of improved early warnings and disaster management.

The Guardian is a two-faced monster.

• Priti Patel, Julian Assange Must Not Be Handed Over To The US (G.)

Priti Patel now has to make one of the most important decisions of her career: will she bow to heavy pressure from the United States and send a vulnerable man who has been convicted of no crime to face an indeterminate number of years in an American jail where he may experience intimidation and isolation? Her decision is imminent and all other legal avenues have been explored. This was the scenario 10 years ago in the case of Gary McKinnon, the computer hacker who, working out of his north London bedroom, trawled through the computer systems of Nasa and the US defence department in search of information about UFOs and left behind some mildly rude messages about the systems’ sloppy security. The home secretary was Theresa May, who halted extradition proceedings at the last minute.

Now Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and also a vulnerable man – who has been in Belmarsh high-security prison for three years without being convicted of any crime – is facing extradition, with the issue due to be decided this month. Once again, the home secretary has an opportunity to demonstrate, as May did, that respect for justice and humanity are much finer and more enduring qualities than appeasement. It is worth recalling the words of party leaders in support of McKinnon after Labour home secretaries – to their great shame – declined to intervene in the years after his initial arrest in 2002. Nick Clegg, then leading the Liberal Democrats in opposition, said that McKinnon “has been hung out to dry by a British government desperate to appease its American counterparts”.

David Cameron, before he became prime minister, had said: “McKinnon is a vulnerable young man and I see no compassion in sending him thousands of miles away from his home and loved ones to face trial.” The current case is different in that, while McKinnon remained at liberty, Assange has been held in custody alongside murderers and terrorists after the seven years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy, seeking political asylum. He should have been given bail long ago to be with his wife, Stella Moris, whom he married in prison in March, and their two young children; he could simply be electronically tagged and monitored. It is also different in that he faces charges under the Espionage Act which carries a potential sentence of 175 years. And yes, the US criminal justice system does actually impose such medieval sentences.

Truth Social

BREAKING: Donald Trump posts new video slamming Biden on Truth Social: pic.twitter.com/tDV43jzwD0

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 9, 2022

Expodentially

'Expodentially' isn't a word, Joe pic.twitter.com/ZjRqqR1Lgt

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 11, 2022

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

Debt Rattle March 22 2022

Mar 222022

March 22, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:37 am Finance Tagged with: autocracy, Barr, China, Hunter Biden, infantilism, Jan 6, Putin, suicide, Trump, VAERS, Zelensky 50 Responses »

Salvador Dali Birth of liquid desires 1932

• National Assisted Suicide (Kunstler)

• Kremlin Rejects Proposed Zelensky-Putin Meeting (ZH)

• US Sanctions China Officials Hours After Demanding Beijing Condemn Russia (ZH)

• Is Ukraine the Representative Autocracy Washington Hopes To Achieve Here? (CTH)

• American Imperial Infantilism (Lawrence)

• The Takeover Of America’s Legal System (Sibarium)

• Ukraine Refugees Uninterested In Vaccination, Wary Of The Vaccinators (Eugyp)

• More VAERS-Reported Vaccine Deaths In Our Military Than COVID Deaths (Blaze)

• He Faces 20 Years For Jan 6. His Lawyers Say He Just Went To Protest. (DW)

• Donald Trump’s PAC Has More Cash Than Republicans, Democrats Combined (NW)

• Barr: Biden ‘Lied To The American People’ About His Son Hunter’s Emails (NYP)

• White House Ignores Its Hunter Problem (Devine)

“War does not determine who is right, only who is left.”
– Bertrand Russell.

Macgregor
https://twitter.com/i/status/1505652525843857421

Macgregor Jimmy Dore
https://twitter.com/i/status/1505636837280395264

Malone WEF

Dr. Robert Malone.. “Covid is just a skirmish.. we have a much bigger problem in my opinion and it has to do with the rise of totalitarianism”.. pic.twitter.com/v5z25oLmBL

— Pelham (@Resist_05) March 22, 2022

“..a place removed from the USA to set up bio-weapons labs when our own government called an at-home “moratorium” on gain-of-function research in 2014..”

• National Assisted Suicide (Kunstler)

“Joe Biden” and company might have prevented Russia’s “operation” there by simply reiterating what NATO itself had declared: that Ukraine would not be invited to join the alliance. But Ukraine has been a special client of the USA since 2014, when we changed-out a pain-in-the-ass government there. Since then, we’ve used Ukraine as an international money laundry, a proxy forward base for NATO, and, apparently, a place removed from the USA to set up bio-weapons labs when our own government called an at-home “moratorium” on gain-of-function research in 2014. Part of the forward base activity in Ukraine since 2014 was the training and arming of the 600,000-troop Ukrainian army, one of the biggest armed forces in the world, which Russia now feels constrained to disarm and neutralize.

How successful Russia might be in that endeavor, with an operational force of about 200,000, is the subject of a propaganda war being waged one level removed from the action on the ground. The reality, as one might expect from such basic troop numbers, has been an onerous grind for the Russians. American javelin missiles have proven deadly to Russian tanks and armored vehicles. But, contrary to the narrative script of CNN and The New York Times, Russia is hardly “losing” the contest. Russian forces are in the process of kettling up Ukraine’s most potent units, the notorious Azov battalions, along the Donbass line in the east. There are a lot of them. They are surrounded, cut off from their central command, and now given the choice of surrendering or being slaughtered. For the moment, it is Ukraine’s choice.

For the Russians, this is, as they say, an existential matter, something they have faced before and understand the stakes of — think Napoleon and Hitler. The US has shown, at least, an exorbitant will to antagonize Russia using Ukraine. This, too, is yet more insanity. In Mr. Putin’s early years as head-of-state, Russia asked to join NATO, in Russia’s quest to be treated as a normal European nation after overcoming 75 years of Soviet insanity. Request rebuffed. Twenty years later, and many instances of antagonism in the meantime, Russia had enough. It is doing something America no longer can do: establishing boundaries. Ukraine will not be used as a platform for further antagonisms. Our response: wreck the global economy starting with the international money system, and possibly bring on a world famine by destroying supply lines for fossil fuels and things made from them, such as fertilizer.

Russia’s demands are clear. Respond to them, and then you can have your meeting.

• Kremlin Rejects Proposed Zelensky-Putin Meeting (ZH)

At a moment Russian forces are believed to be on the cusp of taking the major southeast city of Mariupol, after the Ukrainians rejected the Kremlin’s terms of surrender for the city, a fresh statement from the Russian side has yet again cited “no significant progress” in ceasefire talks, while stating Moscow is not ready for a proposed meeting with Zelensky. The invasion which kicked off on Feb.24 and shocked the world will reach a full month by close of this week. Starting last week reports emerged that Turkey was working hard to get Presidents Putin and Zelensky at the negotiating table in face to face talks. Given Russia’s overwhelming manpower and military superiority, despite reports of serious losses, it’s not expected that the Russian leader would agree to any top level negotiations like this anytime soon.

“For us to speak of a meeting between the two presidents, homework has to be done. Talks have to be held and their results agreed upon,” Putin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov said Monday, according to Reuters. “There has been no significant progress so far.” Last week Peskov had said that “when there’s progress, we’ll tell you” – in reference to the continuing negotiations taking place between lower level delegations toward reaching a battlefield ceasefire, or at least longer lasting local ceasefires. As for the Ukrainians, according to comments given to CNN on Sunday, Zelensky told Fareed Zakaria he’s “ready to talk to Putin at any time.” But Zelensky is simultaneously urging Europe to ban Russian energy and ratchet up sanctions measures even more, pleas which have without doubt angered the Kremlin.

CNN detailed of the interview, “His offer came more than three weeks into a war that appears to be entering a new, more deadlocked stage on the battlefield. And while that counts as an extraordinary military success for outgunned Ukraine, it will also leave its cities and people even more vulnerable to brutal Russian bombardments.” And more via CNN: “It’s a stalemate. But we should note it’s a bloody stalemate,” ex-CIA Director David Petraeus, a retired general who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “Also, arguably, it’s a battle of attrition.” For now each side is blaming the other for failure to significant progress through five rounds of talks: Peskov on Monday also suggested that Russia was more willing to engage in talks than Ukraine. “Those [countries] who can should use their influence over Kyiv to make it more accommodating and construction at these talks,” Peskov said, according to Reuters.

Stop hating Russians

Russia releases bizarre dog propaganda video as it calls for end to 'hate' campaign pic.twitter.com/rQWwaUOzye

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) March 21, 2022

The US opinion of itself is grossly outdated and distorted. That is dangerous.

• US Sanctions China Officials Hours After Demanding Beijing Condemn Russia (ZH)

Apparently not content with diplomatic war on one front with Russia, the Biden administration appears ready to escalate with China following on the heels of last week’s persistent accusations that Beijing was mulling cooperation with Moscow on weapons resupplies for its Ukraine operation, as well as assistance on Western sanctions evasion. Monday afternoon Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced more visa restrictions on Chinese officials related to prior charges that state authorities are overseeing the ethnic cleansing of Uighurs. It’s certainly interesting timing in terms of pulling out the the human rights card, given that throughout last week the admin’s China criticisms seemed exclusively focused on its “fence-sitting” over Ukraine.

Blinken called on China to “end its ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, repressive policies in Tibet, crackdown on fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong, and human rights violations,” as cited in Bloomberg. “The United States rejects efforts by (Chinese) officials to harass, intimidate, surveil, and abduct members of ethnic and religious minority groups, including those who seek safety abroad, and U.S. citizens, who speak out on behalf of these vulnerable populations,” Blinken said. “We are committed to defending human rights around the world and will continue to use all diplomatic and economic measures to promote accountability.”

It’s unclear as yet which and how many Chinese state officials will be impacted by the new visa restriction measures, which will effectively ban them from travel into the United States, and it’s an expansion of prior Trump restrictions. Earlier, the White House issued a statement saying – like UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s words over the weekend – that Beijing must condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and stop downplaying it.

“western representative democracy” collapsed under the weight of COVID-19 and was replaced with unilateral authoritarian emergency power.”

• Is Ukraine the Representative Autocracy Washington Hopes To Achieve Here? (CTH)

Tucker Carlson used his monologue tonight to note something we have discussed at length here. Western government leaders continue to make statements about “representative democracy” in comparison to “autocratic non-western government”, yet they make these public statements while personifying autocracy itself. An example was Joe Biden making statements to the media during a 9-11 commemoration visit to Shanksville Pennsylvania. In his remarks, Joe Biden decried Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladmir Putin as autocrats, yet Biden had just announced forced mandatory medical procedures for all U.S. workers a mere 36 hours before. It is a fact that throughout the last two years – the leaders of Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States have used declarations of emergency to position themselves with massive power. This is not debatable.

As a consequence, the prior definition of “western representative democracy” collapsed under the weight of COVID-19 and was replaced with unilateral authoritarian emergency power. When you look around, every single government in the west is still trying to extend those COVID powers by extending the emergency declarations that provide them. Again, none of this is up for debate; it is empirically true. Tucker asks a really good question. Is the autocratic system of government that existed in Ukraine before the Russian invasion – which is (not coincidentally) identical in many ways to the COVID-19 inspired system of government created by Western leaders – actually, the real motive for those western leaders to unite in their support and current propaganda campaign on behalf of Ukraine? I think he might be onto something. WATCH:

Is western autocracy the real objective, and is modern fascism (i.e. corporatism) the technique to get there? There is a massive synergy visible if you think about the WEF selecting leaders in this process. The problem for western leaders, who want to be dictators, has always been the voice of the people. Replace traditional democracy by merging modern corporatism with a new version of western autocracy, and we end up with a never-ending system of oppressive government just like we have been dealing with for the past two years throughout the pandemic.

“The U.S. has no one capable of sailing its ship of state, no one in a position of influence worthy of the title “diplomat.”

• American Imperial Infantilism (Lawrence)

When those purporting to serve as America’s statesmen and stateswomen think calling other world leaders names is properly part of the diplomatic repertoire — a prominent part, I’ll add — we are left with only one conclusion: The U.S. has no one capable of sailing its ship of state, no one in a position of influence worthy of the title “diplomat.” To qualify it, I’m certain there are plenty of mid-level people trained in the foreign service now in mid-level positions at the State Department. But they do not count, by and large, because what passes for diplomacy in Washington is driven not by skill, experience or subtle intelligence but by fidelity to American ideology and a nose for what plays in Peoria. Over the weekend I found myself thinking about FDR. I thought about Roosevelt in that famous photograph with Churchill and Stalin at the Yalta Conference.

There they are in their overcoats against the cold of February 1945 (FDR in a dashing cape). Then I thought about Biden and his nonsense name-calling and his refusal to even consider an encounter with Putin at this crucial moment. I had choice between laughing or the other emotion. It’s simply not easy to find truly good diplomats in the post–1945 annals of the American Foreign Service. I am talking about people who understand that one of the primary responsibilities of a diplomat is to understand how those on the other side of the table think and see things, what the other side wants and why. Here’s why they don’t exist anymore: Simply stated, power obviates the need for serious statecraft. The powerful nation has no need of diplomacy.

A figure such as George Kennan was the exception proving the rule, and he was an exception because he saw the need to understand how the world looked to the Soviet Union. Henry Kissinger proved the rule: For all his claim to diplomatic skill, Hank K. was a wielder of American power with a calculating mind, nothing more. The rest follows naturally: Antony Blinken is not a serious diplomat. Samantha Power is not a serious diplomat. As a diplomat (and various other things), Hillary “He’s Hitler” Clinton is a walking calamity. Biden, who’s spent his career selling snake oil off the back of a buckwagon, is not a statesman of any kind, serious or otherwise. We should consider when, precisely, calling other leaders names became an accepted feature of American “statecraft” (and I insist on the quotation marks.) When, why, and what are the consequences of this undignified practice?

They want it all.

• The Takeover Of America’s Legal System (Sibarium)

As of last month, the American Bar Association is requiring all accredited law schools to “provide education to law students on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism,” both at the start of law school and “at least once again before graduation.” That’s in addition to a mandatory legal ethics class, which must now instruct students that they have a duty as lawyers to “eliminate racism.” (The American Bar Association, which accredits almost every law school in the United States, voted 348 to 17 to adopt the new standard.) Trial verdicts that do not jibe with the new politics are seen as signs of an inextricable hate—and an illegitimate legal order. At the Santa Clara University School of Law, administrators emailed students that the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse—the 17-year-old who killed two men and wounded another during a riot, in Kenosha, Wisconsin—was “further evidence of the persistent racial injustice and systemic racism within our criminal justice system.”

At UC Irvine, the university’s chief diversity officer emailed students that the acquittal “conveys a chilling message: Neither Black lives nor those of their allies’ matter.” (He later apologized for having “appeared to call into question a lawful trial verdict.”) Professors say it is harder to lecture about cases in which accused rapists are acquitted, or a police officer is found not guilty of abusing his authority. One criminal law professor at a top law school told me he’s even stopped teaching theories of punishment because of how negatively students react to retributivism—the view that punishment is justified because criminals deserve to suffer. “I got into this job because I liked to play devil’s advocate,” said the tenured professor, who identifies as a liberal. “I can’t do that anymore. I have a family.

Other law professors—several of whom asked me not to identify their institution, their area of expertise, or even their state of residence—were similarly terrified. Nadine Strossen, the first woman to head the American Civil Liberties Union and a professor at New York Law School, told me: “I massively self-censor. I assume that every single thing that is said, every facial gesture, is going to be recorded and potentially disseminated to the entire world. I feel as if I am operating in a panopticon.” This has all come as a shock to many law professors, who had long assumed that law schools wouldn’t cave to the new orthodoxy.

“It’s rare, because the West is so totalising, but every now and then you get an idea of what it must be like to look into this funhouse from the outside.”

• Ukraine Refugees Uninterested In Vaccination, Wary Of The Vaccinators (Eugyp)

Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Public Radio) notices that Ukrainian refugees are overwhelmingly unvaccinated: “Only about a third of Ukrainians have been vaccinated against Corona, in part with vaccines that are unapproved in the EU. The low vaccination rate could cause problems in the refugee centres. The city of Nürnberg, for example, has set up three gymnasiums to accommodate 600 people, where many must share a small space. …Anyone who wants to can receive a vaccination a few hundred metres away … free of charge for Ukrainian refugees.“Unfortunately, we’re finding that the refugees aren’t exactly snatching the vaccines out of our hands,” says Nürnberg Mayor Marcus König.“Many new arrivals are very worried about ‘forced vaccinations’,” adds Thomas Jung, Mayor of Fürth. He says you have to approach the topic with sensitivity. …”

It’s been months of overt coercion to accept vaccination from politicians and the press here in the Federal Republic of Germany. Months of social exclusion and jeopardised careers and all the rest of it. Nobody has given the slightest thought to “sensitivity.” Why are they now at pains to accommodate the feelings of Ukrainians? Jung explains that city officials pressed a Ukrainian doctor into service, to begin delicately preaching the Gospel of Vaccination to refugees last Friday. It’s rare, because the West is so totalising, but every now and then you get an idea of what it must be like to look into this funhouse from the outside. You flee a war-zone and end up sleeping on the floor of some repurposed gym, while the locals scheme madly about how to inject you with their latest mRNA tech.

Dear Ukrainians: You’re entirely right to be terrified of forced vaccination. We are too.

https://twitter.com/BRebellion777/status/1505654134875340800

Any questions?

• More VAERS-Reported Vaccine Deaths In Our Military Than COVID Deaths (Blaze)

Both political parties are salivating to draw our military into the Russia-Ukraine war, but neither of them seems to care about what our own leaders have done to these soldiers. It is now abundantly clear from numerous data points that the shots have caused unimaginable injury among the general population. Military doctors have come forward to show the enormity of this damage in the military, yet the military has chosen to cover it up and tamper with their own health surveillance data in order to conceal the magnitude of the injury. Meanwhile, new data presented in a Florida federal court on behalf of a Navy SEAL demonstrates that, at a minimum, more people died from the shot than from COVID.

On March 10, attorney Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel presented data in court showing 127 VAERS-reported COVID vaccine-related deaths in the military in 2021. That is more than the 93 reported COVID deaths in the military since the beginning of the pandemic. And keep in mind, COVID deaths tend to be overestimated, while VAERS-reported deaths, especially in the military, are underreported. Even CDC researchers recently conceded that “the actual rates of myocarditis per million doses of vaccine are likely higher than estimated” by VAERS reports. The military VAERS data was initially discovered by Dr. Jessica Rose, a biologist and mathematician who has likely published more information on VAERS than anyone in the world. VAERS has a box to check for those in the military to select upon submission, and she counted 127 reported deaths stemming from service members in 2021.

This safety signal from the universal reporting system is the most significant evidence to date that the DMED (Defense Medical Epidemiology Data) specifically monitoring the military, as originally presented by the whistleblowers, was correct when it showed a massive surge in injuries ranging from neurological and cardio to cancers and immune disorders. According to the military, though, the 2016-2020 baseline used by the whistleblowers was plagued by a glitch just at the time these military doctors pulled the information (not before and not after!) and the numbers for those years were always as high as those in 2021. The problem is that the VAERS data, by definition, indicate that 2021 had to have experienced a surge in injuries. It’s just a question of how much. Here is the VAERS data for vaccine-related hospitalizations in 2021 compared to previous years.

As another guy killed himself after he was told ‘he would not receive a fair trial in this town’.

• He Faces 20 Years For Jan 6. His Lawyers Say He Just Went To Protest. (DW)

Knowlton, now 41, has recruited a team of high-profile attorneys who hope the court examines the evidence without judging him by the actions of other defendants. They view his case as having major First Amendment implications. “He went to Washington to exercise his First Amendment right to petition the government for what he believed was a redress of grievances,” Alan Dershowitz, an attorney for Knowlton, told The Daily Wire in an interview. “And he’s been lumped together with people who caused damage or who intended to obstruct. He wasn’t intending to do that. He just intended to protest.” A few minutes before Knowlton entered the Capitol, police held the door for a group of protesters inside who exited through the Upper West Terrace. Soon after, another protestor held the exterior door open and waved for others to flood in.

The defendant’s lawyers say Knowlton heard a message echo through the crowd that officers were allowing people inside. Surveillance footage shot inside the Capitol after Knowlton entered corroborates that officers were shaking hands with protestors — furthering an argument held by some January 6 defense attorneys that police did not take necessary steps to protect the building. At 2:51 p.m., Knowlton and a group walked peacefully with an “officer escort” and left two minutes later, according to a memo based on discovery. Hundreds of protestors trekked through the Upper West Terrace doors, as officers turned their backs, until 2:47 p.m. The U.S. Capitol Police declined to comment. Knowlton’s attorneys cite judicial precedent as a key factor in showing his innocence. He was nonviolent and not “stopped or told by any officer” that his conduct was “unlawful or prohibited in any way,” they say.

But arguably the most significant prosecution flaw, the lawyers say, is the DOJ’s decision to prosecute him for obstructing a congressional “proceeding.” Ronald Sullivan, who directs Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute and is an attorney for Knowlton, called it “a unique” and “unprecedented use of the statute.” Section 1512, which carries a hefty sentence and could have the effect of “strongly encouraging defendants to accept plea bargains,” has never before been applied to protests “of this sort, or any sort,” Sullivan said in an interview. David Warrington, a constitutional lawyer who is a partner at Dhillon Law Group, told The Daily Wire that the statute relates to things like the destruction or alteration of evidence and witness tampering — not an electoral certification.

Warrington said its usage by the DOJ against defendants who trespassed, vandalized, or committed violence is “unprecedented” and an “expansion” of its scope. Lawyers who The Daily Wire interviewed questioned whether the certification of an election even constitutes an “official proceeding.”

By 2024, the US may be a complete disaster. You want to inherit that?

• Donald Trump’s PAC Has More Cash Than Republicans, Democrats Combined (NW)

Former President Donald Trump’s “Save America” political action committee has more cash on hand than the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) combined, according to financial data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Kenneth Vogel, a journalist with The New York Times, noted the disparity between Trump’s PAC and the committees’ funds in a tweet on Monday. Vogel said that FEC records show Save America reported $110.4 million in cash on hand as of February 28, compared to the DNC’s $52.9 million and the RNC’s $24.5 million. Trump has suggested multiple times since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021 that he might mount another run at the White House in 2024, though he has not yet officially announced a campaign.

However, he’s held multiple “Save America” rallies and proven to be the most prodigious fundraiser within the GOP. Though he legally cannot use the PAC funds directly for a comeback race, he’s allowed to use the money toward such political expenses as television ads and investing in his own businesses. On Sunday, Bloomberg reported that although Trump’s war chest has grown, he has not yet donated any of the money from it in 2022 to the dozens of candidates he’s endorsed in upcoming elections. “Trump has endorsed GOP candidates at the federal, state and local level, focusing on those who support his baseless claims the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him or are challenging Republican incumbents who opposed him,” Bloomberg’s Bill Allison wrote. “He’s championed more than 130 candidates since leaving the White House, more than half of whom are running for federal office.”

Allison also noted that while Save America has given $350,500 to candidates since July, 2021, it has not reported making a single donation in 2022. In a separate story in February, Allison wrote in Bloomberg that Save America spent $838,000 “on event staging and related expenses in January.”

Thanks for telling us now, Bill.

• Barr: Biden ‘Lied To The American People’ About His Son Hunter’s Emails (NYP)

Former US Attorney General Bill Barr on Monday accused President Biden of having “lied to the American people” during a presidential debate when he called the Post’s exposure of his son Hunter Biden’s emails “a Russian plant.” During an appearance on Fox News, Barr said, “I was very disturbed during the debate when candidate Biden lied to the American people about the laptop.” “He’s squarely confronted with the laptop, and he suggested that it was Russian disinformation and pointed to the letter written by some intelligence people that was baseless — which he knew was a lie,” Barr said. “And I was shocked by that.”

The comments from Barr — who recently authored a tell-all memoir, “One Damn Thing After Another,” that’s critical of former President Donald Trump — came after the New York Times last week said emails it obtained had been authenticated by sources familiar with them and with the federal probe into Hunter Biden’s taxes. The Times and other media outlets previously denigrated The Post’s exclusive reporting on the emails, saying the material hadn’t been independently verified. During the Oct. 22, 2020, debate, Trump suggested the emails showed Biden was “a corrupt politician” and called his scandal-scarred son’s computer “the laptop from hell.”

Biden responded that “there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, he’s accusing me of, is a Russian plant.” “They have said that this has all the characteristics — four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties — say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage.” Last week, only five of 51 former officials — including former National Security Director Jim Clapper — told The Post they still stood by an Oct. 19, 2020, public statement that said the release of the emails had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Five others declined to comment, while 39 signers didn’t respond and two couldn’t be contacted.

Biden 2016

It’s been about Ukraine from the start. Many just don’t know it, yet. #BidenTranscripts pic.twitter.com/jcstZdsQ4n

— Maajid أبو عمّار (@MaajidNawaz) March 21, 2022

10% for the Big Guy.

• White House Ignores Its Hunter Problem (Devine)

It is hardly vindication of The Post’s flawless reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop that 17 months late, the New York Times has admitted the laptop is real. It is an indictment of the Times and a betrayal of their readers who were kept in the dark about the true nature of Joe Biden before the 2020 election. But now that we are all on the same page, there are some serious questions the administration needs to answer, which go to America’s national security at a time of international peril. President Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, refused to answer The Post’s White House reporter, Steven Nelson, when he had the rare opportunity to ask her two of those questions last week. Psaki’s excuse was that Hunter Biden “doesn’t work in the government.” But she wasn’t being asked about Hunter. She was being asked about her boss, the president.

“How is President Biden navigating conflicts of interest when it comes to sanctioning people who have done business with his family?” asked Nelson. “What would be his conflicts of interest?” Psaki coolly replied. Well, just for starters, Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, who paid $3.5 million into a bank account associated with Hunter and his business partner Devon Archer, was not sanctioned along with other oligarchs allied with President Vladimir Putin this month. Why not? Was it an oversight? A favor? It’s a serious question that deserves a serious answer. Baturina wired $3.5 million on Feb. 14, 2014, to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, a consortium formed between Rosemont Seneca — the firm co-founded by Hunter, Archer and Chris Heinz — and the Thornton Group.

