May 082022
 


Edgar Degas L’absinthe (In a café) 1875-76

 

“The Bitter Truth Is: Putin Can Win The War” (Blick)
Megalopolis x Russia: Total War (Escobar)
CIA: No ‘Practical Evidence’ Russia Is Preparing To Use Nukes (AMNA/FT)
The Third Patriotic War (Batiushka)
Biden Was ‘Livid’ Over Leaks About American Intel Used by Ukrainians (Celente)
Ukraine Is None Of America’s Business! (Zuesse)
White House Yields To A National Rage Addiction (Turley)
VP of Pfizer Arrested After #Pfizerdocuments Get Released (VT)
Vaxxed Hospitalised for Non-Covid Reasons at 5 Times the Rate of Unvaxxed (DS)
Preventable Deaths and Vitamin D3 (Malone)
Attenuated Viruses In Vaccines Cause Rise In Deadly Hepatitis In Children (DE)
Fully Vaccinated Are Developing Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (DE)
Study: Masks Might Make Covid Worse (CS)
This Is The List Of WEF Graduates (Malone Institute)
Mexico Calls for Latin American Lithium Alliance (RKC)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kheriaty

 

 

Why did it take you so long to invent this link?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Google translate from German.

The more bitter truth is the Ukraine can NOT win.

“The Bitter Truth Is: Putin Can Win The War” (Blick)

Russia appears to be making little progress with its invasion of Ukraine. But appearances could be deceiving. Because according to Markus Reisner, Austria’s top military strategist, Ukraine’s situation is much worse than is believed in the West. Putin’s tanks aren’t making any headway, Russian soldiers are surrendering, and soon Russia can no longer afford the war. Again and again breakdowns in the Russian military are known. It almost seems as if Ukraine can win the war. But the impression could be hugely deceptive. Russia is probably much stronger than people think in this country. At least the Austrian colonel and top military strategist Markus Reisner is convinced of this: “We need an objective picture of the situation. It doesn’t help us if we talk ourselves into the fact that the Russian attackers are in a bad state,” he explains in “Welt”.

“Because that belies how the situation really is.” Reisner expects further escalations in the Donbass in the next two to three weeks. According to him, these fights will be particularly fierce “because the Russians are now trying to bring about a decision”. The Ukrainians could defend themselves with American drones, among other things. But according to the military strategist, that will hardly be enough. «Ukraine urgently needs new weapons. The arms deliveries from the West are now a race against time,” Reisner believes. Because the western deliveries of heavy weapons had started too late. And in addition, Russia would capture or destroy a “not inconsiderable part” of the arms deliveries. In the meantime, the Kremlin has even published manuals on how to operate the captured weapons and how to use them against Ukraine.

“And that has already happened,” said the military expert. “According to US information, the weapons that the West brings to Ukraine within a week are used up within a day, i.e. used immediately by the Ukrainians or captured or destroyed by the Russians.” According to Reisner, Russia now wants to form two pincers in the Donbass near Izyum and Donetsk in order to encircle the Ukrainian troops. “The problem is that the positions of the Ukrainians in this area are not as strong as on the old contact line, i.e. in the east of Kramatorsk,” the Austrian fears. In the past, Ukraine has also had success using special forces to ambush Russian soldiers. But this tactic no longer works.

Reisner: “It worked elsewhere for the first six weeks, but now the Russians are prepared and the Russian special forces (Spetsnaz) are chasing the Ukrainian special forces and unfortunately destroying them quite often.” According to Markus Reisner, don’t let the slow progress of the Russians fool you. The Russians are now advancing “slowly, broadly and with massive infantry support, with the tanks being secured to the right and left by further armored trains.” Although the attackers can only manage about 1.5 kilometers per hour, they can avoid being ambushed.

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“..Russia’s superior engineers is why their hypersonic weapons are at least two or three generations ahead of the U.S…”

Megalopolis x Russia: Total War (Escobar)

Russia, based on purchasing power parity (PPP), is the 6th economy in the world, right behind Germany and ahead of both the UK and France. Its “hard” economy is similar to the U.S. Steel production may be about the same, but intellectual capacity is vastly superior. Russia has roughly the same number of engineers as the U.S., but they are much better educated. The Mossad attributes Israel’s economic miracle in creating an equivalent of Silicon Valley to a base of a million Russian immigrants. This Israeli Silicon Valley happens to be a key asset of the American MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex), as indelibly named by Ray McGovern.

NATOstan media hysterically barking that Russia’s GDP is the size of Texas is nonsense. PPP is what really counts; that and Russia’s superior engineers is why their hypersonic weapons are at least two or three generations ahead of the U.S. Just ask the indispensable Andrei Martyanov. The Empire of Lies has no defensive missiles worthy of the name, and no equivalents to Mr. Zircon and Mr. Sarmat. The NATOstan sphere simply cannot win a war, any war against Russia for this reason alone. The deafening NATOstan “narrative” that Ukraine is defeating Russia does not even qualify as an innocuous joke (compare it with Russia’s “Reach Out and Touch Someone” strategy). The corrupt system of SBU fanatics intermingled with UkroNazi factions is kaput. The Pentagon knows it. The CIA cannot possibly admit it.

What the Empire of Lies has sort of won, so far, is a media “victory” for the UkroNazis, not a military victory. Gen Aleksandr Dvornikov, of Syria fame, has a clear mandate: to conquer the whole of Donbass, totally free up Crimea and prepare the advance towards Odessa and Transnistria while reducing a rump Ukraine to the status of failed state without any access to the sea. The Sea of Azov – linked to the Caspian by the Don-Volga canal – is already a Russian lake. And the Black Sea is next, the key connection between the Heartland and the Mediterranean. The Five Seas system – Black, Azov, Caspian, Baltic, White – enshrines Russia as a de facto continental naval power. Who needs warm waters?

Gonzalo Poland

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The most credible voice in the West. Putin has no reason to “contemplate losing”..

CIA: No ‘Practical Evidence’ Russia Is Preparing To Use Nukes (AMNA/FT)

CIA does not have any “practical evidence” that Russia is getting ready to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, its director, Bill Burns, said Saturday. Burns, a veteran diplomat, was speaking at the “Weekend Festival” organized by the Financial Times in Washington, DC. But, he added, “we can’t take lightly those possibilities” given Russia’s saber-rattling. Russia had announced shortly after its invasion of Ukraine began, on Feb. 24, that it had placed its nuclear deterrence forces under heightened alert and Russian President Vladimir Putin had threatened a “swift retaliation” on any third party intervening in the war. Burns said he believed Putin is determined to pursue the war and cannot contemplate losing. “[Putin] is in a frame of mind in which he doesn’t believe he can afford to lose; so the stakes are quite high in this phase,” he said.


“I think he’s convinced right now that doubling down … will enable him to make progress,” he added. The CIA Director also said that China is closely following developments in the Ukraine to find lessons in its own strategy to gain control of Taiwan. China has never made a secret of its belief that it considers Taiwan an integral part of its territory, adding that China was also “dismayed” by “the fact that what Putin has done is driving Europeans and Americans closer together.” “It strikes us … that (Chinese President) Xi Jinping is a little bit unsettled by the reputational damage that can come to China by the association with the brutishness of Russia’s aggression against Ukrainians [and] unsettled certainly by the economic uncertainty that’s been produced by the war,” Burns said.

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“If Russia does not win, the Russian Federation will be humiliated and dismantled and become just another group of colonies for Western asset-strippers and slavers.”

The Third Patriotic War (Batiushka)

Russia must win this War against NATO. However, the last thing Russia wants is a nuclear war, however much some fools in the West talk that up. And however tempting as targets the 1,000 or so US bases around the world may be, Russia certainly does not want the war to spread outside the current Ukrainian territory. If Russia does not win, the Russian Federation will be humiliated and dismantled and become just another group of colonies for Western asset-strippers and slavers. Then the British dream for its 1917 coup d’etat, turned into a nightmare because the stupid dream permitted Bolshevism to come to power, will become real.


After that, China will fall next and then the rest of the still free, if for the moment impoverished and exploited, world will fall just like dominos into neo-colonial Western hands. And that will be the end of the world under a US Global Dictatorship, euphemistically known as ‘the Unipolar World’. We are not ready for that. We prefer to fight. As President Putin has said, a world without Russia is not one we wish to live in. As we have said before, this is our ONLY chance to work towards a Union of Sovereign (NOT Soviet) Social (NOT Socialist) Republics and an Alliance of countries which favour Prosperity and Justice, not Poverty and Injustice.

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I don’t think Biden is capable of being livid over anything anymore. Even if he’s known for a mean temper.

Biden Was ‘Livid’ Over Leaks About American Intel Used by Ukrainians (Celente)

President Joe Biden was furious that senior U.S. officials went to the media about Washington sharing intel with Ukrainians that may have resulted in the sinking of Russia’s flagship and the killings of about a dozen Russian generals, according to a report. Thomas Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times, wrote Friday that his sources in D.C. implied that the leaks were not “part of any thought-out strategy,” and Biden was “livid” when he learned about them. Friedman said Biden got on the phone with the head of national intelligence and CIA to demand that these leaks end because it was inching the U.S. closer to conflict.

Friedman wrote: “Vladimir Putin surely has no illusions about how much the U.S. and NATO are arming Ukraine with material and intelligence, but when American officials start to brag in public about playing a role in killing Russian generals and sinking the Russian flagship, killing many sailors, we could be creating an opening for Putin to respond in ways that could dangerously widen this conflict — and drag the U.S. in deeper than it wants to be.” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board last week called out Pope Francis for hinting that NATO shared some of the blame for the Ukraine war when he accused the Alliance of “barking at Russia’s gate.” Anyone with even an elementary understanding of what happened in Ukraine knows that the U.S. refused to negotiate in good faith with Russia over Moscow’s security concerns about Kyiv joining the Alliance.

So it was not unreasonable to hear the pope point that out. But the Journal took several issues with the pope, including his hope to meet with Putin. The paper wrote: The Pope said he has requested an audience with Mr. Putin but hasn’t heard back. Asked whether he’d visit Kyiv, he said he must go to Moscow first: “If Putin decided to leave the door open . . . ” This is a pattern. Recall that the Pope declined to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2020, at least partly because of America’s opposition to the Vatican’s egregious deal-making with the Chinese Communist Party. The paper seems to take personal offense that Francis believes it would be a more important trip to meet with Putin than the comedian, like all the political whores from the West.

America The Jesuit Review wrote that Francis explores this idea in his book “Evangelii Gaudium.” When looking at conflict, the pope explains, some people ignore it while others get sucked into it. But imagine a third way: Face the problem head-on and make it the start of a new process. As the pope reassures us, “Trust what God is doing through you.”

Biden salad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1522679779065057281

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“The heads-of-state of U.S.-and-allied countries should therefore be removed and prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in order to halt WW III before it reaches the nuclear stage.”

Ukraine Is None Of America’s Business! (Zuesse)

Russia never coup-grabbed Mexico, but in February 2014, America coup-grabbed Ukraine. That was an act of war against Russia (in order to steal Russia’s naval base in Crimea and in order for America to become able to place U.S. nukes in Ukraine only a five-minute missile-striking-distance away from obliterating Moscow), and Russia responded to America’s blatant aggression by allowing the residents in the region of Ukraine that the Soviet dictator had transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, Crimea, to vote on whether they should remain in Ukraine or be returned to Russia. Over 90% of them voted to return to being Russians.

For this democratic response by Russia to America’s Ukrainian coup (and to America’s attempt to grab Russia’s naval base in Crimea to transform it into a U.S. naval base there), America and its vassal nations repeatedly sanctioned Russia — another step in America’s World War III aggression against Russia — and refused even to consider Russia’s demand that Ukraine must never be a member of America’s anti-Russian military alliance NATO or otherwise become a staging-area for a possible U.S.-and-allied invasion of Russia (a modern-day version of Adolf Hitler’s “Operation Barbarossa” blitz-attack to grab Russia). The heads-of-state of U.S.-and-allied countries should therefore be removed and prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in order to halt WW III before it reaches the nuclear stage.

If this would violate any laws, then it still must at least be attempted, in order to force the ‘news’-media in those countries to report on what is really at issue in the ‘war between Russia and Ukraine’, which is America’s empire and its world-endangering war against Russia (now using Ukraine as America’s proxy-soldiers and WW III introductory battleground). That is “aggressive war,” not any sort of defensive war by America and its vassal-nations. As such, it violates the U.N. Charter; and if the non-U.S.-allied nations won’t do everything they possibly can to defeat America at this stage in its global war of aggression against Russia, then the consequences of their collective failure in this matter will assuredly be the elimination of the entire world as we know it.

A post-WW-III world would be far worse for its survivors than it would be for its billions of non-survivors. The burden of guilt now is, consequently, not only upon the regimes that are seeking to expand yet further the American empire, but it is also upon the bystander nations, whose fates are also on the line in this matter. The fate of everyone is. And this is why everyone — and not ONLY the U.S. and its vassal-nations — must become actively involved here, to prevent the nuclear phase (which would be its final phase, and would be completed in considerably less than an hour). Imperialism must finally meet its match, to end it, for all time, before it ends all of us.

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Yield? They actively use it.

White House Yields To A National Rage Addiction (Turley)

Nearly 70 years ago, a little-known lawyer named Joseph Welch famously confronted Sen. Joseph McCarthy (D-Wis.) in defense of a young man hounded over alleged un-American views. Welch told McCarthy that “I think I have never really gauged … your recklessness” before asking: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” It was a defining moment in American politics as Welch called out a politician who had abandoned any semblance of principle in the pursuit of political advantage. This week, the same scene played out in the White House with one striking difference: This was no Joseph Welch to be found.

After someone in the Supreme Court leaked a draft opinion in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a virtual flash-mob formed around the court and its members demanding retributive justice. This included renewed calls for court “packing,” as well as the potential targeting of individual justices at their homes. Like the leaking of the opinion itself, the doxing of justices and their families is being treated as fair game in our age of rage. There is more than a license to this rage; there is an addiction to it. That was evident in March 2020 when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stood in front of the Supreme Court to threaten Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh by name: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Schumer’s reckless rhetoric was celebrated, not condemned, by many on the left, even after he attempted to walk it back by stating that “I should not have used the words I used … they did not come out the way I intended to.” What occurred at the White House this week is even more troubling. When asked for a response to the leaking of a justice’s draft opinion, White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to condemn the leaker and said the real issue was the opinion itself. Then she was asked about the potential targeting of justices and their families at their homes, and whether that might be considered extreme. It should have been another easy question; few Americans would approve of such doxing, particularly since some of the justices have young children at home. Yet Psaki declared that “I don’t have an official U.S. government position on where people protest,” adding that “peaceful protest is not extreme.”

Magnetic doors
https://twitter.com/i/status/1487517697961345025

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Can’t see what he’s been charged with, if anything.

VP of Pfizer Arrested After #Pfizerdocuments Get Released (VT)

Rady Johnson, the executive Vice President of Pfizer, has been arrested at his home and charged with multiple counts of fraud by federal agents. He was taken into custody and is awaiting a bail hearing. This comes as 1,000s of classified documents from Pfizer were released, showing the true risks of the experimental vaccine. As a result of Rady’s arrest, the hashtag #pfizerdocuments has started trending on Twitter. Multiple celebrities are now calling for other employees at Pfizer to be arrested.


Since joining Pfizer in 1994, Rady held multiple high level positions in the company. Rady previously lead the Regulatory Law practice group as well as the Corporate Regulatory and Healthcare Law Audit functions. Keean Bexte, an independent journalist formerly employed by Rebel News, pointed out how 1,223 people died within the first 28 days after taking the Pfizer jab. There are reports that the vaccine killed all the animals during the trial. A judge has granted a media blackout on request of Rady’s lawyers, and Google is suppressing search results. Rady faces life in prison if convicted.

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Your immune system went out the window.

Vaxxed Hospitalised for Non-Covid Reasons at 5 Times the Rate of Unvaxxed (DS)

Over the past 15 months we’ve had a barrage of statistics presented to us shouting about how great the vaccines are at preventing hospitalisation from (or with) Covid. However, these statistics have been light on detail on how they were calculated and we’ve not seen much sight at all of the raw data that the statistics were based upon. Until now. In April, a paper was published by the UKHSA (currently in pre-print, which means that it hasn’t yet undergone the usual peer-review process) on its statistical analysis of a selection of hospitalisation data by vaccination status. The intent of this paper was to support its statements that the vaccines prevent hospitalisation. However, the paper also includes the raw data upon which the UKHSA statistics were derived, and these data tell a very different story to that presented by the UKHSA. The data show:


• Far higher accident and emergency admission rates for reasons other than Covid in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated.
• Much higher rates of hospitalisation due to non-Covid acute respiratory illness in the vaccinated.
• Even higher A&E admissions and hospitalisations in the double-vaccinated (not boosted).
• Even where the data suggest that the vaccines offer some protection (the risk of admission to intensive care resulting from Covid infection) the results look like they might be an artefact created by the assumptions used by the UKHSA.

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Hope everyone’s taking their 5,000 IU daily, and not just for Covid.

Preventable Deaths and Vitamin D3 (Malone)

We had an inexpensive life-saving solution both before and during the pandemic… The inconvenient truth is that even at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a very simple, inexpensive and effective treatment was available that could have saved the majority of lives lost. All that the WHO and public health bureaucracy had to do was to recommend and support people taking sufficient Vitamin D3. This failure to act traces back to the unscientific bias and pro-vaccine obsession of Dr. Anthony Fauci. And once again the legacy media, while being paid by the US government and the pharmaceutical industry to promote vaccination, acted by censoring, defaming and suppressing the ability of physicians to inform people of scientific truth. The disease you suffered, the loss of life among your family and friends, could have been greatly reduced by simply getting enough Vitamin D3. This is another example of what happens when unelected bureaucrats are allowed to control free speech. Crimes against humanity.

The effectiveness of Vitamin D3 as an immune system-boosting prophylactic treatment for influenza and other respiratory RNA viruses was first discovered in 2006. Despite that fact that this treatment is amazingly effective for preventing death (by strengthening your immune system), it has never been investigated by the NIH, promoted by the CDC or by the US government for the treatment of influenza. One major issue has been that uncontrolled variables of dosing, timing of dosing and disease status have resulted in inconsistent clinical trial results (much as we have seen with the Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine COVID trials). However, when Vitamin D3 is given prophylactically at sufficient doses, there is clear and compelling evidence that Vitamin D blood levels of around 50 ng/ml will substantially reduce symptomatic infection, severe disease and mortality.

Longstanding worldwide public health policy is that Vitamin D should be taken at sufficient levels (typically supplemented in milk products) to prevent the bone disease called rickets. But this is just a minimal level to prevent a very obvious debilitating disease. The recommended Vitamin D levels in our milk are not sufficient for the more subtle immune system-boosting effects of this critical vitamin. Our bodies’ way of normally producing Vitamin D requires a lot of sunlight, but life in the modern world and northern latitudes make this difficult- particular in winter months which is often when the respiratory viruses cause the most disease and death. In a sense, disease and death from Influenza and other respiratory RNA viruses are a lifestyle disease. Just the way things are. Largely avoidable unnecessary death.

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Trojan virus.

Attenuated Viruses In Vaccines Cause Rise In Deadly Hepatitis In Children (DE)

The mystery hepatitis cases have recently been recorded in 14 states across America. Doctors in Ohio have reported 7 cases in children as young as 18 months, and North Dakota confirmed their first case on 5th May. As of the same date, six children have required a liver transplant and one has died. Could the actual reason for essentially banning the use of the Janssen vaccine instead have something to do with medicine regulators’ fears that the accentuated adenovirus it contains has gone rogue? Both the J&J and AstraZeneca Covid-19 injections are viral vector gene therapies. Both allegedly work by doing the following – First, the DNA instructions to create the SARS-CoV-2 antigen (spike protein; not the full SARS-CoV-2 virus) are inserted into a modified virus (adenovirus).

Then after the “vaccine” is injected into an individual, the viral vector delivers the spike protein DNA instructions to cells resulting in large amounts of the spike protein antigen. The resulting immune response to SARS-CoV-2 allegedly helps mimic what occurs during natural infection and results in a cellular immune response. The current theory, however, is that the adenovirus now circulating has been born from the AstraZeneca vaccine. Which would suggest the FDA have suspended the Janssen jab to prevent it from doing exactly the same thing. But that doesn’t mean the J&J jab isn’t the actual culprit.

The UK was the first country to roll-out the adenovirus based AstraZeneca Covid-19 injection en masse in January 2021, and it was also the first country to report an unusual increase in hepatitis cases of unknown cause among children. Just a coincidence? The theory behind the AstraZeneca virus going rogue is that the virus contained in the vaccine combines with the E1 gene from another circulating adenovirus, of which there are many. The result is a replicating ChAdOx1 virus.

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Hard to explain, because people think AIDS=HIV.

Fully Vaccinated Are Developing Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (DE)

Official data made available by the U.S. Government and Centers for Disease Control strongly suggests that fully vaccinated Americans are developing Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. But they are not alone, because further data made available by the UK Government and the Government of Canada suggests the vaccinated population in both of these respective countries are also developing the debilitating condition. It’s a common misconception that Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is only caused by the HIV virus. This simply isn’t true. Acquired (or secondary) immunodeficiency is one of the major causes of infections in adults. These immunodeficiency disorders affect your immune system partially or as a whole, making your body an easy target for several diseases and infections. When immunodeficiency disorders affect your immune system, your body can no longer fight bacteria and diseases. Several factors in the environment can cause secondary immunodeficiency disorders.

Some common ones are:
• Radiation or chemotherapy, which can lead to a secondary immunodeficiency disorder known as neutropenia
• Infections due to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can result in acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)
• Leukaemia, a cancer that begins in the cells of the bone marrow that can lead to hypogammaglobulinemia—a type of secondary immunodeficiency
• Malnutrition, which affects up to 50% of populations in underdeveloped countries and leaves people vulnerable to respiratory infections and diarrhoea


But some of the less common causes include Drugs or medications. So it’s perfectly possible for a medication or drug to cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, and data published by the U.S Government and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) strongly suggests the Covid-19 injections should be added to the list. For months on end, official data coming out of both the UK and Canada has strongly insinuated that the vaccinated population are developing a nee form of AIDS. This is because the Covid-19 injections are proving to have a real-world negative effectiveness, implying that they are causing damage to the natural immune system.

Geert

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Large study.

Study: Masks Might Make Covid Worse (CS)

In the peer-reviewed study published in the journal Cureus, Dr. Beny Spira reviewed every European country with at least 1 million people between October 2020 – March 2021, when “the entire continent was undergoing an outburst of COVID-19.” Mask mandates and compliance across these countries varied significantly, from 5 per cent to 95 per cent. By comparing each respective country’s infection and death statistics, along with these mask-wearing percentages, Spira drew two conclusions: “While no cause-effect conclusions could be inferred from this observational analysis, the lack of negative correlations between mask usage and COVID-19 cases and deaths suggest that the widespread use of masks at a time when an effective intervention was most needed, i.e., during the strong 2020-2021 autumn-winter peak, was not able to reduce COVID-19 transmission.


Moreover, the moderate positive correlation between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe also suggests that the universal use of masks may have had harmful unintended consequences.” Of course, previous studies draw contrary conclusions, but Spira argues they falsely attributed mask mandates as having efficacy when in reality, they were implemented at the tail end of COVID waves.

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Download xls. list from inside the article.

This Is The List Of WEF Graduates (Malone Institute)

The WEF graduates and members are Foreign Agents. The full title of the US Foreign Principal Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) is “An Act to require the registration of certain persons employed by agencies to disseminate propaganda in the United States and for other purposes.” Citing Wikipedia, “The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) (2 U.S.C. § 611 et seq.) is a United States law requiring persons engaged in domestic political or advocacy work on behalf of foreign interests to register with the Department of Justice and disclose their relationship, activities, and related financial compensation. Its purpose is to allow the government and general public to be informed of the identities of individuals representing the interests of foreign governments or entities. The law is administered and enforced (or not…) by the FARA Unit of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD).”