Baturina’s wires were flagged in “suspicious activity reports” provided by the Treasury Department to a Senate Republican inquiry by the Finance and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees. Hunter’s lawyer has denied Hunter profited from the transaction, telling CNN: “The claim that he was paid $3.5 million is false.” So who received the $3.5 million and did they pay tax on it? Seven weeks after Baturina’s wire transfer, Hunter and Archer flew to Lake Como, Italy, and had a meeting with her at Villa d’Este, a favorite haunt of Russian oligarchs. A year later, in April 2015, Baturina and her husband, the former corrupt mayor of Moscow and political ally of Putin, Yury Luzhkov, would appear on a guest list Hunter prepared for a dinner at Washington’s Cafe Milano where his father, then VP, would meet with his son’s overseas business partners from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

After The Post published details of that dinner last year, the White House quietly admitted to a Washington Post fact-checker that Biden did attend the dinner, but only briefly. That’s a pretty important admission, because during the election campaign, Biden repeatedly denied meeting Hunter’s overseas business partners. Specifically, he denied meeting Hunter’s Ukrainian paymaster, Vadym Pozharskyi, who also was invited to the dinner. Pozharskyi was an executive of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, owned by Russia-aligned oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, who was paying Hunter $83,333 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,” Pozharskyi wrote in an email to Hunter on April 17, 2015, two days after the dinner.

That email, found on Hunter’s abandoned laptop, was the basis of the bombshell story The Post published three weeks before the 2020 election. It was that email that 51 former intelligence officials declared without evidence, in a partisan letter issued five days after The Post’s story, had all the “hallmarks” of Russian disinformation. Biden used that letter from the Dirty 51 to get off the hook in an election-eve debate against President Donald Trump. He called The Post’s reporting a “bunch of garbage” and the laptop a “Russian plant.”

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

Debt Rattle March 21 2022

Mar 212022

March 21, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:39 am Finance Tagged with: China, Hunter Biden, Israel, Joe Rogan, Knesset, Kory, Pearl Harbor, Putin, WWIII, Zelensky 57 Responses »

Wassily Kandinsky Succession 1935

• Zelensky Nationalizes TV News And Restricts Opposition Parties (Week)

• Zelensky Warns Of WWIII If Negotiations With Russia Fail (Hill)

• Zelensky Strikes The Wrong Note To Bring Knesset To His Side (JPost)

• Pearl Harbor My Eye! (David Stockman)

• Turkey Says Ukraine, Russia “Close To An Agreement” (ZH)

• China’s Time for Global Leadership (Stephen Roach et al)

• Will Saudi Arabia Ditch The US Dollar? (Lacalle)

• Is the Petrodollar Swaying? (Kadi)

• Joe Rogan Slams Media Coverup Of Hunter Biden Laptop Story (PM)

• Vitamin D For Covid-19: Real-time Meta Analysis Of 186 Studies (vdmeta)

• 800,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved with Ivermectin and HCQ – Kory (USAW)

Saw this in the US as well. Curious.

Condemnation

Why can’t you condemn this as an invasion?” @margbrennan asks China’s Ambassador to the U.S., Qin Gang of Russia’s Ukraine invasion.

“Don’t be naive. Condemnation doesn’t solve the problem,” he says. pic.twitter.com/Oe47GsJSTC

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) March 20, 2022

https://twitter.com/shen_shiwei/status/1505732372003647494

Be careful what you wish for.

11 political parties: gone. Azov Neo Nazi and Svoboda, still acceptable parties.
Most of the media “cosolidated”: gone.
Smell a rat yet?

But yeah, do let’s send him tens of billions more, and close the skies.

• Zelensky Nationalizes TV News And Restricts Opposition Parties (Week)

On Saturday and Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invoked his emergency powers under martial law to suppress several opposition political parties and implement a “unified information policy.” In an address to the nation delivered Sunday, he announced a temporary ban on “any activity” by 11 political parties. The ban includes the Opposition Platform – For Life party, which holds 43 seats in Ukraine’s national parliament and is the largest opposition party. Opposition Platform – For Life is a pro-Russia party, but on March 8, party leader Yuriy Boyko demanded that Russia “stop the aggression against Ukraine,” according to Ukrainian outlet LB.

That same day, Viktor Medvedchuk, who was accused of treason against Ukraine in May and escaped from house arrest shortly after the invasion began, was removed from his post as the party’s co-chair. Russian President Vladimir Putin is godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter. Zelensky’s information policy involves “combining all national TV channels, the program content of which consists mainly of information and/or information-analytical programs, [into] a single information platform of strategic communication” to be called “United News.” Reuters notes that, until Saturday, privately owned Ukrainian media outlets “continued to operate” independently. Zelensky said the measure was necessary to combat Russian misinformation and “tell the truth about the war.”

Better make sure they don’t fail then.

• Zelensky Warns Of WWIII If Negotiations With Russia Fail (Hill)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday warned of a third world war if negotiations with Russia fail. Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin are vital, saying Ukraine has been reeling since Moscow launched its invasion. “We were losing people on a daily basis, innocent people on the ground. … Russian forces have come to exterminate us, to kill us,” Zelensky told Zakaria. “Unfortunately, our dignity is not going to preserve the lives, so I think that we have to do any format, any chance, so in order to have … the possibility of talking to Putin. But if these attempts fail, that would mean … a third world war,” Zelensky added.

Zakaria also asked Zelensky if Ukraine is willing to make compromises to end the Russian invasion, including not joining NATO, as Putin has demanded. “You cannot reverse this situation anymore. You cannot demand from Ukraine to recognize some territories as intended for conflicts, and these compromises are simply wrong,” Zelensky added. The United Nations said recently that 6.5 million people have been displaced inside Ukraine since the start of the invasion.

➝ US experts warned for years that US actions would start a war in Ukraine
➝ US neocons arming Nazis to kill Donbass people
➝ Ukrainian Nazis say: "we have fun killing, we started this war"
➝ Suffering in Donbass silenced for 8 years by the West
➝ Russia decides to stop this pic.twitter.com/BS9TVzWmQh

— Fans of ASB News/Military〽️ (@From_Latam_) March 6, 2022

He’s literally working with nazis. But wants to teach Israel about the holocaust?

• Zelensky Strikes The Wrong Note To Bring Knesset To His Side (JPost)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s virtual tour of Western parliaments has gone off mostly without a hitch. He referenced Winston Churchill to Westminster and Martin Luther King Jr. to Capitol Hill. The Ukrainian-to-English translator in Brussels broke down in tears translating his plea for help. Zelensky continued his practice of customizing his speeches to suit his audience when he addressed the Knesset over Zoom, taking the comparisons he had already made between his country’s situation and World War II to the next level and dedicating the lion’s share of his speech to the Holocaust. That comparison did not have the effect Zelensky apparently had hoped for.

Rather than stir Israel’s leaders and legislators to action and solidarity, the heavy Holocaust comparisons – from saying Moscow is planning a “final solution for the Ukrainian question” to saying that Israel should save Ukrainians like Ukrainian Righteous Among the Nations saved Jews – drew more focus from its audience, which criticized its inappropriateness, than Zelensky’s appeal for weapons. “I appreciate the President of Ukraine and support the Ukrainian people in heart and deed, but it is impossible to rewrite the terrible history of the Holocaust,” Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel tweeted. “Genocide was also committed on Ukrainian soil. The war is terrible, but the comparison to the horrors of the Holocaust and the final solution is outrageous.”

Asked about the tweet, Hendel said that he did not judge Zelensky’s behavior in a time of crisis, and he accepted Zelensky’s criticism of Israel and calls for Jerusalem to send weapons, but he felt he had to set the historical record straight. Former cabinet minister Yuval Steinitz, now a Likud MK, went so far as to say, “If Zelensky’s speech was given… in normal [non-war] times, we would have said it bordered on Holocaust denial… Every comparison between a regular war, as difficult as it may be, and the extermination of millions of Jews in gas chambers in the framework of the Final Solution, is a total distortion of history. The same is true for the claim that Ukrainians helped Jews in the Holocaust… The historic truth is that the Ukrainian people cannot be proud of its behavior in the Holocaust of the Jews.”

Great historic overview by Dave.

• Pearl Harbor My Eye! (David Stockman)

[..] there really are not two distinct nations there, one invading the other. Russia and Ukraine have never been neighboring independent states like Germany and France or Spain and Portugal or Columbia and Peru. To the contrary, they have been an intermingled territory and peoples for the last 1300 years with borders, governing arrangements episodic external invasions all over the lot. The Ukrainian language itself is testimony to that history and geography. The dialects spoken in the Donbas (brown and yellow areas) are a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian; the old Galician territories of Western Ukraine centered in Lviv (red areas) are heavily influenced by Polish, Slovakian and Rumanian vocabularies.; and the blue areas of the North present dialects heavily influenced by Belarusian.

What is also true is that these segmented populations have never been united under a common polity except by communist arms between 1922 and 1991; then between 1991 and 2014 by tenuous and continuously shifting electoral balances after the Ukrainian administrative entity was arbitrarily disgorged from the old Soviet Union; and finally after the February 2014 coup by dint of a Kiev government based on central and western Ukraine that essentially declared a civil war on Crimea (which seceded) and the eastern, Russian-speaking Donbas regions that have tried to do the same. So again, what’s wrong with partition? At the end of the day, Zelensky stood before Congress and had the gall to demand WWIII in behalf of an abortion of a nation that has virtually no chance of long-term survival in its present form.

How Ukraine Will Be Partitioned After Kiev Capitulates

Yet the knuckleheads from both parties are in such war heat that they vociferously applauded the unctuous rantings of a clown who should have stuck to the comedy business. Still, for want of doubt about the madness of defending Ukraine by economic warfare now, and military confrontation with Russia if the warmongers get their way, just recall how the arbitrary borders depicted above got here. If this mongrel merits all out defense in behalf of the “rule of law,” then the rule of law be damned.

• Ukraine’s neutrality;
• disarmament and security guarantees;
• the so-called “de-Nazification”;
• removal of obstacles on the use of the Russian language in Ukraine;
• the status of the breakaway Donbas region;
• and the status of Crimea

• Turkey Says Ukraine, Russia “Close To An Agreement” (ZH)

“It’s not easy to negotiate while the war is ongoing, or to agree when civilians are dying. But I want to say that there is momentum,” Turkey Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said from the southern Turkish province of Antalya, AFP reported. “We see that the parties are close to an agreement.” Cavusoglu this week visited Russia and Ukraine as Turkey, which has strong bonds with the two sides, has tried to position itself as a mediator. The foreign minister, who hosted his peers from Russia and Ukraine this week, said Turkey was in contact with the negotiating teams from the two countries but he refused to divulge the details of the talks as “we play an honest mediator and facilitator role.” In an interview with daily Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the sides were negotiating six points: Ukraine’s neutrality; disarmament and security guarantees; the so-called “de-Nazification”; removal of obstacles on the use of the Russian language in Ukraine; the status of the breakaway Donbas region; and the status of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014.

Turkey’s pro-government Hurriyet newspaper reported that the two countries were edging towards agreement on Kyiv declaring neutrality and abandoning its drive for Nato membership, “demilitarizing” Ukraine in exchange for collective security guarantees, what Russia calls “denazification” and lifting restrictions on the use of Russian in Ukraine. Two people familiar with the discussions said it was likely a compromise would involve token concessions from Kyiv on what Russia calls “denazification”. But Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN, accused Moscow of failing to fully participate in the talks. “The negotiations seem to be one-sided,” she said. “The Russians have not leaned into any possibility for a negotiated and diplomatic solution.”

Hopes that an agreement is close were dashed, however, after the Russian military delivered an ultimatum for the surrender of Mariupol, the besieged city in southern Ukraine and the scene of some of the heaviest fighting since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine more than three weeks ago, according to the National Defense Control Center of the Russian Federation as cited by Tass. Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev said all armed units of Ukraine must leave Mariupol from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. local time on Monday, according to Tass, after which any fighters remaining would “face a military tribunal.” It said humanitarian convoys would deliver food, medicine and other essentials to the city. The Russian statement demanded a written response from Ukraine’s government by 4 a.m. Kyiv time.

I’m sure this is just what America seeks.

• China’s Time for Global Leadership (Stephen Roach et al)

The war in Ukraine is pushing the world ever closer to an existential crisis. The lessons of the twentieth century and its ghastly world wars have been lost on today’s leaders. The peace dividend of the Cold War has been squandered. Two superpowers – the United States and the Russian Federation – are on the brink of an unimaginable military confrontation. The momentum of conflict escalation threatens to become inexorable, and the risk of a nuclear miscalculation can no longer be ignored. China is in a unique position to bring Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine to an end. As the world’s second-largest economy with aspirations of national rejuvenation and global leadership – both elements central to the “Chinese Dream” long espoused by President Xi Jinping – China has two critical advantages as a potential peacemaker in the Russo-Ukrainian War.

First, it can rely on its own core principles. Since the days of Zhou Enlai in the 1950s, China has stressed that its foreign policy has been guided by the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. These include mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-aggression, and non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine is a flagrant violation of these central values. The debate is not about the supposed rationale for Russia’s unilateral action – NATO expansion; it is about the risk the war in Ukraine poses to world peace. Chinese principles offer a clear lens to put that debate into perspective.

Second, China has the advantage of partnership with Russia. At the February 4 opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Xi and Putin signed an expansive agreement that underscored their joint commitment to a “New Era” of international relations. By stressing that “friendship between the two States has no limits,” Xi and Putin spoke of cooperation, not confrontation, between major powers. The war in Ukraine has turned that commitment inside out. With a rapidly weakening Russian economy now isolated from the world, its unlimited reliance on China takes on special significance for both countries. Russia’s GDP is no larger than the combined economies of Belgium and the Netherlands. That makes it all but impossible for Russia to sustain a major conventional war, even if it does receive the Chinese military assistance it is reportedly seeking.

Why should they?

• Will Saudi Arabia Ditch The US Dollar? (Lacalle)

Does Saudi Arabia need to use the yuan at all? No. Its foreign currency reserves including gold stood at $472.8 billion in 2020 despite the pandemic-led slump in exports and oil demand. Is it in any pressure to change currency? Even less so. Its reserves comfortably cover its external debt, giving an enviable level of stability compared to other OPEC nations that have large trade and fiscal deficits. What would Saudi Arabia gain from using the Yuan? Not higher exports to China. The Asia giant needs its oil imports more than Saudi Arabia needs its domestic currency. There is no real evidence that exports to China would fall if Saudi Arabia continued to use the US dollar.

The yuan utilization in global transactions is very limited. According to Bloomberg, “activity in the renminbi, as the currency is also called, rose to its second-highest level ever in 2021” using figures compiled by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. However, that means a stubbornly modest 2.7% of the market versus the dollar at 41%, which has held the top slot for decades. The euro is used in 36.6%, the GBP in 5.9% -more than double the use of the Yuan despite being a much smaller economy-, and the Japanese yen is used as much as the yuan at 2.6%. More importantly, despite the large increase in importance of the Chinese economy in the global landscape, its importance as a currency has barely improved from its 2015 high, when it reached the fourth spot.

Why is the yuan only used in 2.7% of global transaction despite being 14% of the world’s GDP and what happened in 2015? The yuan is the only currency from a global economic leader that has capital controls and a fixed pricing set by the PBOC. As such, any holder of the Chinese currency finds a constant threat from an abrupt devaluation and the inability to use the currency freely in payments. And that is exactly what happened in 2015. The Chinese central bank announced an aggressive devaluation. The yuan is not an alternative to the US dollar because of capital controls, fixed pricing and, even worse, because monetary policy is even more aggressive than that of the Federal Reserve. The expansion of money supply in China has been multiple times over that of the United States for two decades with significantly lower global demand.

“As time went by, the deal became increasingly one-sided, one in which Saudi Arabia was getting the spiky end of the pineapple.”

• Is the Petrodollar Swaying? (Kadi)

‘The Petrodollar came into existence in 1973 in the wake of the collapse of the international gold standard which was created in the aftermath of WWII under the Britton Woods agreements. These agreements also established the US Dollar as the reserve currency of the world. The Nixon Administration understood that the collapse of the gold standard system would cause a decline in the global demand for the US Dollar. Maintaining demand for the US Dollar was vital for the United States’ economy. So, the United States under Nixon struck a deal in 1973 with Saudi Arabia. Under the terms of the deal, the Saudis would agree to price all of their oil exports in US Dollar exclusively and be open to invest their surplus oil proceeds in US debt securities. In return, the United States offered weapons and protection of Saudi oil fields from neighboring countries including Israel.

For the Americans, the Petrodollar increases demand for the US dollar and also for US debt securities and allows the US to buy oil with a currency it can print at will. In 1975, all of the OPEC nations agreed to follow suit. Maintaining the Petrodollar is America’s primary goal’. Do you get the picture? The Petrodollar was meant to be a win-win agreement in which America propped up its economy, and in return supplied Saudi Arabia with security. As time went by, the deal became increasingly one-sided, one in which Saudi Arabia was getting the spiky end of the pineapple. The Saudis have been feeling shafted for a long time, but they did not have enough intestinal fortitude to stand up and show their dismay to Uncle Sam. When America asked old-school Saudi royals to jump, they asked how high. Love him or hate him, young Saudi Crown Prince Muhamed Bin Salman (MBS) is different.

Over the last few years, I have written many scathing articles about MBS’s character, ambitions, thirst for power, sneaky behind-the-scenes deals with Israel, but the biggest black mark against him will always be his war on Yemen. I will not suddenly make a 180 degree turn and start praising him. But credit must be given when credit is due. MBS happened to rise to power on the eve of Saudi Arabia’s failure in Syria. For fairness, this was not a war he started. When he took control, Saudi Arabia had already lost its war in Syria, its biggest ally in Lebanon (Hariri) proved to be a wimp and a hopeless ally despite all the support and bottomless funds he received in order to put Hezbollah under control. In Yemen, the Houthis had already taken control of the capital Sanaa. Iran was moving in on Saudi Arabia on 3 fronts; or at least this was how he perceived it.

This is not to forget the oil price war that Saudi Arabia waged on Russia. It is difficult to put all of those events in exact chronological order because they are all interwoven and happened almost concurrently. Back in 2016, Saudi Arabia decided to increase its oil production in order to drop the crude oil price and put pressure on Russia in Syria. The plan backfired and only resulted in a huge slump in the price of oil, and when MBS tried to reverse that decision and bring the crude price back up again, he was unable to. MBS inherited a Saudi Arabia that was teetering on the edge. He had few options to restore its image and stature. It faced bankruptcy and for the first time since its oil boom nearly a whole century ago, it fell into debt and he took drastic domestic spending cut measures. He had to do something.

Go Joe!

• Joe Rogan Slams Media Coverup Of Hunter Biden Laptop Story (PM)

Podcasting icon Joe Rogan slammed the corporate media’s coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop saga on Saturday’s episode of his popular show featuring former CIA covert operations officer Mike Baker, the current CEO of a global intelligence firm. In the program’s segment, Baker noted the legacy media “love a good story.” “They don’t just love a good story. They love a narrative, and they’re willing to ignore facts to push that narrative. That’s what scares me,” Rogan said. Rogan noted he believes there are objective journalists who work for The Washington Post and The New York Times. “There’s real solid journalists out there,” Rogan acknowledged, “but I don’t necessarily know if you’re getting all the information,” he continued, causing Baker to break out in laughter.

“You’re not sure?” Baker asked Rogan sarcastically. “I think it’s safe to say that some f*ckery is afoot,” replied Rogan. “The New York Times, just now, is admitting that the Hunter Biden laptop is real. And, we remember from the debates, with Trump bringing it up to Biden, and Biden saying, ‘It’s bullshit.’ And it’s a lie, a flat-out lie. Everybody knew it was a lie,” Rogan went on, then referring to when The New York Post’s bombshell report on the infamous “laptop from hell” was suppressed on Twitter in October 2020. Rogan said the censorship “was just outright crazy,” mentioning that the conservative news outlet is “one of the oldest newspapers in the country.” He stressed how “nobody is apologizing.” CNN anchor Brian Stelter has refused to apologize for amplifying the “Russian disinformation” claim as well as the dozens of former intelligence officials who either doubled down or declined to comment.

“There’s a dynamic here,” Baker jumped in. “I love this topic, in a sense, not so much because of whatever the f*ck Hunter was up to, but in part, because now when you look at the liberal Dems and the progressives, it doesn’t matter to them.” Baker elaborated further on the topic of left-wing apathy to the Hunter Biden laptop story, saying, “If you read some of the narrative that’s out there now, the social media in the past day or so, ever since The New York Times came out with this, they’re just dismissive of it. They don’t care, or they’re willing to overlook it.” “Which is the same thing they accuse the right of doing. Both sides—we’ve talked about this before—both sides are just so f*ked up,” Baker added.

Still haven’t seen one government promoting vit. D. Criminal.

• Vitamin D For Covid-19: Real-time Meta Analysis Of 186 Studies (vdmeta)

” Statistically significant improvements are seen in treatment studies for mortality, ventilation, ICU admission, and hospitalization. 33 studies from 30 independent teams in 14 different countries show statistically significant improvements in isolation (25 for the most serious outcome). ” Random effects meta-analysis with pooled effects using the most serious outcome reported shows 81% [53 92%] and 38% [31 45%] improvement for early treatment and for all studies. Results are similar after restriction to 65 peer-reviewed studies: 77% [45 90%] and 38% [31 45%], and for the 42 mortality results: 76% [37 91%] and 37% [25 47%]. ” Late stage treatment with calcifediol/calcitriol shows greater improvement compared to cholecalciferol: 73% [57 83%] vs. 40% [21 54%]. ”

Sufficiency studies show a strong association between vitamin D sufficiency and outcomes. Meta analysis of the 115 studies using the most serious outcome reported shows 54% [49 60%] improvement. ” While many treatments have some level of efficacy, they do not replace vaccines and other measures to avoid infection. Only 10% of vitamin D treatment studies show zero events in the treatment arm. ” Elimination of COVID-19 is a race against viral evolution. No treatment, vaccine, or intervention is 100% available and effective for all current and future variants. All practical, effective, and safe means should be used. Denying the efficacy of treatments increases mortality, morbidity, collateral damage, and endemic risk.

“So much of the medical establishment and doctors have been propagandized to have bizarre behaviors.”

• 800,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved with Ivermectin and HCQ – Kory (USAW)

In October, Dr. Pierre Kory, a world renowned pulmonary and critical care Covid expert, warned, “The suppression of early treatment in this country is one of the most historically calamitous actions, and history will not be kind here.” Sadly, Dr. Kory was right and explains, “If you look at us now, we are over 900,000 deaths, and a huge proportion could have been saved. If you look at Dr. Peter McCullough’s protocol, it was published in August of 2020. He argued for combination therapy protocols . . . a combination of Ivermectin (IVR) and Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). We know the vast majority, 85% to 90% of the hospitalizations and deaths, would have been prevented. You apply that to, let’s say, 800,000 excess deaths, and you are talking about a massive humanitarian crisis that resulted from the suppression of early effective repurposed drug treatments.” (IVR & HCQ) Dr. Kory goes on to say, “We are in a war of information. They call us ‘misinformation-ists.’ They are ‘disinformation-ists.’

They are actually employing disinformation. They want everyone to be convinced that Ivermectin is a horse dewormer, and only uncredible people would take it for a viral syndrome. They have never shown it is an anti-viral, and it’s been shown for 10 years to work on a number of viruses. . . . So much of the medical establishment and doctors have been propagandized to have bizarre behaviors. They are still pushing vaccines because they have been told lies. They are still attacking Ivermectin based on lies and wrong information. It’s the same thing with Hydroxychloroquine.” When it comes to the so-called vaccines, Dr. Kory says it all should have come to a grinding halt with all the deaths from the inoculations very early on. Dr. Kory explains, “The stopping point for an experimental intervention, therapy or vaccine, that stopping point was exceeded within weeks of the rollout.

The scale of what we are talking about now is almost indescribable. The traditional stopping point with deaths associated, that was exceeded in January of 2021, and the agencies (FDA & CDC) ignored it. The VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) data just kept climbing and climbing and climbing. I can’t even keep up. Last I checked, there were over 24,000 death reports in VAERS.” Dr. Kory goes on to talk about the unvaxed and vaxed patients he is treating. Dr. Kory talks about the deaths and injuries from the vaccines and thinks they will keep climbing as he predicted at the beginning of 2022. Dr. Kory will also tell you how you can help yourself no matter if you are vaxed or unvaxed.

What the headline should be

Biden prosecutor

Obama VP Joseph Biden brags about how he rigged the judicial system of another country. pic.twitter.com/BC4u7AUPHB

— Defend Assange Campaign (@DefendAssange) January 27, 2018

Dogs using tools
https://twitter.com/i/status/1505152106587693058

https://twitter.com/i/status/1505518012459270146

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

Debt Rattle March 20 2022

Mar 202022

March 20, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:31 am Finance Tagged with: Azov, Biden, China, digital dictatorship, fascism, Halliburton, Hunter Biden, laptop, Mariupol, oilfield service, Putin, Yugoslavia 41 Responses »

Salvador Dali Remorse – Sphinx Embedded in the Sand 1931

• Was Bombing Of Mariupol Theater Staged By Ukrainian Azov Extremists? (GZ)

• US Recklessly Eyes China as Target in Economic War (Lauria)

• Spies Who Lie (NY Post)

• Media That Dismissed Hunter Biden Laptop Story Need To Correct The Record (Fox)

• Biden’s State Department Backed Into a Corner, Forced to Turn on Hunter (WJ)

• Biden Boasted He Proposed NATO’s 78-Day Airstrikes On Belgrade (ZH)

• Halliburton, Schlumberger Draw Back From Russia Amid US Energy Sanctions (R.)

• Defining Fascism (Tweedie)

• Data Scientist Files Internal Appeal Of Bank Of Canada Vaccination Policy (OCLA)

• The Digital Dictatorship Is Coming — Can We Stop It? (Mercola)

“Looking at the earth from afar you realize it is too small for conflict and just big enough for co-operation” – Yuri Gagarin

Kirsch Cole

What in the actual HELL??? Dr Ryan Cole shows what he pulled out of an individual who bowed down at the altar of Big Pharma. If true, some people are gonna have a very interesting future. pic.twitter.com/xsyghVq3L8

— HighImpactFlix (@HighImpactFlix) March 18, 2022

Where did the 80% excess mortality come from?

40% ethnic Russians. Think Russia would bomb them?