The Malone Institute (primarily Dr. Jill Glasspool-Malone and Anita Hasbury-Snogles), in collaboration with the Pharos foundation and Pharos Media Productions in Sweden, has invested months of time and hundreds of labor hours to mine existing and historic publicly available data sources to develop a detailed summary of graduates from two WEF training programs; the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders of Tomorrow (a one-year program that ran from 1993 to 2003) and Young Global Leaders (a five-year program started 2004/2005 and still running). These people have been intentionally and internationally deployed as foreign agents representing the interests of the WEF members to “penetrate the global cabinets of countries” as well as a wide range of key business sectors including banking/finance, other business sectors (including health and biotechnology), academia and health, media, technology, logistics, arts and culture, sports, politics and government, think tanks, telecommunications, real estate, financial investment/holding companies, a variety of non-governmental organizations, energy, aerospace and military, food and agriculture.

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You think they’ll let you keep it?

Mexico Calls for Latin American Lithium Alliance (RKC)

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, expressed his intentionto form an alliance with Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, in order to promote mutual collaboration on lithium. “There has been communication with the president of Bolivia (Luis Arce), he, in turn, has a relationship, like us, with the president of Argentina (Alberto Fernández), who also has lithium, and with the president of Chile (Gabriel Boric), with the purpose of creating an association to help each other mutually,” said the Mexican president during his morning press conference today. In April, Mexico’s Congress approved a reform to the Mining Law of that country which launched the nationalization of lithium and the creation of a public body that is in charge of everything related to exploration, exploitation, and industrialization.


He pointed out that in the case of Chile and Argentina, private companies are in charge of exploiting the resource, but Mexico is still interested in collaborating in this work. “In the case of Bolivia and Mexico, lithium is nationalized, but there are shared interests [with Chile and Argentina] and we are going to work together, we are already doing it,” said López Obrador. In recent days, Bolivia celebrated the five-year anniversary of the state company, Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB). It was created by the government of Evo Morales with the aim of industrializing lithium and manufacturing value-added products within the country.

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2022

 

 

Central bank assets

 

 

 

Gonzalo Saudi

 

 

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Apr 212022
 


Juan Gris Portrait of Pablo Picasso 1912

 

Russia Test Fires ‘Satan 2’ Missile Amid Ukraine War (Celente)
Zelensky: If Ukraine Had Access To More Weapons, War Would Already Be Won (NYP)
NATO Is Invalid And The Nations In It Deserve What They Get (Denninger)
Jeremy Corbyn Calls For End To NATO To Bring World Peace (GBNews)
Red Cross Denies Kyiv’s Accusation Of Working ‘In Concert’ With Moscow (Y!)
Chinese Defense Minister Warns Pentagon Chief In 1st Call (ZH)
Former Intel Officials Want Efforts to Break Up Big Tech Stopped (CTH)
Democrats Sicced The CIA On Their Domestic Enemy, The President (Fed.)
Sussmann Doesn’t Want Clinton Tweet Admitted in Durham Case (ET)
‘Horrifying Amount Of Information’ Recovered From Biden Laptop (OAN)
Inside The New Right (Vanity Fair)
Le Pen, Macron In Bitter Clash Ahead Of Tight French Election (Y!)
US Mortgage Interest Rates Reach a 12 Year High (R.)
Assange Extradition Order Sent to Priti Patel (Lauria)
Dark Day For Press Freedom As UK Court Orders Assange Extradition (Gosztola)

 

 

Russia appears to have “liberated” Mariupol, but not -yet- the Azovstal complex.

 

 

 

 

Matt Walsh: pre-mummification

 

 

Imran Khan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1516556681316024320

 

 

“Sarmat could carry a payload capable of wiping out a landmass “the size of Texas or France..”

Russia Test Fires ‘Satan 2’ Missile Amid Ukraine War (Celente)

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday the successful test launch of its new Sarmat superheavy Intercontinental Ballistic Missile that can reportedly deploy 10 or more nuclear warheads on each missile. Putin used the launch as a warning for “external threats and provide food for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country,” Reuters reported. Western analysts have called the missile “Satan 2.” The design is intended to evade anti-missile systems and can reportedly hit any target on earth. The missile was called the world’s most powerful and with the longest range. The missile was launched from Plesetsk cosmodrome, in Russia’s northwest, and traveled about 3,2000 miles to the Kamchatka peninsula.

In 2018, Putin said the Sarmat would render even to most advanced missile systems useless. “No kind of, not even future missile defense systems will offer any trouble to the Russian rocket complex, Sarmat.” The Heritage Foundation’s 2021 Index of U.S. Military Strength said “Russia remains the primary threat to American interests in Europe and is the most pressing threat to the United States,” describing Russia as “aggressive in its behavior and formidable in its growing capabilities.” Congressional Research Service wrote on 21 March 2022: “Relations between the United States and Russia have shifted over time—sometimes reassuring and sometimes concerning—yet most experts agree that Russia is the only nation that poses, through its arsenal of nuclear weapons, an existential threat to the United States.”


“Reports indicate that the next-generation Sarmat can carry up to 15 warheads, along with penetration aids, and potentially several Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles. Russia began testing the Sarmat missile in 2016. Putin noted that Sarmat could attack targets by flying over both the North and South Poles, evading detection by radars seeking missiles flying in an expected trajectory over the North Pole. Sarmat could carry a payload capable of wiping out a landmass “the size of Texas or France,” according to a report by the Kremlin-aligned Sputnik news agency.” -CNBC

ICBM

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Peacemaker.

Zelensky: If Ukraine Had Access To More Weapons, War Would Already Be Won (NYP)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he believes the war against Russia would have already been won if Western allies including the US and NATO had sent more weapons to arm Ukraine. “If we had access to all the weapons we need, which our partners have and which are comparable to the weapons used by the Russian Federation, we would have already ended this war,” Zelensky said in a video address Tuesday evening, the Times of London reported. “We would have already restored peace and liberated our territory from the occupiers, because the superiority of the Ukrainian military in tactics and wisdom is quite obvious.”

Since the invasion began on Feb. 24, Zelensky has repeatedly asked the US and NATO for increased military aid and action, such as imposing a no-fly-zone over Ukraine — a move Western nations have avoided taking. Instead, the US in particular has repeatedly imposed sanctions against varying Russian oligarchs, businesses, banks, as well as President Vladimir Putin and members of his family. President Biden has also offered up packages of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, most recently approving an $800 million package last week — which includes helicopters, artillery and ammunition.

Still, Zelensky is looking for the West to do more. “It is unfair that Ukraine is still forced to ask for what its partners have been storing somewhere for years. If they have the weapons that Ukraine needs here, need more, if they have the ammunition that we need here and now, it is their moral duty first of all, to help protect freedom,” he said. “Help save the lives of thousands of Ukrainians.” Zelensky went on to claim that any delay in additional aid “gives the occupiers an opportunity to kill more Ukrainians.” Leading up to the invasion and since it began, the Biden administration has been slammed by Republicans and Democrats alike for not supplying Ukraine with more military aid, such as MiG-29 jet fighters.

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“..each and every nation at this time that has in any way violated the above provisions, which includes the United States, is not entitled under its provisions to anything..”

NATO Is Invalid And The Nations In It Deserve What They Get (Denninger)

Everyone wishes to argue “Article 5” of the NATO treaty, which is the mutual-defense pact. You get attacked and we all get attacked. Ok. What does Article I say? “The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.” Shipping arms into an area where armed conflict is either occurring or threatening to occur, where the destination is NOT a NATO member and thus is NOT subject to NATO’s mutual defense obligations is a clear violation of Article I. It is escalatory, it is a threat to use force or enables the actual use of force, and thus is a clear violation of Article I.

How about Article 8? “Each Party declares that none of the international engagements now in force between it and any other of the Parties or any third State is in conflict with the provisions of this Treaty, and undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this Treaty.” Providing arms to a belligerent not a member of NATO violates this provision in that it can cause a mutual defense obligation to arise that would otherwise not. Therefore NATO members are obligated to stay out of non-member conflicts except with the unanimous consent of all members. Intervening in a non-member’s conflict, in short, by other than unanimous consent is a violation of the treaty.

How about Article 11? “This Treaty shall be ratified and its provisions carried out by the Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional processes. The instruments of ratification shall be deposited as soon as possible with the Government of the United States of America, which will notify all the other signatories of each deposit. The Treaty shall enter into force between the States which have ratified it as soon as the ratifications of the majority of the signatories, including the ratifications of Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, have been deposited and shall come into effect with respect to other States on the date of the deposit of their ratifications. (3)”

For the United States to engage in the elements of a proxy war, which it did at Maidan and now through the provision of arms without a declaration of said war by Congress is a direct violation of the US Constitution and thus a violation of the treaty. Fraud vitiates all agreements. Therefore no nation is obligated under any other provision of the NATO Treaty and each and every nation at this time that has in any way violated the above provisions, which includes the United States, is not entitled under its provisions to anything, including mutual defense under Article 5.

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Stating the obvious, which is disappearing at the horizon.

Jeremy Corbyn Calls For End To NATO To Bring World Peace (GBNews)

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has suggested military alliances like Nato could build up “greater danger” in the world and should ultimately be disbanded. Mr Corbyn acknowledged the transatlantic alliance was not going to be scrapped immediately but added that people should “look at the process that could happen at the end of the Ukraine war”. He said he did not blame NATO for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine but questioned: “Do military alliances bring peace?” The Islington North MP said he wanted to see “some kind of much deeper security discussion, as indeed Nato was having a security discussion with Russia until last year”.


Mr Corbyn, a long-standing critic of NATO, told Times Radio: “I would want to see a world where we start to ultimately disband all military alliances. “The issue has to be what’s the best way of bringing about peace in the future? Is it by more alliances? Is it by more military build-up? “Or is it by stopping the war in Ukraine and the other wars… that are going on at the present time, which are also killing a very large number of people? “And ask yourself the question, do military alliances bring peace? Or do they actually encourage each other and build up to a greater danger? “I don’t blame NATO for the fact that Russia has invaded Ukraine, what I say is look at the thing historically, and look at the process that could happen at the end of the Ukraine war.”

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Yeah, why not blame them too?!

Red Cross Denies Kyiv’s Accusation Of Working ‘In Concert’ With Moscow (Y!)

A senior Kyiv official on Wednesday accused the International Committee of the Red Cross of working “in concert” with Russia in Ukraine, a charge the organisation denied. Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova decried ICRC’s announcement last month that it was planning to open a branch in Russia’s southern Rostov region to help Ukrainian refugees, who, Kyiv says, have been forcibly deported to Russia. “The International Red Cross is not fulfilling its mandate, I am certain of that,” Denisova said on Ukrainian television Wednesday after meeting with the head of the ICRC’s Ukrainian branch. Citing data from the United Nations, Denisova said that some 550,000 Ukrainians, including 121,000 children, have been taken to Russia during the course of the war, but Kyiv has no information on who these people are and where they are being kept.


“Where are they? In filtration camps? In temporary facilities?” Denisova asked. The official said she had asked both her Russian counterpart Tatyana Moskalkova and the ICRC for help in getting information on these refugees so that Ukraine could facilitate their return home, but had received “zero answer from her or from the Red Cross”. Asked by the TV anchor whether Denisova suspected that the Red Cross was working “in concert” with Russia, Denisova replied: “Yes, I suspect they are.” The ICRC strongly rejected Kyiv’s accusations. “The ICRC does not ever help organize or carry out forced evacuations. We would not support any operation that would go against people’s will and international law,” the organisation said in a statement to AFP.

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The global balance is shifting.

Chinese Defense Minister Warns Pentagon Chief In 1st Call (ZH)

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held a call with his Chinese counterpart, Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, wherein Wei conveyed a warning that no one can change Taiwan’s status as part of China. The Wednesday phone call was the first that the two defense leaders have held. Wei informed Austin that “If the Taiwan issue were not handled properly, it would have a damaging impact on Sino-US relations,” according to Reuters. The call was intended as a follow-up between last month’s virtual meeting between presidents Biden and Xi, wherein Biden warned over China’s deepening cooperation with Russia it executes its war against Ukraine.

A Pentagon official later said the Austin emphasized that the US will continue to adhere to the ‘One China’ status quo policy, which is the typical response from Washington officials anytime Beijing warns over US officials stoking the pro-independence movement on the democratic-run island. Chinese state-run English language Global Times further described the importance of the call as one of Beijing conveying its unwavering resolve to Washington on the Taiwan issue. GT writes that Wei stressed “the importance of the Taiwan question, while demanding the US to stop its military provocations at sea, and not to throw mud or threaten China with the Ukraine issue.”

Further, “Wei stated a solemn position over the Taiwan question, as he stressed that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and this is a fact and a status quo no one can change.” Without doubt part of the “provocations” Beijing has in mind is that the US has been increasingly sending high-level officials to Taipei. In the latest example, just a week ago: “A delegation of United States lawmakers led by vocal China critics Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham arrived in Taiwan on Thursday for a two-day trip as Beijing threatened “strong measures” in response. The group of six US legislators is making the latest in a string of visits by foreign politicians to Taiwan in defiance of Beijing’s efforts to isolate the island nation.”

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“The scale of simultaneous user data-processing is not financially viable without the U.S government subsidizing it.”

Former Intel Officials Want Efforts to Break Up Big Tech Stopped (CTH)

Of course, the Fourth Branch of Government would want to get the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence involved. The SSCI created all of the mechanisms to facilitate the existence of the Fourth Branch of Government. However, I would take the issue deeper…. and ask readers to see what really worries the intelligence apparatus about the potential breakup of Big Tech. These are the intelligence people who constructed the model for Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop. This public-private partnership between the cyber division of the intelligence apparatus and Big Tech social media is where the free coffee comes from. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and even Google itself, are financially and operationally dependent on the scale of the data processing system that is run by the U.S. government.

The capacity of each of the big social media companies to exist, operate and be financially viable, is dependent on the backbone of interconnected data networking, and massive data processing. The scale of simultaneous user data-processing is not financially viable without the U.S government subsidizing it. That’s the free coffee that cannot be duplicated in the private sector by any competing social media company. That’s the cost and scale system behind the partnership that permits Big Tech to operate. Ultimately, this is what the intelligence apparatus needs to keep hidden from the American (and global) public. The biggest of the Big DATA processing is done through a public-private collaboration between Big Tech and Big Government/Intel.

Any private sector entity who attempts to create, or duplicate the scale of social media runs into this cost issue. It is just too expensive to operate a competing coffee shop without the free coffee. That’s why the coffee providers are lined up against Elon Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter. The ramifications of the public discovering Facebook and Twitter social media are only possible with subsidy from government tech architecture are massive. Essentially, the U.S. government is in control of our social media networking.

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Always found this a very weird story.

“This data, Sussmann claimed, “demonstrated that Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.”

Democrats Sicced The CIA On Their Domestic Enemy, The President (Fed.)

Newly released CIA memoranda suggest the tech gurus behind the Alfa Bank hoax also tracked Donald Trump’s movements to devise another collusion conspiracy theory. While smaller in scale than other aspects of Spygate, the Yotaphone hoax represents an equally serious scandal because it involved both the mining of proprietary information and sensitive data from the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and the apparent surveillance of Trump’s physical movements. When Special Counsel John Durham charged former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann in September 2021, the indictment focused on the Alfa Bank hoax that Sussmann, tech executive Rodney Joffe, and other cybersecurity experts had crafted. The indictment detailed how Joffe and other tech experts had allegedly mined data and developed “white papers” that deceptively created the impression that Trump had maintained a secret communication network with the Russia-based Alfa Bank.

Then, allegedly on behalf of the Clinton campaign and Joffe, Sussmann provided the Alfa Bank material to the media and to the FBI’s general counsel at the time, James Baker, with Sussmann falsely telling Baker he was sharing the “intel” on his own and not on behalf of any client. That alleged lie formed the basis for the one count, Section 1001 false statement charge against Sussmann. The 27-page indictment, however, also spoke of Sussmann sharing “updated allegations” on February 9, 2017, to another U.S. government agency, namely the CIA, while allegedly repeating the same false claim that he was not sharing the “intel” on behalf of any client. From the framing of the indictment, it appeared that what Sussmann had shared with the CIA concerned the same Alfa-Bank data provided to the FBI several months earlier, albeit updated.

But then two months ago, as part of the government’s “Motion to Inquire Into Potential Conflicts of Interest,” Durham’s team revealed for the first time that when Sussmann met with the CIA in early 2017, he provided agents with internet data beyond the Alfa Bank conspiracy theory. This data, Sussmann claimed, “demonstrated that Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.” The “supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones” were “Yotaphones.” Following Durham’s filing of the conflicts of interest motion, it appeared Sussmann bore responsibility for peddling a second conspiracy theory to the CIA. But the details contained in the government’s motion proved insufficient to understand the Yotaphone angle to Spygate. That all changed on Friday, when the special counsel filed two CIA memoranda memorializing what Sussmann said about the Yotaphones and the data Joffe and his tech experts had compiled.

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“On Oct. 31, 2016, Clinton wrote on Twitter: “Donald Trump has a secret server … It was set up to communicate privately with a Putin-tied Russian bank.”

Sussmann Doesn’t Want Clinton Tweet Admitted in Durham Case (ET)

The lawyer charged with hiding his work for the Clinton campaign from the FBI filed a motion requesting that special counsel John Durham not be able to use a Hillary Clinton Twitter post that made reference to alleged Trump–Russia collusion claims. Durham wrote last week that he wanted an October 2016 Twitter post from the Clinton campaign that promoted an allegation that there was a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank. The campaign’s lawyer, Michael Sussmann, was charged last year with lying to the FBI by allegedly stating that he wasn’t working on behalf of any client when he pushed the Trump-Russian bank claim to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker.

On Oct. 31, 2016, Clinton wrote on Twitter: “Donald Trump has a secret server … It was set up to communicate privately with a Putin-tied Russian bank.” She later wrote that “computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.” The claims about the alleged secret backchannel between the bank, reportedly identified as Alfa Bank, and former President Donald Trump’s business were ultimately refuted by the FBI. Durham also sought to preserve a Twitter post from Clinton’s campaign that included a lengthy statement from former adviser Jake Sullivan, who now works as President Joe Biden’s national security adviser. “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow,” Sullivan claimed. “This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia.”

Last week, Durham argued that these Twitter posts are material because Sussmann “had communicated with the media and provided them with the Russian Bank-1 data and allegations” before articles on the claims were published. He also kept Clinton campaign staff “apprised of his efforts” while they “communicated with the Clinton Campaign’s leadership about potential media coverage of these issues.” But Sussmann’s lawyers over the past weekend, in court, wrote that the Clinton campaign’s Twitter posts about the matter, including the Sullivan one, should not be preserved for Sussmann’s trial. “The Tweet, which was posted on October 31, 2016, does not reveal anything about Mr. Sussmann’s state of mind over a month earlier, when he purportedly made the alleged false statement,” his attorneys wrote. “There is no evidence that Mr. Sussmann’s meeting with Mr. Baker had anything to do with the Clinton Campaign’s broader media strategy.”

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How nervous are they?

‘Horrifying Amount Of Information’ Recovered From Biden Laptop (OAN)

Journalist and whistleblower Jack Maxey says he may have recovered “a horrifying amount of information” previously thought to have been erased from Hunter Biden’s laptop. One America’s John Hines has more from Washington.

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Action, re-action.

Inside The New Right (Vanity Fair)

NatCon, as this conference is known, has grown into a big-tent gathering for a whole range of people who want to push the American right in a more economically populist, culturally conservative, assertively nationalist direction. It draws everyone from Israel hawks to fusty paleocon professors to mainstream figures like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. But most of the media attention that the conference attracts focuses on a cohort of rosy young blazer-wearing activists and writers—a crop of people representing the American right’s “radical young intellectuals,” as a headline in The New Republic would soon put it, or conservatism’s “terrifying future,” as David Brooks called them in The Atlantic.

But the people these pieces describe, who made up most of the partygoers around me, were only the most buttoned-up seam of a much larger and stranger political ferment, burbling up mainly within America’s young and well-educated elite, part of an intra-media class info-war. The podcasters, bro-ish anonymous Twitter posters, online philosophers, artists, and amorphous scenesters in this world are variously known as “dissidents,” “neo-reactionaries,” “post-leftists,” or the “heterodox” fringe—though they’re all often grouped for convenience under the heading of America’s New Right. They have a wildly diverse set of political backgrounds, with influences ranging from 17th-century Jacobite royalists to Marxist cultural critics to so-called reactionary feminists to the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, whom they sometimes refer to with semi-ironic affection as Uncle Ted.

Which is to say that this New Right is not a part of the conservative movement as most people in America would understand it. It’s better described as a tangled set of frameworks for critiquing the systems of power and propaganda that most people reading this probably think of as “the way the world is.” And one point shapes all of it: It is a project to overthrow the thrust of progress, at least such as liberals understand the word. This worldview, these worldviews, run counter to the American narrative of the last century—that economic growth and technological innovation are inevitably leading us toward a better future. It’s a position that has become quietly edgy and cool in new tech outposts like Miami and Austin, and in downtown Manhattan, where New Right–ish politics are in, and signifiers like a demure cross necklace have become markers of a transgressive chic. No one is leading this movement, but it does have key figures.

One is Peter Thiel, the billionaire who helped fund NatCon and who had just given the conference’s opening address. Thiel has also funded things like the edgelordy and post-left–inflected New People’s Cinema film festival, which ended its weeklong run of parties and screenings in Manhattan just a few days before NatCon began. He’s long been a big donor to Republican political candidates, but in recent years Thiel has grown increasingly involved in the politics of this younger and weirder world—becoming something like a nefarious godfather or a genial rich uncle, depending on your perspective. Podcasters and art-world figures now joke about their hope to get so-called Thielbucks. His most significant recent outlays have been to two young Senate candidates who are deeply enmeshed in this scene and influenced by its intellectual currents: Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance, running for the Republican nomination in Ohio, and Blake Masters in Arizona.

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Doesn’t feel bitter.

Le Pen, Macron In Bitter Clash Ahead Of Tight French Election (Y!)

French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Wednesday clashed bitterly over relations with Russia and the Islamic headscarf as they sought to sway undecided voters in an acrimonious debate four days ahead of presidential elections. France faces a stark choice in Sunday’s second-round run-off between the centrist Macron and the anti-immigration Le Pen, who will seek to become the country’s first far-right head of state in an outcome that would send shockwaves around Europe. There was little cordiality in the bruising three-hour live televised debate, with Macron repeatedly seeking to land punches on Le Pen over her record, while she sought to keep the focus on the government’s performance.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine overshadowing the campaign, Macron angrily zeroed in on a loan Le Pen’s party had taken from a Czech-Russian bank ahead of her 2017 election campaign. “You are dependent on the Russian government and you are dependent on Mr (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” Macron said. “When you speak to Russia you are speaking to your banker.” Macron also referred to Le Pen’s past recognition of Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. “Why did you do this?” he asked. Le Pen replied that she was “an absolutely and totally free woman”, arguing that her party had only taken that loan as it could not find financing in France where banks refused to lend to her.

Macron adopted a variety of poses to express scepticism at her arguments, raising his eyebrows, leaning his chin on his fists and lamenting in apparent bewilderment “Madame Le Pen… Madame Le Pen!” The most explosive clash came when Le Pen confirmed she was sticking to her controversial policy of banning the wearing of the Islamic headscarf by women in public, describing it as a “uniform imposed by Islamists”. Macron responded: “You are going to cause a civil war if you do that. I say this sincerely.”

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How long until the entire housing market goes poof?

US Mortgage Interest Rates Reach a 12 Year High (R.)

The average interest rate on the most popular U.S. home loan climbed to a 12 year high last week and fewer homebuyers sought properties in a sign that the Federal Reserve’s aim of cooling the housing market may be beginning to have an impact, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) showed on Wednesday. The average contract rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage increased to 5.20% in the week ended April 15 from 5.13% a week earlier, the MBA survey showed. It has risen 2 percentage points from one year ago.


The bulk of the run up, however, has occurred since the start of the year, causing the fastest climb in home-financing costs in decades as the Fed abandoned a cautious approach to raising its benchmark overnight lending rate in favor of swifter and more decisive action to bring down persistently high inflation. The central bank is also set to decide at its next meeting on May 3-4 to begin reducing its portfolio of $8.5 trillion of U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, a stash of assets that had helped keep consumer borrowing costs – for mortgages in particular – low throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Those expectations for Fed tightening actions have led to a surge in Treasury yields as financial markets reacted. The yield on the 10-year note US10YT=RR, which acts as a benchmark for mortgage rates, is at its highest level since 2018.

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Who cares about the law when they are in power?

Assange Extradition Order Sent to Priti Patel (Lauria)

An order to extradite WikiLeaks‘ publisher Julian Assange was sent to British Home Secretary Priti Patel on Wednesday morning by Westminster Magistrate’s Court. The order came after the U.K. Supreme Court last month declined to hear Assange’s appeal of a High Court decision to allow the extradition to the United States to proceed. Patel now has four weeks to decide whether to send Assange to the U.S. to face espionage and computer intrusion charges for publishing prima facie evidence of U.S. war crimes that could land him behind bars for up to 175 years — an effective life sentence. Assange’s legal team can appeal to Patel during the next four weeks. After her decision is made Assange can then make a renewed appeal to the High Court if she opts to send him to the U.S.

Mark Summers QC, one of Assange’s lawyers, told Westminster Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, that while he was not permitted by rule to present “fresh evidence” at the present hearing, Assange’s legal team would make submissions to Patel on “fresh developments” in Assange’s case. Without elaborating, Summers said Patel would be sent “serious submissions on U.S. sentencing practices.” Among the new developments since the High Court hearing in October is a deterioration in Assange’s health after he suffered a mini stroke on the first day of that hearing. Assange initially won his extradition case in the magistrate’s court in January 2021 based on the high likelihood that his mental health would lead to his suicide in harsh prison conditions in the United States.

After the case was lost, the U.S. made diplomatic “assurances” to Britain that it would not put Assange in so-called Special Administrative Measures (SAMS), the most severe condition of isolation in the U.S. prison system. The U.S. also promised that Assange would be given adequate physical and mental health care. The U.S. then appealed. Based on those assurances alone, the High Court on Dec. 10, 2021 overturned the lower court’s decision to block extradition. But that decision was made after Assange had suffered a stroke during the first day of the two-day High Court hearing. The stroke was not made public until the day after the ruling.

That markedly changed the conditions upon which the decision was reached as one of the High Court judges made the distinction during the hearing that Assange was suffering only from a mental and not physical disability. The crucial question remains: when did the High Court learn about the stroke? If Patel decides to extradite and if Assange decides to appeal again to the High Court, his lawyers could also challenge parts of the lower court’s ruling on issues of press freedom and the political nature of the U.S. charges, which are not allowed in the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty.

Not nearly enough people outside the court

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The threat appears much wider than just press freedom.

Dark Day For Press Freedom As UK Court Orders Assange Extradition (Gosztola)

While the defense for Assange objected to District Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s ruling on January 4, 2021, particularly as it related to issues of press freedom, they never had an appropriate opportunity to raise their objections. She denied the extradition request after determining it would be “oppressive” for mental health reasons. His attorneys would likely challenge many of Baraitser’s conclusions about Assange if Patel allowed the request. (Note: Baraitser is no longer a district judge at the Westminster Magistrates Court.) Assange is detained at Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh. He faces 18 charges brought against him by the US Justice Department, 17 of which are under the Espionage Act. All the charges relate to documents WikiLeaks released in 2010 and 2011, which were provided by US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

The prosecution makes Assange the first publisher to be charged under the 1917 law, and globally the case has been condemned by virtually all reputable civil liberties, human rights, and press freedom organizations. Patel and the Home Office support an expansion of the Official Secrets Laws in the UK, which Elmaazi reported “would expand possible imprisonment for leakers, recipients of leaks and secondary publishers–including journalists–from the current maximum of two years to as high as 14 years in prison.” The Home Office contends there is no longer much of a difference between “espionage and the most serious unauthorized disclosures.” That includes what Patel would call “onward disclosure.” The department treats journalism as an act capable of “far more serious damage” than traditional espionage.

In the UK, the Office for Security and Counterterrorism is a part of the Home Office. The division is responsible for MI5 (Britain’s FBI) and anti-terrorism police operations. Operation Pelican, the name for the pressure campaign to force Assange out of the Ecuador embassy in London, was supported by the Home Office. But as Declassified UK chief investigator Matt Kennard noted, the Home Office claims it does not “hold” any records containing details related to the operation, even though eight officials from the department were involved. Kennard also reported that Patel was on the advisory council for a right-wing group linked to the CIA called the Henry Jackson Society, which has attacked Assange in the press for over a decade.

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Calvin gets 25c

 

 

 

 

Name this band

 

 

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

 

 

 

Apr 132022
 
 April 13, 2022  Posted by at 8:04 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  63 Responses »


Margaret Bourke-White Coney Island 1952

 

CIA Admits Feeding Americans False Info About Ukraine (Ron Paul)
The West Cannot Isolate Russia, Putin Warns (F.)
China’s Jan-March Overall Trade With Russia Rises 28% (R.)
The Defense Industry’s Ukraine Pundits (Lever)
Top American Golfer Recently Underwent Surgery For Blood Clot In Her Left Arm (GW)
Bitcoin Fans Are Psychopaths Who Don’t Care About Anyone, Study Shows (NYP)
California Now Leads The Country In Illiteracy (CJ)
At Least 20 Federal ‘Assets’ Embedded at Capitol on Jan. 6 (ET)
Covering for the Big Guy (Dinesh D’Souza)
Canada’s Next PM (Bexte)
Rebel News Founder Speaks After Trudeau Denies Them Journalism ‘License’ (Fox)
Trudeau Considers Trucker Tax (TCS)
Twitter ‘A Sh*t Show’ For Employees Since Elon Musk Took Major Stake (NYP)
Elon Musk Accused Of Breaking Law While Buying Twitter Stock (AP)
Elon Musk’s Vision For The Internet Is Dangerous Nonsense (Robert Reich)

 

 

 

 

“Americans are directly in charge of the war on the ground.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

” Isn’t it ironic that the CIA itself has done more than the Russians to undermine Americans’ faith in the media..”

CIA Admits Feeding Americans False Info About Ukraine (Ron Paul)

Late last year, a Gallup poll showed that Americans’ trust in the mainstream media has fallen to its second lowest level on record. Only seven percent of Americans responded that they have a “great deal” of trust in the media. That loss of trust has been well-earned by the mainstream media, and it explains the massive growth of independent media and alternative voices on social media. The response to the rise of independent media voices has been a rush to “cancel” any voice outside the accepted mainstream narrative. Citizens of the Soviet Union would read manipulated media like Pravda not because the regime reported facts, but because truth was hidden between the lines of what was reported and what was not reported. That seems to be where we are in the US today.

Last week an extraordinary article appeared in, of all places, NBC News, reporting that the US intelligence community is knowingly feeding information it does not believe accurate to the US mainstream media for the American audience to consume. In other words, the article reports that the US “deep state” admits to being actively engaged in lying to the American people in the hopes that it can manipulate public opinion According to the NBC News article, “multiple US officials acknowledged that the US has used information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high. Sometimes it has used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect…” Readers will recall the shocking headlines that Russia was prepared to use chemical weapons in Ukraine, that China would be providing military equipment to Russia, that Russian President Putin was being fed misinformation by his advisors, and more.

All of these were churned out by the CIA to be repeated in the American media even though they were known to be false. It was all about, as one intelligence officer said in the article, “trying to get inside Putin’s head.” That may have been the goal, but what the CIA actually did was get inside America’s head with false information meant to shape public perception of the conflict. They lied to propagandize us in favor of the Biden Administration’s narrative. Those pushing the “Russiagate” hoax through the Trump years claimed that the goal of “Russian disinformation” was to undermine Americans’ trust in our government, media, and other institutions. Isn’t it ironic that the CIA itself has done more than the Russians to undermine Americans’ faith in the media by feeding false stories to establish a particular narrative among the American people?

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“It is practically “impossible to severely isolate anyone in the modern world,” let alone a country as “vast” as Russia..”

“..reiterating unproven claims the West has fostered a neo-Nazi, anti-Russian state on its doorstep..”

The West Cannot Isolate Russia, Putin Warns (F.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin toured a spaceport in the far east of Russia on Tuesday with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, defending Russia’s “clear and noble” goals in Ukraine and pointing to the country’s prior achievements in space as proof Western efforts to isolate Moscow will fail. It is practically “impossible to severely isolate anyone in the modern world,” let alone a country as “vast” as Russia, Putin said, according to Reuters, citing Russian state television. Even the “total” sanctions and “complete” isolation of the Soviet Union did not stop it from beating the West into space, Putin said, adding that Russia does not “intend to be isolated.”

Putin said Russia would never again depend on the West and doubled down on the main goal of what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, which is to “help people in the Donbas,” the primarily Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine, and ensure Russia’s security, according to the New York Times. He said Russia made the “right decision” and “didn’t have a choice” but to invade Ukraine, reiterating unproven claims the West has fostered a neo-Nazi, anti-Russian state on its doorstep. Putin was touring the Vostochny spaceport with Belarusian ally Lukashenko, who reportedly asked why everyone is “getting so worried about these sanctions.” The pair celebrated Cosmonaut’s Day—a celebration of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin carrying out the first human spaceflight in 1961—and announced a joint project to guarantee both countries independent access to space.

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine six weeks ago, Western countries have imposed a series of increasingly harsh sanctions and restrictions against Russian businesses, industry, and key members of Putin’s inner circle. Many businesses have elected to withdraw from Russia as well. The sanctions have had a dramatic impact on the Russian economy and the World Bank estimates its economy will be around 11% smaller at the end of 2022 (it estimates Ukraine’s will fall around 45%). Despite the Russian downturn, critics, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, argue that sanctions are too weak and Europe’s continued purchasing of Russian oil and gas amounts to giving Russia “permission to attack.” Increasing indications of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, such as signs of executed civilians in Bucha, have added to pressure to up sanctions.

Pence Putin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1514060795079966728

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What isolation looks like.

China’s Jan-March Overall Trade With Russia Rises 28% (R.)

China’s overall trade with Russia rose to 243.03 billion yuan ($38.18 billion) in January-March, a Chinese customs spokesman said on Wednesday, up 27.8 percent from a year earlier. China’s total trade with Ukraine climbed to 29.6 billion yuan in the first quarter, customs spokesman Li Kuiwen said at a press conference, up 10.6 percent. China’s trade with both Russia and Ukraine has maintained an uptrend, Li said, adding that China’s economic and trade cooperation with other countries including Russia and Ukraine will remain normal. China’s overall trade with Russia reached 190.12 billion yuan in January-March 2021, while its trade with Ukraine stood at 26.77 billion yuan, according to previous customs data.

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Maybe step 1 is to stop calling it the *Defense* industry?

The Defense Industry’s Ukraine Pundits (Lever)

Last week, CNN brought on former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for his fourth recent appearance to talk, once again, about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deadly invasion of Ukraine. “I think we need to understand that there is only one thing that Putin understands, and that’s force,” said Panetta on Newsroom. The former CIA director added: “I think the United States has to provide whatever weapons are necessary to the Ukrainians, so that they can hit back, and hit back now.” At no time did Panetta nor CNN mention that he’s a senior counselor at Beacon Global Strategies, a defense industry consulting firm that has reportedly represented weapons manufacturer Raytheon. The firm doesn’t disclose its clients, but Raytheon and the defense industry generally stand to benefit from the conflict in Ukraine.

The episode is part of a broader pattern and practice: Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, cable news networks have routinely called on defense officials-turned-consultants to offer analysis and help the American public make sense of the crisis. Often, these analysts have used their TV time to call for greater U.S. involvement and bolder moves that could ratchet up tensions between two nuclear-armed superpowers. The networks have consistently failed to disclose these analysts’ day jobs, describing them instead by only their former high-ranking military or government roles — leaving viewers in the dark about the analysts’ financial ties to defense contractors that stand to profit from increased or prolonged conflict.

During its Ukraine coverage, MSNBC even failed to include disclosures when the network invited on former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who serves on the board of directors at Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest defense contractor. When asked about this matter, Johnson told The Lever, “I have no comment.” Corporate media’s lack of transparency about these consultants is deeply troubling, said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. “This type of revolving-door behavior should be prohibited for military officials to serve in a private capacity representing military contractors,” Holman told The Lever. “If not prohibited, it should be disclosed to everyone so when they’re going on television trying to affect Biden’s policy on whatever war they have in mind, they ought to be straightforward.”

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Probably nothing. Golfers get blood clots all the time.

Top American Golfer Recently Underwent Surgery For Blood Clot In Her Left Arm (GW)

Nelly Korda announced Friday on social media that she recently underwent surgery for a blood clot in a subclavian vein in her left arm. “I am pleased to report the procedure went well and the doctors were happy with the outcome,” Korda wrote. “I am now home recovering and preparing to start rehab. I am looking forward to getting back to 100 percent so I can begin practicing.” Korda, the No. 2-ranked player in the world, first posted about the blood clot on March 13 and withdrew from the next two events in California, including the Chevron Championship, the season’s first major. “I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming support and messages I have received the last few weeks,” Korda posted. “Your kind words have helped me get through this challenging and scary time.”

Korda last teed it up on the LPGA in early February at the LPGA Drive On Championship. She has finished T-15, T-20, and T-4 in three starts this season. In 2021, Korda won four times on the LPGA as well as Olympic gold in Tokyo and was named Female Player of the Year by the Golf Writers Association of America. She was honored by the GWAA on Wednesday night at the organization’s annual dinner near Augusta. Korda also revealed that she had tested positive for COVID-19 in the second week of January, which “kept her off her feet for some time” before the LPGA season started.

McCullough: permanent DNA alteration
https://twitter.com/i/status/1512916014882828292

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“A team of experts..”

Bitcoin Fans Are Psychopaths Who Don’t Care About Anyone, Study Shows (NYP)

The average Bitcoin investor is a calculating psychopath with an inflated ego, according to scientists. A team of experts recently surveyed more than 500 people to uncover the personality traits that are most common among crypto nuts. They identified that many investors exhibit signs of the “dark tetrad”, a group of four unsavory traits made up of narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy and sadism. In plain English, that means dark tetrads have an inflated sense of self-importance and derive pleasure from the pain of others. They also find it difficult to empathize with others and are sly and manipulative.


Scientists at Queensland University of Technology described their findings in research published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences earlier this month. They asked 566 people to complete personality surveys as well as answers questions about their attitudes to crypto. Of the participants, one in four reported that they owned crypto and two-thirds showed an interest in crypto investing. All four dark tetrad traits correlated with an affinity for investing, each for their own reasons. According to the researchers, dark tetrads are partly drawn to crypto because they are prepared to take risks. Digital assets such as Bitcoin are infamously volatile and the feast-or-famine nature of investing is particularly enticing to some.

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3rd world.

California Now Leads The Country In Illiteracy (CJ)

With California’s porous southern border, soaring taxes, and ongoing flow of overbearing and occasionally bizarre regulations (one law targets cow flatulence, for example), state residents could use a break from bad news. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon. According to a recent report, California now leads the country in illiteracy. In fact, 23.1 percent of Californians over age 15 cannot read this sentence. While the problem has many causes, much of the blame falls on the state’s failing public schools. The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that just 30 percent of California eighth-graders are proficient in reading. And those numbers reflect results gathered before the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Voters’ attitudes toward California’s government-run schools have tumbled accordingly. A new poll from UC–Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies reveals that just 35 percent of the state’s voters gave public schools in their local district a grade of A or B, down from 55 percent in 2011. At the other end of the spectrum, 25 percent now give their local public schools a D or an F, up 15 percentage points from 2011. The poll included responses from 800 California voters, with 50 percent identifying as Democrats, 26 percent as Republicans, and 24 percent as independents. It’s hardly a surprise, then, that public school enrollment is sinking. In 2018–2019, the system lost about 23,000 students, but between the 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 terms, California public schools saw more than 160,000 students leave—a sevenfold increase.

In Los Angeles, defections are accelerating. Whereas L.A. Unified schools were home to 737,000 students 20 years ago, the district is now forecasting a 25,000-student drop by the fall, which would bring their attendance number below the 400,000 mark. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the district’s “American Rescue Plan” funding will soon run out: “From July forward, the district is projected to spend about $1 billion more than it will take in over a two-year period. The district also must wrestle with underfunded retiree health benefits.” Additionally, the district’s contract with United Teachers Los Angeles runs out at the end of the school year, and the union will demand the sun and the moon for the next contract.

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“One agent was even recorded stating, ‘We don’t know what we are looking for yet.’ They should look for a copy of the Constitution and read it.”

At Least 20 Federal ‘Assets’ Embedded at Capitol on Jan. 6 (ET)

At least 20 FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives “assets” were embedded around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a defense attorney wrote in a court filing on April 12. The disclosure was made in a motion seeking to dismiss seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges against 10 Oath Keepers defendants in one of the most prominent Jan. 6 criminal cases. David W. Fischer, attorney for Thomas E. Caldwell of Berryville, Virginia, filed a 41-page motion to dismiss four counts on behalf of all Oath Keepers case defendants before U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, D.C. Caldwell is charged in the indictment, but is not a member of the Oath Keepers, he told The Epoch Times in March.

“At least 20 FBI and ATF assets were embedded around the Capitol on J6,” read a footnote on Page 6 of the motion. No other details were provided in the document. The footnote said defense attorneys “combed through a mountain of discovery,” including FBI form 302 summaries of interviews conducted by FBI agents. In addition to the information about law-enforcement assets on the ground at the Capitol, the footnote says, the Oath Keepers “were being monitored and recorded prior to J6.” Poring over evidence turned over in discovery by prosecutors in two major Oath Keepers cases has “not found one iota of proof” that defendants “had any plan, intention, design, or scheme to specifically enter the Capitol Building on J6,” the motion said.

Since the first arrests of Jan. 6 defendants in early 2021, there has been extensive speculation and questions from attorneys, defendants, case observers, and members of Congress about the role law enforcement played that day. During a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Jan. 11, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) grilled top FBI officials on the subject. “How many FBI agents or confidential informants actively participated in the events of Jan. 6?” Cruz asked Jill Sanborn, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch. “Sir, I’m sure you can appreciate that I can’t go into the specifics of sources and methods,” Sanborn said. Cruz replied, “Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of Jan. 6, yes or no?” “Sir, I can’t answer that,” Sanborn said. “Did any FBI agents or confidential informants commit crimes of violence on Jan. 6?” Cruz asked. “I can’t answer that, sir,” Sanborn replied.

Jeremy M. Brown, an Oath Keepers member from Florida who was charged with two Jan. 6-related counts but is not part of either major Oath Keepers conspiracy case, told The Epoch Times earlier this year that the FBI unsuccessfully tried to recruit him in 2020 to spy on the group. Brown said the same agents who later arrested him for alleged Jan. 6 crimes tried to recruit him on Dec. 11, 2020, to become a confidential informant. He refused. He was arrested on Sept. 30, 2021, when dozens of federal agents swarmed his Florida property. “When asked by me and my girlfriend to produce the warrants at the time of arrest, they refused to produce them,” Brown said. “One agent was even recorded stating, ‘We don’t know what we are looking for yet.’ They should look for a copy of the Constitution and read it.”

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“This is a Joe Biden scandal, not a Hunter Biden scandal.”

Covering for the Big Guy (Dinesh D’Souza)

This has all the persuasive power of saying that Don Corleone knew nothing about his family’s activities and played no part in them whatever. It makes no sense. And Joe Biden’s direct involvement in his son’s activities has now been confirmed with a new email that has emerged. The email involves a college recommendation that Joe Biden wrote for a Chinese businessman who was partners with Hunter Biden. Jonathan Li is the CEO of a company BHR that entered into a joint venture with Hunter Biden’s company Rosemont Seneca. Hunter also held a 10 percent stake in BHR. In 2017, Li sent an email to Hunter Biden and his business associates Devon Archer and Jim Bulger.

“Gentlemen,” he wrote, “Please find the attached resume of my son, Chris Li. He is applying [to] the following colleges for this year.” Li listed Brown University, Cornell University, and New York University. He also attached an “updated version” of his son’s resume. So then what happened? Let’s follow the email trail. “Let’s see how we can be helpful here to Chris,” Bulger responded to Hunter and the gang. A few weeks later, on Feb. 18, 2017, Eric Schwerin, president of Rosemont Seneca, replied to Li. “Jonathan,” he wrote, “Hunter asked me to send you a copy of the recommendation letter that he asked his father to write on behalf of Christopher for Brown University.” In other words, Joe Biden wrote the letter.

Is it reasonable, at this point, to continue to say Joe Biden told the truth when he said he had nothing to do with his son’s business? Is it believable that he was never in on the deals, or stood to benefit from them? No, it’s not. On the contrary, it seems that Hunter Biden was Joe Biden’s frontman. This is a Joe Biden scandal, not a Hunter Biden scandal. If the circuitous family racket can be likened to the coils of a snake, Joe Biden is the head of the snake.

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I understand he’s a good speaker.

Canada’s Next PM (Bexte)

Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre has drawn a massive crowd to his campaign rally in Calgary, Alberta. According to organizers, over 7,000 RSVP’d to the event, and more are coming. The hype is real, and traffic jams have built up along the road to the rally. “People haven’t felt so free in this country, have they,” Poilievre began. “Whether it’s the fourteen-year-old girl suffering depression after separation from her sport[s] and social activities for two long years; whether it’s the waitress who mortgaged her house to start a business only to have it locked down again and again until she couldn’t open it up anymore; whether it is the hard-working trucker who delivered the goods and services that we need —” The rally erupted at the mention of truckers, all but drowning out Poilievre as he continued praising their gusto and disparaging Trudeau for his tyrannical response.


Indeed, it appears that after years of ‘Red Erin’ O’Toole, Calgarians and Canadians more generally are ready for a Conservative leader who will end Trudeau’s carbon tax, denounce the WEF, and defund the CBC. Speaking of Justin Trudeau, just yesterday, he managed to draw a crowd, too… A crowd of protesters honking and telling him he’s a disgrace to Canada. This most recent barrage of boos and honks occurred while entering Victoria City Hall to speak with Mayor Lisa Helps. This visit would have been innocuous for most leaders, but merely his presence draws a crowd of disdain. It’s gotten so bad that he’s taken to hiding his itinerary to avoid protests. The contrast couldn’t be starker. Poilievre is being celebrated across the country, while Trudeau slithers in through back doors even while abroad. Assuming he keeps up the momentum, Poilievre might just be the first opponent capable of dethroning Trudeau since he was elected PM.

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“A panel of five people in secret: We don’t even know what they said or did or what they looked at. And they claim that only one percent of our stories are news..”

Rebel News Founder Speaks After Trudeau Denies Them Journalism ‘License’ (Fox)

Rebel News founder Ezra Levant sounded off Tuesday after the Trudeau administration denied his outlet what he described as a newly-conceived “license” to fully practice journalism. Levant told “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that, if the Liberal Party leader’s behavior during the Ottawa trucker protests is any indicator, he is working hard to punish critics and upturn their lives. He noted how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously slammed his agency when a reporter from it asked a question during a press availability while the politician was running for reelection in 2021. At the time, Trudeau claimed Rebel News was engaging in “disinformation on the science around vaccines” and made a point to declare he could not bring himself to describe them as a “media organization.”


“It’s not yet illegal to do journalism without that license, it’s a government license called the Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization License. A government panel reviews you. They spent one year reviewing Rebel News, looking through more than 100 of our stories,” Levant told host Tucker Carlson. “A panel of five people in secret: We don’t even know what they said or did or what they looked at. And they claim that only one percent of our stories are news, so we don’t get the license.” Levant went on to describe what that means for his organization, versus mainstream outlets like CBC. Trudeau plans to “compel” Big Tech to down-rank non-licensed journalists and change the Income Tax Act to punish them, Levant said. “We’re not banned yet, although we are banned from government events, as you said earlier. But I’m worried that he’s done all this in two years. The worst is yet to come. He may well ban us yet,” he concluded.

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What a surprise….

Trudeau Considers Trucker Tax (TCS)

After re-raising the carbon tax on April 1, Trudeau is considering yet another carbon-based tax that specifically targets your everyday trucker. If passed, owners of Ford F-150s will pay a $1,000 tax, while those who own a Ram 3500 heavy-duty pickup trucks will have to dish out $4,000. The tax comes as part of Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan, in which the government claims it’s “making it easier for Canadians to switch to electric vehicles.” Part of this plan includes taxing truck owners so much that they can’t afford to own one anymore. Page 192 of the report states that the government will:

“Broaden Canada’s existing Green Levy (Excise Tax) for Fuel Inefficient Vehicles to include additional ICE vehicle types, such as pickup trucks. A sliding scale for the implementation of this Green Levy should be developed based on the emissions produced from different vehicles. Revenue from a broadened Green Levy could increase available funding for ZEV incentives for individuals and organizations without limiting the fleet size and while encouraging smaller vehicles of all fuel types. Carefully consider the impacts on and supports for low-income households and other vulnerable populations when exploring changes to the Green Levy and ZEV incentives.”