• Was Bombing Of Mariupol Theater Staged By Ukrainian Azov Extremists? (GZ)

Western media have reported that Russia’s military deliberately attacked the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, claiming that it was filled with civilians and marked with signs reading “children” on its grounds. The supposed bombing took place just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to US Congress for a no fly zone, fueling the chorus for direct military confrontation with Russia and apparently inspiring President Joseph Biden to brand Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, as a “war criminal.” A closer look reveals that local residents in Mariupol had warned three days before the March 16 incident that the theater would be the site of a false flag attack launched by the openly neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which controlled the building and the territory around it.

Civilians that escaped the city through humanitarian corridors have testified that they were held by Azov as human shields in area, and that Azov fighters detonated parts of the theater as they retreated. Despite claims of a massive Russian airstrike that reduced the building to ashes, all civilians appear to have escaped with their lives. Video of the attack on the theater remains unavailable at the time of publication; only photographs of the damaged structure can be viewed. The Russian Ministry of Defense has denied conducting an airstrike on the theater, asserting that the site had no military value and that no sorties were flown in the area on March 16.

While the Russian military operation in Ukraine has triggered a humanitarian crisis in Mariupol, it is clear that Russia gained nothing by targeting the theater, and virtually guaranteed itself another public relations blow by targeting a building filled with civilians – including ethnic Russians. Azov, on the other hand, stood to benefit from a dramatic and grisly attack blamed on Russia. In full retreat all around Mariupol and facing the possibility of brutal treatment at the hands of a Russian military hellbent on “de-Nazification,” its fighters’ only hope seemed to lie in triggering direct NATO intervention.

Azov – series of videos

@MapsUkraine Testimony of Mariupol residents: Azov Batallion executed civilians triying to escape the city. pic.twitter.com/Q1BsQiapvj

— Juan Sinmiedo (@Youblacksoul) March 17, 2022

“Adding China as a target of its economic war could drive the populations of the U.S. and Europe against their own governments instead.”

• US Recklessly Eyes China as Target in Economic War (Lauria)

The U.S. already has sanctions on China, as it had earlier on Russia. However, if the United States is seriously planning similar types of sanctions on Beijing that it has leveled on Moscow — against its major banks, against the central bank, removing it from SWIFT and cutting off key exports — the impact on the world economy — including on Europe and the United States — could be catastrophic. The U.S. national security strategy for several years has been aimed at both Russia and China. Knowing it must avoid a direct military confrontation against either, given the potential consequences, the U.S. is turning to economic warfare to ultimately attempt to bring down both governments through popular uprisings. Washington wants to replace them with Western-friendly leaders who would open up their economies to Western exploitation — just like Boris Yeltsin did in the 1990s.

The United States is acting as though the whole world is the West and that this is the China of 30 years ago. In its bull-headed effort to impose its unilateral rule on the world, while its domestic social problems mount, the U.S. has not only driven Russia and China closer together than ever, but it has now brought in India, much of Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, (all of whom have refused to sanction Russia and continues to trade with it), into a new bloc with economic power that exceeds the West. The U.S. has turned the majority of the world’s population against it. And it is now threatening to blow up the world economy. Cutting off trade and finance to Russia has already boomeranged on Western countries, driving up prices, especially at the pump. Instead of prompting a popular uprising in Russia as a result of its sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity has actually risen since the invasion. Adding China as a target of its economic war could drive the populations of the U.S. and Europe against their own governments instead.

“51 ‘intelligence’ experts refuse to apologize for discrediting true Hunter Biden story..”

• Spies Who Lie (NY Post)

They are the supposed nonpartisan group of top spies looking out for the best interest of the nation. But the 51 former “intelligence” officials who cast doubt on The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop stories in a public letter really were just desperate to get Joe Biden elected president. And more than a year later, even after their Deep State sabotage has been shown again and again to be a lie, they refuse to own up to how they undermined an election. The officials, including CNN pundit and professional fabricator James Clapper – a man who was nearly charged for perjury for lying to Congress — signed a letter saying that the laptop “has the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” What proof did they have? By their own admission, none. “We do not know if the emails .. are genuine or not,” the letter said. They’re just “suspicious.”

Why? Because they hurt Biden’s campaign, that’s evidence enough. Keep in mind this was written Oct. 19, 2020, five days after The Post published its first story. Neither Joe Biden nor Hunter Biden had denied the story, they simply deflected questions. Didn’t these security experts think that if this was disinformation, the Biden campaign would have yelled to the heavens that the story was false? Meanwhile, though the letter was advertised as being signed by people who worked “for presidents of both political parties,” a majority of the officials were Democrats. Politico picked up the letter and ran the false headline “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” That headline is still online today, even though the letter clearly says they don’t know if it’s Russian disinformation. That headline was tweeted out by legions of Democrats, including current White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, as proof that it was all a con.

That tweet also is still up despite being proven false. Thus pure speculation by a group of biased officials became gospel among the media. This was “fake news,” and could be safely ignored. Keep in mind that Twitter already had banned The New York Post a few days before. The rationale was that this was “hacked materials,” even though it wasn’t – and Twitter had no evidence to think it was. A Facebook official, meanwhile, said it wasn’t going to allow the sharing of The Post’s story until it was “fact checked” by a third party — a check that never happened. Thus, Big Tech, former government officials, and the media conspired together to bury a story. No, not just bury — create a false narrative that flipped the script to make Joe Biden the victim of a conspiracy. In short, they peddled online disinformation to sway an election.

But they do not.

• Media That Dismissed Hunter Biden Laptop Story Need To Correct The Record (Fox)

The New York Times on Wednesday subtly confirmed the Hunter Biden laptop story that was largely written off by mainstream news outlets as disinformation when the New York Post first reported it ahead of the 2020 presidential election and media watchdogs want to see the organizations that initially dismissed it correct their reporting and analysis. “Outlets who actively tried to cover up the original New York Post laptop story absolutely need to correct the record,” journalist Drew Holden told Fox News Digital. “These weren’t simple misgivings — they smeared the accurate, significant scoops of a competitor as disinformation, and they absolutely have an obligation to correct the record,” Holden said.

The Post reported the laptop’s contents included emails, text messages, photos and financial documents between himself, his family and business associates that showed how he used his political influence in his foreign business dealings, specifically in his work as a board member of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company. However, voters who relied on the mainstream press for information ahead of the presidential election were told not to believe the report. Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent quickly declared the day after the Post first began reporting on the laptop that it was “Trump’s fake new Biden scandal,” calling the allegations “laughably weak.”

NPR public editor Kelly McBride addressed a listener’s question about the news outlet’s blackout of the Hunter Biden story at the time. After claiming the Post’s reporting had “many, many red flags,” including its potential ties to Russia, NPR determined the “assertions don’t amount to much.” “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” NPR managing editor Terence Samuel told McBride. In December 2020, Project Veritas published leaked audio recordings of conference calls featuring CNN’s top executives urging staff to avoid the Biden scandal during the election.

“Obviously, we’re not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden,” CNN political director David Chalian said during a conference call on Oct. 14, the same day the Post published its first story on Hunter Biden’s emails. MSNBC anchor Katy Tur mocked the Post’s story, saying it “dropped like a bomb,” but to “wither under scrutiny, not really dropping like a bomb,” while MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle attacked those who were covering the Hunter Biden controversy, referring to it as a “so-called story” with “unverified claims.” These are just a small sample of the corporate media’s overwhelming attempt to silence the story, which was even censored on Twitter.

All the hallmarks

FLASHBACK: Media pundits lied to you, falsely claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story was "Russian disinformation." pic.twitter.com/fSmQgfIq0N

— MediaResearchCenter (@theMRC) March 18, 2022

The MSM maintain their silence.

• Biden’s State Department Backed Into a Corner, Forced to Turn on Hunter (WJ)

It’s very possible that Kenneth Vogel, a reporter with The New York Times, may actually be practicing journalism. Last year, Vogel filed several Freedom of Information Act requests with the State Department. Among the information he was seeking were copies of all correspondence that “mentioned” Hunter Biden, among officials at the U.S. embassy in Romania, between August 2015 and December 2019, according to Business Insider. Upon learning that the agency wouldn’t start producing these records until April 2023, Vogel filed a FOIA lawsuit in January. A hearing in the case was scheduled for March 17. Last Friday, however, the Times’ attorney David McCraw filed a court motion, which said the State Department had agreed to begin handing over the records next month.

Business Insider reported that, in a letter to the presiding judge in the case, U.S. District Court Judge J. Paul Oetken, McGraw wrote: “The State Department has started identifying records responsive to The Times’s FOIA requests. It has agreed to begin processing records for production as it continues to identify the remaining responsive records.” “The parties are still negotiating the number of pages to be processed in and the frequency of each production. The parties respectfully propose to provide a status report to the Court on March 25, 2022, informing the Court of the results of this negotiation,” McGraw added. In addition, Vogel requested all records mentioning Tony Bobulinski, who made headlines in October 2020 when emails contained on Hunter Biden’s lap top were revealed.

It turned out that Hunter had introduced Bobulinski to now-President Joe Biden in a May 2017 meeting at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California. He was to serve as CEO of SinoHawk Holdings LLC, a joint venture between the Biden family and Chinese energy company, CEFC. Bobulinski famously confirmed that “The Big Guy” referred to in one of the emails on the laptop, who was to receive 10 percent of the potential profits, was none other than Joe Biden. Vogel has also asked for all correspondence mentioning former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who, according to The New York Post, is alleged to have contributed $100,000 to a trust for Hunter’s children in April 2016 ahead of a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden to discuss “some very good and profitable matters.”

The Post published a screenshot of a July 2016 email in which Freeh wrote to Hunter, “I would be delighted to do future work with you.” Apparently, he was very delighted. [..] An October 2019 story published in The New York Times may provide a clue. Vogel wrote about Hunter Biden’s association with a Romanian executive who was facing corruption charges. The headline and lede read: “Giuliani Is Drawing Attention to Hunter Biden’s Work in Romania. But There’s a Problem. … Hunter Biden worked to help a Romanian executive facing corruption charges. But so did the former New York mayor — and a former F.B.I. director.” For whatever the reason, the State Department tried to slow-walk Vogel’s FOIA request, so much so that he was forced to file a lawsuit. We know that Hunter Biden has conducted business with the Chinese and the Ukrainians, but we’ve heard very little about his involvement with anyone in Romania.

Why now?

Media outlets dismissed The Hunter Biden story pic.twitter.com/p7UpA50Bse

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) March 19, 2022

“we will never forget who bombed our embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia”. “We need no lecture on justice from the abuser of international law..”

• Biden Boasted He Proposed NATO’s 78-Day Airstrikes On Belgrade (ZH)

Both Russian and Chinese media and state officials have in the last days been widely circulating a resurfaced video from 1999 wherein then senator Joe Biden bragged about being the first US official to propose bombing Belgrade and destroying the city’s infrastructure. State media in Russia wrote this week while featuring the footage: “The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, reposted the footage on his social media account, reminding the current US President of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia that is estimated to have killed about 2,500 people, including 89 children.” Russian officials used the clip to blast Biden over his latest description of Vladimir Putin as a “war criminal” and “thug” due to the invasion of Ukraine. It’s also getting wide circulation on Chinese social media.

“I suggested bombing of Belgrade. I suggested that American pilots go there and destroy all bridges on the Drina,” Biden had said at the time. The 78 days of air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombs kept falling even on Serbia’s Easter – called Pascha – which is the holiest day of the Orthodox Christian year. “I was suggesting very specific action,” Biden said while seeming to praise his own ‘muscular’ proposals which helped lead to the NATO war against the Serbs. China’s mission to the EU also called out prior US action over what was Yugoslavia, condemning the outrageous May NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy – which killed and injured multiple Chinese nationals and journalists.

According to a summary of the incident in The National Review, “Despite the seemingly extensive target vetting, on May 7 the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was struck by five Joint Directed Attack Munition satellite-guided bombs, delivered by U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bombers. Three Chinese journalists—Shao Yunhuan of Xinhua, and Xu Xinghu and his wife Zhu Ying of the Guangming Daily—were killed in the attack. Twenty other Chinese nationals were injured, five seriously.” On Thursday China’s foreign ministry said in a statement “we will never forget” – and related it to Washington’s outrage over ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine:

The Chinese diplomatic mission in the European Union said on Thursday that Chinese people could fully relate to the suffering of other countries because “we will never forget who bombed our embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia”. “We need no lecture on justice from the abuser of international law,” it said. “As a Cold War remnant and the world’s largest military alliance, Nato continues to expand its geographical scope and range of operations. What kind of role has it played in world peace and stability? Nato needs to have good reflection.”

There’s a reason US oil(field) service companies operate in Russia, and their withdrawal may hurt Russia.

• Halliburton, Schlumberger Draw Back From Russia Amid US Energy Sanctions (R.)

U.S. oilfield services companies Halliburton Co and Schlumberger said on Friday they have suspended or halted Russia operations in response to U.S. sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The disclosures followed widespread departures by energy, retail and consumer goods businesses and a series of European Union and U.S. bans on providing oil technology to Russia or importing its energy products. Halliburton said it immediately suspended future business and would wind down its operations in Russia after earlier ending shipments of sanctioned parts and products to the country.

Schlumberger has ceased new investment and technology deployment while continuing with existing activity in compliance with international laws and sanctions, the company said in a statement late on Friday. “We urge a cessation of the conflict and a restoration of safety and security in the region,” Schlumberger Chief Executive Olivier Le Peuch said. Oilfield services provider Baker Hughes declined to comment on its Russia operations. Energy companies BP PLC, Shell, Equinor ASA and Exxon Mobil have suspended business or announced plans to exit their Russia operations.

“I fear he underestimates the intellect of the nation which did three-quarters of the fighting and dying to defeat fascism 77 years ago.”

• Defining Fascism (Tweedie)

What is fascism? With the Russian ‘de-Nazification operation’ in the Ukraine entering its fourth week and “Black Lives Matter” replaced with “I Stand With Ukraine” as the virtue-signal de jour, now seems like a good time to define it. While I’m a big fan of the Iranian journalist Ramin Mazaheri, I have to disagree with his latest article on The Vineyard of the Saker. Mazaheri says Russia misinterprets Nazism as simply Russophobia. I fear he underestimates the intellect of the nation which did three-quarters of the fighting and dying to defeat fascism 77 years ago. Rather than trying to suck the meaning of the word ‘fascism’ out of our thumbs, let us instead compare two well-known definitions by Georgi Dimitrov and Umberto Eco, a Marxist and a Liberal.

Eco, the Italian author of the historical whodunnit The Name Of the Rose, listed 14 different features in his 1995 essay Eternal Fascism. The problem is, none of them individually are proof that we’re living in a fascist state. Eco admits at the start: “These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism.” But he claims: “it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.” The first item on Eco’s list, ‘the cult of tradition’, is common to most ‘small-c’ social conservatives. The syncretism that Eco speaks of here is found in his own eclectic list. Points three to five, ‘action for action’s sake’, ‘disagreement is treason’ and ‘fear of difference’ are true of the dozens of Trotskyite and anarchist sects jumping on the Ukraine bandwagon.

Points six to eight, ‘appeal to a frustrated middle class’, an ‘obsession with a plot’ and the belief that their ‘enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak’ describe the US ‘Never Trumpers’ and British liberals still desperate to rejoin the European Union (EU). Nine and 11, ‘ life is lived for struggle’ and ‘everybody is educated to become a hero’ apply to the ‘woke’ millennials obsessed with their own perceived victimhood. Dimitrov, the Bulgarian general secretary of the Communist (Third) International, characterised fascism in a speech to the 7th Comintern congress in 1935 as: “the open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”

“Fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital,” he elaborated. “Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia.”

Data scientist files internal appeal of Bank of Canada’s mandatory vaccination policy. 766-page submission cites more than 1000 peer-reviewed articles showing evidence of harm.

Joseph Hickey is also the OCLA’s (volunteer) ED.

• Data Scientist Files Internal Appeal Of Bank Of Canada Vaccination Policy (OCLA)

Dr. Joseph Hickey, a data scientist at the Bank of Canada (Canada’s central bank) was placed on unpaid leave without benefits by his employer in November 2021, for declining to receive injections of a COVID-19 vaccine. On March 16, 2022, Dr. Hickey submitted an internal appeal of the Bank’s decision. His 766-page submission describes and cites the scientific evidence that demonstrates there are many medical reasons for declining vaccination, including that:

• There was no emergency that caused large amounts of deaths in Canada in 2020-2021 that would justify vaccinating the entire population;
• There is no reliable evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine products provide any health benefit;
• Vaccine products injected via intramuscular routes are in-effect physiologically incapable of preventing infection and transmission of respiratory illnesses;
• There is autopsy, surveillance, and statistical evidence of grave dangers of COVID-19 vaccine products;
• There are more than 1000 peer-reviewed articles providing evidence of harm from COVID-19 vaccine products;
• There is a significantly increased risk of dangerous heart inflammation following injection with a COVID-19 vaccine product, especially for younger males, and this danger is heightened for those who engage in strenuous physical activity;
• Natural immunity provides robust and sufficient protection against respiratory illnesses; and
• It is a fundamental principle of medicine that individual assessment of risk is a personal and confidential choice and the decision to receive or not receive a medical intervention must be made with free and informed consent.

Better be fast: “..we may have only a decade, at most two, to prevent this digital dictatorship from taking over.”

• The Digital Dictatorship Is Coming — Can We Stop It? (Mercola)

According to Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the goal of The Fourth Industrial Revolution is to change what it means to be human by merging man and machine. In short, while the term “transhumanism” is not being used, that’s exactly where the global cabal intends to take us, willing or not. In a November 2019 interview with CNN, history professor and bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari, a Klaus Schwab disciple, warned that “humans are now hackable animals,” meaning, the technology now exists by which a company or government can know you better than you know yourself, and that can be very dangerous if misused.

He predicted that algorithms will increasingly be used to make decisions that historically have been made by humans, either yourself or someone else, including whether or not you’ll be hired for a particular job, whether you’ll be granted a loan, what scholastic curriculum you will follow and even who you will marry. There’s also an ever-increasing risk of being manipulated by these outside forces that you’re not even fully aware of. Looking back over the last two years, it’s rather easy to confirm that mass manipulation is taking place at a staggering scale and that it’s phenomenally effective. As noted by Harari in 2019, the available capabilities already go far beyond Orwell’s “1984” authoritarian vision, and it’s only going to become more powerful from here.

He’s certain that in short order, there will be the ability to monitor your emotional state through something as simple as a wearable wristband. You may dutifully smile and clap when listening to a speech by a government official, but they’ll know you’re angry or don’t agree with what’s being said, and could therefore take action against you based on your most personal, internal emotions rather than what you outwardly express. Importantly, Harari warned that if we allow the establishment of this kind of digital dictatorship, where the system, be it a corporation or a government, knows the most intimate details about each and every person, it will be impossible to dismantle it. Its control will be total and irreversible. And, Harari believes we may have only a decade, at most two, to prevent this digital dictatorship from taking over.

Subtle

pic.twitter.com/KEHiK4pU69

— john (@johnhackerla) March 19, 2022

Imperialism

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

Debt Rattle March 15 2022

Mar 152022

March 15, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:42 am Finance Tagged with: AIDS, Assange, China, excess deaths, inflation, Macron, Orwell, stealth jets, Ukraine 49 Responses »

Salvador Dali Memory of the child woman 1932

• China Has Already Decided To Send Economic Aid To Russia, US Fears (G.)

• White House Threatens China Will Pay for Support for Russia (Antiwar)

• Biden Blames Putin, Covid For Record-high Inflation In US (Fox)

• Stop Putin’s War! (CP)

• Stocks Give Up Gains Following Kremlin Comments (ZH)

• Germany To Buy Dozens Of US Stealth Jets (Y!)

• Orwell Was Right (Taibbi)

• Playing Dumb (Kunstler)

• France Lifts Covid-19 Rules On Unvaccinated, Mask Wearing (AP)

• Ed Dowd: 25 To 44 yo Experienced An 84% Increase In Excess Mortality (Kirsch)

• Triple Vaccinated Just Weeks Away From Developing AIDS (DE)

• UK Supreme Court Slams Door On Assange Appeal (Gosztola)

Tucker Tulsi

The U.S. government confirmed there are biolabs in Ukraine. But now anyone who says that out loud is accused of treason. pic.twitter.com/8s6UPhBoAL

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 15, 2022

Majewski

My name is @JRMajewski & I’m running for Congress in OH-9. I’m also an Air Force Veteran.

& as an Air Force veteran, I just want to say that anyone who says they support a ‘No-Fly Zone’ is RECKLESS & should NOT be taken SERIOUSLY. Especially not crybaby Kinzinger.

Here’s why: pic.twitter.com/cB2mf5uhbS

— JR Majewski for Congress (@JRMajewski) March 15, 2022

The Guardian is the ideal voice of empire. But that means a lot of things must be igored. China doesn’t see the world through US/NATO eyes. It doesn’t think the Ukraine conflict started 3 weeks ago (but 30 years). And it doesn’t think not parroting the US means turning its back on Washington. China is its own nation.

• China Has Already Decided To Send Economic Aid To Russia, US Fears (G.)

China has already decided to provide Russia with economic and financial support during its war on Ukraine and is contemplating sending military supplies such as armed drones, US officials fear. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, laid out the US case against Russia’s invasion in an “intense” seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, pointing out that Moscow had feigned interest in diplomacy while preparing for invasion, and also that the Russian military was clearly showing signs of frailty. The US delegation in Rome had not expected the Chinese diplomats to negotiate, seeing them as message deliverers to Beijing.

“It was an intense seven-hour session, reflecting the gravity of the moment, as well as our commitment to maintaining open lines of communication,” a senior administration official said. “This meeting was not about negotiating specific issues or outcomes, but about a candid, direct exchange of views.” Asked if it had been successful, the official replied: “I suppose it depends on how you define success, but we believe that it is important to keep open lines of communication between the United States and China, especially on areas where we disagree.” However, the Americans walked away from the Rome meeting pessimistic that the Chinese government would change its minds about backing Moscow.

“The key here is first to get China to recalculate and re-evaluate their position. We see no sign of that re-evaluation,” said another US official familiar with the discussions. “They’ve already decided that they’re going to provide economic and financial support, and they underscored that today. The question really is whether they will go further.” [..] Russia needs economic and financial aid most urgently, in the face of devastating sanctions imposed by the US and its allies since the 24 February invasion. The country is danger of default on its debt payments, with two interest payments due on Wednesday, though it will have a 30-day grace period.

Moscow is unable to access nearly all of its $640bn in gold and foreign exchange reserves, but still holds part of those reserves in yuan, so Beijing will be able to step in to provide immediate assistance. There is pessimism in Washington about the possibility of steering China away from throwing in its lot with Russia, largely because it sees the partnership as being driven from the top. “It really is a project of Xi Jinping. He is totally, fundamentally behind this closer partnership with Russia,” the US official said. There is more scepticism lower down the ranks, but Xi and Putin have bonded over their shared view of the US as being heavy- and high-handed, and determined to end the period of US global dominance.

Yes, China has called for an investigation into the biolabs.

• White House Threatens China Will Pay for Support for Russia (Antiwar)

China will face major “consequences” should it help Russia evade an ever-growing raft of American sanctions, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has warned, just a day before he’s set to meet with Beijing’s top diplomat in Rome. Sullivan’s warning on Sunday came soon after unnamed Western officials told the New York Times and Washington Post that Russia is seeking weapons and economic relief from China amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. A spokesperson for the Chinese government said they were unaware of such a request, while Moscow has yet to confirm the reports.

In response to the attack on Ukraine launched in late February, the Joe Biden administration has imposed countless layers of new sanctions explicitly aiming to cripple and isolate the Russian economy. China, however, is one among several nations refusing to condemn the invasion or sever its economic ties with Russia. Despite American pressure to join in on the sanctions spree, Chinese President Xi Jinping has stated that Beijing’s relationship with Russia “even exceeds an alliance” in its “closeness and effectiveness,” suggesting the country is unlikely to bow to Western demands anytime soon.

As President Biden has ruled out direct military action in Ukraine, the administration has instead focused on arming the country’s military while attempting to make Russia an international pariah in the diplomatic and economic spheres. China has so far been able to obstruct Biden on both counts. Beijing’s UN delegation is supporting Russia’s claim that US-funded labs in Ukraine were working on chemical and biological weapons – a charge rejected by Washington as a “conspiracy theory” – and is now calling for an international investigation. Chinese financial support could also help Russia to weather the storm as its economy struggles to adapt to punishing Western sanctions.

To which I can add this graph from yesterday. And then you can make your own mind up.

• Biden Blames Putin, Covid For Record-high Inflation In US (Fox)

President Biden on Monday said Russian President Vladimir Putin and the COVID-19 pandemic are to blame for record-high inflation in the United States and maintained that rising prices have “nothing to do” with his administration’s policies. The president spoke Monday at the National League of Cities Congressional Cities Conference and addressed the increase in U.S. gas prices, as well as every day household items. “We know that families are still struggling with higher prices,” Biden said. “Let’s be absolutely clear about why prices are high now or high for two reasons.” The first, Biden said, is due to “the way the global economy works.”

“A factory in Taiwan that makes computer chips shuts down to a COVID outbreak. It causes a ripple effect to slow down auto-manufacturing,” Biden said. “So, because of the pandemic, we had significant disruption disruptions in the supply chain, and our supply chain is so important with so many materials that come from other places.” “And now, a second big reason for inflation is Vladimir Putin,” Biden said. “We’ve seen the price of gas go up over a dollar just since he put his troops on the border on the border of Ukraine — they went up a dollar and five cents,” Biden said.

“Big part of that reason is Putin began amassing troops along the border and then crossed. And guess what? The world took notice,” Biden said. “The market anticipated, prices went up, and then Putin invaded.” He added: “Make no mistake, the current spike in gas prices is largely the fault of Vladimir Putin — it has nothing to do with the American Rescue Plan.” Biden said that “rescuing our economy didn’t cause this problem,” but he vowed to “fix it.”

Strange article at Counterpunch. Lots of weird points. But it has this right: the IMF, World Bank and US have Ukraine in a death grip. What else is new?

• Stop Putin’s War! (CP)

Washington’s NATO alliance is part of that imperial history. The United States set it up, as its first Secretary General Lord Ismay famously said, to “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down” in Europe. In other words, it is a vehicle of U.S. imperial domination of European capitalism. Most of the other NATO and EU states have a sordid history of colonialism of their own. And many have been accomplices to Washington’s wars, most recently in Afghanistan, where NATO played a large role in “pacifying” the country, committing numerous war crimes in the process. Moreover, the decision by the United States and European powers to expand NATO and the EU into Eastern Europe is one of the causes of the war in Ukraine.