That’s right. It appears Trudeau is freezing out truck owners again. First, their bank accounts, now their savings. This shouldn’t surprise people at this point. After all, Trudeau isn’t shy when it comes to coercing Canadians. He imposed draconian federal mandates that are still in place despite what the data says and has kept the travel ban on the unvaccinated even as the rest of the world opens up. Now, he’s targeting truckers by legally requiring them to comply with his environmental activism. And he’s comfortable doing this despite a bleeding economy, unreasonable carbon taxes, and record-high inflation.

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Twitter’s been ‘A Sh*t Show’ for much longer..

Wokist traumas: “..a scheduled “day of rest” for company employees..”.

Twitter ‘A Sh*t Show’ For Employees Since Elon Musk Took Major Stake (NYP)

Elon Musk’s looming battle with Twitter’s board is a source of major anxiety for company employees – many of whom are reportedly worried that billionaire’s campaign to force changes is just beginning. Musk’s surprise rejection of a Twitter board seat emerged ahead of a scheduled “day of rest” for company employees, according to a report. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal broke the news on his account the previous night, describing Musk’s decision as “for the best” even as he warned workers they would face “distractions ahead,” Bloomberg reported late Monday. The uncertainty left Twitter workers feeling “super stressed” about the future, with employees reportedly “working together to help each other get through the week.”

The report cited interviews with Twitter employees who asked not to be identified while discussing the company’s inner workings. Several employees told the outlet that Twitter’s internal environment was a “s–t-show” after Musk’s deal with the board fell through. One Twitter employee griped that Musk was likely ‘just getting started” with pushing for change at the company – a development the worker described as “unfortunate,” according to Bloomberg. Musk has emerged as a vocal critic of Twitter’s business practices, taking particular umbrage with the platform’s content moderation policies. He’s also the company’s largest individual shareholder after acquiring a 9% stake earlier this month.

Under the terms of his initial agreement with Twitter, Musk would have received a board seat through at least 2024 and would be barred from acquiring more than 14.9% of the company. Without that deal in place, Musk is free to acquire a larger stake in the company and push for greater influence over its operations. Musk updated an SEC filing on his Twitter holdings with language that suggests he plans to stay active in the company’s dealings, despite his expanding business empire that includes Tesla and SpaceX.

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Can a investor be compelled to lose money? Musk disclosed his stake when he was done buying. If he had disclosed it before, it would have cost him 100s of millions.

“The lawsuit alleges that by March 14, Musk’s stake in Twitter had reached a 5% threshold that required him to publicly disclose his holdings under U.S. securities law by March 24. Musk didn’t make the required disclosure until April 4.”

“..depriving investors who sold shares before Musk’s improperly delayed disclosure [of] the chance to realize significant gains..”

The gains they could only have realized because Musk was buying…

Elon Musk Accused Of Breaking Law While Buying Twitter Stock (AP)

Elon Musk’s huge Twitter investment took a new twist Tuesday with the filing of a lawsuit alleging that the colorful billionaire illegally delayed disclosing his stake in the social media company so he could buy more shares at lower prices. The complaint in New York federal court accuses Musk of violating a regulatory deadline to reveal he had accumulated a stake of at least 5%. Instead, according to the complaint, Musk didn’t disclose his position in Twitter until he’d almost doubled his stake to more than 9%. That strategy, the lawsuit alleges, hurt less wealthy investors who sold shares in the San Francisco company in the nearly two weeks before Musk acknowledged holding a major stake.

Musk’s regulatory filings show that he bought a little more than 620,000 shares at $36.83 apiece on Jan. 31 and then continued to accumulate more shares on nearly every single trading day through April 1. Musk, best known as CEO of the electric car maker Tesla, held 73.1 million Twitter shares as of the most recent count Monday. That represents a 9.1% stake in Twitter. The lawsuit alleges that by March 14, Musk’s stake in Twitter had reached a 5% threshold that required him to publicly disclose his holdings under U.S. securities law by March 24. Musk didn t make the required disclosure until April 4.

That revelation caused Twitter’s stock to soar 27% from its April 1 close to nearly $50 by the end of April 4’s trading, depriving investors who sold shares before Musk’s improperly delayed disclosure the chance to realize significant gains, according to the lawsuit filed on behalf of an investor named Marc Bain Rasella. Musk, meanwhile, was able to continue to buy shares that traded in prices ranging from $37.69 to $40.96. The lawsuit is seeking to be certified as a class action representing Twitter shareholders who sold shares between March 24 and April 4, a process that could take a year or more.

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Washed up Robert Reich has it figured out: Elon Musk is Putin. And Trump. “.. the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth..”

Some people really don’t like free speech…

Elon Musk’s Vision For The Internet Is Dangerous Nonsense (Robert Reich)

The Securities and Exchange Commission went after Musk after he tweeted that he had funding to take Tesla private, a clear violation of the law. Musk paid a fine and agreed to let lawyers vet future sensitive tweets, but he has tried to reverse this requirement. He has also been openly contemptuous of the SEC, tweeting at one point that the “E” stands for “Elon’s”. (You can guess what the “S” and “C” stand for.) By the way, how does the SEC go after Musk’s ability to tweet now that he owns Twitter? Billionaires like Musk have shown time and again they consider themselves above the law. And to a large extent, they are.

Musk has enough wealth that legal penalties are no more than slaps on his wrist, and enough power to control one of the most important ways the public now receives news. Think about it: after years of posting tweets that skirt the law, Musk was given a seat on Twitter’s board (and is probably now negotiating for even more clout). Musk says he wants to “free” the internet. But what he really aims to do is make it even less accountable than it is now, when it’s often impossible to discover who is making the decisions about how algorithms are designed, who is filling social media with lies, who’s poisoning our minds with pseudo-science and propaganda, and who’s deciding which versions of events go viral and which stay under wraps.

Make no mistake: this is not about freedom. It’s about power. In Musk’s vision of Twitter and the internet, he’d be the wizard behind the curtain – projecting on the world’s screen a fake image of a brave new world empowering everyone. In reality, that world would be dominated by the richest and most powerful people in the world, who wouldn’t be accountable to anyone for facts, truth, science or the common good. That’s Musk’s dream. And Trump’s. And Putin’s. And the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth. For the rest of us, it would be a brave new nightmare.

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George Webb Rotterdam

 

 

 

 

Athens strike

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Apr 122022
 


Jean Metzinger Soldier playing chess 1915

 

The WHO Is Building A Global Vaccine Passport (Bexte)
‘Unfriendly Visit’: Austrian Chancellor Meets With Putin (ZH)
Corporate Media Deploys the Big Guns on Ukraine (Ray McGovern)
A Fake Massacre For The Sake Of Real Sanctions (Milacic)
The Pimps of War (Chris Hedges)
The Fascinating Self-Immolation Of Europe (Denninger)
AIDS-Like “Chronic Covid” is Taking Over Europe, Australia and NZ (Chudov)
Kyiv Independent: The West’s In-Kind Answer to Putin’s Propaganda (MP)
US Firm With Ties to WEF, DOD Implicated in Bioweapons Cover-Up (CHD)
Another Suppressed Covid Treatment You Haven’t Heard Of (Blaze)
The Riptide (Jim Kunstler)
Jim Jordan Spots Major Shift In Hunter Biden Story (WE)
The Biden Family Scheme Unravels (Devine)

 

 

The Azov batallion accuses Russia of chemical attacks. And the entire western press parrots them. Next up is Bellingcat confirming this? Credibility is overrated in today’s world. There’s a new Russian massacre every single day, so no-one has the time to care about evidence.

 

 

Dotted line: Biden inauguration.

 

 

Fuelmilch

 

 

Zelkensky thanks Azov

 

 

 

 

“..the push for a global vaccine passport coincides with the WHO’s drafting of a global pandemic treaty, which would legally bind member states to the WHO’s International Health Regulations..”

The WHO Is Building A Global Vaccine Passport (Bexte)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has contracted German-based Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems to develop a global vaccine passport system, with plans to link every person on the planet to a QR code digital ID. Indeed, despite the minuscule threat posed by new variants and dubious-at-best vaccine efficacy, the WHO is adamant that a global QR code-based vaccine passport system is vital for all future health emergencies, not just COVID. “COVID-19 affects everyone. Countries will therefore only emerge from the pandemic together. Vaccination certificates that are tamper-proof and digitally verifiable build trust. WHO is therefore supporting member states in building national and regional trust networks and verification technology,” says unit head of the WHO’s Department of Digital Health and Innovation Garrett Mehl.

“The WHO’s gateway service also serves as a bridge between regional systems. It can also be used as part of future vaccination campaigns and home-based records.” It should be noted that besides the moral implications of implementing health-based restrictions in the wake of future pandemics — whether they be COVID, polio, or anything else — a global vaccine passport also brings up national security concerns, as the WHO and its backers would have access to these “home-based records.” In terms of feasibility, as previously reported by Reuters, T-Systems has a lot of experience developing discriminatory health apps, having worked to create Germany’s Corona-Warn-App tracing and Europe’s vaccine passport.

“Corona has a grip on the world. Digitization keeps the world running. Digital vaccination certificates like the EU’s are key to this. We are pleased to be able to support the WHO in the fight against the pandemic,” said T-Systems CEO Adel Al-Saleh. Moreover, as reported by The Counter Signal, the push for a global vaccine passport coincides with the WHO’s drafting of a global pandemic treaty, which would legally bind member states to the WHO’s International Health Regulations and allow the organization to dictate all future pandemic responses, utterly quashing national health sovereignty. The WHO began drafting its treaty in December 2021 during a special session entitled “The World Together.” The treaty is to be upheld by the WHO’s constitution, which under Article 19 “[provides] the World Health Assembly with the authority to adopt conventions or agreements on any matter within WHO’s competence.”

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Austria=EU but not NATO.

‘Unfriendly Visit’: Austrian Chancellor Meets With Putin (ZH)

On Monday Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer became the first EU leader to meet face-to-face with Vladimir Putin since the war began on Feb.24. He said that talks were “open and tough” but that it was “not a friendly visit.” Following the meeting which was at Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence just outside Moscow, the Austrian leader’s office issued a statement saying, “This is not a friendly visit. I have just come from Ukraine and have seen with my own eyes the immeasurable suffering caused by the Russian war of aggression.” Nehammer is said to have confronted Putin on multiple war crimes and human rights abuses alleged against Russian troops during the 75-minute meeting. Austria’s official statement of the meeting continued:

”I addressed the serious war crimes in Bucha and other places and emphasized that all those responsible for them must be held accountable,” Nehammer said, according to the statement. “I also told President Putin in no uncertain terms that sanctions against Russia will remain in place and will continue to be tightened as long as people are dying in Ukraine.” On what’s widely being alleged in the West as the ‘Bucha massacre’ – which left a reported 300 Ukrainian civilians dead, many of them in the streets – Nehammer described that when confronted Putin blamed Ukrainian militants, saying they were “responsible for the crimes in Bucha” and not Russian troops.

The Austrian head of state came under fire for the visit, as going to Moscow to meet Putin face-to-face was hugely controversial in some quarters among EU officials. However, Nehammer described the purpose as to confront the Russian President “with the facts”. “What is important is a personal meeting, phoning is one thing, but you really need to look each other in the eye, you need to talk about the cruelty of war,” Nehammer described of the rationale for the official visit. He told Putin that those guilty of war crimes “have to be brought to justice.”

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“At first I thought it a sickening flashback. Two nights ago, there were Judy Miller and former NATO commander Philip Breedlove on TV pontificating on Ukraine.”

Corporate Media Deploys the Big Guns on Ukraine (Ray McGovern)

Judith Miller and AF General Philip Breedlove are back! At first I thought it a sickening flashback. Two nights ago, there were Judy Miller and former NATO commander Philip Breedlove on TV pontificating on Ukraine. For younger readers, Judy was the NY Times Archdeacon blessing all those reports of “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (that weren’t there) and ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda (that weren’t there either). As for Breedlove, as a sad sign of the times, he appears (via Radio Free Europe) on Reader Supporter News, with zero allusion to his pedigree on truth and falsehood. Breedlove’s all-too-familiar, damn-the-torpedoes line on the need to confront Russia head-on in Ukraine brought back more sickening memories. For this is precisely what he tried to do – behind President Obama’s back – when he was commander of NATO troops (2013-2016).

It got so bad that we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) sought to warn German Chancellor Angela Merkel about Breedlove’s checkered record for credibility in advance of a NATO summit in early July, 2014. We urged Merkel to temper Breedlove’s distemper. Verbatim excerpts are below: “We longtime U.S. intelligence officers again wish to convey our concerns and cautions directly to you prior to a critically important NATO summit – the meeting that begins on July 8 in Warsaw. We were gratified to learn that our referenced memorandum reached you and your advisers before the NATO summit in Wales, and that others too learned of our initiative via the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which published a full report on our memorandum on Sept. 4, the day that summit began.

“The Warsaw summit is likely to be at least as important as the last one in Wales and is likely to have even more far-reaching consequences. We find troubling – if not surprising – NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s statement at a pre-summit press event on July 4 that NATO members will agree to “further enhance NATOs military presence in the eastern part of the alliance,” adding that the alliance will see its “biggest reinforcement since the Cold War.” “The likelihood of a military clash in the air or at sea – accidental or intentional – has grown sharply, the more so since, as we explain below, President Obama’s control over top US/NATO generals, some of whom like to play cowboy, is tenuous. Accordingly we encourage you, as we did before the last NATO summit, to urge your NATO colleagues to bring a “degree of judicious skepticism” to the table at Warsaw – especially with regard to the perceived threat from Russia.

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It’s one after the other, with no time in between for scrutiny.

A Fake Massacre For The Sake Of Real Sanctions (Milacic)

Brussels is proposing to completely block Russian energy supplies and close ports for Russian ships. This is already a last-ditch measure, after which it will be simply impossible to introduce anything else. However, you’ve got to have something to justify the fast-growing tariffs and prices, so the images and “evidence” from Bucha arrived right in time. The investigation of the events in the Bosnian Srebrenica once allowed ratcheting up anti-Serb sentiments in Europe. Now, Zelensky’s “personal Srebrenica” allows the Ukrainian president to drum up more European support, and ideally, to bring about absolutely unprecedented sanctions against Moscow. The organizers of the “Bucha Scandal” are hardly bothered by the questions that any sane person would ask himself.

Why didn’t the Russian troops, retreating in perfect order and without any pressure from the Kiev garrison (the Russians are not falling back, they are simply moving their forces to the Donbass region) remove the corpses from the streets? They have all the equipment they possibly need to pick up all the dead bodies and take them to the crematorium in Bryansk, thus hiding the traces of their “crimes” once and for all. Why did the Russians evenly distribute the corpses throughout the city and did not shoot Ukrainian activists all in one place? Finally, why didn’t the bloodthirsty Russians burn down and mine the city during their retreat? They had enough time to do that. However, despite all these unanswered questions, Russia will be condemned. London, Washington, Paris and Brussels have already decided everything.

The emergency meeting by UN Security Council will end in nothing as both Russian and Western resolutions will be blocked and the parties will be left even more dissatisfied with each other. Bucha is only the beginning though. The directors working with the good actor, Mr. Zelensky, have surely prepared the second and third acts of this drama for us to watch. They are quite banal, but effective nonetheless. It might be a mass grave and some “torture chambers.” This time round they will prepare better, without hiccups. The victims’ hands will be tied with the same ropes, and secret protocols of interrogations and coerced confessions will be properly signed without errors. What they will hardly be able to explain to a thinking audience, however, is why the Russians would want to commit such atrocities in the first place.

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” Like some mutant strain of an antibiotic-resistant bacteria, they cannot be vanquished.”

The Pimps of War (Chris Hedges)

The same cabal of warmongering pundits, foreign policy specialists and government officials, year after year, debacle after debacle, smugly dodge responsibility for the military fiascos they orchestrate. They are protean, shifting adroitly with the political winds, moving from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party and then back again, mutating from cold warriors to neocons to liberal interventionists. Pseudo intellectuals, they exude a cloying Ivy League snobbery as they sell perpetual fear, perpetual war and a racist worldview, where the lesser breeds of the earth only understand violence.

They are pimps of war, puppets of the Pentagon, a state within a state, and the defense contractors who lavishly fund their think tanks — Project for the New American Century, American Enterprise Institute, Foreign Policy Initiative, Institute for the Study of War, Atlantic Council and Brookings Institute. Like some mutant strain of an antibiotic-resistant bacteria, they cannot be vanquished. It does not matter how wrong they are, how absurd their theories, how many times they lie or denigrate other cultures and societies as uncivilized or how many murderous military interventions go bad. They are immovable props, the parasitic mandarins of power that are vomited up in the dying days of any empire, including that of the U.S., leaping from one self-defeating catastrophe to the next.

I spent 20 years as a foreign correspondent reporting on the suffering, misery, and murderous rampages these shills for war engineered and funded. My first encounter with them was in Central America. Elliot Abrams — convicted of providing misleading testimony to Congress on the Iran-Contra Affair and later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush so he could return to government to sell us the Iraq War — and Robert Kagan, director of the State Department’s public diplomacy office for Latin America — were propagandists for the brutal military regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as the rapists and homicidal thugs that made up the rogue Contra forces fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, which they illegally funded. Their job was to discredit our reporting.

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“Ukraine and Russia are at war yet Ukraine is not only allowing the gas to flow which Russia has to sell to fund itself but at the same time they’re still getting paid for the transport!”

The Fascinating Self-Immolation Of Europe (Denninger)

[..] to fill the gap between what was real and what was promised Europe put together pipelines and bought Russian gas and oil — specifically gas. Natural gas is hardly what you’d call “green” but it is more-efficient than coal, simply on energy content. Coal is carbon, or “C” where natural gas is almost-all CH4, or methane. CH4 has more energy that is released when it is burned compared with just the carbon part. But natural gas is not just burned for fuel; it is an essential feedstock for fertilizer, since nitrogen must be “fixed” in order to be usable. If this was not true you wouldn’t need nitrogen in fertilizer at all since about 79% of the atmosphere, which obviously is in contact with the ground, is nitrogen.

Modern agriculture relies on fertilization for the high yields it currently enjoys. Without them significant portions of the world population will undergo famine — and some will die. We have, in short, built a world population model around fossil fuel energy which is not just reliant on it to power cars for personal transportation — it is also reliant on to produce, process and transport the very food required for humans to survive in the density we currently have. Since Europe doesn’t have much natural gas resource where does Europe get all of this? Why, from Russia, which has it in abundance. Now of course trade with Russia is considered a very bad thing. Quite amusingly the people of Europe seem to think they can sanction Russia, essentially impounding or even stealing the money they pay for gas with and thus taking said gas for free, and continue to get more gas.

I’m not sure what sort of mental gymnastics were required to reach that conclusion, but reach it they did. What’s even more insane is the belief that being at war with someone will not ultimately result in them ceasing trade with you entirely, especially when they have something you need and there is another nation, with which they are not at war, willing to buy the product. Contemplate that today many cars are Japanese, Honda and Mazda, to name two. How many cars do you think Japan would have exported to the United States during WWII after Pearl Harbor while the US and Japan were busy with their soldiers all trying to kill one another? Now think about this: What if Europe was buying those cars from Japan, they were not at war with Japan but the US was, and in order to get to Europe the cars had to be shipped through the United States?

Do you really think we’d have “cooperated” with Europe in such an endeavor while the Japanese were blowing up our stuff and shooting at our guys? Do you think Japan would have continued to export said cars? This is the situation we have today with Ukraine in that Ukraine is not the supplier of any of the gas flowing through those pipes — Russia is. Ukraine and Russia are at war yet Ukraine is not only allowing the gas to flow which Russia has to sell to fund itself but at the same time they’re still getting paid for the transport! Exactly what sort of mental gymnastics are involved when you have two nations at war where both are continuing to engage in commerce with each other’s state-owned enterprises and other nations backing one of the combatants is also still engaged in commercial transactions with the belligerent directly via said state-owned enterprises they claim is at fault and don’t want to win? In what sort of insane world do you directly fund the nation who you want to lose a war?

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“Herd immunity is enjoyed only by unvaccinated countries.”

AIDS-Like “Chronic Covid” is Taking Over Europe, Australia and NZ (Chudov)

When Omicron appeared around December of last year, the powers-to-be in most Western countries found themselves in a situation of mass vaccine failure, where a Covid variant Omicron, about infectious as measles, was spreading like wildfire, while at the same time evading vaccine immunity. So, the clever solution was to abolish containment altogether, wish “illness and death” on the unvaccinated people, and hope that the vaccinated world gains “herd immunity” while enjoying relatively low mortality. Unfortunately for them and for us, things did not work out this way. Hospitals are overwhelmed by the vaccinated. Endless Covid short term reinfections, plaguing the UK and the rest of the Western world, are sliding towards “Chronic Covid”. Herd immunity is enjoyed only by unvaccinated countries.

Chronic Covid is a situation where the vaccinated cannot develop natural immunity, cannot quickly clear infections, and remain ill and infectious for extended period of time. Such repeat infections progressively damage their immunity to the point of not being able to clear Covid at all. That would lead to people being chronically infected, infecting others, and overwhelmed with toxic Covid viral proteins, while remaining immunosuppressed. [..] in summary we have original antigenic sin inviting first several reinfections. These reinfections might seem mild outwardly, but fail to clear the virus for up to 9 days. The result of each reinfection is progressive damage to monocytes and the immune systems.

All of this is in addition to numerous reports, much discussed in my and others’ article, that mRNA vaccination itself is damaging to the immune systems. Some people even use term VAIDS to describe such immune problems. I explained this term in my article two months ago. How will it end up? I am not sure if it will end up well. I hope it does. It may actually end up with mass fatalities. I hope for as few as possible but dread that it could be very many.

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Not sure which part is similar to “Putin’s Propaganda”. The Kyiv Independent was set up for the express purpose of the Ukraine war. Since the set up happened in November, feel free to ask questions.

Kyiv Independent: The West’s In-Kind Answer to Putin’s Propaganda (MP)

As the Russian attack on Ukraine has come to dominate global news feeds, so has a previously little-known outlet called The Kyiv Independent. Since its inception in November of last year, the Independent’s profile has risen rapidly and has been promoted and endorsed by both social media giants and the corporate press. The Kyiv Independent has become the toast of the town. It seems virtually impossible to turn on cable news without seeing its reporters on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, or other networks. Its staff has been given the opportunity to write multiple op-eds in the pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, something considered the ultimate seal of approval by many journalists. NPR listeners might also have heard interviews with reporters from the Independent.

But, while almost universally presented as a collective of unbiased journalists producing credible content, the Independent’s history, funding sources, and the proximity of many of its key staff to Western governments suggest that the news organization is not nearly as independent as its name implies. Since November, the outlet has amassed over two million Twitter followers, up from around just 20,000 one week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Twitter also constantly promotes its content on its homepage, encouraging hundreds of millions of people to read and follow them. The Independent has also managed to raise more than $3.2 million from two separate crowdfunding campaigns on GoFundMe and rakes in more than $72,000 per month from supporters on Patreon.

This is partially down to ringing endorsements from the likes of The Washington Post, CBS News and PBS, who endorsed their funding drives as the perfect way to do something to help Ukrainians. “Journalists with The Kyiv Independent have done tremendous work covering the war, offering the world constant updates as they fear for themselves, their families, and their homes,” the Post wrote. Meanwhile, the Times has regularly signal-boosted its coverage as well, recommending it to readers as a way to “avoid drowning in an ocean of information.” Another article instructing teachers on how to discuss the war states that “Ukrainian sources like The Kyiv Independent” are a “good starting point” as “reliable news sources.” In short, there has been nothing short of a ringing, wall-to-wall endorsement of the startup news organization. However, few, if any, of these reports and appearances hint at how close The Kyiv Independent and many of its staff members are to Western governmental power.

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Plus ties to CIA, Hunter Biden.

US Firm With Ties to WEF, DOD Implicated in Bioweapons Cover-Up (CHD)

As evidence of a potential bioweapons cover-up has started emerging, a company called Metabiota is gaining prominence. The links between Metabiota and several key players in the COVID pandemic and/or the Ukraine labs story are manifold, so there’s no really simple way to unravel it in a logical sequence. That said, let’s start with what Metabiota does and the connections of its founder, and expand from there. Metabiota’s mission is to make the world more resilient to epidemics by providing “data, analytics, advice and training to prepare for global health threats and mitigate their impacts.” Through data analysis, they help “decision makers across government and industry” to estimate and mitigate pandemic risks. But they also claim to support “sustainable development,” which seems to have little to do with pandemic risk management.