It triggered Putin’s growing determination over the last decade to reclaim Russia’s lost sphere of influence. The United States and the EU offer no alternative to Ukraine but subjection to its imperial interests and neoliberal economics. In fact, through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the United States is one of the oppressors of Ukraine.These international financial institutions have locked Ukraine in debt that now exceeds $129 billion. The country’s workers and oppressed have paid an enormous price to service these loans. Like they have throughout the Global South, the international financial institutions have required Ukraine to cut social programs, privatize state industry, layoff state workers, and cut workers’ wages and benefits in return for further loans.

Ukraine’s annual payments siphon off billions of dollars that would otherwise go to much needed social reforms to improve the majority’s abysmally low standards of living. The United States and NATO aim to defend and in fact expand their military rule over Eastern Europe and enforcement of neoliberal economics. They have no solution to the plight of the majority of Ukrainians fighting for their liberation. Despite all of this, many people horrified by Putin’s war are mistakenly demanding that Washington and Brussels intervene directly or set up a no-fly zone. That would lead to military confrontations between the United States/NATO and Russia, risking World War III between nuclear powers.

“Peskov went on to confirm that Russia “did not request China military aid..”

• Stocks Give Up Gains Following Kremlin Comments (ZH)

US equity futures surged overnight – again – on hopes of an ‘imminent’ peace deal between Russia and Ukraine; and now – once again – equities are reverting lower following comments from the Kremlin that do not sound very ‘peace-deal-like… Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on a conference call that “Russia will realize all its plans in Ukraine operation,” adding that the “operation would be complete on schedule,” and would not rule out taking “full control” of major Ukraine cities. We don’t think this is the ‘hope’ that Zelensky and the market was looking for.

Peskov went on to confirm that Russia “did not request China military aid,” adding that “Russia had the resources to complete the Ukraine operation alone.” And he could not resist a jab the puppetmasters, commenting that “it appears that the bosses of Ukraine across the ocean are giving orders to the Ukrainian army.” And given the recent modest bounce in Biden’s approval, do we really think his administrations wants this war over already… this far from the Midterms?

Cui bono? Follow the money.

• Germany To Buy Dozens Of US Stealth Jets (Y!)

Germany on Monday unveiled plans to buy dozens of US-made F-35 fighter jets, as part of a multi-billion-euro push to modernise its armed forces in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Berlin intends to buy 35 F-35 jets made by Lockheed Martin to replace Germany’s decades-old Tornado fleet, as well as purchasing an additional 15 Eurofighter jets. Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht called the purchase agreement “a good step forwards” for Germany’s Bundeswehr armed forces. “There can only be one answer to Putin’s aggression, and that is unity in NATO and credible deterrence,” Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, commander of the German Air Force, told reporters.

Germany’s Tornados are the only Luftwaffe planes certified to carry US nuclear bombs stationed in Germany that are a key part of NATO deterrence. Lockheed’s fifth-generation F-35 stealth jets are considered the most modern combat aircraft in the world, and their unique shape and coating make them harder to detect by enemy radar. The additional Eurofighter jets Germany plans to purchase, made by a consortium that includes Airbus, would be used for other operations, including electronic warfare like jamming enemy air defence systems. In a landmark speech late last month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged to invest an extra 100 billion euros ($112 billion) to bring the nation’s chronically underfunded Bundeswehr into the modern age.

The spending boost marks a major reversal for Europe’s top economy, upending its policy of keeping a low military profile in part out of guilt over World War II. After years of criticism that the country wasn’t shouldering enough of the financial burden in the NATO military alliance, Scholz vowed to spend “more than two percent” of Germany’s gross domestic product annually on defence, surpassing NATO’s own two-percent target.

War victims or cancel culture?

• Orwell Was Right (Taibbi)

In the last weeks, Russia took an already exacting speech environment to new extremes. A law was passed that would impose 15-year prison sentences for anyone spreading “fake news” about the Ukraine invasion; access was cut to Facebook and Twitter; stations like Echo Moskvi and TV Rain as well as BBC Russia, Radio Liberty, the New Times, Deutsche Welle, Doxa, and Latvia-based Meduza were effectively shut down; Wikipedia was threatened with a block over its invasion page; and national authorities have appeared to step in to prevent coverage of soldiers killed in the war, requiring local outlets to use terms like “special operation” instead. The latter development is connected to the state media regulator, Roskomnadzor, issuing a remarkably desperate dictum requiring news outlets to “use information and data received by them only from official Russian sources.”

Russia also appears in the middle of a general crackdown on local media, not so much because those outlets are dissenting, but because they’re more likely to provide indirect evidence of war failures or the effect of sanctions. The desperation to control news has grown to the point where Russian diplomats in foreign countries are pressuring state outlets in countries like Iran to stop using the term “war” to describe what’s going on in Ukraine. On the flip side, a slew of actions have been taken to crack down on “fake news” and “misinformation” in the West. The big one was the European Union banning RT and Sputnik. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube also cut access to all Russian state media, because the EU sanctions also required that internet platforms delist any RT or Sputnik content, even from individuals.

The statute reads, “As regards the posts made by individuals that reproduce the content of RT and Sputnik, those posts shall not be published, and if published, shall be deleted.” Other governments across the West, from Australia to Canada, have taken similar actions. In the U.S., Google and YouTube disallowed Russian state media ads (following a request by Senator Mark Warner) and demonetized “a number of Russian channels,” including RT but also many non-Russian individuals, before proceeding to demonetize all individual Russian content creators, even the individuals opposing the invasion. Even DuckDuckGo, the speechier, more pro-privacy alternative to Google, announced it was de-ranking “sites associated with Russian disinformation.” A growing list of Westerners have seen accounts frozen for supposed parroting of Russian talking points or “abusive” commentary.

YouTube banned Oliver Stone’s documentary Ukraine on Fire, while Netflix is going so far as to shelve a production of Anna Karenina. In what might have been the craziest move of all, Meta reportedly followed up a decision to un-ban the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion with a mind-blowing decision to alter its hate speech policies to “allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion,” according to internal emails seen by Reuters.

“The member nations of NATO have even less desire to join the battle, and are doing a poor job of pretending they oppose Russia’s disagreeable but necessary work there..”

• Playing Dumb (Kunstler)

Threatened by losing the war against its own citizens, the US government now seeks a wider kinetic war over its would-be client state, Ukraine. The stakes must be pretty high for “Joe Biden” and Company to risk starting World War Three. Why else inflame a dangerous situation by sending more weapons there? I’ll tell you why: to prolong Russia’s operations to neutralize Ukraine so it won’t cause further trouble to them or anybody else in the world. The longer the US can keep that going, the longer we can put off the various reckonings at home.

America has no intention of actually defending Ukraine. It’s really just a global version of the interpersonal game “Let’s You and Him Fight,” as described by pioneering psychologist Eric Berne (1910 -1970), father of transactional analysis. The member nations of NATO have even less desire to join the battle, and are doing a poor job of pretending they oppose Russia’s disagreeable but necessary work there. So far, they have had to sacrifice desperately needed natural gas supplies from Russia. You can be sure they will find a way to sneak around US sanctions and reverse the blunder. They have no choice really, unless they want to go forward without any industries. Google-up the paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and you’ll catch a glimpse of that possible European future. Of course, they’ll also have to answer to their own citizens for the awful mistakes Covid-19.

The best outcome, as others have pointed out, will be the disassembly of Ukraine into an eastern Russian zone — perhaps annexed into Russia — and a rump western Ukraine state that will be as quiet and inoffensive as Moldova and Slovakia next door (When was the last time they caused any trouble in the world?) It would be best for everyone, and especially the Third World, if the Russian operation is concluded as quickly as possible with a structured peace settlement, leaving a chance to get a Ukrainian grain crop planted, because otherwise a lot of innocent people will go hungry. Is the USA interested in a peace settlement? Or do we want to drive events further toward tragedy and our own national suicide?

Now do this everywhere.

And also: Macron has an election coming up.

• France Lifts Covid-19 Rules On Unvaccinated, Mask Wearing (AP)

France lifted most COVID-19 restrictions on Monday, abolishing the need to wear face masks in most settings and allowing people who aren’t vaccinated back into restaurants, sports arenas and other venues. The move had been announced earlier this month by the French government based on assessments of the improving situation in hospitals and following weeks of a steady decline in infections. It comes less than a month before the first round of the presidential election scheduled on April 10. But in recent days, the number of new infections has started increasing again, raising concerns from some scientists it may be too soon to lift restrictions. The number of new infections have reached more than 60,000 based on a seven-day average, up from about 50,000 a week before.

Starting from Monday, people aren’t required anymore to show proof of vaccination to enter places like restaurants and bars, cinemas, theaters, fairs and to use interregional transport. The so-called vaccine pass had taken effect at the end of January. A restaurant owner in Paris, Laurent Negre, praised a “return to normal.” “We got used to these restrictions and complicated protocols so we will enjoy work more now … So it’s good news,” he said. Parisian Bartholome Laisi, 23, said “it’s a good thing because people will be able to get more freedom of movement. But we need to be careful and monitor it, to avoid another (virus) wave right after.” In hospitals and nursing homes, unvaccinated people must provide a recent negative test or proof of recent recovery to enter. Wearing masks are no longer required in schools, businesses and offices. They remain mandatory on public transportation and at hospitals and other health facilities.

What’s the consequence for life insurance?

• Ed Dowd: 25 To 44 yo Experienced An 84% Increase In Excess Mortality (Kirsch)

Someone sent me this article: Edward Dowd on Future Recession, Shocking Findings in the CDC Covid Data and Democide which describes his appearance on War Room. That article says: “And the money chart is really Chart 4, which shows that the Millennial age group, 25 to 44 experienced an 84% increase in excess mortality into the fall. It’s the worst-ever excess mortality, I think, in history. I called Ed to clarify where he got the chart and then looked for verification of this. I found the verification. Then I verified that the deaths couldn’t be explained by the COVID delta variant. OK, so what caused all the deaths? The only explanation is the vaccine because the deaths are so massive.

[..] Now let’s go over some of the details of what Ed Dowd found and explain why there is no other explanation. Ed’s friend (who I know but doesn’t want to be disclosed publicly) spent about a week analyzing the CDC data. The graph in the article is from the CDC data, but is plotted by Ed’s friend. He didn’t make anything up. The work was replicated independently (see also the graphs). US mortality graphs show a spike in the same time period (Aug to Oct). These graphs of excess mortality in Europe show things got worse, not better after the vaccine rollout:

Maybe a bit too scary?

• Triple Vaccinated Just Weeks Away From Developing AIDS (DE)

The following chart shows the Covid-19 vaccine effectiveness among the triple vaccinated population in England in 4 week periods between Week 51 of 2021 and Week 9 of 2022 – As you can see the vaccine effectiveness has been falling month and month, with the lowest effectiveness recorded among 40-49-year-olds at minus-248.92%. But the sharpest decline in jab effectivness has been recorded among 18-29-year-olds, falling to minus-201.52% by Week 9 of 2022 from +10.19 in Week 51 to Week 2. However, vaccine effectiveness isn’t really a measure of a vaccine, it is a measure of a vaccine recipients immune system performance compared to the immune system performance of an unvaccinated person.

The following chart shows the immune system performance of the triple vaccinated population in England by age group in four week periods, compared to the natural immune system of the unvaccinated population – As you can see the lowest immune system performance is currently among 60-69-year-olds at minus-72.35%, but all triple vaccinated people aged 30 to 59 are not far begind, with an immune system performance ranging from minus-70.83% to minus-71.34%. Even the 18 to 29-year-olds are within this region at minus-66.84%, falling from an immune system performance of +11.35% between week 51 and week 2, meaning they have suffered the fastest decline in immune system performance.

AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is the name used to describe a number of potentially life-threatening infections and illnesses that happen when your immune system has been severely damaged. People with acquired immune deficiency syndrome are at an increased risk for developing certain cancers and for infections that usually occur only in individuals with a weak immune system. If that immune system performance was to hit around the -95% mark then this would strongly suggest the triple vaccinated population have developed some new form of Covid-19 vaccine induced acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, and unfortunately based on the current trend seen over the past 3 months, the youngest age groups do not have long to wait.

The day his marriage is announced.

• UK Supreme Court Slams Door On Assange Appeal (Gosztola)

Without any explanation, the British Supreme Court denied WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “permission to appeal” a decision by the British High Court. The Supreme Court maintained the appeal did not “raise an arguable point of law” and sent the case back to the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, the district court which initially blocked the United States government’s extradition request on January 4, 2021. By refusing to grant Assange a hearing, the U.S. government effectively won their appeal. Prosecutors convinced the British courts to disregard concerns that he may be subject to treatment in a U.S. jail or prison that would be oppressive to his mental health.

The Westminster Magistrates’ Court may now refer the extradition to the British Home Office for Home Secretary Priti Patel to review. According to Birnberg Peirce, the law firm representing Assange, they are entitled to make submissions to the Home Secretary for consideration before the extradition request is approved. If Patel approves the extradition, Assange’s defense may submit an appeal on the issues of freedom of the press that were not addressed before the High Court yet. That would likely prevent Assange from extradition. However, if the High Court and Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal because they did not believe it raised “arguable points of law,” he could potentially be transferred to the U.S. before the year is over.

[..] An application for appeal released by Assange’s legal team reflects the arguments they were blocked from presenting to the Supreme Court. “The manner in which assurances were permitted to be introduced in this case for the first time on appeal totally undermines the primacy of the extradition hearing and deprives the defendant of an opportunity to test them and their implications before the district judge,” attorneys argued. “It is generally regarded as unfair, wrong, and abusive for a party to elect—for a perceived or actual tactical advantage—to conduct litigation in one way and then, when met with an adverse judicial decision on that, to attempt to re-litigate or appeal on a new and different basis.”

@BrianRoemmele
To manufacture each EV battery, you must process
25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium
30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt
5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, 25,000 pounds of ore for copper
Diging up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust
For just – one – battery.

A typical electric car battery has:
25 pounds of lithium
60 pounds of nickel
44 pounds of manganese
30 pounds cobalt
200 pounds of copper
400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic
The first 4 ingredients are from limited sources and will continue to rise in cost.

Lindsey Graham

Russell Brand Credit Suisse

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

Debt Rattle March 14 2022

Mar 142022

March 14, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:56 am Finance Tagged with: Assange, cancel culture, China, default, fertilizer, food prices, ruble, rupee, Ukraine, vaccine side effects 66 Responses »

Alfred Eisenstaedt The kiss (V-J Day in Times Square) 1945

• US Farmers Hit Hard By Price Increases, Fertilizer Costs (JTN)

• “Media Isn’t Warning You” That US Careening Towards Food Crisis (ZH)

• Russian Default On Debts No Longer ‘Improbable’, Says IMF Head (G.)

• India Is Mulling Rupee-Ruble Payments System for Trade with Russia (Scofield)

• The US Is Still Not Trying Diplomacy With Putin Over Ukraine (Antiwar)

• Russia Seeking China’s Military Help In Ukraine, US “Sources” Say (ZH)

• The West’s Cancel Culture Targets All Things Russian (JTN)

• Responses to the Invasion of Ukraine (Pankaj Mishra)

• Deaths Represent 1.3% Of Side Effects Reported For Covid Vaccines (JTN)

• How Does It Feel To Be Vindicated? (Malone)

• Drs. Walensky and Offit: It’s All in Good Fun (Harrington)

• Julian Assange To Marry Fiancee Stella Moris In Belmarsh Prison March 23 (DM)

Some day we’ll assess this moment with clear heads
https://twitter.com/i/status/1503265313474977793

Veritas FDA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1503264527642775553

“The cost of fertilizer is up as much as 500% in some areas..”

“..we are not really going to see those impacts until this coming summer.”

• US Farmers Hit Hard By Price Increases, Fertilizer Costs (JTN)

Goods and services around the country are becoming increasingly more expensive, but farmers may be among the hardest hit as inflation, supply chain issues, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are expected to send food prices soaring even higher. That impact is being felt by farmers around the country. “The cost of fertilizer is up as much as 500% in some areas,” said Indiana Farm Bureau President Randy Kron. “It would be unbelievable if I hadn’t seen it for myself as I priced fertilizer for our farm in southern Indiana. Fertilizer is a global commodity and can be influenced by multiple market factors, including the situation in Ukraine, and all of these are helping to drive up costs.” Ukraine is a significant supplier of both crops and fertilizer materials, adding to the concern that the invasion will likely lead to shortages and price increases.

Fertilizer prices for nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, called NPK, have exploded since December 2020. “Because of the seasonal aspects of … this agriculture industry, it takes about six to nine months for the impacts felt in the impact market to really work its way through the supply chain and reach the consumer,” said Nathon Carson, head of supply chain operations for Chemical Dynamics, a multi-million dollar fertilizer supplier based in Florida servicing 12 states. “The crazy thing is, fertilizer prices for NPK, especially nitrogen, the most important nutrient, went up by about … doubled essentially in Q4 of 2021, which means we are not really going to see those impacts until this coming summer.” That fertilizer price increase is one of several factors expected to push food prices up even higher this year.

“Food prices are going to continue to go up dramatically,” Carson said. “I was expecting food prices to go up about 10% in the U.S. before midterms, so around August, another 5 or so percent to follow by the end of the year … You could see 20% food price inflation by the end of the year in the U.S. That is a possibility. You won’t see famine in the U.S. Our food system is very, very resilient, but you will see shortages. You won’t have the same product selection that you’re used to.” These food price issues have only been egged on by runaway federal spending, which has helped send inflation soaring in the past year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week that the Consumer Price index, a leading marker of inflation, rose 7.9% in the past 12 months. BLS said that the food price index rose 8.6% over the last 12 months, the largest 12-month spike since April 1981.

”Buy a 2nd freezer, and stock it. Soon.”

• “Media Isn’t Warning You” That US Careening Towards Food Crisis (ZH)

Two weeks after the Russia-Ukraine crisis began, the world is quickly moving toward a food crisis that could affect millions of people. A spillover of the crisis could soon spark agricultural mayhem in the US. The curtailment of agricultural exports from Russia and Ukraine will have dramatic knock-on effects on global food supplies. Both countries are known as the ‘breadbasket of the world’ and are responsible for a quarter of the international wheat trade, about a fifth of corn, and 12% of all calories traded globally. Another major problem is access to fertilizers, as Russia has banned exports of the nutrients. It’s not whether or not there will be a food crisis. It’s how big that crisis will be.

We’ve already noted a handful of emerging market countries to monitor as the Russian invasion is choking off grain exports to them and causing prices to rise, which may result in social unrest. Even in the Western world, agricultural markets have not been immune, and higher prices have stung consumers. A tweet from Douglas Karr, the founder of the businesses blog Martech Zone, made the point the “media isn’t even warning you” a food crisis in America is emerging. Karr said he spoke with numerous folks in the food industry who said farmers in the South and Midwest are having trouble procuring fertilizer to grow crops ahead of planting season. He said farmers in the “Midwest are switching,” likely referring to crops that need fewer nutrients because they “can’t get nitrogen nor fertilizer.”

Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, the global food system was strained. Snarled supply chains and adverse weather conditions in top growing regions of the world resulted in low crop yields and rising prices. The supply shock of Ukraine will amplify the crisis as the UN warned global food prices could jump 8%-20% from here (prices are already at record highs). Responding to Karr’s viral tweet, some people said they were buying a freezer to panic hoard food supplies as the worst food crisis has yet to come. “Likely getting a 2nd chest freezer soon and stuffing it with meats/frozen vegetables/etc. Also, it looks like “preppers” who were dismissed or made fun of last decade are about to be set on being right,” one person said. Another person said, “Read this and then understand why in the last 6 months several publications have been grooming us to accept eating bugs. All of this was planned. Buy a 2nd freezer, and stock it. Soon.”

“Siluanov said on Sunday that it would be “absolutely fair” for Russia to make sovereign debt payments in roubles until its foreign exchange reserves were unfrozen..”

• Russian Default On Debts No Longer ‘Improbable’, Says IMF Head (G.)

A Russian default on its debts after western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine is no longer “improbable”, but would not trigger a global financial crisis, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Sunday. The Washington-based fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, said the sanctions imposed by the United States and other nations were already having a “severe” impact on the Russian economy and would trigger a deep recession there this year. The war in Ukraine will also drive up food and energy prices, leading to hunger in Africa, she added. Georgieva told CBS’s Face the Nation programme: “In terms of servicing debt obligations, I can say that we no longer think of Russian default as an improbable event. Russia has the money to service its debt, but cannot access it.

“What I’m more concerned about is that there are consequences that go beyond Ukraine and Russia.” Last week, the World Bank’s chief economist, Carmen Reinhart, warned that Russia and its ally Belarus were “mightily close” to default. Asked whether a Russian default could trigger a financial crisis around the world, Georgieva said: “For now, no.” The total exposure of banks to Russia amounted to around $120bn, an amount that while not insignificant, was “not systematically relevant”, she said. Last week, she said the IMF would downgrade its previous forecast for 4.4% global economic growth in 2022 as a result of the war. Separately, Russia said on Sunday that it was counting on China to help it withstand the blow to its economy from sanctions, but the US has warned Beijing not to provide that support.

The Russian finance minister, Anton Siluanov, said Moscow was unable to access $300bn of its $640bn in gold and foreign exchange reserves, but still held part of its reserves in the Chinese currency, the yuan. “And we see what pressure is being exerted by western countries on China in order to limit mutual trade with China. Of course, there is pressure to limit access to those reserves,” he said. “But our partnership with China will still allow us to maintain the cooperation that we have achieved, and not only maintain, but also increase it in an environment where western markets are closing.” Russia is due to make two interest payments on 16 March. However, it will have a 30-day grace period to make the coupon payments. Siluanov said on Sunday that it would be “absolutely fair” for Russia to make sovereign debt payments in roubles until its foreign exchange reserves were unfrozen, according to Interfax.

Can’t pay in rubles, IMF? Not so fast…

• India Is Mulling Rupee-Ruble Payments System for Trade with Russia (Scofield)

India is discussing how to set up a rupee-ruble payment mechanism to enable it to trade with Russia, to circumvent the U.S. sanctions regime. India abstained from voting on the March United Nations (UN) General Assembly Resolution demanding an end to Russian offensive in Ukraine (General Assembly resolution demands end to Russian offensive in Ukraine). Since its Independence, India has tried to steer a neutral course between the U.S. and Russia (and previously, the USSR). During the 1950s, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a prime architect behind the Non-Aligned Movement, under which developing countries tried to pursue their national interests without binding themselves to either the U.S. or Soviet bloc. India, Indonesia, and Yugoslavia were mainstays of that movement, which today includes 120 member states, 18 observer states, and 10 international organisations.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, India developed closer relations with the United States. Most recently, under prime minister Narendra Modi, India’s policy tilted even more decisively in a pro-U.S. direction. Modi and Trump shared a strong affinity, and Modi even travelled to the U.S, to host massive rallies intended to galvanize Indian Americans in support of Trump. See this BBC account for further details, What did the Trump-Modi ‘bromance’ achieve? During the last several months, several considerations have prompted the Modi government to rethink the wisdom of putting all its eggs in the U.S. basket. Instead, India is returning to a more balanced approach, assessing its national interests vis-a-vis those of other countries and acting accordingly.

Two developments this summer caused India to question the reliability and integrity of the U.S. as an ally. The first was the manner of the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, which had External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar wondering about the value of U.S. security guarantees. Washington’s Ukraine policy is only increasing those misgivings. The United States was willing to push Ukraine to take actions that many – including Henry Kissinger, George Kennan, and Noam Chomsky – warned Russia couldn’t abide. But then when the shooting started, the United States wasn’t willing to get in line of fire. And in the second, in September, the U.S. stunned many when it announced a new Australia/United Kingdom/United States security grouping (AUKUS), as part of which Australia would receive American nuclear submarines.

They must be enjoying the situation…

• The US Is Still Not Trying Diplomacy With Putin Over Ukraine (Antiwar)

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its third week, there is still no sign that the Biden administration is attempting high-level diplomacy with Moscow as a way to possibly end the fighting. The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the Biden administration doesn’t see the conflict ending anytime soon and that its current strategy is to impose economic pain on Russia and support Ukraine’s military “in its effort to inflict as many defeats on Russia as possible.” It’s clear at this point that the Western sanctions were factored into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine as they haven’t done anything to deter him. But US officials still say they are in no rush to engage directly with Putin.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that in the months leading up to the invasion, the US gave Putin “possible off-ramps.” But during the negotiations, the US ignored Putin’s key demands. Putin wanted a guarantee that Ukraine wouldn’t ever join NATO, and even though President Biden said Kyiv wouldn’t be joining the military alliance anytime soon, the US refused to make the promise. Now, Russia has said it will stop its assault if Ukraine declares neutrality, recognizes Crimea as Russian territory, and recognizes the independence of the breakaway Donbas republics. Instead of supporting negotiations on these terms that could lead to a potential ceasefire, the US is working with its NATO allies to flood weapons into Ukraine.

Blinken said on Wednesday that the Biden administration expects “a strategic defeat” of Russia in Ukraine despite Moscow’s “short-term” gains. “We’ll accomplish this by backing Ukrainians in their fight, by remaining united in holding Russia accountable through the devastating sanctions, the diplomatic isolation and other measures,” Blinken said. While Blinken says the US expects a Russian defeat in Ukraine, Biden officials told the Post that they don’t see a “clear end to the military phase of this conflict,” meaning the US expects a long, bloody insurgency in Ukraine, and is willing to support it.

Russia attacks Yavoriv because of weapons deliveries. There are no US miilitary left there.

• Russia Seeking China’s Military Help In Ukraine, US “Sources” Say (ZH)

According to Reuters, when asked about claims that Russia is requesting military help from China, the spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington responded “I’ve never heard of that.” The spokesperson, Liu Pengyu, said China’s priority was to prevent the tense situation in Ukraine from getting out of control. “The current situation in Ukraine is indeed disconcerting,” he said in an emailed response to a query from Reuters, adding that “the high priority now is to prevent the tense situation from escalating or even getting out of control.” Earlier when commenting on what’s been reported as “significant progress” made in Russia-Ukraine talks, we noted that “It remains to be seen if this is the start of a peaceful resolution to the war or just another false dawn.”