That term, “sustainable development,” is one promoted by Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF). It’s part and parcel of Schwab’s plan for a global Great Reset and transhumanist revolution (aka, the Fourth Industrial Revolution). It’s not surprising, then, to find out that the founder of Metabiota, Nathan Wolfe, not only has close ties to the WEF, but is also a rising star there. He’s a WEF Young Global Leader graduate and was awarded the WEF’s Technology Pioneer award in 2021. Metabiota was a core partner of a United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Pandemic Threat Program called PREDICT, which sought to identify viruses with pandemic potential. Contractors funded through this program have included the EcoHealth Alliance, headed by Peter Daszak.

The PREDICT program, directed by Dennis Carroll, appears to have served as a proof of concept for the Global Virome Project that Carroll founded. According to a recent investigation by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK), Carroll appears to have diverted government funds from the PREDICT program while he was still running it, to fund this personal side project, which was set up with the intention to collect, identify and catalogue 1 million viruses from wildlife in an effort to predict which ones might cause a human epidemic. Metabiota receives funding from several interconnected organizations and agencies, including:

• Pilot Growth Management, cofounded by Neil Callahan. Callahan is also a cofounder of Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, and he sits on Metabiota’s board of advisers.
• The Global Virome Project, which reportedly paid (or was planning to pay) Metabiota $341,000 to conduct a cost-benefit analysis.
• In-Q-Tel, a CIA venture capital firm that specializes in high-tech investments that support or benefit the intelligence capacity of U.S. intelligence agencies.
• The U.S. Department of Defense’s Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Specifically, in 2014, DTRA awarded Metabiota $18.4 million in federal contracts for scientific and technical consulting services to the DTRA’s labs in Ukraine and Georgia.
• By outsourcing work to private companies, DTRA is able to circumvent Congressional oversight. Russia is now accusing the U.S. of funding secret and illegal bioweapons research in these Ukraine labs, and claims this was the real reason behind its invasion.
• Rosemont Seneca, an investment fund co-managed by Hunter Biden. If Russia’s accusations turn out to be true, this tie may prove deeply problematic for the White House, as this means the Biden family was more or less directly involved in the funding of that research.

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proxalutamide

Another Suppressed Covid Treatment You Haven’t Heard Of (Blaze)

One day, we will learn the extent of the malicious war that was waged by politicians and Big Pharma against COVID treatments. But if the newest study on proxalutamide in COVID patients reflects reality, you can add one more drug to the list of treatments that could have saved countless lives but which were purposefully stifled to please the gods of lockdowns, panic, and experimental injections. Last week, Kintor Pharmaceuticals announced the results of a randomized controlled trial of the use of anti-androgen proxalutamide, a prostate cancer drug, in mild to moderate COVID patients. It found that among the 721 American patients who received at least one day of treatment, there were seven patients in the control group who were hospitalized and one fatality compared to two hospitalized patients and zero fatalities in the proxalutamide group. Among patients with more than seven days of treatment (N=693), six patients who received placebo were hospitalized and one died, compared to no hospitalizations/deaths in the proxalutamide group.

Doctors who actually studied the pathophysiology of COVID came to the conclusion a long time ago that hormone levels helped facilitate the ACE2 and TMPRSS2 binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and therefore, males seemed to be more vulnerable than females, and bald men seemed to be at greater risk as well. Brazilian board-certified endocrinologist and internist Flavio A. Cadegiani has been the leading voice in favor of using androgen blockers against COVID. A randomized controlled trial published by Cadegiani in 2021 demonstrated an 86% reduction in hospitalization. Another trial published later in the year showed a 78% reduction in mortality even among late-stage patients. This was all for the Gamma variant, which was regarded as the most fatal and pathogenic of all the strains of this virus.

[..] Kintor is the maker of proxalutamide, but unlike Pfizer, Moderna, Merck, and Gilead, which all made billions off drugs that the companies personally made and studied, Kintor doesn’t have the same financial incentive for corruption. The other drugs that were made standard of care are very expensive and come with automatic government contracts, whereas proxalutamide is available in Brazil for just $11 for a full course of treatment. The use of anti-androgens is just one of many examples of how doctors who actually understand pharmacology and biochemistry will innovate to treat ailments rather than allowing people to die. Whether it’s hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, nitazoxanide, metformin, aviptadil, budesonide, fluvoxamine, fenofibrate, famotidine, cyproheptadine, methylprednisolone, and dozens of other vitamins and supplements, the medical industry has shunned all research on cheap treatments.

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“A stable, agricultural Ukraine will be a benefit to a hungry world, while it will no longer be in a position to launch hostilities..”

The Riptide (Jim Kunstler)

[..] NATO has acted as a conduit for arming and training a 400,000-troop Ukrainian army, a violation of several formal agreements between Russia and the West. NATO, otherwise, does not have the will, or even the means, to engage militarily with Russia. And America, at the head of NATO, has so far refrained from starting World War Three by way of sending US troops or war-planes into Ukraine. So, Russia has gone about the plodding business of neutralizing Ukraine’s trouble-seeking military and rearranging the map so that Ukraine won’t be able to act as a proxy antagonist in America’s ill-conceived campaign to destroy Mr. Putin and his country.

The operation will probably end this month. My guess is that Mr. Zelensky will be allowed to remain president of what remains on the map, minus Donbas and the region along the Black Sea coast from Mariupol to Odessa. Mr. Zelensky will not have a functioning military to make trouble with. Other patches of Western Ukraine may be distributed among Poland, Moldova, Romania, and Hungary, leaving a large rump of Ukraine between Lvov and the Dnieper River devoted mostly to the growing of wheat. A stable, agricultural Ukraine will be a benefit to a hungry world, while it will no longer be in a position to launch hostilities or be of much use as a money-laundering facility. In short, with some luck, Ukraine will cease to be a threat to world peace.

Ukraine may have been “Joe Biden’s” last opportunity to screw things up on the world scene. As the military conflict resolves, Ukraine can’t be used by the White House as a shield to divert America’s attention from the political cancer of Biden family corruption, and the systemic illness of the nation’s institutions. Merrick Garland may not be able to contain the open case against Hunter Biden to mere rinky-dink tax violations — and if he tries to limit the US Attorneys in charge of the case, he will be setting himself up for an obstruction of justice rap some months from now. The laptop is out now, too many people have copies of the hard drive, and some are working diligently to make the mess of it more easily searchable. So, expect much more to come.

It won’t be easy for the Democratic Party to get rid of “Joe Biden.” Nobody can feature Kamala Harris in the oval office, and were she to somehow gracefully remove herself from the scene, next-in-line would be Nancy Pelosi who, in addition to being long-in-the-tooth, seems to be literally drunk half the time in her public appearances. And behind her: Patrick Leahy, Senate President Pro Tem, who is nearly as senile and incoherent as “Joe Biden.”

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“Remember, it started off as, ‘Oh, it wasn’t his laptop.’ Then it was, ‘Well, it was his laptop, but it was Russian disinformation.’ Now it’s, ‘No, it wasn’t Russian disinformation, but Joe had nothing to do with it,'”

Jim Jordan Spots Major Shift In Hunter Biden Story (WE)

Rep. Jim Jordan said on Sunday it “sure seems” the president’s son is on his way to being indicted, though the congressman acknowledged he could not say for certain. He pointed to an upswell in reporting on the authentication of contents on a laptop believed to have belonged to Hunter Biden, coinciding with a wave of grand jury activity. “You mentioned those two stories from the Washington Post 10 days ago,” the Ohio Republican told host Maria Bartiromo on Fox News. “I understand they were four minutes apart. One was at 11:00. One was at 11:04. So two eight-page-long stories four minutes apart from the news organization that said 18 months ago there was no story here, this was Russian disinformation. That tells you something is up. You don’t see the Washington Post do that.”

While the New York Post led the charge in reporting on the contents of the abandoned laptop, which contained emails detailing Biden’s business dealings and rollercoaster personal life, other major media outlets sought to cast doubt on its authenticity, and Big Tech companies even took steps to suppress its spread in the final weeks of the 2020 election. Jordan, who is the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, remarked how “interesting” it is that the “story has evolved” in recent weeks, coinciding with rising suspicions that President Joe Bidsen himself could be drawn into a federal criminal investigation, even as the White House has been adamant in asserting that the president is not involved and that his 52-year-old son did not commit any crimes.

“Remember, it started off as, ‘Oh, it wasn’t his laptop.’ Then it was, ‘Well, it was his laptop, but it was Russian disinformation.’ Now it’s, ‘No, it wasn’t Russian disinformation, but Joe had nothing to do with it,'” Jordan said. “And now, finally, it is, ‘Well, Joe had something to do with it, but he really didn’t do anything wrong.’ In fact, that’s what his chief of staff, Ron Klain, told us last Sunday on the Sunday shows,” he added. “So, my, how this story has changed. And now, we find out these text messages and emails that link the entire family, not just Hunter and Joe and — but also uncle, the — Joe’s brother, James Biden, is involved in this as well.”

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As I said before, you can’t investigate Hunter without also investigating Joe.

The Biden Family Scheme Unravels (Devine)

If the grand jury in Delaware investigating Hunter Biden’s business ventures does its job properly, it will be pulling on the threads that lead to the president, and already there are signs that is happening. Regardless of the extraordinary statement last week by White House chief of staff Ron Klain, that the president is confident his son has done nothing wrong, and that the inquiry has nothing to do with Joe Biden or anyone else in the White House, publicly available evidence says otherwise. It is not just the emails and other material on Hunter’s abandoned laptop that point to Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s multimillion-dollar global influence-peddling schemes when he was vice president.

There is also the six-hour interview Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski gave to the FBI last year, along with a trove of documents, emails and encrypted messages. Bobulinski has publicly named Joe Biden as the “Big Guy,” referenced in emails, whose 10% equity in a joint venture with Chinese energy company CEFC was held for him by Hunter. Now the identity of the Big Guy has become a topic for the Delaware probe. At least one of the witnesses before the grand jury has been asked: Who is the Big Guy? Sources familiar with the investigation say Bobulinski has yet to appear, but if he does not testify before the grand jury, something is very wrong. Perhaps US Attorney David Weiss is saving the best for last.

The pressure on Weiss is immense, as the four-year investigation into the president’s son and his business partners, including his uncle James Biden, Joe’s younger brother, threatens to become an election issue in November. Alarm bells are starting to ring in Democratic circles as the White House stonewalls in the face of increasing media inquiries. In two absurd statements in recent days, White House spokespeople said the president stands by his pre-election statement that Hunter never received any money from China, and he continues to deny that he knew anything about his son’s overseas business dealings. The White House position is unsustainable.

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From a main stream sports channel in Australia

 

 

 

 

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Mar 032022
 


Pablo Picasso Mandolin and guitar 1924

 

Casualties Worse than WW1 & WWII Combined – Charles Nenner (USAW)
Ukraine And The New Al Qaeda (Whitney Webb)
Ukraine Has Been Bombing Its Own Population For 8 Years; 13,000 Deaths (LM)
There Will Be Many Ghosts In Kiev (AC)
Putin Is Not Crazy And The Russian Invasion Is Not Failing (Roggio)
The Importance Of The Russian Peacekeeping Operation In Ukraine (Milacic)
The Universal Boosting of Putin (Craig Murray)
US Army Pushing Mandatory Gender Pronoun Training (Rebel)
The US and NATO Have Never Been Sanctioned For Starting Wars. Why? (Bridge)
Jan. 6 Panel Accuses Trump Of Engaging In ‘Criminal Conspiracy’ (JTN)
New Zealand Reckons With Aftermath As Smoke Clears On Violent Protests (G.)
Corruption of Healthcare, Informed Consent, Doctor-Patient Relationship (GMS)
Ukraine on Fire (Lopatonok/Oliver Stone)

 

 

 

 

Zelensky:
6,000 Russian soldiers killed

“[Russia] have orders to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all.”

Gonzalo Lira – What Russia Wants From Its Invasion of Ukraine—and Why Zelensky Is Evil

 

 

 

 


WTI – Spread between the current contract future vs the December contract

 

 

In case you weren’t scared enough.

Casualties Worse than WW1 & WWII Combined – Charles Nenner (USAW)

Renowned geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner says his analysis shows the world is entering into a huge war cycle that could last for many years. Nenner says, “The war cycle is such that there is great danger for a huge war. . . . What I have been writing about is the big danger that Russia, Iran and China will get together. China is watching how we deal with Ukraine before they start with Taiwan. I think that is the big one. . . . The West is in disarray, and it does not have a line on where to go or what to do. . . . This war cycle is going to be bad, and I’ll tell you why. We do price targets on markets and war cycles, and if you look at the price targets, it tells me that the casualties are going to be much higher than in the First and Second World War. So, it’s not going to be a joke.”

Nenner says his cycles are telling him the casualties in the next war could top 175 million. Nenner also sees that world leaders are not taking this seriously and points out, “What’s going on in this country (America), what are they busy with and what is it compared to a nuclear war? —Nothing. Even Biden’s decisions now are based on public relations. If the United States were independent with oil, like it was before with the pipeline and like Trump pushed, we would not be in this situation that oil could go up another $50 per barrel. It looks like now oil can go to $150 per barrel, and it can even get to $250 per barrel.”

War abroad is not the only thing to look out for. Nenner says, “I think there is going to be a lot of civil unrest. When Rome was burning, and we are talking about 2,000 years ago, the Senators were discussing if angels were male or female. This is while Rome was burning. This world is burning, and we are discussing now what kind of a sign you have to put on a public restroom. It’s the same situation. Nobody takes the lead in the big situations. . . .The cycle for civil unrest has just turned up, and it’s going to get much worse. You can imagine if Biden loses to Trump (in 2024), what is going to happen over here? I have never seen people so much on the edge. . . . Look at what going on with masks. People are ready to kill you because you disagree on what you think about masks.”

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“The CIA seems determined to manifest a prophecy propagated by its own ranks over the past 2 years -that a “transnational white supremacist network” w alleged ties to the Ukraine conflict will be the next global catastrophe to befall the world after Covid.”

Ukraine And The New Al Qaeda (Whitney Webb)

As the conflict between Ukraine and Russia continues to escalate and dominate the world’s attention, the increasing evidence that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is and has been working to create and arm an insurgency in the country has received considerably little attention considering its likely consequences. This is particularly true given that former CIA officials and a former Secretary of State are now openly saying that the CIA is following the “models” of past CIA-backed insurgencies in Afghanistan and Syria for its plans in Ukraine. Given that those countries have been ravaged by war as a direct result of those insurgencies, this bodes poorly for Ukraine.

Yet, this insurgency is poised to have consequences that reach far beyond Ukraine. It increasingly appears that the CIA sees the insurgency it is creating as more than an opportunity to take its hybrid war against Russia ever closer to its borders. As this report will show, it appears the CIA is determined to manifest a prophecy propagated by its own ranks over the past two years. This prediction from former and current intelligence officials dates from at least early 2020 and holds that a “transnational white supremacist network” with alleged ties to the Ukraine conflict will be the next global catastrophe to befall the world as the threat of Covid-19 recedes.

Per these “predictions”, this global network of white supremacists – allegedly with a group linked to the conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine at its core – is to become the new Islamic State-style threat and will undoubtedly be used as the pretext to launch the still-dormant infrastructure set up last year by the US government under President Biden for an Orwellian “War on Domestic Terror.” Given that this CIA-driven effort to build an insurgency in Ukraine began as far back as 2015 and that the groups it has trained (and continues to train) include those with overt Neo-Nazi connections, it seems that this “coming Ukrainian insurgency,” as it has been recently called, is already here. In that context, we are left with the unnerving possibility that this latest escalation of the Ukraine-Russia conflict has merely served as the opening act for the newest iteration of the seemingly endless “War on Terror.”

Soon after Russia began military operations in Ukraine, Foreign Affairs – the media arm of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) – published an article entitled “The Coming Ukrainian Insurgency.” The piece was authored by Douglas London, a self-described “retired Russian-speaking CIA operations officer who served in Central Asia and managed agency counterinsurgency operations.” He asserted in the article that “Putin will face a long, bloody insurgency that will spread across multiple borders” with the potential to create “widening unrest that could destabilize other countries in Russia’s orbit.”

Other notable statements made by London include his assertion that “the United States will invariably be a major and essential source of backing for a Ukrainian insurgency.” He also states that “As the United States learned in Vietnam and Afghanistan, an insurgency that has reliable supply lines, ample reserves of fighters, and sanctuary over the border can sustain itself indefinitely, sap an occupying army’s will to fight, and exhaust political support for the occupation at home.” London explicitly refers to models for this apparently imminent Ukrainian insurgency as the CIA-backed insurgencies in Afghanistan in the 1980s and the “moderate rebels” in Syria from 2011 to the present.

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Google translated from French.

Ukraine Has Been Bombing Its Own Population For 8 Years; 13,000 Deaths (LM)

Invited to the Cnews set of L’Heure des Pros on March 1, 2022, war reporter Anne-Laure Bonnel recounts what Europe has not said since 2014 about the Dombass martyrs: “It’s been a week since the we talk about this conflict, but it has been going on for eight years and there have been thirteen thousand deaths, people are exhausted and they are very surprised that Europe realizes the situation, whereas for them, who live in cellars and receive heavy artillery frequently – see Anne-Laure Bonnel’s documentary: Dombass – it has been a daily life since 2014. Totally incredible thing, the French will learn – not on BFMtv – that, currently, the government of Kiev bombards its own citizens in Donbass. This is the question that Pascal Praud is asking himself and he remains amazed by Anne-Laure Bonne’s answer: “I do not take sides and I do not defend Putin, it is factual.

The Ukrainian government bombed its people. There are eighteen-month-old children in cellars. Yesterday I was in a school and two teachers were cut in half, their bodies cut in half. » While Volodymyr Zelensky is applauded by MEPs, women, children and men are dying under Ukrainian bombs without worrying the European Union. These Ukrainians are deprived of their social rights, of the payment of their pensions, of their salaries for civil servants. Water pipes and transport networks are systematically destroyed, preventing the delivery of foreign humanitarian aid. Anne-Laure denounces on her Facebook page: “Kiev is blockading its Russian-speaking populations in the east of the country. Since last November 4, the Security Council of the government of Kiev has thus adopted a “plan of immediate measures for the stabilization of the socio-economic situation…” which consists of “the suspension of the operation of companies, institutions, representations, subsidiaries and state organizations in cities located in the “anti-terrorist zone” of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”

Because the new authorities simply decreed that the millions of Ukrainian citizens who lived in the regions of Lugansk and Donetsk were terrorists. » We strongly advise our readers to watch Anne-Laure Bonnel’s documentary: Dombass

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“The tools of propaganda in mass society have only grown with the tools of mass communication.”

There Will Be Many Ghosts In Kiev (AC)

The tools of propaganda in mass society have only grown with the tools of mass communication. You cannot see the war in its entirety—where it comes from and where it will go and what may come of it, and most of all what is happening now, on the ground—but you can be made to think you see, told that you are a part of a great and noble effort, even from the sterile security of your office or the comfort of your home. There are two wars, which are in the end still really one war: that between Russia and Ukraine, and that waged in the information sphere by parties both known and unknown, state and non-state actors alike, around the world. Since history is written by the victors, the thinking goes, if you write away now you might just win.

Sometimes this second war of appearances itself appears obvious enough for anyone to recognize. Consider recent reports of potential prosecution by the Czech Republic of citizens who post pro-Russian statements—a country not formally involved in the war in Ukraine mobilizing the tools of a total war effort. Or look on in wonder at Canadians filling the streets of Ottawa again, this time with members of parliament and city counselors among them, demonstrating in “solidarity” with people who live in a country on the other side of the world, a week after the demonstrations and solidarity of their fellow citizens were crushed. Or gawk at CBS highlighting transgenderism in Ukraine right now. Propaganda is not always subtle, even if the final aims of the information war they are a part of seem obscure.

The vast technical improvements in the tools of its dissemination mean that propaganda need not be subtle at all now. One can and probably should debate whether it ever was—the American security state’s Cold War partnership with industrialists and cultural influencers was more tasteful than that of today, but was it really less obvious? But in our moment that is beside the point. What is clear, as Darryl Cooper of the MartyrMade podcast observed recently, is that “Modern propaganda doesn’t even bother trying to convince (if even by deception). It merely says if you think This, you’re good, if you think That, you’re bad, then encourages the Good People to go attack the Bad People.”

No fly zone

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“The West’s delusions about this war – and its failure to understand the enemy – will prevent it from saving Ukraine”

Putin Is Not Crazy And The Russian Invasion Is Not Failing (Roggio)

Once again, U.S. and Western officials are falling into the trap of failing to understand the enemy and his objectives. Allegedly, Putin believed that the Ukrainian government would collapse once Russian troops crossed the frontier and pushed to Kyiv, and that the operation has failed because the Ukrainian government remains in place. Putin certainly hoped for a swift victory, but he clearly was not relying on his opening salvo as the only plan for success. Rather, the Russian military was prepared to take the country by force if a swift decapitation strike fell short. This kind of plan should be familiar to Americans who remember the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In the first hours of the war, the U.S. Air Force launched its ‘shock and awe’ campaign in an attempt to kill Saddam Hussein and other key leaders and bring down the government. Saddam survived, but the U.S. military was fully prepared to follow up with a ground assault. A look at the Russian military offensive demonstrates there was a plan for a full-scale invasion, which Russia is now executing. Conventional, mechanized warfare is a time and resource consuming enterprise, and an operation of this scope isn’t cobbled together in days. The Russian offensive is taking place on four separate fronts. On a fifth front, in eastern Ukraine, which Putin declared independent last week, Russian forces are tying down Ukrainian troops that are needed elsewhere.

The bulk of the Russian forces are advancing southward from Belarus to Kyiv. Russian advance forces, including air, mobile and reconnaissance troops, have been engaged with Ukrainian troops outside of Kyiv since the start of the war. A massive column of Russian troops, estimated at over 40 miles long, is just 20 miles north of Kyiv, and is likely assembling to surround the capital. If Russian forces can take Kyiv and push southward to link up with forces on the Crimean front, thus splitting Ukraine in two, it would be a major blow to the Zelensky government. What matters more than a handful of setbacks is that Russian forces have pushed 70 miles into contested terrain in less than a week and are on the outskirts of the capital.

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“Ukraine is the core of the formation of the Russian state and nation.”

The Importance Of The Russian Peacekeeping Operation In Ukraine (Milacic)

Ukraine is the core of the formation of the Russian state and nation. And much more. In modern circumstances, the question of Ukraine is a question of Russia’s survival. Ukraine is the country that decides on Russia’s destiny because it is in the lobby of the Kremlin. In the modern conditions of modern weapons, it is a springboard for the dismemberment of Russia. These plans have existed for a long time and are even in the scientific literature. The main goals of the Russian peacekeeping operation are the protection of the Russian people in Ukraine, Ukraine’s commitment to neutrality, and the decentralization of the state in order to prevent an anti-Russian policy in the future in Kiev. Also, President Putin made it clear – that one of the goals is to denazify Ukraine.

For years, we have witnessed the strengthening of neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine, and it is not appropriate for a country like Russia, which has a fight against Nazism in its history, to have a country in its neighborhood that is pro-Nazi. And Ukraine was like that. And imagine what the impact of Ukraine would be if it remained on that course as Russia’s neighbor. The geopolitical goals are recognized in the geopolitics of Russia written in the books, and that is to expel the United States from Eurasia as a whole. That seems like a distant and impossible goal to us, but with the victory in the Second World War, the United States occupied the macro-bridgehead in Europe and after the Cold War, they tried to expand it. They succeeded in that after the fall of the Berlin Wall and reached the borders of Russia itself – Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.

Now they are trying to expand that bridgehead even more. The Russians believe that the United States is a foreign body on the territory of Eurasia, under the formula “why would a non-Eurasian power rule Eurasia, where there is one Russia, China, India but also Germany and France. So goals can be much longer term. On the other hand, for US, this is a matter of confirming credibility. After several defeats, Washington is facing a new challenge – in Ukraine itself. If Russia succeeds, the United States will be in a cycle of defeat. Many countries will try to be neutral and give general commitments, their generalized words. But China, like any great power, says one thing – that the security interests of Russia, like any other state, must be respected. In translation, that NATO’s expansion to the east must be stopped.