Well, just a few hours later the false dawn has arrived via a bombshell FT report citing anonymous Biden administration officials who say that Russia has issued a formal request from China for military support in its invasion of Ukraine. This was followed minutes later with similar Washington Post and New York Times stories in what looks like a US “coordinated leak” effort to send a message and warning to China. “Russia has asked China for military equipment to support its invasion of Ukraine, according to [anonymous] US officials, sparking concern in the White House that Beijing may undermine western efforts to help Ukrainian forces defend their country,” FT writes.

[..] The fresh attack on Yavoriv is being taken also as a clear warning to Washington, again given it was a well-known site which previously housed US military trainers engaged in short-term missions to support Ukrainian national forces prior to the invasion began. Training was going on up until earlier in February. Setting the stage for a potential major escalation with Western and NATO powers, the Kremlin warned on Saturday that the Russian military is prepared to target Western arms shipments that are continuing to pour into Ukraine. Russia’s Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov said on state TV that Washington had been informed in the last days that Moscow will see weapons supply convoys entering Ukraine as “legitimate targets”.

“We warned the United States that the orchestrated pumping of weapons from a number of countries is not just a dangerous move, it is a move that turns these convoys into legitimate targets,” Ryabkov said in the remarks, which served as a severe warning to the West.

“There tends to be a lot of virtue signaling in how people behave these days, and to take it out on a business like this is unfortunate.”

• The West’s Cancel Culture Targets All Things Russian (JTN)

In New York City, despite many owners of Russian restaurants opposing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — or even being Ukrainian themselves — they have experienced canceled reservations, bad reviews and social media campaigns, unusually low turnout, and vandalism, The New York Times reported. Even as some restaurants have plastered signs in support of Ukraine on their doors, they are still dealing with backlash from customers. Some patrons, however, are showing support for the restaurants as they struggle to cope with the commercial fallout from the invasion, according to the Times. “We just thought Russian businesses are probably being unfairly treated, and it would be the right thing to do to have dinner here,” a customer at Russian Samovar told the Times last week. “There tends to be a lot of virtue signaling in how people behave these days, and to take it out on a business like this is unfortunate.”

[..] Daily Wire podcast host and bestselling author Matt Walsh compared the treatment of Russians to other forms of bigotry, tweeting on Monday: “There was so much concern about potential ‘Islamophobia’ after 9/11, and ‘anti-Asian’ backlash after China unleashed covid on the world, and yet it seems to be open season on Russians right now. It’s almost like bigotry is okay as long as the targets are perceived to be white.” [..] On Thursday, a Meta spokesperson confirmed that Facebook and Instagram would allow users in some countries to violate the company’s rules and call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers with regard to the invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported. “As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement, “we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians.”

Author and columnist Larry Taunton retweeted an article on the Meta announcement, saying, “And people wonder how we ended up with Japanese internment camps.” [..] American grocery stores Kroger, Publix, and Food Lion have all said they removed Russian vodka from their shelves, according to Business Insider. Some bar owners are also dumping out their Russian vodka. However, “[l]ess than 1% of vodka consumed in the United States is produced in Russia,” CNN reported, noting that more than half of all vodka in the U.S. is American-made. “If you’re posting the Ukrainian flag and boycotting Russian vodka but you’re still going to vote for Democrats and you still won’t support oil production in the United States,” Walsh tweeted, “kindly shut the hell up you ridiculous virtue signaling phony.”

From London Review of Books. Many authors, Mishra is one.

“..while an infotainment media works up citizens into a state of paranoid patriotism, a service class of intellectuals talks up the American Revolution and the international liberal order.”

• Responses to the Invasion of Ukraine (Pankaj Mishra)

Foreigners have long envied the way the American system, built by and for slave-owners and programmed to boost oligarchies and dynasties, secures mass consent: while an infotainment media works up citizens into a state of paranoid patriotism, a service class of intellectuals talks up the American Revolution and the international liberal order.

Hyper-patriotic media have emerged in India, China and Russia over the last decade, together with pseudo-thinkers who have upgraded national self-images by hailing the glories of Hindu civilisation, Russian empire and Confucian harmony. As the hacks, trolls and conspiracy theorists of digital media cemented these ideological ecosystems in place, dissent was condemned to impotence. Today, the news and analysis received by the vast majority of people in India and China as well as Russia is – in the words of the head of the Levada Centre, Russia’s independent public opinion research organisation – a compendium of ‘lies and hatred on a fantastical scale’. And so Modi’s brutalising of Kashmir, Putin’s annexation of Crimea and Xi’s herding of Uighur Muslims into concentration camps faced as little domestic challenge as America’s endless wars and killings in Asia and Africa.

Humiliation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at home by Trump, demoralised the exporters of democracy and capitalism. But Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine have now given them an opportunity to make America seem great again. The Russian bear has long guaranteed, more reliably than ‘Islamofascism’ or China, income and identity to many in the military-industrial and intellectual-industrial complex. An ageing centrist establishment – battered by the far right, harangued by post-Occupy and post-BLM young leftists, frustrated by legislative stalemate in Washington – seems suddenly galvanised by the prospect of defining themselves through a new cold war.

As Russian troops attacked a nuclear reactor, George Packer wrote in the Atlantic that ‘for the first time in decades, an American president is showing that he, and only he, can lead the free world.’ The New York Times exulted over the new-found resolve of the free world: ‘Nato has been revitalised, the United States has reclaimed a mantle of leadership that some feared had vanished in Iraq and Afghanistan.’ Boris Johnson claimed that he had never seen such a stark ‘dividing line between right and wrong’. More remarkably, Hillary Clinton called on MSNBC for a rerun in Ukraine of the ‘very motivated’ and ‘armed insurgency’ that ‘basically drove the Russians out of Afghanistan’.

CDC numbers.

• Deaths Represent 1.3% Of Side Effects Reported For Covid Vaccines (JTN)

Deaths following mRNA vaccination against COVID-19 represented 13 out of every 1,000 reports (1.3%) to the federal government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), the CDC’s Atlanta-based researchers said Monday. Another 66 reports out of every 1,000 (6.6%) were categorized as “serious,” resulting in “inpatient hospitalisation, prolongation of hospitalisation, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, congenital anomaly or birth defect,” according to their study published in The Lancet, the U.K-based medical journal. VAERS is often dubbed a passive surveillance system because it accepts reports from anyone. The CDC previously told Just the News that most reports come from manufacturers or healthcare providers, who have mandatory reporting requirements.

But the researchers said they also consulted an “active” smartphone-based voluntary monitoring system, v-safe, created in 2020. The data show that “most reported adverse events were mild and short in duration,” with 18-49 year-olds representing a plurality (45%) and females a supermajority (75%). Mainstream media uncritically ran with the CDC’s framing, with USA Today touting researcher David Shay’s assurance that the death rate was expected given the elderly population studied. About a quarter of reports were from ages 65 and up. A large subset of young people was almost entirely excluded, however: minors. The study only reviewed the first six months of emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, covering 340,000 reports and 299 million doses.

That time period ends just a month after Pfizer’s vaccine was authorized for 12-15 year-olds and predates its EUA for children 5-11, while Moderna’s vaccine remains unauthorized for anyone under 18. The study’s youngest age range is 16-17, representing 2% of all reports. “Why the cut-off at six months? There are now data that extend for 14 months, and those data include children,” Robert Malone, the mRNA vaccine pioneer-turned-critic, wrote in his newsletter. Health authorities worldwide have recognized young people, particularly males, as having a higher risk for heart inflammation following mRNA vaccination, especially after the second dose. That was the FDA’s rationale to indefinitely pause consideration of Moderna’s vaccine for adolescents.

The biomedical world that I thought I was living in has been revealed to be a sham.”

• How Does It Feel To Be Vindicated? (Malone)

I have been getting the question “How does it feel to be vindicated?” Dr. Jill (Glasspool-Malone) keeps noodling me to write a piece describing my feelings on this topic. Personally, I dislike focusing on the psychology of how these last two years have impacted on me (and us). Much as I am very wary of the “cult of personality” aspect of my newfound fame. I have not spoken out because I sought attention, I have done this because it was the right thing to do, and I seemed to have a unique widow of opportunity to speak for those whose voices were so actively suppressed. But I certainly have had to take hits for it. The slander, defamation, gaslighting, and globally coordinated character assassination have been non-stop. But as time has gone by, and more and more has been revealed about the hidden hands that seek to manage what we are allowed to hear, see, and think, I have been transformed.

The biomedical world that I thought I was living in has been revealed to be a sham. The legitimacy of the industry and discipline that I have committed my entire professional life to is in shambles. I am now embarrassed to call myself a vaccines and biodefense expert, because the fundamental corruption inherent in those domains has been so clearly revealed. I cannot unsee what I have seen. I cannot recapture all of those years spent in a profoundly corrupt academic system, spent supporting a deeply compromised discipline which appears primarily driven by financial interests rather than by what I had naively believed was a commitment to saving lives. I chose to not pursue the careers of my father and father in law, which were spent building weapons of war. Only to find that I had inadvertently played a significant role in enabling one of the most tragic medical follies in the history of man.

“And while she was exonerating herself, she made time to give the masses a little bitty sermon on the nature of science itself. Remember science?”

• Drs. Walensky and Offit: It’s All in Good Fun (Harrington)

A few days back Rochelle Walensky was invited to give an interview at her alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis. The first part of the discussion pivoted around softball questions which allowed her to pontificate on her decidedly race-infused views of public health. It was more than halfway into the interview before her interlocutor finally got around to asking her about where she and the CDC might have gone wrong in their management of the Covid epidemic. Here is what followed. First, she told of how pleased she was when she heard (from a “CNN feed” no less) about the “95% effectiveness” of the vaccines because, like all of us, she just wanted to get the pandemic behind us. And then she expresses, between chuckles, her shock upon learning that the vaccines might diminish in effectiveness over time “Nobody said waning…Nobody said what if the next variant…what if it’s not as potent against the next variant?”

You see, even though a humanities professor like me with no scientific training knew —thanks to my readings of the Moderna, Pfizer and Janssen EUAs and from reading numerous scientific papers on vaccine effectiveness and safety and listening to people like Sucharit Bkahdi, Geert Vande Bossche and Michael Yeadon— by very early 2021 that the vaccines probably would not prevent transmission and might actually promote new resistant varieties of the virus, none of this was conceivable or knowable to the Director of the CDC. Like the human hologram she apparently is, we are led to believe that she was there, but she was not really there. She was responsible, but really someone else was. “No one could have known,” she exclaims, except, of course, the hundreds of thousands of us amateurs who did, in fact, know, and were censored and called science-hating anti-vaxxers for our troubles.

And of course, holograms don’t do guilt or responsibility. Did she express any sympathy for the people that were forced out of jobs over their refusal to take what we now know, and she admits, were largely ineffective vaccines? Nope, again even though she was in the chair, it was, of course, all beyond her control. And as a powerless spectator—cue the folksy music—just like you and me, she was disappointed and surprised. Mistakes were made. She meant well. Her only real faults, as she said in the same talk, were the clearly well-intentioned ones of having “too little caution and too much optimism.” And while she was exonerating herself, she made time to give the masses a little bitty sermon on the nature of science itself. Remember science?

How happy can we afford to be for them?

• Julian Assange To Marry Fiancee Stella Moris In Belmarsh Prison March 23 (DM)

Julian Assange’s fiancée has spoken of her joy at being allowed to marry the WikiLeaks founder despite restrictions being placed on their wedding. Stella Moris, 38, will marry the 50-year-old in Belmarsh Prison, south east London on March 23, just weeks before the third anniversary of his dramatic arrest when he was dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy in the capital in April 2019. He has been held in the high-security jail ever since as he fights extradition to the United States, where he is wanted over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. He has always denied wrongdoing and has won support for his case from human rights organisations and journalist groups across the world.

Ms Moris said that just four guests and two witnesses will be allowed to attend the ceremony, as well as two security guards. Dame Vivienne Westwood is designing Ms Moris’s wedding dress, and a kilt for Assange, whose parents are of Scottish extraction. The guests will have to leave immediately after the event, even though it is being held during normal visiting hours. The couple are still waiting to hear if they will be allowed a photographer. Ms Moris said: ‘Obviously we are very excited, even though the circumstances are very restrictive. ‘There continues to be unjustified interference in our plans. Having a photographer for an hour is not an unreasonable request. [..] Julian is looking forward to the wedding because it is finally happening, many months after we first made the request.’

Guardiola is a Catalan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1503007813873848333

Pelosi

Leading from the assisted living center… the world continues laughing… pic.twitter.com/9kf8e6owbH

— Jim Benson (@jmbenson1491) March 12, 2022

It wasn’t me
https://twitter.com/i/status/1502234046809657355

22 years

VIDEO: Argentine family comes home after 22-year drive around the world in a vintage car.

The Zapp family brought their 22-year journey to an end at the Obelisk in Buenos Aires pic.twitter.com/noFFRWrpCX

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 14, 2022

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

Debt Rattle February 24 2022

Feb 242022

February 24, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:39 am Finance Tagged with: China, Elon Musk, Moderna, Putin, Russia, Saudi, spike protein, Trudeau, Ukraine, vaccine side effects 88 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Glass, bread and cheesee 1923

• Russia Conducts ‘Precision Strikes’ on Ukrainian Military Targets (Sputnik)

• Russia Has ‘No Plans’ To Take Over Whole Of Ukraine – Putin (RT)

• Disarming Ukraine (MoA)

• Saudi-Russia Collusion Is Driving Up Gas Prices (IC)

• Trudeau Discontinues Emergencies Act (RT)

• Canada Instructs Banks to Unfreeze Freedom-Convoy Accounts (WSJ)

• Significant Underreporting of Vaccine Side Effects: German Health Insurer (ET)

• Genetic Code of Covids Spike Protein Linked to Moderna Patent (DM)

• China’s Property Bubble Collapse Gets Worse (Lacalle)

• Biden Officials Fear Elon Musk Would Embarrass President At WH (NYP)

David Mamet

Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin announces a military operation in Ukraine https://t.co/YGkiBS8DgG pic.twitter.com/OwKPpNgwy1

— TIME (@TIME) February 24, 2022

Sputnik. Propaganda from the other side.

• Russia Conducts ‘Precision Strikes’ on Ukrainian Military Targets (Sputnik)

Earlier this week, Russia officially recognised the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and urged Kiev to stop attacks on Donbass. As shellings by Ukrainian forces escalated in the region, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation aimed at the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine. “Ukrainian military infrastructure, air defence facilities, military airfields, and air forces are being neutralised by high-precision weapons”, the Russian Ministry of Defence said in a statement. The MoD stressed there are no threats to the civilian population. The tensions have been escalating over the past few days, with Ukrainian forces shelling the territory of Donbass, forcing thousands to evacuate to Russia.

Following an appeal from the leaders of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic, Moscow recognised both as independent nations and called on Ukraine to stop the eight-year-long war in the region. Russia also stressed that it will protect the people of Donbass against any threats, as president Putin noted the actions of the Ukrainian regime in the region are genocide. In response to the ongoing attacks, President Putin authorised the military to conduct a special operation to protect Donbass, aiming at the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine and saying that people who committed war crimes during the eight-year-long bloodshed should stand trial.

Me, I wonder what Hunter Biden is doing right now..

• Russia Has ‘No Plans’ To Take Over Whole Of Ukraine – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Russia had “no plans to occupy the Ukrainian territories” after announcing that a special operation was launched to defend the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics from “Ukrainian aggression.” The operation’s ultimate goal is “to protect the people who have been subjected for 8 years to genocide by the Kiev regime,” Putin said in an adress on Thursday morning, adding that Moscow would “embark on a demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, and handing over to justice those who committed numerous atrocities against civilians.”

The Russian president noted, however, that Moscow harbors no far-reaching plans to take over the whole territory of Ukraine. “We do not have plans to occupy Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force,” he said. Ukraine has been accusing Russia of illegally occupying Crimea, which was reabsorbed by Russia following a referendum in March 2014, following the US-backed coup that overthrew the elected government in Kiev. Kiev has also repeatedly accused Russia of having a military presence in Donbass, although Moscow consistently denied this claim.

“During the last two centuries Russia had to defend itself, with horrific casualties, against two huge invasions from the west.”

• Disarming Ukraine (MoA)

The military of Russia has launched an operation to disarm, and possibly regime change, the Ukraine. I do understand why Russia is doing this – it is either attack now or defend itself later with way more casualties and the danger of total defeat. I had hoped though that it would find other methods to protect Russia from further NATO aggression. In 2014 the U.S. instigated regime change in Kiev and has since controlled the Ukrainian government. It has build up the Ukraine as a base to strangle Russia economically and militarily. During the last two centuries Russia had to defend itself, with horrific casualties, against two huge invasions from the west. It is understandable that it does not want to repeat that experience.

It is difficult to discern what the planned end state of this operation is. Where is this going to stop? Looking at this map I believe that the most advantageous end state for Russia would be the creation of a new independent country, call it Novorussiya, on the land east of the Dnieper and south along the coast that holds a majority ethnic Russian population and that, in 1922, had been attached to the Ukraine by Lenin. That state would be politically, culturally and militarily aligned with Russia. This would eliminate Ukrainian access to the Black Sea and create a land bridge towards the Moldavian breakaway Transnistria which is under Russian protection. The rest of the Ukraine would be a land confined, mostly agricultural state, disarmed and too poor to be build up to a new threat to Russia anytime soon. Politically it would be dominated by fascists from Galicia which would then become a major problem for the European Union.

Thanks to Stalin’s additions to the Ukraine three countries, Poland, Hungary and Romania, have claims to certain areas in the Ukraine’s western regions. If they want to snatch those up again it is now probably the best time to do so. Despite being part of NATO, which likely would not support such moves, those three will have domestic policy difficulties to withstand the urge. I hope for a sharp but short fight which destroys the Ukraine’s military capabilities but causes as little casualties and other damages as possible. It is sad that NATO countries, including mine, did not have the courage to make the necessary concessions to prevent this from happening.

Odd detail.

• Saudi-Russia Collusion Is Driving Up Gas Prices (IC)

As Russia ordered troops into Ukraine on Monday, gas prices soared to their highest levels in over seven years. While the media focuses on the conflict in Ukraine, a major cause of the gas price spike has gone overlooked: Moscow’s partnership with Saudi Arabia has grown dramatically in recent years, granting the two largest oil producers in the world the unprecedented ability to collude in oil export decisions. The desert kingdom’s relationship with the U.S. has chilled in the meantime, as demonstrated earlier this month, when President Joe Biden pleaded with the Saudis to increase oil production — a move that would not only have helped to alleviate rising inflation and gas prices, but also reduced Russia’s extravagant profits amid its aggression against Ukraine. The Saudi king declined.

The Saudi and Russian relationship has blossomed under Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose first formal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin took place in the summer of 2015. MBS pursued the meeting after then-President Barack Obama declined to meet with him, The Intercept has learned from two sources with knowledge of the matter who were granted anonymity to describe sensitive discussions. Now, as Biden refuses to meet with MBS due to his culpability in the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the crown prince may again see a friend in Moscow, which is profiting handsomely off MBS’s refusal to increase oil production. Hints of MBS’s resentment over Biden’s refusal to meet with him occasionally spill out into the public, as they did last year, when the crown prince canceled a meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on a day’s notice.

He opted instead to meet with Leonid Slutsky: a top Russian lawmaker who was sanctioned by the U.S. for his role in Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea. (MBS canceled Austin’s visit because he was “holding out for a call from the president before responding to the administration’s entreaties,” according to senior officials cited by Council on Foreign Relations fellow Martin Indyk in Foreign Affairs magazine.) “Putin and MBS have much in common, including murdering their critics at home and abroad, intervening in their neighbors by force and trying to get oil prices as high as possible,” Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former CIA analyst with expertise in the Middle East, said in an email to The Intercept. “Putin will do MBS a great service if he invades Ukraine and sends oil prices through the roof.”

You’d think Russia tried to invade.

• Trudeau Discontinues Emergencies Act (RT)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has brought an end to the Emergency Act in the country after 10 days after it was used to widen the scope of government and police authority in order to remove and detain ‘Freedom Convoy’ protesters who had shut down a major US-Canada border crossing as well as much of Ottawa over the last weeks. Addressing the nation on Wednesday evening, Trudeau said that the situation is “no longer an emergency.” The Canadian leader referred to the expanded authority given to law enforcement, which included targeting protesters’ funding, as “time-limited extra tools” that had helped the police to lift blockades plaguing downtown Ottawa. Trudeau said he is “confident” now that “existing laws and bylaws” are “sufficient to keep people safe.”

He, however, appeared to signal that the federal government was ready to step in if the situation goes awry. “We will continue to be there to support local and provincial authorities if and when needed”, the PM said. Nearly 200 people have been arrested as police cracked down on the Freedom Convoy protests, with over 100 facing various charges. Organizers like Tamara Lich were also arrested last week. Lich was denied bail with the judge stating this week that her continued detention is “necessary for the protection and safety of the public.” The prime minister’s decision, which takes effect Wednesday evening, came only two days after Canadian lawmakers greenlighted the extension the emergency powers. At the time, Trudeau that the situation was “fragile” and still an “emergency.”

Just 2 days ago they were saying it would be a long fight. Did Justin talk to a lawyer?

• Canada Instructs Banks to Unfreeze Freedom-Convoy Accounts (WSJ)

Canada told banks to unlock financial accounts belonging to individuals involved in a weekslong Covid-19 protest in Ottawa that police shut down this past weekend, according to a finance ministry official. “They started [Monday] to unfreeze accounts,” Isabelle Jacques, a senior official in Canada’s finance department, told lawmakers Tuesday. The step marks a reversal for the Liberal government, which has argued the sweeping power to freeze bank accounts and other assets was crucial during what was declared an emergency period. The power became available over a week ago, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked rarely used emergency measures in an effort to end a roughly three-week protest calling for all Covid-19 vaccine mandates and related social restrictions to be rescinded. The Ottawa protest, involving thousands of individuals and hundreds of trucks, inspired blockades at crucial U.S.-Canada border crossings.

[..] On Monday, Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland defended the freezings, which some financial-law experts warned could affect people unaffiliated with the protest. “These measures were put in place to disrupt illegal activity in Canada,” she said. “We were very clear that we would be following the money, that we would be using financial tools to disrupt illegal blockades and occupations. The focus absolutely has been on leaders and on the vehicles that were such an important part of the illegal blockades and occupations.” “The way to get your account unfrozen is to stop being part of the blockade and occupation,” she added.

Tick, tick, tick…

• Significant Underreporting of Vaccine Side Effects: German Health Insurer (ET)

A large German health insurance provider said that it analyzed data from more than 10 million individuals regarding COVID-19 vaccine complications and suggested there were more than health authorities have reported. The insurer, BKK ProVita, concluded that the rate of vaccine side-effects is several times larger than earlier reports from the Paul-Ehrlich Institute, a German federal agency, according to a letter from the company. BKK board member Andreas Schöfbeck told Die Welt publication that the data is an “alarm signal,” adding: “The numbers determined are significant and urgently need to be checked for plausibility.” The Epoch Times has contacted the Paul-Ehrlich Institute for comment.

The letter, written by Schöfbeck, said BKK analyzed doctors’ billing data from 10.9 million insured people, finding that of that figure, some 217,000 received treatment due to vaccine side-effects. Overall, in Germany, which has a population of about 83 million, the Paul-Ehrlich Institute reported 244,576 suspected cases of COVID-19 vaccination side effects in 2021, the firm noted. “The data available to our company gives us reason to believe that there is a very considerable under-recording of suspected cases of vaccination side-effects after they received the [COVID-19] vaccine,” he wrote in his letter.

“If these figures are applied to the year as a whole and to” the entire population of Germany, Schöfbeck estimated, then “probably 2.5-3 million people in Germany been under medical treatment because of vaccination side effects after [COVID-19] vaccination.” Schöfbeck then concluded that based on their data, “there is a significant underreporting of vaccination side-effects” in Germany. Another letter that was sent out by BKK suggested that vaccination side effects reported across Germany are at least 10 times more common than what was reported by the Paul-Ehrlich Institute, reported the Nordkurier newspaper on Wednesday.

Researchers say one in 3 trillion chance Covid developed the code naturally …

But lots of questions.

• Genetic Code of Covids Spike Protein Linked to Moderna Patent (DM)

Fresh suspicion that Covid may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged today after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus’s spike protein. They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic. It was discovered in SARS-CoV-2’s unique furin cleavage site, the part that makes it so good at infecting people and separates it from other coronaviruses. The structure has been one of the focal points of debate about the virus’s origin, with some scientists claiming it could not have been acquired naturally. The international team of researchers suggest the virus may have mutated to have a furin cleavage site during experiments on human cells in a lab. They claim there is a one-in-three-trillion chance Moderna’s sequence randomly appeared through natural evolution.

But there is some debate about whether the match is as rare as the study claims, with other experts describing it as a ‘quirky’ coincidence rather than a ‘smoking gun’. “Moderna filed the patent in February 2016 as part of its cancer research division, records show. The patented sequence is part of a gene called MSH3 that is known to affect how damaged cells repair themselves in the body. It was approved on March 7 the following year ” In the latest study, published in Frontiers in Virology, researchers compared Covid’s makeup to millions of sequenced proteins on an online database. The virus is made up of 30,000 letters of genetic code that carry the information it needs to spread, known as nucleotides. It is the only coronavirus of its type to carry 12 unique letters that allow its spike protein to be activated by a common enzyme called furin, allowing it to spread between human cells with ease. Analysis of the original Covid genome found the virus shares a sequence of 19 specific letters with a genetic section owned by Moderna, which has a total of 3,300 nucleotides.

“..the implosion of the real estate sector may cause a large hole in the national banks’ assets that may need the largest bailout in modern times..”

• China’s Property Bubble Collapse Gets Worse (Lacalle)

The real estate sector is enormous in China. Its direct and indirect weight, according to JP Morgan, is 25 percent of GDP, more than double the size of previous real estate bubbles in Japan or Spain. It’s impossible for the Chinese regime to contain the implosion of a sector that has massive ramifications that affect all the services sector and numerous side industries. The Chinese regime tries to disguise the risk by injecting liquidity into Chinese banks and cutting rates but, even if the vast majority of the property developers’ debt is in the hands of domestic savers, the collapse in investor confidence is difficult to contain. At best, the Chinese economy will see an inevitable slowdown.