After independence, Ukraine insisted on decommunization. From the demolition of the monuments, to the change of its orientation and policy. But only to those limits to stay within its borders which were determined by the – communists!

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“I was First Secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw, I was British Ambassador in Tashkent, and I was taught to be fluent in both Polish and Russian, which included living in St Petersburg as a language student while Ambassador designate..”

The Universal Boosting of Putin (Craig Murray)

Putin’s image as the strong man of Eurasia is boosted out of all proportion by those on the right who benefit from portraying a powerful enemy: and by those on the left who yearn for a powerful friend. This is the universal boosting of Putin. But in real life he is a much smaller figure, controlling a waning power of very limited resources. He has just made his largest miscalculation. In the last hour the UN General Assembly has condemned the Russian attack on Ukraine. The UN General Assembly is a forum where the US and its allies can normally muster between 2 and 12 votes. They had 141. Russia mustered 5, the kind of position the US, Israel and the Marshall Islands frequently find themselves in. That is the extent of Putin’s diplomatic blunder.

History teaches us it is a huge mistake to attack Russia. The Russian people have an enormous capacity for wartime resilience when attacked. But the plain truth is NATO has never attacked Russia, and though I intensely dislike NATO’s pushing of weapons systems closer to Russia, NATO doctrine has never included plans to initiate war with Russia. Just as I have frequently stated Russia has never had any intent to attack the UK; to persuade the population otherwise is the everyday job of the military industrial complex. But the Russian military industrial complex is just as powerful within Russia as the western military industrial complex is here, and the Russian people are just as exploited by their elites as we are in the West.

On either side, the offices of heads of government are not the right place to search for the good guys. Everybody gets lied into war. It is of course a truism that Russian security concerns were made neuralgic by the ever tightening encroachment of NATO and its missiles. It is a valid point. But it is an equally valid point that NATO has never attacked Russia and none of those missiles has ever been fired at Russia. The point of the missiles was never to fire them at Russia. The point of the missiles was to manufacture and sell them at enormous profit margins and provide large salaries and cash funds for politicians, with endless revolving door jobs for ex-military and civilian defence personnel, who all keep the contracts flowing.

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I must admit I don’t get this.

US Army Pushing Mandatory Gender Pronoun Training (Rebel)

While the war in Ukraine rages on, the U.S. Army is pushing through a mandatory training program for enlisted soldiers on gender pronouns, coaching officers on how to offer servicemembers gender reassignment surgery. An explosive report by the Washington Free Beacon detailed an official military presentation titled, “Policy on the Military Service of Transgender Persons and Persons with Gender Dysphoria,” which was provided to officers in February along with instructions on how to train their subordinates on the material. Details of the presentation were leaked to the Free Beacon by a whistleblower who was forced to partake in the training as a high-ranking officer in the Army Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets.


Details of the leaked report were confirmed to the publication by a U.S. Army Spokesman, who said that it came from an official program “used to train Army personnel on the recent changes to the DoD and Army transgender service policy.” Under the policy, every enlisted soldier to officer, including commanders and supervisors, are mandated to undergo the transgender training by September 30, 2022. The introduction of the presentation comes months after the army’s shift in policies allowing transgender soldiers to openly serve and is part of a larger push by the Biden administration’s “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” initiative to make the military inclusive to transgender and non-binary identifying individuals. Despite the pushback from Republicans and military veterans, all three branches of the U.S. Military and the U.S. Marines have gone ahead to promote the woke initiative throughout the military.

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“.. just because NATO-bloc countries have been tearing a path of wanton destruction around the globe since 2001 without serious consequences, this does not give Russia, or any country, moral license to behave in a similar manner.”

The US and NATO Have Never Been Sanctioned For Starting Wars. Why? (Bridge)

If the current events in Ukraine have proven anything, it’s that the United States and its transatlantic partners are able to run roughshod across a shell-shocked planet – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, to name a few of the hotspots – with almost total impunity. Meanwhile, Russia and Vladimir Putin are being portrayed in nearly every mainstream media publication today as the second coming of Nazi Germany for their actions in Ukraine. First, let’s be clear about something. Hypocrisy and double standards alone do not provide justification for the opening of hostilities by any country. In other words, just because NATO-bloc countries have been tearing a path of wanton destruction around the globe since 2001 without serious consequences, this does not give Russia, or any country, moral license to behave in a similar manner.

There must be a convincing reason for a country to authorize the use of force, thereby committing itself to what could be considered ‘a just war’. Thus, the question: Can Russia’s actions today be considered ‘just’ or, at the very least, understandable? I will leave that answer up to the reader’s better judgment, but it would be idle not to consider some important details. Only to the consumers of mainstream media fast food would it come as a surprise that Moscow has been warning on NATO expansion for well over a decade. In his now-famous speech to the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Vladimir Putin poignantly asked the assembled global powerbrokers point blank, “why is it necessary to put military infrastructure on our borders during this [NATO] expansion? Can someone answer this question?”

Later in the speech, he said that expanding military assets smack up to the Russian border “is not connected in any way with the democratic choices of individual states.” Not only were the Russian leader’s concerns met with the predictable amount of disregard amid the deafening sound of crickets, NATO has gone on to bestow membership on four more countries since that day (Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia). As a thought experiment that even a dolt could conduct, imagine Washington’s reaction if Moscow were building a continuously expanding military bloc in South America, for example.

The real cause for Moscow’s alarm, however, came when the US and NATO began flooding neighboring Ukraine with a dazzling array of sophisticated weaponry amid calls for membership in the military bloc. What on earth could go wrong? In Moscow’s mind, Ukraine was beginning to pose an existential threat to Russia. In December, Moscow, quickly nearing the end of its patience, delivered draft treaties to the US and NATO, demanding they halt any further military expansion eastwards, including by the accession of Ukraine or any other states. It included the explicit statement that NATO “shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine or other states of Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia.” Once again, Russia’s proposals were met with arrogance and indifference by Western leaders.

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One of the accused committed suicide after hearing what his verdict could be. Meanwhile, Pelosi still refuses to release the thousands of hours of video.

Jan. 6 Panel Accuses Trump Of Engaging In ‘Criminal Conspiracy’ (JTN)

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot alleged in a court filing Wednesday that former President Donald Trump participated in a “criminal conspiracy” related to the 2020 election as it sought to pierce his attorney-client privilege. The committee alleged that the former president and his campaign attempted to illegally obstruct Congress’ certification of electoral votes. “The Select Committee also has a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States,” the panel wrote in a brief that was filed in opposition to Trump attorney John Eastman’s claims of claims of attorney-client privilege. The committee also said that Trump “may have” been involved in other criminal acts as well with Eastman offering legal assistance. “[E]vidence and information available to the Committee establishes a good-faith belief that Mr. Trump and others may have engaged in criminal and/or fraudulent acts, and that Plaintiff’s legal assistance was used in furtherance of those activities.”


Jan. 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., released a statement on the allegations Wednesday. “The Select Committee’s brief refutes on numerous grounds the privilege claims Dr. Eastman has made to try to keep hidden records critical to our investigation. The Select Committee is not conducting a criminal investigation. But, as the judge noted at a previous hearing, Dr. Eastman’s privilege claims raise the question whether the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege applies in this situation,” they wrote. “The facts we’ve gathered strongly suggest that Dr. Eastman’s emails may show that he helped Donald Trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power,” the duo added.

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“Many protesters blamed the violence on police plants, outside agitators or “antifa” infiltrators..”

New Zealand Reckons With Aftermath As Smoke Clears On Violent Protests (G.)

“We will not be defined by this,” prime minister Jacinda Ardern said, as New Zealand’s parliament grounds descended into chaos, fire and violence in a shocking end to the anti-mandate protests that have occupied the capital city’s centre. An undercurrent of violence had simmered throughout the weeks-long Ottawa-inspired occupation, which was blighted by abusive behaviour, conspiracy theories, and death threats. On Wednesday, riot police moved in with pepper spray and rubber bullets, and the powder keg exploded. Protesters set their tents alight, and lit a bonfire beneath the parliamentary children’s playground. People could be heard whooping and yelling, “burn it down, burn it down.” As fires burned across the lawns, some protesters worked to spread them and set more tents alight, while a woman screamed “What are you doing? People will get hurt”.

Gas bottles exploded as they were consumed by the blaze. At a bonfire next to the cenotaph war memorial, protesters threw tents, trash and wooden pallets on the flames. Others hurled anything within reach at lines of riot police: chairs, fireworks, rubbish bins, and paving stones ripped from the parliamentary paths. By evening, firefighter hoses had dampened the flames and revealed a graveyard of burnt tents, blackened grass, and tipped-over portaloos. A small group of 150 protesters who were funnelled down a sidestreet continued to clash with police. As the smoke cleared, New Zealand was left reckoning with scenes without precedent in recent decades. Violence is a rarity at the country’s parliament, which has a tradition of openness, relatively light security and high levels of public access.

The protests marked a confronting shift in tone from the first two years of New Zealand’s pandemic, which were characterised by unusually high levels of consensus and support for government public health measures, as well as rising levels of trust in science and experts. Many protesters blamed the violence on police plants, outside agitators or “antifa” infiltrators. Christopher Best, a protester standing back from where the scuffles were breaking out, appeared shell-shocked. “What you’re seeing here is not the protesters that actually want to protest for the mandates, these are the extremists,” he said. Best had been at the encampment for 23 days and said the tone of the protest had shifted dramatically in the last 48 hours, but he struggled to articulate who the newcomers were. “We’ve seen another a group of people who just want to create trouble. These people are coming in and wrecking it.”

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James A. Thorp1*, Thomas Renz2, Christiane Northrup3, Charles Lively4, Peter Breggin5, Richard Bartlett6, Neil Karrow7, Steve Kirsch8, James Welsh9, Phil Euell10, Ryan Cole11, Jeff Childers12, Bryan Ardis13, Benjamin Marble14, Eric Feintuch15, Daniel Nagase16, Richard Urso17, Paul E Merik18, Peter A. McCullough

Corruption of Healthcare, Informed Consent, Doctor-Patient Relationship (GMS)

A recent publication in the British Medical Journal cast concern about the impropriety of the Pfizer data. The author, Paul D Thacker reviews a litany of breaches of expected experimental integrity [1]. Many mainstream medical journals and professional organizations receive financial support from pharmaceutical advertising and thus have financial incentives to collude with Big Pharma. Despite the global rollout of COVID-19 “vaccines”, the de-identified participant level data underlying the trials for these new products remain inaccessible to doctors, researchers, and the public [2]. Big Pharma is the least trusted industry [3] and at least three of the many companies making COVID-19 vaccines have past criminal and civil settlements costing them billions of dollars, with one pleading guilty to fraud [4].

The COVID-19 pandemic has made many new pharmaceutical billionaires and vaccine manufacturers report tens of billions in profit [5]. Doshi and Healy maintain that physicians should not recommend vaccines when full transparent data are not publicly available [6]. Appropriate testing was not completed prior to the roll out of the COVID-19 “vaccines” in women of reproductive age, nor was Big Pharma’s data made available to public scrutiny. The term “cartel” frequently conjures images of illegal drug activities engaged in by groups seeking to fix and control markets. However, a “cartel” is any group of independent corporations and/or entities who band together to control the production, distribution, and pricing of a market or commonly shared commodity [7].

Despite significant signs of danger about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines, governing bodies of healthcare professionals have banded together in cartellike fashion, issuing threats to destroy the livelihood of physicians and other health care providers for alleged dissemination of “misinformation” about COVID-19. A term of deception crafted by various cartel entities “misinformation” is used to label anything that would tend to create COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. In other words, “misinformation” is used to discredit alternative views and seeks to prevent honest and truthful communication with a patient about the experimental gene therapy’s known and very real dangers. This honest and truthful communication is necessary for a physician to provide informed consent.

Using the cartel example, these commonly shared commodities are the COVID-19 vaccines – which are not traditional, immunizing vaccines at all [8], but prophylactic treatments for COVID-19 which carry serious and significant risks. The cartel-like entities seek to collectively control the market by promoting COVID-19 vaccines as the only option for pregnant patients, despite other prophylactics and treatments which have a proven safety record in pregnancy. The cartel-like entities in this instance seek also to prevent pregnant patients from being able to make decisions related to these experimental vaccines which is informed by the emerging scientific data. In what can be likened to “fixing” the market in favor of administration of universal COVID-19 vaccines – thereby maintaining their monopoly on COVID-19 vaccines as the only treatment – the cartel-like entities have banded together to falsely assert that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary. However, this narrative is crumbling before the eyes of the entire world.

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Lopatonok is the director, Stone the executive producer.

Ukraine on Fire (Lopatonok/Oliver Stone)

I was a supporter of the Orange revolution in Ukraine in 2004, but with time I find more and more evidence that all “revolutions” were scripted and staged with big money and foreign government and non-government involved. The result was horrible for Ukraine, people lost their dream of free democracy – the democrats show such hunger for power and money –they look much worse that the predecessor. I remember a friend of mine calling me from Odessa during the first days of the “Euromaidan” events in November of 2013 and asking me – “Where is the CNN coverage??” and the coverage was delivered. At that time – November 2013 me and my team already had start gathering footage and evidence, but even in a nightmare I did not imagine this Coup De Taut being this bloody and violent.

I can’t name it a revolution. This was an organized, prepared, funded and staged Cope De Taut – and everybody who participated in that event looked out for they own goals, and my fellow Ukrainians were used as a force against the government. And they arranged a cover for those actions, and they blamed the police and the government, but they fought without hesitation because blood was already on their hands. I, as a citizen, can’t just sit and watch. We decided to shed some light on behind the stage helpers, who help achieve results but with totally different goals – Geopolitical goals. So we pay attention to that technology and find a lot of patterns in common around the world, and this leads us to a serious conclusion – that people in a free world need to know how their governments use they tax money for regime changing games around the world, and the consequences.

My biggest concern about all of this – Are we that stupid that we are going to let our differences and ideologies put the World on the brink of World War 3? Can we stop our politicians from those dangerous games of power? And I think so, if all of us will be aware and conscious, and don’t stay silent if we see neo-nazi’s presenting themselves as freedom fighters, and manipulators from neo-conservatives to neo-liberals use not only the citizens of Ukraine but all of us around the World to achieve they goals.

Igor Lopatonok, Director

Ukraine on fire full video

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Gonzalo Lira

 

 

 

 

WEF EU Parliament
https://twitter.com/i/status/1498846822961455104

 

 

Cat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1499125334314299396

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Feb 202022
 
 February 20, 2022  Posted by at 9:42 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  130 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh On the outskirts of Paris near Montmartre 1887

 

Geert Vanden Bossche: Why The COVID Vaccine Is A Bad Idea For Kids (Loesch)
Omicron A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing (Vanden Bossche)
Vaccinating Teens for COVID Is Literally ‘Heartbreaking’ (Setty)
More Attractive People Have Stronger Immune Systems, Study Says (SF)
Leaders of Freedom Convoy Charged With “Mischief” (CTH)
Alberta Premier Files Legal Challenge To End Trudeau’s Emergencies Act (ES)
U.S. ‘People’s Convoy’ Ready To Roll On Wednesday (JTN)
West Promised Not To Expand NATO – Der Spiegel (RT)
Does NATO Really Pose A Threat To Russia? (Diesen)
US Doubles Downs on Russian ‘Invasion’ Rhetoric (Lauria)
“Operation Cyclone: Ukraine Edition” – Is This The Real Plan? (O’Reilly)
The Washington Post: The Voice of the CIA (Paul Craig Roberts)
Ruling Against Trump Leaves More Questions Than Answers On Free Speech (Turley)
How Trains Abolished By Switzerland Are Now Back In Business In Greece (Bersi)
Zuckerberg’s Facebook Empire Collapsing (RT)
Why Canada Will Become a Dictatorship Under Trudeau (Dickin)

 

 

Jim Rickards @JamesGRickards
Brexit never had to happen except David Cameron called a referendum and lost. Freedom Convoys never had to happen except Trudeau and Fascist Freeland refused to listen. The coming general strike and supply chain collapse is on them. The elites sure are dumb.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1494832194573021186

 

 

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice asked self-custody wallet provider @nunchuk_io to disclose user information and freeze user’s bitcoin. This was the team’s response.

 

 

Bill Gates: Sadly

 

 

“By vaccinating children with this mRNA ‘vaccine’, you are actually suppressing their own robust immune system, making them vulnerable to other diseases.”

Geert Vanden Bossche: Why The COVID Vaccine Is A Bad Idea For Kids (Loesch)

Dana (@DLoesch / @DanaLoeschRadio) talks with Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche (@GVDBossche on Twitter, and @GVandenBossche on GETTR), who has a PHD in virology – Certified Expert in microbiology and infectious diseases – with a long standing career in human vaccinology, and Dr. Vanden Bossche talks about the fact that it isn’t even necessary to inject children with this mRNA ‘vaccine’, as the FDA and Dr. Fauci (along with the pharmaceutical companies) want to do. He has previously pointed out that this virus is an infection in children, like the flu – and not a disease. By vaccinating children with this mRNA ‘vaccine’, you are actually suppressing their own robust immune system, making them vulnerable to other diseases.


Dr. Vanden Bossche mentions that these vaccinations will not – and CANNOT – eliminate a virus, but that our own immune systems CAN. The worldwide government push to inject these people, is actually making people more vulnerable, and any mandate needs to stop immediately. Governments doing this, are actually forcing this virus to evolve and avoid elimination, which certainly keeps the virus going indefinitely.

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“..Omicron has the capacity to evolve into a much less benign variant..”

Omicron A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing (Vanden Bossche)

Given the high and steadily increasing vaccine coverage rates in large parts of the world and the ongoing mass vaccination of children and continuation of booster campaigns, I am of the opinion that Omicron has the capacity to evolve into a much less benign variant, regardless of whether or not infection prevention measures are relaxed or lifted.

A coronavirus (CoV) can only replicate and mutate. The widely held belief that during the course of a pandemic viruses tend to become more infectious but less virulent is a myth—one kept alive by those who don’t understand the evolutionary dynamics of a pandemic. The latter are fully dependent upon the outcome of the interplay between the virus and the host immune system at a population level. Abiding by this ‘rule’ is the sole qualifier necessary to be an expert of viral pandemics. For several months I’ve been warning that continued mass vaccination and high vaccine coverage rates would prevent SARS-CoV-2 (SC-2) from generating sufficient herd immunity to control, let alone end, the current pandemic. The advent of Omicron hasn’t changed my mind, on the contrary!

Now that mass vaccination campaigns have quickly rendered the virus resistant to the adaptive immune response (cfr. Omicron), I am fearful that this may have a snowball effect. I’ve been postulating that the mechanism of innate immune adaptation to viral exposure (i.e., through a process of epigenetic changes referred to as ‘training’) is compromised in the vaccinated population and I am now predicting that the resulting burden of infectivity will cause massive population-level immune pressure on Omicron. In an attempt to overcome high immune pressure on Omicron’s infectiousness, natural selection of viral mutants that are capable of resisting both the acquired SC-2-specific and the CoV-reactive innate immune response in vaccinees is likely to occur.

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This post-vaccine reaction may represent an overly exuberant immune response..”

Vaccinating Teens for COVID Is Literally ‘Heartbreaking’ (Setty)

Pathologists who examined the autopsies of two teenage boys who died days after receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine concluded the vaccine caused the teens’ deaths. The three pathologists, two of whom are medical examiners, published their findings Feb. 14 in an early online release article, “Autopsy Histopathologic Cardiac Findings in Two Adolescents Following the Second COVID-19 Vaccine Dose,” in the Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. The authors’ findings were conclusive. Two teenage boys were pronounced dead in their homes three and four days after receiving the second Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 dose. There was no evidence of active or previous COVID-19 infection. The teens had negative toxicology screens (i.e. no drugs or poisons were present in their bodies).

These boys died from the vaccine. Histopathological examination of their cardiac tissue revealed an important new finding: Neither heart demonstrated evidence of typical myocarditis. Instead, the authors found evidence of microscopic changes consistent with a different form of heart injury called toxic cardiomyopathy. They wrote: “The myocardial injury seen in these post-vaccine hearts is different from typical myocarditis and has an appearance most closely resembling a catecholamine-mediated stress (toxic) cardiomyopathy.” [..] The pathologists determined there was a different mechanism of heart injury at play in these two boys, distinct from a purely infectious process that would result directly from a viral infection like COVID-19.

This is an important finding. There may be a way to distinguish cardiac injury resulting from a SARS-COV-2 infection from cardiac injury where the vaccine predisposes the patient to stress cardiomyopathy before contracting COVID-19. However, the authors are careful not to assume that cardiac injuries from COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines can always be sorted out under the microscope. They explain that stress cardiomyopathy, or “broken heart syndrome,” may also occur in a rare hyperinflammatory state that is known to occur in COVID-19 infection as well: “This post-vaccine reaction may represent an overly exuberant immune response and the myocardial injury is mediated by similar immune mechanisms as described with SARS-COV-2 and multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) cytokine storms.”

Yeadon

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“..men and women have very different ideas about what makes a face attractive and healthy..”

More Attractive People Have Stronger Immune Systems, Study Says (SF)

The beautiful people get all the breaks. A new study finds an interesting link between how attractive someone is and the strength of their immune system. A team at Texas Christian University found that when people had to rate a group of photos based on the attractiveness of each person’s face, they consistently rated individuals with stronger immune health as more attractive than other photos in the study. Although beauty is often in the eye of the beholder, researchers say there has been a historical link between what societies consider attractive and reproductive success. The TCU team theorized that, because certain evolutionary traits tie into more mating success, people who seem more attractive to others may also appear healthier to the opposite sex.

To test that theory, researchers gathered 159 men and women and photographed each one without makeup and while displaying a neutral expression on their face. Study authors then took blood samples from each person to measure their levels of white blood cells — which battle disease and infections. The team then brought in 492 other people to rate members of the opposite sex in these photos based on their attractiveness. The volunteers did not have any information on each person’s immune health and only had that one neutral photo to base their rating on. Results show people with stronger immune systems were rated as being more attractive by the 492 volunteers.

“The current research suggests that a relationship between facial attractiveness and immune function is likely to exist,” corresponding author Summer Mengelkoch and her team write in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Interestingly, the study finds men and women have very different ideas about what makes a face attractive and healthy. Researchers found that, on average, women rated men with higher levels of NK (natural killer) cells as more attractive. These cells play a key role in fighting off and killing bacteria. Men, on the other hand, found women with lower NK cell levels in their blood more attractive. Study authors believe the reason for this is women with lower NK levels generally have higher estrogen levels — a hormone important to sexual reproduction.

As for which features are likely to stand out and attract attention, researchers found a not-so-surprising list of qualities people look for in a pretty face. “Features such as clear skin, prominent cheekbones, bright eyes, and full, red lips have been deemed attractive throughout recorded human history,” the researchers write.

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“..y’all do realize we are talking about invoking the Emergency War Measures Act against people charged with mischief, right?“

Leaders of Freedom Convoy Charged With “Mischief” (CTH)

The need for control is a reaction to fear. What does the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fear so much that he invoked the first ever declaration of the Emergency War Measures Act? A group of middle class Canadians who challenged him. That’s it. That’s the sum total of the Trudeau justification. Need proof? Well, here’s the lead organizer of the Trucker rebellion, Tamara Lich, who triggered the declaration of a national emergency and invocation of the federal Emergency Act. What heinous crime against the state was she charged with? “Counseling to Commit the Offense of Mischief“. Think about it.

No, seriously, think about it. It is true that she may later be charged with removing mattress tags. However, for right now, the biggest domestic terrorist in the history of Canadian politics is currently charged with the same offense as if she stole the lids off the shampoo bottles at the hotel where the Liberal Party of Canada was holding their national convention. If the charge of “mischief” rings a bell for some of you, it’s likely because a very famous duo was previously charged with the same criminal offenses.

The Canadian Parliament is currently debating whether or not the members within government will support the use of the Emergency Act. The members of Parliament are spending hours waxing philosophically, with tremendous seriousness, about the need to support the same declaration that is used when Canada would decide to go to war with another country. And they are doing this because blue collar workers have infiltrated the capital city with a demand to remove COVID mandates. The crimes against the truckers are so serious, they require the invocation of the most massive weapon that can be deployed to remove the constitutional freedoms of Canadian citizens, in an effort to protect them from grave and serious harm stemming from… …. people charged with “MISCHIEF”.