In the worst-case scenario, the implosion of the real estate sector may cause a large hole in the national banks’ assets that may need the largest bailout in modern times. The outcome may lie somewhere in between. Many sectors in China may continue to thrive regardless of the property slump, but none of them, even all combined, can offset the impact of such a dominant part of the Chinese economy. If other global economies were unable to offset the burst of a property bubble even when the size of their real estate sectors in the total economy was extraordinarily lower than in the case of China, it’s virtually impossible to believe that the Asian giant will be able to achieve its growth target when the property bubble burst coincides with an unprecedented government intervention in other sectors.

Chinese property developers need to repay or refinance up to $100 billion in debt in 2022, according to Bloomberg. It isn’t difficult to predict that at least half will default, surpassing 2021’s record figure. Additionally, global and domestic demand for the largest Chinese sectors is weakening due to expectations of more government crackdowns in 2022. The combination of increasing government interventionism with the rising concern about the financial situation of debt issuers may be unsurmountable for the Chinese economy. Repeating failed Keynesian demand-side policies is not the answer. China needs to open its economy and abandon a debt-fuelled model.

“It got to the point, hilariously, where no one in the administration was even allowed to say the word ‘Tesla’!”

• Biden Officials Fear Elon Musk Would Embarrass President At WH (NYP)

The White House is reportedly worried Elon Musk would be a bad guest if invited to meet with President Biden — a target of frequent mockery by the Tesla founder. Some of Biden’s top advisers have purportedly warned against inviting Musk to the White House over fears he would say something to embarrass the administration. The billionaire has repeatedly slammed the White House for failing to mention Tesla while discussing its plans for major nationwide investments in electric vehicles. Biden and his close advisers are said to be irritated with Musk’s public criticism and have no immediate plans to invite him to the White House for future events, CNBC reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

When CNBC asked about the White House’s apparent concerns, Musk responded with a pair of “roll on the floor laughing” emojis and suggested his attendance at a future meeting shouldn’t be a cause of concern. “They have nothing to worry about,” Musk said. “I would do the right thing.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki and others have suggested that Tesla has been snubbed from business events because the company’s factories aren’t unionized. In January, Biden met with the CEOs of Ford and General Motors while promoting his Build Back Better Bill and claimed that “companies like GM and Ford are building more electric vehicles here at home than ever before.” That snub appeared to infuriate Musk, who referred to Biden last month as a “damp [sock] puppet in human form” and claimed the president was “treating the American public like fools.”

“It got to the point, hilariously, where no one in the administration was even allowed to say the word ‘Tesla’! The public outrage and media pressure about that statement forced him to admit that Tesla does in fact lead the EV industry,” Musk told CNBC. Biden went several months without discussing Tesla’s leading position in the electric vehicle market — only recently mentioning Musk’s company for the first time. On Feb. 8, the president referred to Tesla as “our nation’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer.” Musk argued that Biden “pointedly ignored Tesla at every turn” while touting other companies. Despite the tensions, Musk also downplayed the severity of his rift with Biden and other White House officials, asserting that the “notion of a feud is not quite right.” “I have nothing against Biden otherwise, apart from general concern about more deficit spending, which would apply to any president, and actively supported the Obama-Biden election,” Musk told the outlet.

WEF
https://twitter.com/i/status/1496562083680428049

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

Debt Rattle December 12 2021

Dec 122021

December 12, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:19 am Finance Tagged with: Assange, China, EU, Japan, myocarditis, Omicron, Original Antigenic Sin, Pfizer, stroke, Ukraine, Von der Leyen 39 Responses »

Vincent van Gogh On the Outskirts of Paris 1887

• WHO: No Deaths Reported as a Result of Omicron Variant to Date (ET)

• Vaccine Nation Forever (Malone)

• Japan Puts Myocarditis Warning on ‘Vaccines’ – Requires Informed Consent (RAIR)

• Original Antigenic Sin: a Very Serious Reason to Stop Mass Vaccination (Eu.)

• The Manufactured Illusion of an Unprecedented Virus (Ruechel)

• Natural Immunity Protects Better Against Infection Than the Pfizer Vaccine (DS)

• The Social Division Has Long Since Reached Schools (Welt)

• Von der Leyen Won’t Provide Info About Billion-Dollar Deal With Pfizer (NP)

• Pentagon Considering Covid Booster Mandate For All Troops (AT)

• Ukraine Takes Delivery Of American Rockets (RT)

• Chinese State-Run Media Says Beijing Ready To Use Force Against US (RT)

• Julian Assange Has Had A Stroke In Belmarsh Prison (DM)

Rona the red spike protein
https://twitter.com/i/status/1469868738820386817

Vaccine Propaganda

Covid Vaccine Propaganda Exposed. Why did so many blindly get vaccinated without thinking? Popular culture, media, celebrities, politicians, athletes, social media creators, emotional appeals, & slogans. Spread fear, then offer the solution to freedom & getting your life back. pic.twitter.com/xK3fUhlfyE

— FreeThinkerFitness (@FreeThinkerFit) December 11, 2021

Good thing Moderna is preparing a 3-shot vaccine against this harmless variant. Pfizer can’t be far behind.

• WHO: No Deaths Reported as a Result of Omicron Variant to Date (ET)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has informed The Epoch Times that it has not documented any deaths from the Omicron variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19. According to the WHO, “for Omicron, we have not had any deaths reported, but it is still early in the clinical course of disease and this may change.” When reached for comment by The Epoch Times, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent its report on the Omicron variant in the United States from Dec. 1 through 8. It shows that there were no documented deaths from Omicron during that period. The WHO’s latest weekly epidemiological update for Dec. 7 showed that all 212 Omicron cases documented across eighteen European Union (EU) countries were either mild or asymptomatic.

“While South Africa saw an 82 percent increase in hospital admissions due to COVID-19 (from 502 to 912) during the week 28 November–4 December 2021, it is not yet known the proportion of these with the Omicron variant,” the report noted. Omicron has also been detected in the United States, first in California and later in Colorado, New York, Maryland, Utah, and many other states. The first American patient with the variant was identified in San Francisco, testing positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 29 after returning from a trip to South Africa on Nov. 22. Yet the California Department of Public Health has confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that the variant was present in wastewater as early as Nov. 25.

“..the data show a 90.5% adverse event rate compared to 30% in placebo treated patients..”

• Vaccine Nation Forever (Malone)

Panel A: Efficacy data

Note the subtle lower placement of the Fluzone data graphs, making the mRNA product appear more effective than it is relative to the licensed traditional Fluzone graphs. In a sharp-eyed tweet, @RobertLKruse gets the gold star for pointing out this trick in Moderna’s slide comparing early efficacy data from its flu shot to a competitor. The y-axis being lower for Fluzone’s shot is lower makes it look worse (and $MRNA’s shot better) if glancing quickly and comparing the two graphs. For some reason, Moderna seems to have failed to perform statistical comparison of Fluzone versus Moderna flu jab data. Perhaps because they do not have enough capital to hire competent biostatisticians to run the numbers?

Panel B: Safety – Adverse events

This is the real bombshell! Note that the dose for Moderna’s COVID-19 jab is 100 micrograms, so focus on that column when comparing to placebo- 92% of patients >= 50 years old had adverse events, compared to 33% in the placebo. Even in 18 – 50 year olds – who really have no reason to be vaccinated against COVID-19 with these products- the data show a 90.5% adverse event rate compared to 30% in placebo treated patients. This does not look good. What we can infer from this is that the adverse event profile for the mRNA COVID-19 jabs that has so many of us (including myself!) alarmed is not just due to the Spike protein, but a significant proportion of the risk seems to be due to the artificial pseudouridine-containing mRNA combined with the novel synthetic cationic lipid (positively charged synthetic fat carrier molecule).

Interesting take. “Vaccination will be given only with the consent of the person to be vaccinated after the information provided.”

• Japan Puts Myocarditis Warning on ‘Vaccines’ – Requires Informed Consent (RAIR)

Japan announces that public and private sectors can not discriminate against those who refuse the experimental mRNA gene therapy injections. Japan is now labeling Covid “vaccines” to warn of dangerous and potentially deadly side effects such as myocarditis. In addition, the country is reaffirming its commitment to adverse event reporting requirements to ensure all possible side effects are documented. These efforts from Japan’s health authority are in stark contrast to the deceptive measures taken by other countries to coerce citizens into taking the injection, downplaying side effects, and discouraging proper adverse event reporting. Additionally, Japan is emphasizing informed consent and bodily autonomy. Until the coronavirus pandemic, the concept of “informed consent” was considered sacred to healthcare professionals in the West.

Japan is particularly raising concerns about the risks of myocarditis in young men injected with Pfizer or Moderna’s gene–therapy treatment. The country is enforcing a strict legal reporting requirement of side effects that must take place within 28 days of the injections. Three Covid-19 gene-therapy treatments are currently offered in Japan. They include the Pfizer/BioNTech (Comirnaty) and Takeda’s Moderna formulation. The product descriptions state that “this product contains an additive that has never been used in a vaccine before.” Furthermore, the pharmaceutical companies urge you to consult your doctor about the additive if you plan to be injected with it. In addition to the Pfizer and Moderna gene-therapies, Vaxzevria (formerly AstraZeneca) is also administered in Japan. However, Japan only recommends it to people 40-year-old and over. Reference is also made to the new type of additive in the Vaxzevria injections.

Japan’s Ministry of Health of health website encourages citizens to receive the “vaccine”; however, they stress it is not mandatory, “Although we encourage all citizens to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, it is not compulsory or mandatory. Vaccination will be given only with the consent of the person to be vaccinated after the information provided.” In addition, the government recommends those who are considering taking the shot carefully consider both its effectiveness and side effects. “Please get vaccinated of your own decision, understanding both the effectiveness in preventing infectious diseases and the risk of side effects. No vaccination will be given without consent.” Furthermore, they stress that businesses do not force employees to receive the experimental gene therapy. Nor should employees discriminate against those who refuse the injections,

“These concerns are particularly acute in the case of children, who may well be exposed to the risk of very serious illness in the future, if vaccination permanently misdirects their immune system.”

• Original Antigenic Sin: a Very Serious Reason to Stop Mass Vaccination (Eu.)

The severity of Corona infection varies wildly across the population. Children have generally mild or asymptomatic infections, while adults having a wide range of responses. Everyone always assumed that cross-immunity was part of the answer to this conundrum. The problem, is that it is shaping up to be a not very reassuring part of that answer. The untrained, innate non-specific immune response of children looks more and more like a big part of the reason they are spared severe infection. Adults with immune systems tightly calibrated to the common human coronaviruses , meanwhile, often have more severe symptoms. They suffer from Original Antigenic Sin. Over 4.2 billion people across the earth have received at least one dose of vaccine against SARS-2.

The majority of these vaccines have elicited antibodies only against an early form of the spike protein that is no longer in circulation. This would seem to be one reason why many western countries with high vaccination rates appear to have locked themselves into an indefinite phase of heightened SARS-2 transmission. In the United Kingdom, 96% of adults have antibodies to the spike protein – most of these first acquired by vaccination. Shortly after they concluded their vaccination campaign, cases skyrocketed, and they have remained high ever since. Original Antigenic Sin is a real phenomenon. It seems not only to permanently influence the immune response to the spike protein itself, but also to inhibit the development of antibodies to other SARS-2 proteins.

A worst case scenario, would be a future spike mutation that entirely escapes the anti-spike antibodies elicited by our vaccines. In this case, it seems possible that many vaccinated people will be stuck with permanently suboptimal immune responses. If Omicron is indeed circulating primarily among the vaccinated, as some data shows, this would be a good reason why. These concerns are particularly acute in the case of children, who may well be exposed to the risk of very serious illness in the future, if vaccination permanently misdirects their immune system.

“Frequent re-exposure solves the problem of a rapidly evolving virus by updating our immune system.”

• The Manufactured Illusion of an Unprecedented Virus (Ruechel)

Frequent re-exposure solves the problem of a rapidly evolving virus by updating our immune system to recognize and neutralize closely related variants before we lose all our protective immunity from a previous infection. As long as the interval between exposures is not too long, you will still have cross-reactive immunity from your last exposure to protect you during your next “update”. Re-infection does not necessarily mean you will get sick. As long as it happens while you still have partial cross-reactive immunity, your “update” might be mild or you may not get any symptoms at all. In other words, we have to stop thinking of our immune systems as mere protective shields. They are much more than that.

We need to remind ourselves that our immune systems are self-improving protective shields that need frequent exercise in order to maintain and update their skillset to keep up with an evolving enemy. The propaganda during Covid has not denied this fact, it has merely distorted it to the point where many people have lost faith in their immune systems, have become terrified about every “variant of concern”, and have become fixated on vaccines as the only path to salvation. Fear doesn’t just blind us to what is standing before our eyes. It also makes us doubt our own senses and forget our long-established understanding of the world. Frequent re-exposure is nature’s solution to booster shots. Vaccine boosters make more sense for diseases in which re-exposure is so rare that immunity wears off entirely before you are likely to get a natural update.

It’s worth reminding ourselves that there are over 200 respiratory viruses that cause colds and flus and yet, despite the fact that they are permanently circulating in our communities, we do not get sick with dozens and dozens of colds and flus every year. Although we won’t be exposed to every single one of these 200 viruses every single year, we will cross paths with many of them. But as long as our immune systems have not been weakened by some serious pre-existing health condition (i.e. obesity, cancer, HIV, etc.) or by lifestyle choices that temporarily suppress our immune systems (i.e. poor sleep, lack of exercise, vitamin C or D deficiencies, stress, depression, isolation, etc.), most of these “updates” will merely be mild or asymptomatic infections because our immune systems encounter them so often.

Why did we ever allow this to be questioned, let alone denied?

• Natural Immunity Protects Better Against Infection Than the Pfizer Vaccine (DS)

At the end of August, a study was published showing that natural immunity provides much better protection against infection than the Pfizer vaccine. It was described by UCL’s Francois Balloux as “a bit of a bombshell”. Subsequent studies have compared natural and vaccine-induced immunity at the cellular level. One found that infection-induced antibodies “exhibited superior stability and cross-variant neutralisation breadth” than vaccine-induced antibodies, suggesting that people who’d already been infected had better immunity against the then-novel Delta variant. However, as I noted in my write-up of the “bombshell” study, its findings still needed to be replicated. After all, certain datasets or methods of analysis can sometimes yield quirky results, which don’t survive independent empirical tests.

Encouragingly, the findings now have been replicated – by another team of Israeli researchers, using a different dataset. In the latest study, Yair Goldberg and colleagues tracked all the individuals in their dataset (of people in Israel) who had tested positive or received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine before 1st July, 2021. They then compared the number of infections in previously infected versus vaccinated individuals from August to September of 2021. The researchers also examined the number of infections among those with so-called ‘hybrid immunity’ – i.e., previously infected individuals who got vaccinated. For each of the three groups, they counted the number of infections and the number of days ‘at risk’ (i.e., the total number of people multiplied by the number of days on which they were ‘at risk’ of becoming infected). Adjustments were made for age, sex, ethnicity, calendar week and a measure of risk exposure.

Results are shown in the chart below. Each bar corresponds to the infection rate per 100,000 ‘risk days’. The reason the researchers used ‘risk days’, rather than just ‘people’, is that the composition of each group changed over time. For example, some previously infected people chose to get vaccinated. Notice that the labels for the horizontal bars are not the same for each group. Since we want to compare apples with apples, look at the bars labelled “Recovered 6–8 months” and “Vaccinated 6–8 months”. This comparison shows that, 6–8 months after the corresponding event, infection rates were more than six times higher among vaccinated individuals – 89 per 100,000 versus only 14 per 100,000 among previously infected individuals.

Google translate.

“There are teachers who call children individually and ask them about their vaccination status: those who are vaccinated receive applause, those who do not have to justify themselves.”

“It seems as if it has been forgotten that the vulnerable group does not sit in kindergartens and schools.”

• The Social Division Has Long Since Reached Schools (Welt)

Hardly anything is discussed as emotionally as concerns about children in the pandemic. The reasons for this could not be more different, there is only consensus that almost all parents feel abandoned by politics. Although the previous plans of the traffic light parties no longer provide for nationwide school closings, regionally these will also be possible in the future. Conditions that include alternating and distance lessons as well as distance rules are not expressly excluded. In some federal states, compulsory attendance has already been lifted and the first schools have been closed again.Many parents are now ready to accept further measures if only the educational institutions remain open this winter. At the same time, scenes are playing out in schools that would have sparked an outcry from society before the pandemic. There are boards with the vaccinated on one side and the non-vaccinated on the other, who then have to undergo regular tests in front of the assembled class.

There are teachers who call children individually and ask them about their vaccination status: those who are vaccinated receive applause, those who do not have to justify themselves. Adolescents remind their classmates of their “social responsibility” by mistakenly assuming that it is they who have a responsibility for adult society, not for them. The social division has long since reached schools. This is certainly not the case in all schools, but unfortunately they are not isolated cases either. The medical benefit of the vaccination for 12 to 17-year-olds is given, but limited, as Stiko member Rüdiger von Kries recently emphasized in an interview with Bayerischer Rundfunk. Most young people are – and rightly so – not afraid of infection. Nevertheless, many would like to be vaccinated: because they want to live their youth, want to evade the pressure exerted on them and avoid the requirements that apply to those who have not been vaccinated.

The Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) generally recommends vaccinating children and adolescents from the age of 12 against Covid-19, but has explicitly opposed vaccination for children and adolescents to participate in education, culture and other social activities is made dependent. So it says in the recommendation. But politics, with its sometimes disproportionate measures against this age group, prevents their social participation. So 2G is spreading even further for this age group. Children and adolescents from 12 (or 16) years of age no longer have access to public facilities in many places, regardless of their negligibly low risk of developing a serious disease. Von Kries calls such an obligation “simply absurd”. And now that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved the vaccine for children under the age of 12, it must be feared that the younger ones will face the same threat.

A fact-based classification on the basis of scientific evidence no longer seems possible. The parents’ trust in political decisions for the benefit of adolescents has been lost. It seems as if it has been forgotten that the vulnerable group does not sit in kindergartens and schools.

German kids

In Germany, children are being forced “to go to the front of the class and state their vaccination status daily. Those who are vaccinated are applauded, those who are not have to explain why they are not.”pic.twitter.com/k9nmI4Smx4

— Michael P Senger (@MichaelPSenger) December 11, 2021

Google translate. Note the neat trick: much of the correspondence is done with text messages, like Whats App. Which are not archived (“by their nature short-lived”), and therefore don’t exist, officially. Handy when an FOIA request comes in. Click here for the uncensured 104-page contract.

• Von der Leyen Won’t Provide Info About Billion-Dollar Deal With Pfizer (NP)

The European Commission does not want to make possible agreements between Ursula von der Leyen and the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer transparent. This emerges from a response from the Commission to the EU ombudswoman Emily O’Reilly, which netzpolitik.org has now published. Specifically, it is about messages that the EU Commission President is said to have exchanged directly with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in order to thread a vaccine deal. The New York Times reported on the existence of the news in April. The deal involved 1.8 billion doses from Pfizer-BioNTech. The billion dollar deal for the vaccine was agreed this spring, when the great majority of Europeans were still unvaccinated, via the short official channel in calls and messages directly between Ursula von der Leyen and Albert Bourla, according to the report of the renowned US newspaper . The “text messages” referred to there can mean both SMS and messages via messengers such as Signal or WhatsApp.

Its vaccine Comirnaty makes the consortium of Pfizer and the German company BioNTech the most important vaccine supplier to the EU. But how it sets prices for its vaccines and which countries are preferred for delivery remains in the dark, according to an investigative research by the Financial Times. “How Pfizer is exercising its newfound power – and what the company is planning next – he is keeping top secret.” Despite criticism from MPs and NGOs who are calling for more transparency in EU billion-dollar deals, the EU Commission does not want to give any insight into the purchase of vaccines. As with contracts with other manufacturers, the Commission has disclosed a preliminary agreement and a purchase agreement for its business with Pfizer, but essential details such as the delivery price and liability issues have been blacked out in these.

Not only the contracts, even the initiation of the business remains in the dark. The EU Commission rejected a request for freedom of information from netzpolitik.org on the news between Commission chief Von der Leyen and Pfizer boss Bourla in July: “No documents could be found that fall within the scope of your request,” says the Answer by the Secretary-General of the Commission, Ilze Juhansone. In this case, netzpolitik.org lodged a complaint with the ombudswoman O’Reilly. As a result, there was recently a virtual meeting between seven top officials: from the Commission and five from the Ombudsman. In it, the Commission set out in detail how it deals with SMS or messenger services such as WhatsApp and Signal. Such messages are “by their nature short-lived” and are therefore neither used in formal decision-making nor do they produce binding commitments by the institution. As a result, SMS or messenger messages have never been filed in the Commission’s archive system.

For a six-month booster shot. What happens when that is changed to three months? Automatic update?

• Pentagon Considering Covid Booster Mandate For All Troops (AT)

Defense Department officials are reviewing whether to make a coronavirus booster shot mandatory for all active-duty and reserve troops, but have not come to any final decisions on the need yet, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Friday. “There are discussions in the department about the efficacy of a booster mandatory policy as well,” he told reporters during a press conference. “Should there be an addition to the [department’s] mandatory vaccine requirement, we will clearly communicate that and be transparent about it.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that all Americans age 16 and older get both the initial two-dose COVID-19 vaccine (or the one-dose version produced by Johnson & Johnson) and a booster shot six months after completing the initial regimen.

Earlier this month, White House officials announced that all eligible Americans should get a booster shot “as soon as possible” to help counter the recent surge in COVID-19 variant cases spreading worldwide. The military services have required all active-duty troops to be vaccinated with the initial doses, and Guard and Reserve troops to get their shots by next summer. Kirby said that more than 96 percent of the active duty force has gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, with 90 percent fully vaccinated. Guard and reserve numbers are significantly lower — for the military as a whole, the fully vaccinated rate is 74 percent. However, some of those numbers could be lower because of a lag in collecting and reporting information from guard and reserve units.

“..more and more forces and equipment are being accumulated on the line of contact in the Donbass, supported by an increasing number of Western instructors.”

• Ukraine Takes Delivery Of American Rockets (RT)

The Pentagon has disclosed details of the shipment of anti-tank missile systems and projectiles supplied to Kiev, as Moscow grows increasingly concerned about the prospect of a full-blown conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region. In a statement received by Russian news outlet TASS on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Anton Semelroth said that “the $60 million package… included 30 Javelin command and control launchers, as well as 180 missiles.” According to him, the rocket launchers were delivered to Ukraine on October 23. “In 2021, the US allocated more than $450 million in aid to Ukraine for security tasks as part of our continued commitment to support the country’s ability to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the spokesman added.

Semelroth’s comments come amid warnings from Moscow over tensions in the war-torn region close to Russia’s borders. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “more and more forces and equipment are being accumulated on the line of contact in the Donbass, supported by an increasing number of Western instructors.” At the end of November, the top diplomat said that claims Ukraine’s troops had deployed American-made Javelin rocket launchers were a matter of grave concern and could lead to a full-blown offensive in the war-torn region. “In recent weeks, we have seen a stream of consciousness from the Ukrainian leadership – especially when it comes to the military – that is excessively inflamed and dangerous,” Lavrov said.

Just hours before, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, Kirill Budanov, revealed that advanced US-made Javelin systems had been tested by Ukraine’s troops and were being used by soldiers in the Donbass. Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, warned the White House earlier in November that supplying Ukraine with deadly armaments could diminish hopes for peace in the region, stating that Moscow believes “another opportunity to encourage Kiev to stop the war has been missed.”

“The op-ed concludes by advising Sullivan to weigh his words carefully going forward and not to “have a big mouth,” lest he “create more embarrassment” for the US.”

• Chinese State-Run Media Says Beijing Ready To Use Force Against US (RT)

A Chinese state-run media outlet has warned Washington that Beijing will not hesitate to strike US forces should they try to prevent China’s reunification with Taiwan, as promised recently by a top American official. The Global Times picked up on National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s statement on Tuesday, in which he said that the US was “going to take every action that we can take, from the point of view of both deterrence and diplomacy” to prevent a scenario where China takes over Taiwan militarily. The message was echoed the same day by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who warned China that a military scenario vis-a-vis Taiwan would be a “very serious mistake.”

However, the Chinese outlet surmised that Sullivan’s assurances should not be construed as a “manifesto of US policy,” as the “US simply cannot build a deterrent to prevent the Chinese mainland from carrying out reunification by force when necessary.” The op-ed goes on to claim that Washington does not really have the “will to defend Taiwan at all costs.” The article takes a yet more bellicose turn when it says it is “credible” that US troops, should they come to Taiwan’s rescue, would be “heavily attacked” by the People’s Liberation Army if “reunification by force” does happen. The Global Times predicts Sullivan would be likely to “recall or downplay” his statement later, since the “US cannot afford” to defend Taiwan “at the cost of a deadly war.”

The op-ed warns that “reunification by force will definitely happen” unless Washington convinces Taiwan authorities to accept the concept of ‘one country, two systems’ and engage with mainland China “on the path of peaceful reunification.” The article blames Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which came to power in 2016, for the escalation, adding that the situation has possibly already gone beyond the point of no return. The op-ed concludes by advising Sullivan to weigh his words carefully going forward and not to “have a big mouth,” lest he “create more embarrassment” for the US.

This happened on October 27. The High Court, when reading its verdict this week, undoubtedly knew about it.

Jeffrey Sterling @S_UnwantedSpy: “I can guarantee that in a US prison he would not receive medical attention. It took the attention of a US senator for me to receive proper medical attention. #Assange won’t have that “assurance”.

• Julian Assange Has Had A Stroke In Belmarsh Prison (DM)

Julian Assange has had a stroke in Belmarsh Prison, his fiancee Stella Moris revealed last night. The WikiLeaks publisher, 50, who is being held on remand in the maximum-security jail while fighting extradition to America, was left with a drooping right eyelid, memory problems and signs of neurological damage. He believes the mini-stroke was triggered by the stress of the ongoing US court action against him, and an overall decline in his health as he faces his third Christmas behind bars. It happened at the time of a High Court appearance via video link from Belmarsh in October. A ‘transient ischaemic attack’ – the interruption of the blood supply to the brain – can be a warning sign of a full stroke. Assange has since had an MRI scan and is now taking anti-stroke medication.