It would be nice if someone, anyone, in the Canadian Parliament stood up and made this simple point. “Um, hey folks… ahem… I don’t mean to be all captain obvious and stuff… and I certainly do not want to deflate your sense of self-importance…. or the seriousness of the debate. However, that said, y’all do realize we are talking about invoking the Emergency War Measures Act against people charged with mischief, right?“

The cops don’t want to

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A bit half-ass. If the House votes on Monday/Tuesday to support Trudeau, what’s Kenney going to do? Or a judge?

Alberta Premier Files Legal Challenge To End Trudeau’s Emergencies Act (ES)

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and his UCP government are so disgusted by the federal Liberals’ imposition of the Emergencies Act to end the truckers’ blockade of downtown Ottawa that they will file a legal challenge in Federal Court in Ottawa early next week to end Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s arbitrary and high-handed action. In an exclusive interview with Postmedia, Kenney said the use of Canada’s most powerful law was “unjustified in the circumstances,” an “overreach,” a violation of due process and “an intrusion into provincial jurisdiction.” As a consequence, lawyers representing the Alberta government will be asking judges not to overturn the act, but rather to suspend its use in the current situation.

The premier doesn’t want anyone to misunderstand his motives. “The situation in Ottawa is serious. Law and order has to be restored.” Protesters cannot be allowed to blockade the core of any Canadian city, much less our capital, Kenney explained, no matter what their cause. “But the Emergencies Act was designed to come into effect at the failure of the state,” at a time when it was possible our democratic institutions might fall. “However, there is no insurrection or coup,” Kenney said pointedly. “Police services already have all the powers they need through provincial authority. All the tools already exist” to clear the blockade and restore order, Kenney believes. The feds, for instance, don’t need the power to “seize and freeze” people’s bank accounts and other assets.

The banking provisions of the Emergencies Act were, according to Kenney, “designed to interrupt terrorism financing,” to choke off the money supply of radical cells plotting attacks within Canada. Now, according to the premier, the Trudeau government is instead using those provisions to harass “people whose opinions they disagree with.” Federal Justice Minister David Lametti even hinted on CTV that the feds are even considering having financial institutions freeze the accounts of anyone who used a credit card to donate a few dollars to the convoy.Kenney thinks if the Trudeau-ites are allowed to get away with freezing the finances of their political opponents, even if only for a few days “it sets a very dangerous precedent.” “Let’s stick to the basics here — the basics of law enforcement.”

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“..the exact location will be announced closer to the start of the event because of the “paramount” concern for operational security.”

U.S. ‘People’s Convoy’ Ready To Roll On Wednesday (JTN)

The “People’s Convoy,” a U.S. trucker protest against COVID-19 mandates, is set to begin on Wednesday in California. Inspired by the Canadian truckers’ “Freedom Convoy,” the People’s Convoy is expecting about 1,000 trucks to start the journey east, with more joining along the way. “We’re going to be starting the convoy out of Barstow, California,” Maureen Steele, the national organizer of the movement, told Newsmax, explaining that the exact location will be announced closer to the start of the event because of the “paramount” concern for operational security. “The Canadian convoy was pretty organic when it happened,” Steele said. “Ours, they had a month’s notice, so our concern is disruptive groups coming in. We’re trying to just prepare for counter-protests and to take safety precautions for that.”

Truckers can register with their license plates on the organizers’ website “so we know exactly who is in the convoy and to make sure that it’s going to be a safe ride,” she explained. According to the website, the organization is calling for the “declaration of a national emergency concerning the COVID-19 pandemic be lifted immediately and our cherished Constitution reign supreme.” The website has its own donation link instead of using GoFundMe or other crowdfunding services. Steele clarified that donations for the convoy will be held with a private bank to prevent them from being frozen by governmental opposition. “So our funds should not be able to be frozen or hijacked, and all the money is being held by this third-party firm, so we can assure that it absolutely gets to the truckers and it’s clean,” she said.

“That’s why it took so long. We have such an infrastructure built for this operation. It took us a while before we could come out.” The towns where the convoy plans to stop will be announced about 24 hours prior to their arrival for precautionary purposes, Steele said, but she did confirm that they will stop in Arizona and Texas. A few trucks will be ahead of the convoy “just to check in with law enforcement in towns ahead of the convoy, that if we’re going to be marshaling there that evening, to make sure they’re prepared for a massive convoy to roll into town,” Steele said.

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Of course they did.

West Promised Not To Expand NATO – Der Spiegel (RT)

A newly discovered document from March 1991 shows US, UK, French, and German officials discussing a pledge made to Moscow that NATO would not expand to Poland and beyond. Its publication by the German magazine Der Spiegel on Friday comes as expansion of the US-led bloc has led to a military standoff in Eastern Europe. The minutes of a March 6, 1991 meeting in Bonn between political directors of the foreign ministries of the US, UK, France, and Germany contain multiple references to “2+4” talks on German unification in which the Western officials made it “clear” to the Soviet Union that NATO would not push into territory east of Germany.

“We made it clear to the Soviet Union – in the 2+4 talks, as well as in other negotiations – that we do not intend to benefit from the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe,” the document quotes US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz. “NATO should not expand to the east, either officially or unofficially,” Seitz added. A British representative also mentions the existence of a “general agreement” that membership of NATO for eastern European countries is “unacceptable.” “We had made it clear during the 2+4 negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe [sic],” said West German diplomat Juergen Hrobog. “We could not therefore offer Poland and others membership in NATO.”

The minutes later clarified he was referring to the Oder River, the boundary between East Germany and Poland. Hrobog further noted that West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had agreed with this position as well. The document was found in the UK National Archives by Joshua Shifrinson, a political science professor at Boston University in the US. It had been marked “Secret” but was declassified at some point. Shifrinson tweeted on Friday he was “honored” to work with Der Spiegel on the document showing that “Western diplomats believed they had indeed made a NATO non-enlargement pledge.”


Screenshot of the minutes of a March 6, 1991 meeting of US, UK, French and German diplomats discussing NATO and Eastern Europe © screenshot via Kommersant

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“The concept of escalation dominance refers to the ability to increase military pressure and possibly resort to limited use of force, based on the logic that the stakes can be continuously increased until the other side is compelled to capitulate.”

Does NATO Really Pose A Threat To Russia? (Diesen)

Russia has laid down its red lines, insisting that NATO expansion towards its borders poses an unacceptable challenge to its policy of so-called “indivisible security.” As the US-led military bloc insists it exists solely to defend its members, Moscow’s requests for mutual security assurances have revealed the two sides no longer even speak the same language. Western governments committed themselves to a new defensive doctrine in all the main pan-European security agreements signed in the 1990s. The principle of “indivisible security” was explicitly defined in these agreements as the “commitment not to pursue national security interests at the expense of others,” which reflected the larger objective of ending the dividing lines in Europe.

Although, Russia was weak in the 1990s and the West could ignore these security guarantees by expanding NATO. Russia has now recovered, established firm red lines, and has demanded security guarantees based on these existing pan-European security agreements. The US and NATO, however, insist that “indivisible security” is interpreted as the right to choose alliance membership freely. The creative re-interpretation of very specific agreements does not clarify how the expansion of Cold War military alliances would achieve the overarching objective of ending the Cold War legacy of dividing lines in Europe.

[..] not long ago, it was commonplace across the West to argue that President Trump could start a major war with another great power. More recently, US Senator Roger Wicker casually suggested that America could engage in a war with Russia over Ukraine, in which even the use of nuclear weapons should not be taken off the table. Evelyn Farkas, the former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia in the Obama administration, and former senior adviser to the Supreme Allied Commander in NATO, also penned an op-ed in which she argued that “The US Must Prepare for War Against Russia over Ukraine.”

Even if Washington would not follow the reckless advice of going to war with Russia, the growing US military presence along Russian borders can give the US escalation dominance. The concept of escalation dominance refers to the ability to increase military pressure and possibly resort to limited use of force, based on the logic that the stakes can be continuously increased until the other side is compelled to capitulate. With the knowledge that the US could defeat Russia in a war, the US could use its ability to escalate tensions to compel Russia to capitulate on strategically important issues.

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“..hundreds of millions of dollars in NATO lethal aid is being sent, supposedly for defense, but which Vershinin said could be intended instead for an offensive that could potentially set a trap for Russia.”

Yes. But Putin has seen this coming from miles away, too.

US Doubles Downs on Russian ‘Invasion’ Rhetoric (Lauria)

The U.S. began in November to portray the Russian troop deployment as an invasion force and has since worked its message into a crescendo of daily warnings of an imminent attack. In Spring 2021, Russia made a similar deployment near the Ukraine border and yet there were no Washington cries of invasion then. So what changed? This time the Russian troop movement coincided with Moscow presenting draft treaty proposals to the U.S. and NATO drawing a deep redline after decades of objecting to the Western military alliance moving ever closer to Russia, a country that was invaded by and defeated the largest European powers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The U.S. reacted to these bold proposals by changing the subject. They moved from the defensive to offense with a supreme distraction: the maniacal mantra of “the Russians are coming.”

NATO routinely carries out military deployments and exercises near Russia’s borders. Moscow never screams “invasion” when U.S. war planes practice cruise missile strikes at the Russian frontier. Instead Russia presented proposals that would see: • NATO roll back forward troop deployments from former Warsaw Pact states, now NATO members; • NATO would not admit Ukraine and Georgia as members and • The U.S. would remove long-range missiles in Romania and Poland and not deploy new ones in Ukraine. The U.S. and NATO have so far rejected the Russian draft treaties out of hand, except on the missile issue, which Washington is ready to negotiate (Joe Biden has promised not to deploy missiles in Ukraine.)

The New York Times could not, however, stop itself from mocking Russia on Thursday with a story, which it seems to have just discovered, headlined, “On the Edge of a Polish Forest, Where Some of Putin’s Darkest Fears Lurk: A U.S. missile facility in Poland is at the heart of an issue animating the Kremlin’s calculations over whether to go to war against Ukraine.” Instead of withdrawing forward NATO deployments from Eastern Europe, the U.S. delivered a slap in the face by sending more NATO troops to the east. This was supposed to be in response to the alleged Russian threat to Ukraine, where no U.S. or NATO troops are being deployed.

Instead hundreds of millions of dollars in NATO lethal aid is being sent, supposedly for defense, but which Vershinin said could be intended instead for an offensive that could potentially set a trap for Russia. In Blinken’s scenario, “The government will issue proclamations declaring that Russia must respond to defend Russian citizens or ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Next, the attack is planned to begin.” If Russian regular units enter Donbass to protect ethnic Russians and Russian citizens there from the offensive, that would be the invasion the U.S. is screaming about. It would unleash the “mother of all sanctions,” as a U.S. Senate sanctions bill against Russia has been called.

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“..tying Russia down for the foreseeable future in an Iraq-style military quagmire..”

“Operation Cyclone: Ukraine Edition” – Is This The Real Plan? (O’Reilly)

Ukraine has been under the rule of the successive US-EU friendly governments of Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky since the 2014 Euromaidan, a CIA and MI6-orchestrated regime change operation launched in response to then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s November 2013 decision to suspend an EU trade deal in favour of pursuing closer ties with the Russian Federation. With the ongoing collapse of the global COVID-19 media narrative following the highly coincidental timing of last month’s World Economic Forum Davos Agenda virtual event, a hypothetical Russian invasion of Ukraine has now taken centre stage amongst corporate media outlets with a track record of promoting war and regime change in countries refusing to kowtow to the demands of the US-NATO hegemony.

A media narrative which has seen thousands of US and British troops being deployed to Eastern Europe as a result – a highly provocative action and one, that should even a minor miscalculation occur amidst the current tensions, could easily escalate into a full-blown military conflict between East and West. Recent comments by current Ukrainian President Zelensky however, in which he poured cold water over the idea of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as the recent supply of over 90 tonnes of weaponry to Kiev by the United States amidst the current tensions, and US President Joe Biden stating himself that Washington would not engage militarily with Russia, would suggest that although the possibility of the current crisis inadvertently spiralling into a global conflict between Russia and NATO remains, that that is not the current intention of the West.

Rather, a plan seemingly exists to provoke Russia into intervening in the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine to protect the predominantly ethnic Russian inhabitants of the breakaway Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, before drawing Moscow into a wider guerrilla conflict in the rest of Ukraine, the second-largest country in Europe, with the intentions of tying Russia down for the foreseeable future in an Iraq-style military quagmire.

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“If I were Putin and I wanted Ukraine, I would just take it. I would say, you Americans took Iraq and Libya. The Israelis stole Palestine. I’m taking Ukraine.”

The Washington Post: The Voice of the CIA (Paul Craig Roberts)

The Washington Post has always been a CIA asset. The CIA used the Washington Post to orchestrate the Watergate narrative used to drive President Nixon out of office. The CIA wanted Nixon gone, because Nixon was threatening the military/security complex’s budget and power by making arms control agreements with the Soviets and by opening to China. The CIA was afraid to assassinate Nixon because of the suspicion it was under for assassinating President Kennedy and Senator Kennedy. So the CIA used the Washington Post to assassinate Nixon politically. The entire history of the Washington Post is one of fake news. The latest fake news from the disinformation sheet claims that the Russian troop pullback is a “deliberate ruse to mislead the United States and other world powers” about Russia’s planned invasion of Ukraine. “Anonymous US intelligence sources” (the CIA) are cited as the source.

First of all, the Russian troops were part of an exercise, not an invasion plan. But push this fact aside and ask yourself what is the point of Russia concealing its plans? If Russia wants to invade Ukraine, no one on earth can do anything whatsoever about it. So why hide it? Indeed, with satellites overhead a force concentrated for invasion cannot be hidden. The presstitute who wrote the story and the CIA that dictated it are thinking in WW II terms when modern surveillance capabilities did not exist. Ask yourself also why Russia needs to create a false flag attack in order to justify invading Ukraine. If Russia wants Ukraine, Russia has plenty of up front reasons.

One is to prevent Ukraine from being a NATO member and hosting US missile bases on Russia’s border. Another is that Ukraine is part of Russia and had been for 300 years until the Americans broke it off from Russia when Russia was to weak to do anything about it. Another reason is that Ukraine has violated the Minsk Agreement and continues to attack the Russian population in the Donbass region. In actual fact, Russia doesn’t need any excuse, because no one can stop them. Also ask yourself what is the point of an excuse. No matter how good it is, Washington and NATO would not believe it. The excuse would do no good and serve no purpose. In fact an excuse would be worse than no excuse, because the excuse would simply result in the endless refutation of the excuse. If I were Putin and I wanted Ukraine, I would just take it. I would say, you Americans took Iraq and Libya. The Israelis stole Palestine. I’m taking Ukraine.

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“Judge Mehta’s opinion seems to reinforce the view that Trump’s speech was protected, too.”

Ruling Against Trump Leaves More Questions Than Answers On Free Speech (Turley)

A “one-of-a-kind case.” Judge Amit Mehta’s description of the litigation against four principal speakers at the Jan. 6 Trump rally may have been as much a prayer as a portrayal. As famed Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Hard cases make bad law” — and the litigation against President Trump and his associates is a hard case that just proved Holmes right. In consolidated cases brought by Democratic members of Congress and Capitol Police officers, Judge Mehta ruled on motions to dismiss by the former president, his son Donald Jr., former Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), as well as several extremist groups like the Oath Keepers. The judge dismissed the claims of a violent conspiracy against Trump Jr. and Giuliani, and he invited Brooks to file a motion to dismiss on the same grounds. He rejected arguments that their speeches at the rally caused the subsequent rioting in the Capitol.

Yet, while admitting that the case raised difficult constitutional questions, he declined to dismiss the claim against Trump. The ruling will now allow a long-awaited appeal on core constitutional questions, including the protections for inflammatory speech. Most analysts expected that groups like the Oath Keepers would likely remain in the lawsuit, given their active role in the rioting and the recent charges of seditious conspiracy filed against them. The most controversial parties were the speakers at the rally near the White House before the riot. The judge’s 112-page opinion makes easy work of dismissing the claims against the other speakers. These speeches were reckless but constitutionally protected. Giuliani’s declaration — “Let’s have trial by combat” — has been cited by some critics as a clear incitement to an insurrection, but the judge found such arguments were implausible and that Giuliani’s words “were not likely” to cause a riot.

He also found that Trump Jr.’s comments on the election were “protected speech,” and he rejected claims that Brooks urging Trump’s supporters to “start taking names and kicking ass” could be the basis for liability. I previously wrote that the claims against these four Jan. 6 speakers might find “a sympathetic trial judge” but that “they will likely fail on appeal, even if they survive the trial level litigation.” All but one of those claims are now dismissed on the trial level. Moreover, Judge Mehta’s opinion seems to reinforce the view that Trump’s speech was protected, too. The judge could well be reversed on the threshold question of immunity, raised by Trump, that presidents cannot be sued for speaking on matters of public interest. Mehta was honest in saying that “this is not an easy issue” and that “the alleged facts of this case are without precedent.”

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The EU forced Greece to sell its national rail operator for €45 million. And pay the foreign buyer €50 million a year.

How Trains Abolished By Switzerland Are Now Back In Business In Greece (Bersi)

Delays, breakdowns, cancellations… For years, ETR 470 trains were the biggest headache of the Swiss railways. In the end, the Swiss sent them for scrap. But the Italian railways — which has been running all Greek passenger trains since 2017 — presented the very same trains as state-of-the-art. “Stay away from these trains,” say executives who know them first hand. So why is this train — that has repeatedly put passengers in danger in the past — getting a new lease of life? Twenty years ago, the Swiss press dubbed the ETR 470 train — serving the Milan-Switzerland route — ‘Pannenzug’, meaning ‘breakdown train’. Meanwhile, the website that documented its problems was named CessoAlpino, meaning (in elegant translation) ‘Alpine toilet’.

Two former officials familiar with this train, who were contacted by Investigate Europe and Reporters United, find it hard to believe that the five remaining ETR 470s not sent to the scrapyard are now being touted as the future of the Athens-Thessaloniki rail link — the most important route in the Mediterranean country. “The advice from Switzerland: hands off these trains,” says Walter Finkbohner, former secretary of the board of directors of Cisalpino AG, the subsidiary of Italian and Swiss railways that bought the ETR 470s from the manufacturer, Fiat Ferroviaria in the 1990s. “Buy proven trains or new trains. There is nothing for free in life,” he adds. But Greece is not in a position to accept such recommendations, nor to choose which rolling stock circulates on its tracks, since its railways were fully privatised five years ago, as required by its creditors.

The Italian state company Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FSI) bought 100% of TRAINOSE, the Greek rail operator, for a mere €45 million. The privatisation contract remains secret, but people familiar with its terms, such as the current vice-minister for infrastructure and transport, Giorgos Karayannis, dub it “colonial”. This is unusually strong language from a member of a conservative government. The Greek transport ministry has agreed to subsidise the Italian company to the tune of €50 million a year to run certain routes, as outlined in a Public Service Obligations (PSO) contract.

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“The $240 billion loss in market capitalization was the largest one-day loss in US corporate history.”

Zuckerberg’s Facebook Empire Collapsing (RT)

Once the world’s sixth largest firm with a valuation of over $1 trillion, Facebook’s parent company Meta finished Thursday’s trading with a value of $565 billion. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the social media giant has tumbled out of the world’s 10 largest companies by market value, hammered by its worst monthly stock decline ever.

The stock rout has placed Mark Zuckerberg’s company in 11th place behind Chinese Tencent Holdings. Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) holds the ninth spot. The list of the world’s most-valuable companies, ranked by market capitalization, includes Apple, Microsoft, Aramco, Alphabet, Amazon, Tesla, Berkshire Hathaway, and Nvidia. Data shows that the value wiped out by the selloff in Meta’s shares exceeds the market caps of all but eight companies in the S&P 500 Index. Meta’s share price is down about 40% year-to-date after the company reported two weeks ago that its social media platform Facebook lost about one million users from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2021. That’s the first such decline for the company in its 18-year history.

Meta’s stock plummeted 26.4% on February 3 after the company released its weaker-than-expected outlook. The $240 billion loss in market capitalization was the largest one-day loss in US corporate history. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal net worth is down more than $46 billion from the beginning of the year, he’s currently worth $78.8 billion.

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Originally published in the Prince Arthur Herald.
12/12/2014 12:59pm EST | Updated February 11, 2015

Why Canada Will Become a Dictatorship Under Trudeau (Dickin)

It’s becoming clearer as the days of Trudeau’s Liberals wear on: if elected Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau would turn Canada into a dictatorship. This is the man who admitted he “admires China’s basic dictatorship.” It wasn’t just a sarcastic comment – he seriously said that he admires the dictatorship because they can get things done quickly. And it’s becoming clearer that Trudeau not only admires the dictatorship — he runs the Liberal Party like one too. How else can one explain the police-enforced acclamation of Andrew Leslie as the Liberal candidate for Orleans? Even with hundreds of Liberals attending the meeting to show their support for another candidate (and former Trudeau leadership rival), it was clear from the beginning that Leslie was Trudeau’s hand-picked favourite, and certainly wouldn’t be stopped by pesky processes like “democracy.”

Just the imagery of Trudeau’s chosen candidate being selected with police intervention is scary. It shows that Trudeau doesn’t just admire China’s dictatorship — he would practice one if he had the chance. The nomination in Orleans is only the latest rigged “open nomination.” Despite Trudeau’s promises to actually, you know, practice democracy, at least a half dozen Liberal nominations have been rigged or tampered with through the direct intervention of Trudeau’s office: mysteriously disqualifying candidates, changing nomination dates, paperwork going “missing,” and using dirty “back-room” politics to ensure the leader’s candidate is chosen at any cost. But those are only Liberal candidates; surely Trudeau would loosen his grip on his caucus colleagues once they’ve been elected, wouldn’t he? Unfortunately, no.

The Liberal caucus randomly learned one morning early last year that their leader had come up with a new diktat: that all Liberals would be expected, no, required, to vote pro-choice. When Trudeau’s pathetic attempted defence (that they were “the party of the Charter,” obviously missing those small sections about freedom of conscience and religion) agitated more than a few Liberal MPs, he attempted to invent some weird “grandfathering” rule. But then he went back on that too. The result is that Liberal MPs who dare question the diktat of Trudeau are being punished. Those who dare disagree have already been punished, resigned, or indicated that they won’t seek another term in office — at least not under the iron fist of Trudeau.

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Very eloquent protester


https://twitter.com/i/status/1493408984270835714

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Dec 112021
 


Louis Anquetin Avenue de Clichy, Five O’Clock in the Evening 1887

 

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Two Jabs Offer Little Protection Against Omicron Infection, UK Data Shows (G.)
The Pandemic of the Vaccinated Is Here (Atlantic)
Austria To Fine Unvaxed Citizens Up To £12,000 A Year (Sun)
Belgian Court Rules Enforcing Covid Vaccine Pass Is Illegal (Metro)
Yes Folks, It Really IS Over (Denninger)
The Air Coming Out (Kunstler)
Alix Mayer Is Vaccine Injured, But Not From The Covid Vaccine (Kirsch)
Putin Says Russian Government Was Swarming With CIA Officers (RT)
US DOJ Wins Court Case Seeking Julian Assange Extradition (CTH)

 

 

 

 

Canadian Federation of Independent Business

 

 

“Vaccine Passports have absolutely nothing to do with protecting public health, and instead everything to do with controlling the nation.”

4 In Every 5 Covid-19 Deaths In England Since August Fully Vaccinated (DE)

Serious questions need to be answered as to why Boris Johnson’s Government have decided to restrict the freedoms of the unvaccinated population through the introduction of Vaccine Passports, when the latest official data shows that the vaccinated population have accounted for 3 in every 5 Covid-19 cases, 3 in every 5 Covid-19 hospitalisations, and 4 in every 5 Covid-19 deaths, in England since August 16th 2021.

During a national Covid-19 briefing that took place on Tuesday December 8th, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announced that ‘Plan B’ would be implemented in England from Wednesday December 15th, which would entail ‘working from home’ (if you can) orders, and the introduction of Vaccine Passports. The reason given for the commencement of ‘Plan B’ is that it has to be done to protect the public from the alleged new Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus. A variant which as of December 11th, has failed to cause a single fatality in the UK, with just several hundred cases allegedly being confirmed.