Ms Moris, 38, a lawyer, said: ‘Julian is struggling and I fear this mini-stroke could be the precursor to a more major attack. It compounds our fears about his ability to survive the longer this long legal battle goes on. ‘It urgently needs to be resolved. Look at animals trapped in cages in a zoo. It cuts their life short. That’s what’s happening to Julian. The never-ending court cases are extremely stressful mentally.’ She said he was kept in his cell for long periods and was ‘short of fresh air and sunlight, an adequate diet and the stimulus he needs’. Assange faced a major legal setback on Friday when the High Court overturned a judgment made this year preventing extradition to the US to face charges under the US Espionage Act.

His lawyers successfully argued he would be kept in conditions in the US that could lead to a serious risk of suicide. The High Court reversed the earlier ruling after the US government offered assurances about his potential imprisonment. But Ms Moris said: ‘I believe this constant chess game, battle after battle, the extreme stress, is what caused Julian’s stroke on October 27. He was feeling really unwell, far too ill to follow the hearing, and he was excused by the judge but could not leave the prison video room. ‘It must have been horrendous hearing a High Court appeal in which you can’t participate, which is discussing your mental health and your risk of suicide and in which the US is arguing you are making it all up. ‘He had to sit through all this when he should have been excused. He was in a truly terrible state. His eyes were out of synch, his right eyelid would not close, his memory was blurry.’

Where does goverment money come from? A very revealing video from Canada.

I asked 10 top government officials where government money comes from.

Do you think they had an answer? pic.twitter.com/0x3OcfURiq

— pierrepoilievre (@PierrePoilievre) December 8, 2021

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

Debt Rattle October 19 2021

Oct 192021

October 19, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:02 am Finance Tagged with: aspirin, Biden, China, exterminations, natural immunity, Navy Seals, unvaccinated 30 Responses »

Ford Madox Brown Finding of Don Juan by Haidee 1873

• Biden Threatens To Make Navy SEALs Resisting Vax Repay Their Training Cost (AT)

• The Unvaccinated Are Looking Smarter Every Week (Thomas T. Siler MD)

• Immune System Functions Are Dropping Around 5% Each Week In Vaccinated (NN)

• Natural Immunity Is Just As Good As Being Jabbed (DM)

• Rhode Island Covid Breakthrough Hospitalization and Mortality Rates (Bostom)

• Covid-19 Treatments And Vaccines Must Be Evaluated In Pregnancy (BMJ)

• FDA To Allow “Mixing and Matching” Of COVID Boosters (ZH)

• Is Aspirin the New Horse Dewormer? (Brian C.Joondeph, MD)

• The Age of Exterminations (V): Suicide (Ugo Bardi)

• Let Us Count the Ways (Kunstler)

• Jim Chanos: China’s “Leveraged Prosperity” Model is Doomed (Parramore)

< 1% of #COVID19 deaths had NO existing conditions
> 64% of deaths had 6 or more conditions
> 97% of deaths had 2 or more conditions

Bartiromo Ron Johnson IVM
https://twitter.com/i/status/1449799293578121217

SEALs put their lives in each other’s hands. Trying to set them against each other seems a bad idea.

• Biden Threatens To Make Navy SEALs Resisting Vax Repay Their Training Cost (AT)

I can think of few better ways to ensure that fewer qualified people will apply to join the nation’s most elite fighting unit than the policy just announced by the U.S. Navy’s COVID Consolidated Disposition Authority. It has issued a directive that, as Hank Berrien reports, threatens “removing them from special warfare, reducing their salaries, and forcing them to repay training.” Since training a SEAL is very expensive, this amounts to financial ruin for the heroes who undergo incredibly harsh training and who offer their lives to protect us. President Trump’s interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, a former SEAL, appropriately criticized the plan on Facebook:

“Our Nation’s best don’t sign up to be a Navy SEAL to cash in on our training years later. We give a blood oath to fight for freedom and defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. In doing so, we bear a burden of emotional, psychological, physical, and family stress of constant deployments and low pay because we love our Country. Shame Mr. President for not recognizing the service and sacrifice and further insulting SEALs by making this about money.”

Put aside any consideration of the effectiveness of the vaccines or of the side effects that may take years to become apparent. This escalation of bullying of the bravest and most self-sacrificing among us threatens national security. Physically fit young adults like the SEALS face a negligible threat from COVID, so why sacrifice the effectiveness of the nation’s elite fighting units? The price that is being inflicted on the nation far outweighs any benefit from the vaccines.

“.. the European reporting system now associates 26,000 deaths in close proximity to administration of the vaccine. Whistleblower data from the CMS system (Medicare charts) showed close to 50,000 deaths in the Medicare group shortly after the vaccine.”

• The Unvaccinated Are Looking Smarter Every Week (Thomas T. Siler MD)

[..] as time has passed with this pandemic and more data accumulates about the virus and the vaccine, the unvaccinated are looking smarter and smarter with each passing week. It has been shown now that the vaccinated equally catch and spread the virus. Vaccine side effect data continues to accumulate that make the risk of taking the vaccine prohibitive as the pandemic wanes. Oral and IV medications (flccc.net) that work early in the treatment of COVID-19 are much more attractive to take now as the vaccine risks are becoming known, especially because the vaccinated will need endless boosters every six months. First, let’s address the intelligence of the unvaccinated. Vaccine hesitancy is multi-factorial and has little to do with level of education or intelligence.

Carnegie Mellon University did a study assessing vaccine hesitancy across educational levels. According to the study, what’s the educational level with the most vaccine hesitancy? Ph.D. level! Those can’t all have been awarded to liberal arts majors. Clearly, scientists who can read the data and assess risk are among the least likely to take the mRNA vaccines. The claim that there’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated is, therefore, patently untrue. As a retired nurse from California recently asked, “Why do the protected need to be protected from the unprotected by forcing the unprotected to use the protection that did not protect the protected in the first place?” If the vaccine works to prevent infection, then the vaccinated have nothing to worry about. If the vaccine does not prevent infection, then the vaccinated remain at some risk, and the unvaccinated would be less likely to choose a vaccine that does not work well.

The mRNA vaccine efficacy is very narrow and focused on the original alpha strain of COVID-19. By targeting one antigen group on the spike protein, it does help for the original alpha strain, but it is clear now it does not protect against Delta strain and is likely not protective against any future strains that might circulate. It also appears that the efficacy wanes in 4-6 months, leading to discussions about boosters. Several authors have pointed out that vaccinating with a “leaky” vaccine during a pandemic is driving the virus to escape by creating variants. If the booster is just another iteration of the same vaccine, it likely won’t help against the new strain but will, instead, produce evolutionary pressure on the virus to produce even more variants and expose us to more side effects. Why, then, is this booster strategy for everyone being pursued?

This vast Phase 3 clinical trial of mRNA vaccines in which Americans are participating mostly out of fear is not going well. It is abundantly clear for anyone advocating for public health that the vaccination program should be stopped. Iceland has just stopped giving the Moderna vaccine to anyone which is a good step in the right direction. Sweden, Denmark, and Finland have banned the Moderna vaccine for anyone under the age of 30. Eudravigilance, the European reporting system now associates 26,000 deaths in close proximity to administration of the vaccine. Whistleblower data from the CMS system (Medicare charts) showed close to 50,000 deaths in the Medicare group shortly after the vaccine.

An AI-powered tracking program called Project Salus also follows the Medicare population and shows vaccinated Medicare recipients are having worse outcomes week by week of the type consistent with Antibody Dependent Enhancement. This occurs when the vaccine antibodies actually accelerate the infection leading to worsening COVID-19 infection outcomes. Antibody Dependent Enhancement has occurred previously with trials of other coronavirus vaccines in animals. The CDC and the FDA are suppressing this data and no one who receives the vaccine has true informed consent.

“..fully vaccinated people now suffer from what appears to be acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, more popularly known as AIDS.”

• Immune System Functions Are Dropping Around 5% Each Week In Vaccinated (NN)

The latest data from the United Kingdom’s PHE Vaccine Surveillance Report suggests that people who have been “fully vaccinated” for the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) are losing about five percent of their immune systems per week. Doubly injected people between the ages of 40 and 70 have already lost about 40 percent of the immune system capacity from the moment they get injected. They then progressively lose more of it over time, with peak immune system loss for many expected to arrive by Christmas. “If this continues then 30-50 year-olds will have 100% immune system degradation, zero viral defence by Christmas and all doubly vaccinated people over 30 will have lost their immune systems by March next year,” reports The Exposé.

There is no denying, based on the data, that fully vaccinated people now suffer from what appears to be acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, more popularly known as AIDS. Their immune systems are fading away, which many have been warning would be the case. “People aged 40-69 have already lost 40% of their immune system capability and are losing it progressively at 3.3% to 6.4% per week,” The Exposé says. Interestingly, the worst-off demographic is people aged 40-49, who are suffering total immune system loss in about nine weeks. The best-off group is younger people aged 18-29, who tend to last around 44 weeks. Elderly people over the age of 80 last about 20 weeks, while the 50-59 age category only gets about 15 weeks. The other remaining age groups last anywhere from 12 to 25 weeks.

“Everybody over 30 will have lost 100% of their entire immune capability (for viruses and certain cancers) within 6 months,” warns The Exposé. “30-50 year-olds will have lost it by Christmas. These people will then effectively have full blown acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and destroy the NHS (National Health Service).” [..] It is not just that the jabs do not provide the claimed amount of protection against the Fauci Flu. The fact of the matter is that they provide no protection at all in the long term and actually destroy a person’s immune system. “Pfizer originally claimed a 95% efficiency for their vaccine (calculated as in the last column above). The figures above indicate that their figures may well have been correct immediately after vaccination (the younger age groups have had the vaccine for the shortest time),” The Exposé explains.

“But the figures above also show that the vaccines do NOT merely lose efficiency over time down to zero efficiency, they progressively damage the immune system until a negative efficiency is realised. They presently leave anybody over 30 in a worse position than they were before vaccination.” People who take the Biden “Booster” shots will only accelerate this process by adding even more immune-destroying chemicals to their bodies. The downward spiral will move even faster, in other words, the more shots a person gets. “If we do nothing about this, it will only get much worse than we ever could have imagined,” wrote one Exposé commenter. “I, for one, appreciate all who have stood against and continue to stand against this tyranny.”

If the jabs “wane” 5% a week, they’re much worse.

• Natural Immunity Is Just As Good As Being Jabbed (DM)

Recovering from Covid offers just as good protection as getting two doses of any vaccine, official figures suggest. An Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) report published today found unvaccinated Britons who catch the Delta variant are around 71 per cent less likely to test positive for a second time. It estimated the risk of infection is slashed by approximately 67 per cent in people given two doses of Pfizer or AstraZeneca’s jabs. The ONS said there was ‘no evidence’ vaccines offered more immunity than catching Covid itself, despite a number of other studies showing the opposite. The findings are based on more than 8,000 positive tests across Britain between May and August, when the Delta variant became dominant.

Scientists are still trying to untangle exactly how long naturally-acquired and vaccine immunity lasts. Protection from the jabs appears to dip at around five months, which is why Britons over the age of 50 are being offered booster doses this autumn. But the duration of natural immunity remains somewhat of a mystery, made more complicated by the rise of new variants. The ONS looked at 8,306 positive PCR results between May 17 and August 14. Samples were collected from unvaccinated, fully vaccinated and double-jabbed volunteers, some who had previously had the virus already. Using a statistical analysis, the report found those who were double-jabbed had a reduced the risk of testing positive by between 64 and 70 per cent, giving the headline figure of 67 per cent. In people who were unvaccinated but previously positive, the risk was cut by between 65 per cent to 77 per cent.

The overlap in confidence intervals meant that there was no statistical difference between the results. Writing in the report, the ONS said: ‘There was no evidence that the reduction in risk of infection from two vaccine doses differed from that of previous natural infection.’ The ONS found that two doses of Pfizer’s jab offered slightly higher protection against infection than two of AstraZeneca. But the ONS said it was not statistically significant and added that any slight difference may be due to the fact Pfizer’s was rolled out to the masses slightly later than AstraZeneca’s. The report does not look at the negative effects of catching the virus, including long Covid, which blights a significant number of adult sufferers. But critics of the Government’s decision to vaccinate healthy school pupils as young as 12 have argued that natural immunity is better for children because it removes the small risk of side effects from the jabs.

Clear numbers.

• Rhode Island Covid Breakthrough Hospitalization and Mortality Rates (Bostom)

A 10/12.21 story in the Rhode Island Patch maintained that the “vast majority” of the state’s covid-19 infections during September 2021 (essentially; 9/4/21 to 10/2/21) occurred amongst those who were not fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. The story added, “ (covid-19) deaths show the same trend.” This latter statement is patently false as demonstrated by data on September 2021 hospitalizations and deaths just released from The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) to Rhode Island state representative Mike Chippendale. These actual RIDOH data for September, 2021 reveal that 136 covid-19 hospitalizations were recorded in those fully vaccinated, versus 27 among those who were not fully vaccinated (note: RIDOH pools the unvaccinated and partially vaccinated, and dubs them all “unvaccinated”).

Similarly, 22 covid-19 deaths were tallied among those who were fully vaccinated, compared to 5 in the not fully vaccinated. Regardless of vaccination status, in those with a history of prior infection, i.e., “natural immunity,” only 12 covid-19 hospitalizations were recorded, and zero covid-19 deaths. Calculating simple, unadjusted population-based rates (per 100,000) puts these September 2021 Rhode Island covid-19 mortality and hospitalization data in clearer, more meaningful perspective. To do so, requires estimates of the number of Rhode Islanders fully vaccinated, or not fully vaccinated, and the number with a history of prior infection. I chose the September 15, 2021 midpoint of the month to estimate the both the numbers fully vaccinated, or with a history of prior covid-19 infection.

Rhode Island’s 2021 estimated population is 1.1 million. According to the public RIDOH database, by September, 15, 2021, ~684,000 Rhode Islanders were fully vaccinated. Per the website “Covidestim.org,” a project supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and directed by epidemiologists from Yale, Harvard, and Stanford universities, 58% had been covid-19 infected at some point during the pandemic. Applying these estimates yields the following rates, for covid-19 hospitalizations, and deaths:

Hospitalizations
—136 breakthrough hospitalizations/684,000 fully vaccinated=19.9/100,000
—27 not fully vaccinated hospitalizations/416,000 not fully vaccinated= 6.5/100,000
—12 hospitalizations in those with prior infection history/638,000 with prior infection=1.9/100,000

Deaths
—22 breakthrough deaths/684,000 fully vaccinated=3.2/100,000
—5 not fully vaccinated deaths/416,000 not fully vaccinated= 1.2/100,000
—0 deaths in those with prior infection history/638,000 with prior infection=0/100,000
Another way to look at an estimate of relative risk for hospitalization, the crude odds ratio, comparing being fully vaccinated to having a prior infection yields an ~90% reduction [odds ratio 0.095; 95% confidence interval= 0.052 to 0.171] with a history of prior infection.

“In Brazil, health officials even suggested avoiding pregnancy to reduce risk during the pandemic.”

• Covid-19 Treatments And Vaccines Must Be Evaluated In Pregnancy (BMJ)

The numbers of pregnant and postpartum women in the UK admitted to hospital or intensive care because of covid-19 peaked over the summer. Maternal mortality has reached concerning levels in 2021, with case fatality rates rising in the US, doubling in Brazil, and almost tripling in India since the beginning of the pandemic. In Brazil, health officials even suggested avoiding pregnancy to reduce risk during the pandemic. Inconsistent messaging from authorities, driven by lack of trial data, has increased covid-19 vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women. This, coupled with the increased transmissibility of new variants and relaxing of social distancing restrictions, contributed to the surge in hospital admissions seen in successive waves.

Concerns around the longer term effect of covid-19 post partum, including long covid, cardiovascular complications of covid-19, and widening socioeconomic disparities are also mounting. Despite a desperate need for treatments, pregnant women continue to be left behind. In the long shadow of the thalidomide and diethylstilboestrol tragedies, only one drug designed for use in pregnancy, atosiban, has been licensed in four decades and only five prescription medicines (amoxicillin, labetalol, diazoxidine injection, doxylamine with pyridoxine, sodium feredetate) are licensed for non-obstetric use in pregnancy in the UK. A sobering 98% of all marketed drugs have insufficient or no safety data to guide dosing during pregnancy and lactation. This includes all covid-19 vaccines.

Vaccination in pregnancy is not a new concept; nor are the struggles with uptake. Concerns about covid-19 vaccination, like previous vaccines, have centred around fears of side effects for the fetus, doubts regarding efficacy, and even doubts around the need for immunisation. These concerns have been further compounded by misinformation regarding fertility, suspicion of the swift rollout of vaccines, and the exclusion of pregnant women from preapproval trials, with levels of vaccine hesitancy highest in deprived communities and among those from ethnic minority groups.

“By the end of the week, tens of millions more Americans could be eligible for extra shots.”

• FDA To Allow “Mixing and Matching” Of COVID Boosters (ZH)

mRNA or a disabled adenovirus? According to the latest iteration of the “science” it’s really all the same and just jam it in there, because as the NYT reports, the Food and Drug Administration will allow Americans to “mix and match”, i.e., receive a different Covid-19 vaccine as a booster than the one they initially received, a move that could “reduce the appeal of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and provide flexibility to doctors and other vaccinators.” In other words, the mRNA lobby has just booked the entire second floor at Scores and is hoovering up industrial amounts of Colombian marching powder while surrounded by the best silicone money can rent.

In the latest example that money talks and what was scientific consensus until this morning walks, the government would not recommend one shot over another, and may instead note that using the same vaccine as a booster when possible is preferable, but vaccine providers could use their discretion to offer a different brand, a freedom that state health officials have been requesting for weeks. Maybe one should check if the bank accounts of said state health officials have suddenly seen a mysterious inflow of outside funds that prompted their agitation. In any case, the approach was foreshadowed on Friday, when so-called “researchers” presented the findings of a federally funded “mix and match” study to an expert committee that advises the Food and Drug Administration.

The study found that recipients of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose shot who received a Moderna booster saw their antibody levels rise 76-fold in 15 days, compared with only a fourfold increase after an extra dose of Johnson & Johnson. We can only assume that this “study” is different than the one that took place just a few months ago that prompted the same NYT to report that “Britain Opens Door to Mix-and-Match Vaccinations, Worrying Experts”…… and in which we read that: Some scientists say Britain is gambling with its new guidance. “There are no data on this idea whatsoever,” said John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University. Officials in Britain “seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess.” It now turns out that Britain was simply early in guessing which way a whole lot of bribes money can sway the “science” du jour.

Amusingly, even as the FDA agonizes over greenlighting covid booster shots for Americans younger than 65 – having initially rejected the biotech/pharma lobbied outcome which has been eagerly sought by the Biden admin – Federal regulators this week are aiming to greatly expand the number of Americans eligible for booster shots. As such, the FDA is now expected to authorize boosters of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines by Wednesday evening; it could allow the mix-and-match approach by then. The agency last month authorized booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for at least six months after the second dose. Then, on Thursday, a CDC advisory committee will also take up the booster issue and will then issue its own recommendations (to go ahead and do it because science says “mix and match” is cool). By the end of the week, tens of millions more Americans could be eligible for extra shots.

“And right on cue, it’s time for aspirin-bashing to commence.”

• Is Aspirin the New Horse Dewormer? (Brian C.Joondeph, MD)

Aspirin is one of those drugs that has been around forever. It is commonly used as a pain reliever, anti-inflammatory, and blood thinner. Surprisingly it may also have benefits in treating COVID. A paper in Anesthesia and Analgesia published last spring titled, “Aspirin use is associated with decreased mechanical ventilation, intensive care unit admission, and in-hospital mortality in hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019.” This was a retrospective, observational study of adult patients admitted to multiple hospitals in the U.S. between March and July 2020, in the early days of COVID. The primary outcome addressed by the researchers from George Washington University was the need for mechanical ventilation, which then, and still now, carries an extremely high chance of never leaving the ICU alive.

This was not a gold standard randomized prospective clinical trial. That would not be feasible in this situation since study patients were already hospitalized and critically ill. Remember in the early days, one needed to be extremely ill before even being admitted to the hospital rather than being sent home until sick enough to return and go straight to the ICU. But the results were impressive. As reported last week by the Jerusalem Post, “The team investigated more than 400 COVID patients from hospitals across the United States who take aspirin unrelated to their COVID disease, and found that the treatment reduced the risk of several parameters by almost half: reaching mechanical ventilation by 44%, ICU admissions by 43%, and overall in-hospital mortality by 47%.”

Why would aspirin be helpful for COVID, a respiratory disease? What if COVID is more than simply a lung disease or pneumonia? COVID is actually thought to be a microvascular disease causing blood clots, as described in the medical journal Circulation, “Although most patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) present with a mild upper respiratory tract infection and then recover, some infected patients develop pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, multi-organ failure, and death. Clues to the pathogenesis of severe COVID-19 may lie in the systemic inflammation and thrombosis observed in infected patients. We propose that severe COVID-19 is a microvascular disease in which coronavirus infection activates endothelial cells, triggering exocytosis, a rapid vascular response that drives microvascular inflammation and thrombosis.”

How did aspirin get its start? Over 3,500 years ago, willow bark, known as “nature’s aspirin,” was used as a painkiller and antipyretic by ancient Egyptians and Greeks, and in a chemical synthesis by a Bayer chemist in 1897. Aside from pain relief, it was found to have anti-platelet and anti-cancer effects. It’s also on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines, along with another familiar drug, ivermectin. The Harvard-based physicians’ health study in the 1980s found that low-dose aspirin reduced the risk of heart attack by 44 percent. A recently published Israeli study found, “Aspirin use is associated with better outcomes among COVID-19 positive patients.” This included a lower likelihood of infection, disease duration, and hospital survival. In other words, aspirin works as both a preventative and as a treatment.

Aspirin is another potential therapeutic, along with hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, which is inexpensive, readily available, and relatively safe, and could save countless lives when used appropriately for COVID. An editorial in Anesthesia and Analgesia described aspirin for COVID as, “An old, low-cost therapy with a strong rationale.” And right on cue, it’s time for aspirin-bashing to commence.

“..the question is whether the stress on our society could accumulate to a level in which we would start doing the things that were done in Germany during the Nazi period..”

• The Age of Exterminations (V): Suicide (Ugo Bardi)

In Germany, regular medical doctors used barbiturates to kill children and gas chambers to get rid of adults. Neither the victims nor their families were told of what was being done. Officially, the victims were hospitalized in order to receive some kind of medical treatment, and, later on, families received notice that, unfortunately, their relatives had not survived it. These deaths were not suicides, but there was a certain element of voluntary acceptance of the procedure and it is hard to think that people would not at least suspect what was going on. The human mind is pliant, and probably everyone, including the victims, was doing their best to believe that it was all done for the sake of their health.

In our times, we have methods to get rid of people with their consent that were not available in Nazi Germany. In terms of “substance abuse,” we have a large choice of substances that shorten one’s life expectancy. In some cases, we know that they are bad. In some cases, they are forbidden, although obtainable illegally (heroin, cocaine, and others). In some cases, they are recognized to be harmful, but they are still marketed, although not advertised (tobacco) or advertised with some limitations (alcohol). In other cases, they are heavily advertised and widely available (junk food). We need also to mention that some medical treatments are widely recommended as good for your health, but nobody really knows if they really are (4) and in some cases, it is discovered only later that they are very bad. Maybe you remember the case of Thalidomide, but there are many more in the history of medicine. Surely, there will be more in the future.

Although effective, these substances are slow and messy ways to get rid of people and they may generate negative side effects in terms of diffuse criminality and handicapped people that are expensive to care for. For instance, cocaine taken every day will shorten a person’s life by about 10 years. Morphine will do better, with a 30 years reduction, but, in any case, these methods are too slow to be interesting but for would-be exterminators. It is at least unlikely that the diffusion of heavy drugs in our society is the result of an evil plan of extermination, although some agencies of the deep state may well have a role in the supply and distribution system. At this point, the question is whether the stress on our society could accumulate to a level in which we would start doing the things that were done in Germany during the Nazi period, that is to exterminate people singled out for some physical factor, religious belief, or ideology.

And there is no doubt that our society is heavily stressed although, probably not so heavily as Germany was in 1945 (not yet, at least). Of course, the reaction to this hypothesis normally comes with the sentence “It can’t happen here” and clearly, we are not seeing our government distributing cyanide capsules to the population. Nor are we seeing explicit orders given to doctors to kill their patients. But a basic rule in history is that if something happened once, it may happen again. So, never underestimate what psyops can accomplish, nor how evil the people in power can be! And if they were to start reasoning like the German government did in 1945, they have a number of options that we can only hope will never be put into practice.

“..“Joe Biden’s” vaccination mandate — with no basis in law, by the way — that is destroying most of the critical services industries in the nation: the hospitals, school systems, police forces, firefighters, ambulance squads, airlines, railroads, restaurants, you-name-it. No vaxx, no job for you..”

• Let Us Count the Ways (Kunstler)

Let us count the ways that America is committing suicide by Democratic Party policy. There is, front and center, “Joe Biden’s” vaccination mandate — with no basis in law, by the way — that is destroying most of the critical services industries in the nation: the hospitals, school systems, police forces, firefighters, ambulance squads, airlines, railroads, restaurants, you-name-it. No vaxx, no job for you — and no resuscitation for the unfortunate persons writhing on their kitchen floors in myocardial infarction. I’d say that depriving folks of their livelihoods while ensuring harm and death upon the citizenry is a bad combo for public order. One can easily imagine the righteous wrath building to the point where lamp-posts in capital cities are decorated with the dangling government officials who caused this to happen.

Then there are the vaxxes themselves and the Covid cat that dragged them in. Do you feel all warm and fuzzy over a shot that will turn your body into a spike protein generator, considering how spike proteins behave in a human vascular system? Got any questions or doubts about the number of adverse events seen so far? Looks like more than ten thousand deaths in the USA directly attributable to the vaxxes under the VAERS registry, and millions of injuries around the world. Not to mention the murky origins of the disease, the participation of US public health officials in its design and development, and the colossal profits reaped by the pharma companies that sell the vaxxes. Have you noted the draconian desperation to vaxx up absolutely everybody, despite some excellent reasons for people to say “no thanks?” Does the Big Picture look a little nefarious to you? Like some parties are out to bump off a pretty large number of people — including parties who have stated out loud that steeply reducing the global population would be a swell idea?

In the course of an average day, do you ever think about all the people from around the world who are jumping the US/Mexican border? It’s thousands of them each day, and millions piling in over the year 2021 — under the averted eyes of “Joe Biden” & Co. Some of them are criminal opportunists who — how shall we say — aim to blow shit up in this country. That’s apart from the economic burdens that the nonviolent ones will impose on the nation. Can you blame genuine US citizens from regarding this as an affront to common sense and common decency, not to mention an insult to the law and the constitution behind the law? Well, it is, you know. Since it’s the federal government’s duty to control entry across the border, and since “Joe Biden” directed the border patrol to not perform its duties, will you be surprised if the citizens develop the notion that they will have to defend the border themselves?

Lynn Parramore talks to Jim Chanos. Who knows China.

• Jim Chanos: China’s “Leveraged Prosperity” Model is Doomed (Parramore)

LP: Let’s talk about Evergrande, the Shenzhen developer whose crisis has got everybody worried. How did things get so bad? JC: Last year, as the tech crackdown was gaining momentum, Xi’s administration put down a set of rules called the “three red lines.” They were sort of balance sheet financial tests. It was an attempt to deleverage the real estate developers. LP: Which means he knew something was wrong. JC: Well, here’s the problem. I always joke that when you have an investment-driven economic model, you know your annual GDP on January 1st of that year, because you can stick shovels in the ground to make your growth numbers. That’s how the model works. It’s not a consumption-based model. As we now know — and the Wall Street Journal just had some phenomenal numbers in a recent piece – that real estate construction is now larger than it was when he took office. I would always hear, well, don’t worry: these are smart guys, technocrats who see the problem and will wean themselves off this apartment construction-on-steroids. But they haven’t.

LP: Why haven’t they been able to slow it down? JC: Since we started following China at the end of ’09, this is the fourth time that they’ve attempted to slow the real estate market down, because they do know that this is going to be basically too big to deal with if it keeps growing at the rate it’s growing. But every time they’ve done it, the economy has hit stall speed very quickly, and they panicked. They went from hitting the breaks to hitting the accelerator. That’s why we’ve seen higher levels of real estate. The idea that “I can’t lose buying apartments” became ingrained with bankers, real estate speculators, and the public. LP: So with Evergrande, everyone came to expect a bailout?

JC: I think we’re at that crossroads. The problem is that these companies are so much bigger than they were in 2015 or 2011. Can you bail everybody out? In the case of the developers, you have an additional problem. The biggest amount of liabilities is not necessarily to banks and bondholders. It’s to apartment buyers. Here’s why: the Chinese real estate finance system is exactly the opposite of ours. In our system, when there’s a new development, you’re typically required to put 10% down to sign a contract, with the balance due on closing. You go get your financing and your mortgage proceeds pay for the rest of the house or the apartment.

In China, you pay upfront. You are extending the developer a loan. So, of the $300 billion in liabilities Evergrande owes, I think the biggest chunk, last time I checked, is basically what we would call a deferred revenue item. It’s money that you took in from people, and you owe them an apartment. And the apartments aren’t done, but the money’s been spent. So the problem is not just bailing people out, but the question of who is going to put up more capital to pay off the retail people that have bought apartments that haven’t gotten anything. These numbers are big, and Evergrande is not the only one. There are a handful of developers that are missing interest payments and have their bond prices reflecting distress.

CRT

What is Critical Race Theory? Here's a simple, concise explanation. pic.twitter.com/r2fMLKN3s4

— James Lindsay, champion manspreader (@ConceptualJames) October 18, 2021

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

Debt Rattle October 11 2021

Oct 112021

October 11, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:34 am Finance Tagged with: Amish, China, empty shelves, natural immunity, NewZealand, panic buy, Southwest, war footing 65 Responses »

Paul Gauguin Bathing, Dieppe 1885

• Hundreds of thousands of US Troops Remain Unvaccinated (DM)

• Southwest Cancels 1,800 Flights In 2 Days, Rumours Of Employee ‘Sickout’ (RT)

• More Info Surfaces On Southwest Airlines Flight Cancellations (CTH)

• If This Is True…. (Denninger)

• Judge Rules Against Natural Immunity Claim Challenging Vaccine Mandate (ET)

• Natural Immunity and Covid-19: Twenty-Nine Scientific Studies (BI)

• Amish: No Hospitalization, Isolation Or Vaccines = Herd Immunity (Attkisson)

• China Prepares for Possible Large-Scale COVID-19 Outbreak (ET)

• New Zealand Makes Covid-19 Vaccinations Mandatory For Health Workers (R.)

• Getting Flu With Covid Doubles Risk Of Death, Says UK Health Chief (G.)

• Shelves Stripped Bare As Brits Rush To Panic-buy Ahead Of Christmas (RT)

Molnupiravir
Cost in India: 40 capsules 0.13 USD
Cost in US: 10 capsules: 700 USD

This is a war

The #1 rap song on the iTunes Charts is abut opposing vaccine mandates. Sign of the backlash brewing.

Red Pilled rappers like @HiRezTheRapper @IAMTOMMACDONALD & @ChrisWebby have done more to fight back against covid authoritarianism in the culture than virtually any politician. pic.twitter.com/fWo9BtT3fN

— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) October 10, 2021

“Biden added that country is still on a wartime footing..”

So they can courtmarshal them?

Good luck trying to make the entire army woke.

• Hundreds of thousands of US Troops Remain Unvaccinated (DM)

Hundreds of thousands of United States servicemembers remain unvaccinated or are only partially vaccinated against the coronavirus, as the deadline to have the shot draws closer. The vaccination rates vary between military branches, according to data obtained by the Washington Post, with 98 percent of the active duty Navy fully vaccinated. There are almost 340,000 such personnel, with the two per cent who haven’t been jabbed representing close to 7,000 people. Meanwhile, just 72 percent of the 181,000 active Marine Corps personnel have been vaccinated – meaning close to 51,000 have yet to have the jab. Both branches have to be fully vaccinated by November 28, under the Defense Department’s August mandate.

Figures show that 81 percent of Army members are fully vaccinated. That branch of the military has 485,000 members, with the 19 per cent who remain unvaccinated representing well over 95,000 personnel. And more than 60,000 people in the Air Force have just three weeks to meet their deadline to be fully vaccinated. The rate, though, is worse for members of the Army National Guard and Army Reserves – which have until June to meet the vaccination requirement. Military officials said the rates have varied due to the staggering deadlines, and have expressed hope that the vaccination rates will increase as the deadlines near. Since the pandemic began, about a quarter million service members have been infected with the virus, and more than 2,000 were killed, with a large outbreak last year aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt that showed how quickly the virus could spread in close quarters.

The outbreak served as a wake up call when the ship was sidelined for two months after about 1,100 crew members were infected and one soldier died. In August, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that he was seeking President Joe Biden’s approval to mandate that all service members get vaccinated against the virus. which the president later approved. He said in a statement at the time that he strongly supports Austin’s decision, noting the plan would add the COVID vaccine ‘to the list of required vaccinations for our service members not later than mid-September,’ according to the Associated Press. Biden added that country is still on a wartime footing and ‘being vaccinated will enable our service members to stay healthy, to better protect their families, and to ensure that our force is ready to operate anywhere in the world.’

LA firefighters

WATCH: 871 L.A. city firefighters file notice of intent to sue over the City of Los Angeles’ COVID vaccine mandate.

Firefighters are seeking $1.7 BILLION in damages.

pic.twitter.com/q6DqNDo3W5

— Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) October 9, 2021

A strange denial game. It was the weather…

• Southwest Cancels 1,800 Flights In 2 Days, Rumours Of Employee ‘Sickout’ (RT)

Thousands of passengers that booked Southwest Airlines flights for their weekend travel have been stranded in the US airports after the airline cancelled the flights amid reports of a protest against the vaccine mandate. SouthWest, known for its relatively low prices, cancelled at least 1,018 flights on Sunday, that is in addition to 808 flights that were cancelled on Saturday, US Today reported, citing flight tracking data. In a statement on Saturday, SouthWest blamed the abnormal rate of cancellations on air traffic control issues and “disruptive weather,” adding that they were working to “recover” the operation. However, the situation appeared to have only worsened on Sunday, with SouthWest account on Twitter being inundated by complaints from the disgruntled passengers claiming that flights had been cancelled out of the blue and that the airline’s employees were nowhere to be seen.

“Flight cancelled out of nowhere and now NO ONE is seen at the front desks to assist customers,” actor Kevin Michael Martin complained. Another passenger, who has been apparently stranded at a Dallas, Texas, airport, posted a photo of a long line of people, tweeting: “Ticket agent counter before security is a mess,” to which SouthWest responded by insisting that the chaos was merely a result of “ATC issue and disruptive weather.” “Thanks for hanging in there with us today,” SouthWest said. Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), which represents some 10,000 pilots, also poured cold water on the speculations of an ongoing strike, saying on Sunday that the group was “focused on the safety of our crews, passengers, and overcoming operational challenges, not unofficial job actions.”

However, media citing “airline sources” have reported that air traffic controllers were staging a mass “sickout” or walkout at the federal air traffic control center in Hilliard, Florida, over mandatory vaccinations. The reported protest caused “ripple effect” paralyzing SouthWest operations, Leland Vittert, national correspondent for NewsNation, reported on Twitter. Responding to the rumours of a mass walkout on Sunday afternoon, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) dismissed the report, insisting that “no FAA air traffic staffing shortages have been reported since Friday.” “Flight delays and cancellations occurred for a few hours Friday afternoon due to widespread severe weather, military training and limited staffing in one area of the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center,” the agency said.

Psychiatrist

Dr Kaufman, a short message. pic.twitter.com/yecpa87FFt

— Alison Blunt (@AlisonBlunt) October 10, 2021

“Essentially, the union cannot organize or even acknowledge the sickout, because doing so would make it an illegal job action.”

• More Info Surfaces On Southwest Airlines Flight Cancellations (CTH)

People inside Southwest Airlines are speaking out carefully and pointing out why there are so many flight disruptions. Essentially, the background issues are what were discussed earlier. Pilots are pushing back against vaccine mandates; and if you think about the curriculum vitae of a typical pilot, it makes sense.A big percentage of commercial airline pilots are former military pilots. That group of people carry a strong disposition toward the principles of patriotism, service, liberty and freedom. It is a simple truism that upsets leftists, but it makes sense for this specifically skilled workforce group to be the tip of the push back spear. Alex Berenson provides some background details after being contacted by a Southwest pilot:

“The pilot emailed following the first Southwest post today (and provided his SWA ID to prove his identity). He asked that I paraphrase the email. Essentially, the union cannot organize or even acknowledge the sickout, because doing so would make it an illegal job action. Years ago, Southwest and its pilots had a rough negotiation, and the union would not even let the pilots internally discuss the possibility of working-to-rule (which would have slowed Southwest to a crawl). But at the moment the pilots don’t even have to talk to each other about what they’re doing. The anger internally – not just among pilots but other Southwest workers – is enormous. The tough prior negotiations notwithstanding, Southwest has a history of decent labor relations, and workers believe the company should stand up for them against the mandate. Telling pilots in particular to comply or face termination has backfired.”

[..] Factually I do not believe a federal mandate for a vaccine is even possible or legal. It appears to me that all of Biden’s threats in this regard are simply that, threats. The purpose of the threat is to push people to take the vaccine without actually attempting a legal federal mandate; and that approach so far has been successful. However, now they are going to encounter the more hard-core groups who will not concede liberty or freedom to a federal mandate. It is obvious Anthony Fauci also knows a federal mandate will lose in court when challenged. The fact that Fauci brings up state vaccination requirements for education, as examples of historically forced vaccinations is both a strawman argument and structurally false. There has never been a FEDERAL mandate for any vaccination. All the vaccinations Fauci discusses (ex. his kids) were state mandates. Each state also has a different set of standards and laws for children and vaccines. There is nothing federal.

“I trust animal meds in this sort of context far more than human ones. Go kill someone’s tens-of-millions of dollar racehorse and see how long you live. Whack Fluffy and it will be all over the news for a week..”

• If This Is True…. (Denninger)

“Fun fact: Between 100-200 United States Congress Members (plus many of their staffers & family members) with COVID.. were treated by a colleague over the past 15 months with ivermectin & the I-MASK+ protocol at http://flccc.net. None have gone to hospital. Just sayin’.” There are 535 members of Congress. On the lower boundary this is 19% of the members, plus staff and family or close to one in five. On the upper boundary it is more than a third. Remember folks that doctors have been threatened with loss of their medical licenses for writing prescriptions and chain pharmacies, which are most of them, have in many cases refused to fill said prescriptions. The entire reason people have gone out and bought “pony paste” is that they can’t go to the local doc-in-a-box and get a script for Ivermectin.

Incidentally I trust animal meds in this sort of context far more than human ones. Go kill someone’s tens-of-millions of dollar racehorse and see how long you live. Whack Fluffy and it will be all over the news for a week with the responsible vet run out of town. But killing Granny, if you’re a hospital and can come up with a positive PCR test you get a $33,000 bounty — and everyone, including the media, yawns. Do I believe Ivermectin is the entire answer? No. It wasn’t for me, and I used it when I got Covid in early August. But was it part of the answer? I believe it was. It certainly didn’t kill me and on the data it is about 100 times safer than Tylenol. We have 40 years of data on its safety and it has a risk of seriously harming you of about 1 in 600,000. With close to four billion human doses dispensed and consumed that data is pretty solid; I certainly trust it.

Can you OD on it or worse, find some product that has it and other things in it too and those other drugs are unsafe (or at least untested) in humans? Certainly. But remember folks: We had an out-and-out fraud, a actual medical practitioner, who stated their entire ER was full of people who poisoned themselves with the drug. The hospital, a day or two later when they realized they had been named, issued a formal statement that exactly zero persons had shown up in their Emergency Room having been poisoned by self-administration of Ivermectin. Did anyone go to prison for this lie? Nope. Did that person’s medical ticket get punched permanently for their false presentation? Nope. What sanction was placed on said person for their intentional fraud? None.

Is Covid serious? It certainly can be. While there are predictors of increased risk the fact is that just as with any drug who gets hammered and who does not is not certain. I used a prophylactic protocol for close to a year and a half and despite somewhere around two dozen known exposures I did not get the virus. I was still using that protocol when I finally did get the virus via an exposure that was close enough to get me, but was hardly as close as many of the others. I also was under a serious immune assault due to a yellowjacket swarm during the incubation period; without that I might well have once again avoided infection. There’s no way for me to know that with any degree of certainty.

Jacobson 1905. Wasn’t that about eugenics?

• Judge Rules Against Natural Immunity Claim Challenging Vaccine Mandate (ET)

A federal judge on Oct. 8 denied a request to block Michigan State University’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on the basis of natural immunity. An employee at the school, Jeanna Norris, filed a lawsuit against the mandate and asked a judge to intervene on the basis that she had already contracted COVID-19 and recovered. She presented two antibody tests showing her previous infection, and her doctors told her that she didn’t need to get the vaccine at this time. Despite her natural immunity, Norris faces termination from the university for not complying with the school’s mandate that all students and staff get the shot unless they have a medical or religious exemption.

U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, declined her lawsuit. The mandate, Maloney said, didn’t violate her fundamental rights and pointed to a 1905 Supreme Court ruling. “This Court must apply the law from the Supreme Court: Jacobson essentially applied rational basis review and found that the vaccine mandate was rational in ‘protect[ing] the public health and public safety,’” Maloney said in his order. “The Court cannot ignore this binding precedent.”

[..] “Ms. Norris courageously brought this lawsuit to vindicate the constitutional rights of individuals with naturally acquired immunity to COVID-19 who are subject to irrational vaccine mandates,” Jenin Younes, a lawyer who works for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, who represents Norris, told the paper. “While we are disappointed by today’s order, we are committed to fighting for the rights of COVID-recovered Americans to decline a medically unnecessary vaccine without having to sacrifice their livelihoods.” It comes just days after a federal judge in California ruled against a professor who argued that his previous infection should make him exempt from the University of California’s vaccine requirement.

“..people who prefer an exposure risk to the virus in order to gain robust immunity deserve the freedom to make that choice.”

• Natural Immunity and Covid-19: Twenty-Nine Scientific Studies (BI)

From the beginning of the March 2020 lockdowns for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the subject of natural immunity (also called post-infection immunity) has been neglected. Once the vaccination became widely available, what began with near silence at the beginning turned nearly into a complete blackout of the topic. Even now, there is an absence of open discussion, presumably in the interests of promoting universal vaccination and required documentation of such vaccination as a condition of participating in public life and even the jobs marketplace. Still, the science exists. Many studies exist. Their authors deserve credit, recognition, and to have their voices heard.

These studies demonstrate what was and is already known: natural immunity for a SARS-type virus is robust, long-lasting, and broadly effective even in the case of mutations, generally more so than vaccines. In fact, a major contribution of 20th-century science has been to expand upon and further elucidate this principle that has been known since the ancient world. Every expert presumably knew this long before the current debates. The effort to pretend otherwise is a scientific scandal of the highest order, especially because the continued neglect of the topic is affecting the rights and freedoms of billions of people.

People who have contracted the virus and recovered deserve recognition. For that matter, people who prefer an exposure risk to the virus in order to gain robust immunity deserve the freedom to make that choice. The realization that natural immunity – which pertains now to perhaps half of the US population and billions around the world – is effective in providing protection should have a dramatic effect on vaccine mandates. Individuals whose livelihoods and liberties are being deprecated and deleted need access to the scientific literature as it pertains to this virus. They should send a link to this page far and wide. The scientists have not been silent; they just haven’t received the public attention they deserve.

“You’re changing our culture completely to try to act like they wanted us to act the last year, and we’re not going to do it.”

• Amish: No Hospitalization, Isolation Or Vaccines = Herd Immunity (Attkisson)

The Amish are a Christian group that emphasizes the virtuous over the superficial. They don’t usually drive, use electricity, or have TVs. And during the Covid-19 outbreak, they became subjects in a massive social and medical experiment. Sharyl: So, it’s safe to say there was a whole different approach here in this community when coronavirus broke out than many other places? Calvin Lapp: Absolutely. Calvin Lapp is Amish Mennonite. Lapp: There’s three things the Amish don’t like. And that’s government— they won’t get involved in the government, they don’t like the public education system— they won’t send their children to education, and they also don’t like the health system. They rip us off.

Those are three things that we feel like we’re fighting against all the time. Well, those three things are all part of what Covid is. After a short shutdown last year, the Amish chose a unique path that led to Covid-19 tearing through at warp speed. It began with an important religious holiday in May. Lapp: When they take communion, they dump their wine into a cup and they take turns to drink out of that cup. So, you go the whole way down the line, and everybody drinks out of that cup, if one person has coronavirus, the rest of church is going to get coronavirus. The first time they went back to church, everybody got coronavirus. Lapp says they weren’t denying coronavirus, they were facing it head on.

Lapp: It’s a worse thing to quit working than dying. Working is more important than dying. But to shut down and say that we can’t go to church, we can’t get together with family, we can’t see our old people in the hospital, we got to quit working? It’s going completely against everything that we believe. You’re changing our culture completely to try to act like they wanted us to act the last year, and we’re not going to do it.

Recognize this?

“..you can be quarantined at any time and put in a quarantine site. And the quarantine sites can also be a place of political persecution,” Lin said.”

• China Prepares for Possible Large-Scale COVID-19 Outbreak (ET)

The Chinese regime has notified local authorities to prepare for a large-scale outbreak of COVID-19, according to leaked internal documents obtained by the Chinese Epoch Times. One document, titled “Notice of Further Strengthening of Epidemic Prevention” was issued by the Chinese regime’s State Council, and forwarded by Fujian provincial government to local authorities on Sept. 30. The other is a “National Day Epidemic Prevention Notice” issued by the State Council on Oct. 1 and distributed by the Fujian provincial officials to local authorities. The documents are both marked “extra urgent.” Both notices request enhanced preparations for an emergency response to the outbreak, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) putting forward at least two standards for local authorities.

One is to build central isolation sites, with local authorities required by the end of October to set up isolation centers and rooms of not less than 20 rooms per 10,000 people. The scale of each isolation site must be more than 100 rooms. According to public data, the population of Fujian Province in 2020 was 41.54 million. As of Sept. 19, the province has set up 35,691 quarantine rooms in 296 central sites. Based on the standard in the epidemic prevention notice, Fujian Province will need to build at least 83,000 quarantine rooms by the end of October, which is around 47,000 rooms in less than a month. According to one expert, the requirements for the COVID-19 quarantine sites reveal the real situation of the pandemic in China. Dr. Sean Lin, a former virology researcher at the U.S. Army Research Institute, told The Epoch Times: “This reflects the CCP’s concern about the rise of the epidemic. It must have been concealing the true epidemic in mainland China, otherwise it would not suddenly issue a national notice of emergency preparedness.”

“Notice of Further Strengthening of Epidemic Prevention” requires the establishment of a five-layered control system. It states: “Township and street CCP cadres, community grid staff, grassroots medical workers, police, and volunteers shall jointly implement community epidemic prevention,” such as “strictly implement[ing] community prevention and control,” or locking down residential communities. Lin said that the control system is actually to tighten social management in local areas, and “the CCP’s purpose is to tighten control.” “If there is no nucleic acid test, all the CCP’s epidemic prevention measures are the same as political campaigns. For example, you can be quarantined at any time and put in a quarantine site. And the quarantine sites can also be a place of political persecution,” Lin said.

New Zealand is walking backwards.

• New Zealand Makes Covid-19 Vaccinations Mandatory For Health Workers (R.)

New Zealand will require teachers and workers in the health and disability sectors to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday, as she extended restrictions in Auckland, its largest city, for another week. New Zealand is fighting the highly infectious Delta outbreak that forced it to abandon its long-standing strategy of eliminating the new coronavirus amid persistent infections and is looking to live with the virus through higher vaccinations. “New Zealand is at one of the trickiest and most challenging moments in the COVID-19 pandemic so far,” Ardern told reporters in Wellington. Ardern, however, said “there is a clear path forward” in the next few months to live with fewer curbs and more freedoms once the country reaches a higher level of vaccinations.

About 2.38 million New Zealanders have so far been fully vaccinated, or about 57% of the eligible population, with officials promising to end lockdowns once 90% of the eligible population is vaccinated. Health and disability sector workers will have to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 1, while school and early learning staff must get their two doses by Jan. 1, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said. The decision of mandatory vaccinations comes as New Zealand reported 35 new cases, all of them in Auckland, down from 60 on Sunday, taking the total cases in the current outbreak to 1,622. Having largely controlled the virus last year, New Zealand has recorded just over 4,600 cases and 28 deaths.

Psychologist

Please SHARE with compassion and empathy ❤️

Ros Nealon-Cook: Registered Psychologist with the Psychology Board of Australia #Auspol #FreedomDay

1/2 pic.twitter.com/IgAqJht7Au

— Martin Place Bets (@martinplacebets) October 11, 2021

Nothing the UK Health Security Agency chief executive says makes any sense to me.

Do people really believe there was no flu last year?

• Getting Flu With Covid Doubles Risk Of Death, Says UK Health Chief (G.)

People who catch flu and Covid at the same time this winter are twice as likely to die than those who only have coronavirus, according to the UK Health Security Agency chief executive, Dr Jenny Harries. The former deputy chief medical officer for England warned that the UK faces an “uncertain” winter – with both flu and Covid-19 circulating for the first time – and urged people to take up both the coronavirus and flu jabs if eligible. Asked how worried the public should be about flu this winter, she told Sky’s Trevor Phillips On Sunday: “We should be worried about flu each winter. I think people still don’t realise it can be a fatal disease.

“But I think the important thing about this winter is, we are likely to see flu, for the first time in any real numbers, co-circulating with Covid. So the risks of catching both together still remain. And if you do that, then early evidence suggests that you are twice as likely to die from having two together than just having Covid alone. “So I think it’s an uncertain winter ahead – that’s not a prediction, it’s an uncertain feature – but we do know that flu cases have been lower in the previous year so immunity and the strain types are a little more uncertain,” she said. Harries also warned that the UK could have a multi-strain flu this year, with lowered immunity, as last year’s Covid restrictions meant that levels of the virus were extremely low.

She said that on average, about 11,000 people will die from flu each year. “The difference here is because we have, if you like, skipped a year almost with flu, it’s possible we might see multi-strain flu – we usually get one strain predominating,” she added. Harries said there are four strains of virus in this year’s flu vaccine, after taking advice from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and looking to countries in the southern hemisphere, where winter and therefore flu season arrives earlier.

“So we’ve got a pretty good array in our toolbox to try and hit whichever one becomes dominant but it could be more than one this year, and people’s immunity will be lower. So I think the real trick here is to get vaccinated in both Covid and flu, but obviously to continue to do those good hygiene behaviours that we’ve been practising all through Covid”, Harries added. Harries also said that making children wear masks in school would not be at the top of her list of Covid-safe measures.

A can of spam for Christmas

• Shelves Stripped Bare As Brits Rush To Panic-buy Ahead Of Christmas (RT)

The supply crisis in Britain has worsened as deep concerns over supply-chain woes, soaring energy bills, and staff shortages prompted millions of locals to stockpile festive essentials ahead of Christmas, leaving shelves empty. About eight million Britons were unable to purchase essential food for two weeks between September 22 and October 3, while one in six said they were struggling to find non-essential items, according to data tracked by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Two-thirds of British shoppers polled by retail magazine The Grocer were worried or very worried at the prospect of food and drink shortages over Christmas.Hundreds of thousands of British consumers have reportedly booked their delivery slots for Christmas.

Nearly 22,000 slots had been reserved by lunchtime on the first day after supermarket chain Waitrose made dates available last week. Britain has been struggling with a series of severe crises due to supply shortages attributed to several factors, including the Covid-19 pandemic, soaring gas prices, and breaching of trade and labour relations with the European Union. Last week, London called in the army to help the authorities ease the fuel crisis by providing troops and transport to make deliveries to petrol stations after many of the outlets ran dry due to panic buying. Earlier, the UK government issued more than 10,000 three-month visas for drivers of fuel tankers and food lorries, as well as poultry workers. The step was taken to tackle a severe labour crisis that has had an enormous negative impact on food retailers, fast-food chains, and distributors of fuels.

Ode to Joy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1447120940744253441

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

Older Entries Newer Entries