A new law will come into effect from Wednesday December 15th, which will state that Vaccine Passports will become mandatory for entry to nightclubs and other large venues, including Premier League football matches and concerts. We’re told they will be required for indoor settings of 500 people or more, outdoor settings of 4,000 people or more, and any setting with 10,000 attendees or more. There will be many in England who believe Vaccine Passports are the answer to their prayers. Two years of misinformation, and disinformation mixed with propaganda published by the mainstream media can do that to people. But unfortunately the official data published by the UK Government proves that they are far from it, and suggests Vaccine Passports have absolutely nothing to do with protecting public health, and instead everything to do with controlling the nation.

The above chart proves that the fully vaccinated population have accounted for the majority of Covid-19 deaths every single month since August 2021, with things really taking a turn for the worse in October. The highest number of Covid-19 deaths in single four week period among the fully vaccinated population has been 3,284, whereas the highest number of Covid-19 deaths among the unvaccinated population in a four week period has been just 850. That’s a 286% difference.


The official data shows the vaccinated population have accounted for 56% of Covid-19 cases, 63% of hospitalisations, and 80% of deaths over the past 16 weeks in England. It’s quite clear that the jabs do not prevent infection or transmission, but they are alleged to reduce the risk of hospitalisation and death.

However, if this were the case then should we not be seeing a graph that looks more like this? So why aren’t we? It could have something to do with the fact that the data suggests the Covid-19 injections are actually increasing the risk of death due to Covid-19 rather than reducing it by the claimed 95%.

Read more …

Chinese research.

B.1.1.529 Escapes Majority Of SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibodies (bioRxiv)

The SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.529 variant (Omicron) contains 15 mutations on the receptor-binding domain (RBD). How Omicron would evade RBD neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) and humoral immunity requires immediate investigation. Here, we used high-throughput yeast display screening to determine the RBD escaping mutation profiles for 247 human anti-RBD NAbs identified from SARS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 convalescents and vaccinees. Based on the results, NAbs could be unsupervised clustered into six epitope groups (A-F), which is highly concordant with knowledge-based structural classifications. Strikingly, various single mutations of Omicron could impair NAbs of different epitope groups. Specifically, NAbs in Group A-D, whose epitope overlaps with ACE2-binding motif, are largely escaped by K417N, N440K, G446S, E484A, Q493K, and G496S.


Group E (S309 site) and F (CR3022 site) NAbs, which often exhibit broad sarbecovirus neutralizing activity, are less affected by Omicron, but still, a subset of NAbs are escaped by G339D, S371L, and S375F. Furthermore, B.1.1.529 pseudovirus neutralization and RBD binding assay showed that single mutation tolerating NAbs could also be escaped due to multiple synergetic mutations on their epitopes. In total, over 85% of the tested NAbs are escaped by Omicron. Regarding NAb drugs, LY-CoV016/LY-CoV555 cocktail, REGN-CoV2 cocktail, AZD1061/AZD8895 cocktail, and BRII-196 were escaped by Omicron, while VIR7831 and DXP-604 still function at reduced efficacy. Together, data suggest Omicron could cause significant humoral immune evasion, while NAbs targeting the sarbecovirus conserved region remain most effective. Our results offer instructions for developing NAb drugs and vaccines against Omicron and future variants.

Read more …

Mix and don’t match.

Epidemiology of Myocarditis And Pericarditis Following mRNA Vaccines In Ontario, Canada (medRxiv)

Increased rates of myocarditis/pericarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have been observed. However, little data are available related to product-specific differences, which have important programmatic impacts. The objective of this study was to estimate reporting rates of myocarditis/pericarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccine by product, age, sex, and dose number, as well inter-dose interval. We conducted a population-based cohort study using passive vaccine safety surveillance data. All individuals in Ontario, Canada who received at least one dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine between December 14, 2020 and September 4, 2021 were included. This study was conducted in Ontario, Canada (population: 14.7 million) using the provincial COVID-19 vaccine registry and provincial adverse events following immunization database.

We included all individuals with a reported episode of myocarditis/pericarditis following COVID-19 vaccine in the study period. We obtained information on all doses administered in the province to calculate reporting rates. Receipt of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (mRNA-1273 [Moderna Spikevax] or BNT162b2 [Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty]). Reported rate of myocarditis/pericarditis meeting level 1-3 of the Brighton Collaboration case definitions.

Results There were 19,740,741 doses of mRNA vaccines administered and 297 reports of myocarditis/pericarditis meeting our inclusion criteria. Among these, 69.7% occurred following the second dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and 76.8% occurred in males. The median age of individuals with a reported event was 24 years. The highest reporting rate of myocarditis/pericarditis was observed in males aged 18-24 years following mRNA-1273 as the second dose; the rate in this age group was 5.1 (95% CI 1.9-15.5) times higher than the rate following BNT162b2 as the second dose. Overall reporting rates were higher when the inter-dose interval was shorter (i.e., ≤30 days) for both vaccine products. Among individuals who received mRNA-1273 for the second dose, rates were higher for those who had a heterologous as opposed to homologous vaccine schedule.

Conclusions and Relevance Our results suggest that vaccine product, inter-dose interval and vaccine schedule combinations may play a role in the risk of myocarditis/pericarditis, in addition to age and sex. Certain programmatic strategies could reduce the risk of myocarditis/pericarditis following mRNA vaccines.

Read more …

The MSM is twisting defeat into victory.

The function of Omicron is it allows them to obscure the fact that the vaccines are utter failures, and at the same time to sell more of the same vaccines as boosters.

“The booster is really adding to protection..”

Yeah, and what we don’t say is “..for two weeks..”

Two Jabs Offer Little Protection Against Omicron Infection, UK Data Shows (G.)

Having two doses of a Covid vaccine offers less defence against symptomatic infection from the Omicron variant than with Delta, experts have said, although a booster jab raises protection considerably. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said Omicron was projected to become the dominant variant of coronavirus in the UK by mid-December, based on current trends. It added that there could be more than a million coronavirus infections by the end of the month. Dr Susan Hopkins, the UKHSA’s chief medical adviser, said: “I think what we’re seeing is that if you’ve had two doses more than three months ago, then it’s not going to prevent you from getting symptomatic disease.” However, a Pfizer/BioNTech booster jab, given after an initial round of either Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer, raised the level of protection, offering 70-75% protection against symptomatic infection.

The findings came as the UK reported 58,194 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday – the highest number of positive cases in a 24-hour period since 9 January – and 120 deaths. A total of 448 Omicron cases were also reported, compared with 249 on Thursday, with the total across the UK to date now standing at 1,265. The UKHSA report offers early insights into the degree of protection the initial two vaccinations may offer against Omicron. The data suggests that people who have had two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab 25 or more weeks ago have far lower protection against symptomatic infection with Omicron than with Delta. While the data suggests such individuals have about 40% protection against Delta at this time point, protection against symptomatic infection with Omicron could be less than 10%. However, there is a great deal of uncertainty around that figure given the small number of people studied and the fact that the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab was largely given to older or more vulnerable people.


A similar trend was seen for those who have had two doses of the Pfizer jab, with about 60% protection against Delta at 25 or more weeks since the second dose, and just under 40% protection against Omicron at the same time point – although, again, there are uncertainties around the figures. About 44 million people received their second jab at least three months ago, but about 22 million have received a booster since then. Experts have said Omicron infections are doubling every two to three days in the UK, leading to concerns that the variant could overwhelm the NHS if it is as virulent as Delta. In the UK, about 39% of those over 12 years old have had a booster dose, compared with 81% of people having had two doses. “The booster is really adding to protection,” said Dr Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at the UKHSA.

Read more …

The Atlantic, too, continues its sloppy sales job.

“Settings that might have previously seemed safe for vaccinated folks—say, a restaurant or performance venue that strictly checks vaccination status—could become fertile ground for transmission, because the people inside them are more likely to catch and spread the virus.”

The Pandemic of the Vaccinated Is Here (Atlantic)

The 60 percent of Americans who are fully vaccinated could soon find their lives looking very different. For much of the summer and fall, those who had received two Pfizer or Moderna doses or one Johnson & Johnson shot were told that they were essentially bulletproof, especially if they were young and healthy. But preliminary data from South Africa and Europe now suggest that two vaccine doses alone might still allow for frequent breakthrough infections and rapid spread of the disease—even if hospitalization and death remain unlikely. Getting three shots, or two shots plus a previous bout of COVID, seems to offer more protection. For Saad Omer, the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, that’s enough evidence to justify changing the CDC’s definition of full vaccination. “With Omicron and the data emerging, I think there is no reason why we shouldn’t have a pretty strong push for everyone to have boosters,” he told me.

At this point, the CDC has recorded that less than a quarter of adults who are fully vaccinated under the existing definition have gotten a third shot. That leaves about 150 million people who are vaccinated but unboosted. Given that the people in this group are less protected against infection, they’re at greater risk of passing on the disease to unvaccinated or partially vaccinated kids, as well as to unvaccinated or immunologically vulnerable adults. They will also pass the coronavirus more readily among themselves. Settings that might have previously seemed safe for vaccinated folks—say, a restaurant or performance venue that strictly checks vaccination status—could become fertile ground for transmission, because the people inside them are more likely to catch and spread the virus. Indeed, anecdotal reports already suggest that large indoor gatherings of fully vaccinated people can become super-spreader events in the age of Omicron.


Population-level immunity could suffer in another way too, Omer said: People who were previously protected because of a prior infection could now be quite vulnerable to getting reinfected and passing on the disease. In fact, it’s possible that the only parts of the country where community transmission might be blunted are those that faced devastating early waves of the virus and subsequently had strong vaccination rates—mostly a handful of areas in the Northeast. “It’s really very, very challenging to consider how those differences might play out,” Joshua Schiffer, a disease-modeling expert at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me.

Read more …

The caption for that graph, I kid you not: “Cases have been on the rise in recent months..”

Austria To Fine Unvaxed Citizens Up To £12,000 A Year (Sun)

Austria will impose criminal fines of up to £12,000 a year if they refuse the Covid vaccination. The move comes amid a shift across much of Europe towards increasingly harsh measures to crack down on vaccine hesitancy amid fears Omicron patients will overwhelm hospitals. Under Austria’s plans to make injections against coronavirus compulsory from February onwards. It comes as Europe’s coronavirus death toll could soar by another 700,000 this winter, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned. Austria’s conservative-led government today gave details of its plan to make coronavirus vaccines compulsory, saying it will apply to people 14 and over and holdouts face fines of up to £3,000 every three months.

Roughly 68 per cent of Austria’s population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, one of the lowest rates in western Europe. Many Austrians are sceptical about vaccines, a view encouraged by the far-right Freedom Party, the third biggest in parliament. As infections set records three weeks ago, the government announced a fourth national lockdown and said it would make vaccinations compulsory for all, the first European Union country to do so. Minister for constitutional affairs Karoline Edtstadler said: “We do not want to punish people who are not vaccinated. We want to win them over and convince them to get vaccinated.”


The vaccine mandate, which must be approved by parliament, is due to start in February and last through January 2024. Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein said: “There will be quarterly vaccination deadlines. “If that is not the case, proceedings will be brought. In regular proceedings, the amount of the fine is 3,600 euros (£3,000). “As an alternative, the authorities have the option to impose a fine in shorter proceedings immediately after the vaccination deadline. Here the amount of the fine is 600 euros.” There will be exemptions for pregnant women and people who cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons, he added.


Cases have been on the rise in recent months

Read more …

From Dec. 3.

Belgian Court Rules Enforcing Covid Vaccine Pass Is Illegal (Metro)

A court has ruled a Covid pass in a region of Belgium is unlawful and has fined the district more than £4,000 per day until it stops enforcing it. In the judgement, the Covid Safe Ticket (CST) in Wallonia was called disproportionate and the court suggested it could breach European law, the Brussels Times reported. Since November, the CST has been mandatory in the Walloon Region and the whole of Belgium. People who want to eat in a restaurant or go to the theatre must present a Covid pass, showing vaccination, a negative test, or recent recovery.


Non-profit organisation Notre bon droit (NBD) brought the summary proceedings against Wallonia after contesting the use of the Covid pass before its introduction. NBD founder Isabelle Duchateau said: ‘The court has ruled in our favour by conceding that the CST does not respect the principle of proportionality.’ As well as the daily £4,258 (€5,000) fine, The Walloon Government was ordered to pay NBD’s court costs and will have to ‘rectify’ the situation pending a judgement on the CST’s benefits. But the Walloon Region refused to annul the CST following the judgement and said it would appeal the court’s decision on Wednesday, according to the Brussels Times.

Read more …

Post mandate America.

Yes Folks, It Really IS Over (Denninger)

And now, as I pointed out, it is time for anyone coerced — whether you caved or not — to press your offense. This action makes clear the last argument Biden’s Administration had was false — and means they will lose. The Senate voted Wednesday to repeal a President Biden-backed federal *****-19 ******* mandate for private businesses. The final vote was 52-48. Moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana joined Republicans to vote in favor of the repeal. Yes, the bill will die in the House. Pelosi will never bring it to the floor on a voluntary basis and certainly not on an expedited one with there being no effective forcing mechanism in the House; she knows damn well the majority of Americans do not support mandated vaccination and she’s already screwed in the midterms.

This bill, irrespective of the vote outcome, would turn that into a slaughter and for no purpose, since Biden will veto it anyway if it gets to his desk. While its theoretically possible to force action with a discharge petition that’s unlikely. But for those who argue that this means its a “worthless gesture” by the Senate you’re wrong. If you’re an employer or legal department and argue this you’re going to wind up asset-stripped to your underwear. The Executive has no authority to enact such any such mandate on its own. It has to rely on, and has argued in court multiple times that it was delegated this authority by Congress. That’s the entire foundation on which such a mandate rests — that the enabling law for OSHA permitted this and was explicitly authorized and contemplated, that the FARs governing contracts with the government again explicitly permitted this action as a result of Congressional delegation of said authority and that CMS, likewise, can do it under the Medicare and Medicaid enabling legislation.

That argument just got a cement boot tied to it and tossed into 3,200 feet of water. The Senate action makes clear that the Senate did not concur then, long before this threat was on anyone’s radar and even in the throes of the current pandemic the Senate would not concur to delegate said authority to the Executive. In other words if these laws were on the table today to be passed, complete with this explicit or implicit authority they would not pass the Senate and thus would not become law! The courts will not ignore this. Indeed their rulings thus far have all turned on exactly this point — where is the authority within the Executive, and from what did it derive? This action means the courts don’t even get to the Constitutional question of bodily autonomy; they are now going to rule on the very-clear fact that the Senate has formally, in a recorded vote, disavowed Executive authority to implement any of these mandates.

That’s the beginning and end of it — and now, with that in the bag and in the record of the Senate those employers who have in any way relied on the statements of the government or crafted their concepts based upon same are cooked. Oh sure, there will be those who vehemently want to protest their “wokeness” in this regard but now they have to face the fact that their alleged “justification” has been destroyed and the legal protection it might have afforded them — whether their punitive acts were surcharging employee health insurance or outright firing people — has disappeared in a puff of smoke. The landsharks will be feasting on businesses and the “woke” among them. It’s time to go on offense folks. You were dealt the nuts hand by the Senate. Do not let them off cheaply.

Read more …

“..it was “not a matter of if but when” conscience would provoke him, Dr. Fauci, a.k.a. The Science, to declare the already-vaxxed, even the multi-vaxxed and once-boosted, unvaxxed!

The Air Coming Out (Kunstler)

Has the illustrious Dr. Fauci not just plumb shot his wad now? Made himself — how do you put it delicately — something less than…uh… helpful… in the public health sphere? Worn out his welcome, a little bit? We have been a kind and generous nation through our history, after all, patient to a fault with all sorts of public rascals. I’m sure you would agree: an apology and discreet withdrawal from the scene might buy him a few years of elder peace at some ocean or desert retreat, dandling the grand-kids on his tender lap, even while the prosecutors construct their case… and by then, of course, the spike proteins moiling in the conus arteriosus of his shriveled heart — gift of his own marvelous science project — will have worked their hoodoo and punched his ticket to the great gain-of-function Palookaville up yonder.

Or is he, rather, begging for the rope at the end of the lamp-post now (along with a few thousand other public figures around the world)? I mean… moving the goal-posts yet again the other day right there on CNN with the ever-glowering Kate Bolduan, saying it was “not a matter of if but when” conscience would provoke him, Dr. Fauci, a.k.a. The Science, to declare the already-vaxxed, even the multi-vaxxed and once-boosted, unvaxxed! The horror! I’d calculate that the internet campaign to purchase the aforesaid rope would take about ten seconds flat, including the log-in.

It’s beginning to look like Americans have had enough of this monkey business, losing their livelihoods, their futures, their reasons to live. And now this malignant dwarf of a government witch-doctor wants to come for their children? Homey don’t play that. And, by the way, Omicron is no Darth Vader and Dr. Fauci is no Obi-Wan Kenobi. Omicron is a punk-ass computer iteration of the original “SARS CoV-2” computer model of a frightful pandemic agent engineered to drive the Western advanced nations batshit crazy (literally) so as to distract them from the criminal ineptitude of their financial managers. And now that the virus narrative is unspooling it’s showtime for the terminal financial follies of the age.

[..] CBS-News reports this morning that “household wealth has surged an astonishing $36 trillion.” Our Federal Reserve says so in a 205-page statistics dump. Oh, really? Do you know what that is? It’s called air. Something you can see clean through because the thing that is supposed to be there is not there, namely, what money is supposed to represent. This is the financial narrative, cousin to the virus narrative — making manifest the non-manifest… a ghost story around civilization’s campfire. Any minute now, the air is going to come out of the family rooms in these hypothetical millions of suddenly rich households and the people within will suffocate financially. The New York Times will report them as Covid-19 deaths, I’m sure.

Read more …

Haven’t watched the interview yet.

Alix Mayer Is Vaccine Injured, But Not From The Covid Vaccine (Kirsch)

On December 9, I interviewed Alix Mayer, President, Children’s Health Defense, California Chapter. She’s vaccine injured from a set of vaccines she took prior to a business trip. She’s never fully recovered. Here’s my interview on Rumble. It’s one of the most popular videos I’ve done (over 34,000 views in less than 24 hours with no promotion; all positive reviews).

IMPORTANT: If you are a parent of young kids, have grandkids, or are thinking about ever getting vaccinated again, you will want to watch this video. You will be shocked about what you are not being told. Key things I learned from talking with Alix:

• All the 16 childhood vaccines should be considered unsafe because all the safety data shows that kids are uniformly less healthy after taking the vaccines compared to kids who are not vaccinated at all.

• All the papers published in medical journals documenting the dangers of the vaccines have been revoked and the people who wrote them have lost their jobs. The papers weren’t censored because they were wrong. They were censored so nobody will find out the truth. The papers all showed that kids who avoided the vaccines were significantly healthier than the kids who got vaccinated. The COVID vaccines? They are 1,000 times worse than any of these vaccines.

• The CDC is supposed to be assessing the safety of the children’s vaccines every 2 years. They have never done this. They even admit it. They don’t have any plans to comply with the law. Nobody is holding them accountable. Everyone is looking the other way.

• There has been a huge increase in autism and other disabling conditions after kids take the childhood vaccination schedule. There is no doubt they are linked.

• RFK, Jr. has been trying to get a debate with the CDC for 20 years about the safety of the childhood vaccines. Nobody from the CDC will debate him. They refuse to be put in a situation where they could be asked questions that they don’t want to answer. Someone is hiding in the shadows and it isn’t RFK, Jr.

• Judy Mikovits discovered impurities in the vaccines but they forced out of her job to silence her.

Read more …

“Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by “hundreds” of CIA agents who told him what to do throughout his tenure as leader..”

Putin Says Russian Government Was Swarming With CIA Officers (RT)

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Russian government was swarming with CIA workers, and they eventually had to be “cleaned out” and sent back to the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Thursday. Speaking to a meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, Putin used the example of Americans within the Russian government to show how foreign countries attempt to interfere in the country’s internal affairs. “In the early 2000s, I had already cleaned everyone out, but in the mid-1990s, we had, as it later turned out, cadres of the US Central Intelligence Agency sitting as advisers and even official employees of the Russian government,” Putin explained. “They were later prosecuted in the United States for violating US law and taking part in privatization while they were CIA employees working for us,” the president claimed.

According to Putin, some American specialists were stationed at Russian nuclear weapons facilities and even sat at a desk with a US flag. “They lived and worked there. They didn’t need such subtle instruments of interference in our political life because they controlled everything anyway,” he continued. This isn’t the first time that Putin has accused America of interfering with Russia’s internal affairs, especially in the immediate aftermath following the fall of the Soviet Union and the privatization of government-owned assets. In 2013, the president claimed that CIA officers worked in the entourage of Anatoly Chubais, the deputy prime minister who oversaw the privatization process. He later went on to become Kremlin chief of staff.


Earlier this year, Ruslan Khasbulatov, the former chairman of Russia’s parliament, claimed that the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by “hundreds” of CIA agents who told him what to do throughout his tenure as leader. Khasbulatov even claimed that Yeltsin would send security officials and heads of departments to the US so the Americans could “examine them” and “give conclusions.”

Read more …

Long read by conservative lawyer Sundance focusing on the strong connection between Assange and the failure of Russiagate as grounds for his present treatment.

“..Assange could essentially destroy the baseline predicate for the entire Trump-Russia investigation ..”

US DOJ Wins Court Case Seeking Julian Assange Extradition (CTH)

Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative; and knowing that Assange could essentially destroy the baseline predicate for the entire Trump-Russia investigation – which included the use of Robert Mueller; it would make sense for corrupt government officials to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange. And that would explain why those same government officials, willfully or by direction, would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017. Within three months of the grand jury seating (Nov/Dec 2017), the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018. The EDVA then sat on the indictment while the Mueller/Weissman probe was ongoing.

As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed As a person who has researched this three year fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16; and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17; this timing against Assange is too coincidental.

It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is the fulcrum point that structurally underpins the entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative. However, this important claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange’s on-the-record statements.

The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment (Peter Strzok); and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from another Michael Sussmann partner, Shawn Henry at Crowdstrike. Yes, another DNC contractor and collaborator with the Clinton campaign. The CIA always held a massive conflict of self-interest problem surrounding the Russian hacking claim as it pertains to their own activity in 2016. The FBI and DOJ always held a massive interest in maintaining that claim.

Robert Mueller and Andrew Weismann did everything they could to support that predicate; and all of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also carried a self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative. Julian Assange was/is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange has claimed he has evidence it was not from a hack. This Russian “hacking” claim was ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K Intelligence apparatus…. Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon as intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public.

Read more …

 

 

Imperial Rock, Rimini, Italy

 

 

Mouse drawing
https://twitter.com/i/status/1469385917752385545

 

 

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Dec 102021
 
 December 10, 2021  Posted by at 6:15 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  18 Responses »


William-Adolphe Bouguereau Whisperings of Love 1889

 

 

What’s the difference between Julian Assange being robbed of his freedom for 12 years and you being robbed of yours for two? From a legal point of view, very little. Because both are based on, “justified by”, no existing laws. They are based on people who happen to have grabbed power, interpreting existing law in their own favor, aided and abetted by their respective judicial branches.

Assange being told he can have no life, or freedom, today, despite never having been formally accused, let alone convicted, of a crime, is no different than someone in Austria threatened with being imprisoned because they don’t want to be vaxxed with an experimental substance. Neither will have broken an existing and valid law, still both will end up behind bars.

I support people who say it should be everyone’s own choice whether they want to be vaccinated with mRNA or not, but I doubt that more than 2% know even what that is, what it does, and what it still may do to them, and to their children. Informed consent is not just some abstract idea, even if it is treated as such.

The vast majority of people who are coerced into being jabbed, are undoubtedly the same ones who pay no attention to what is happening to Julian Assange. They just read and watch the media they always have, and their media tells them only what the owners and sponsors of the channels and papers want to let them know.

Nothing to do with what is important to their lives, or their freedoms, just a narrow passage way in which their lives are “allowed” to take place. And nothing to do with what that may mean to the lives and freedoms of their children, or to Assange, whose “crime” is he tried to warn them about all this coming.

 

You cannot talk about what government agencies, like the army or secret services, do behind the curtains, that is against “the law”. And if you do, they will say that itself is against the law. It isn’t, but who cares if they find some judge who says it is anyway?

By the same token, you cannot refuse to be jabbed with some untested thing, and then again and again, because some judge will declare that refusing it is against the law. Even if there’s no such law, but there are plenty laws -including weighty international ones- that say it is not.

All three branches of government, along with industry -in this case the pharmaceutical industry, in Assange’s case the secrecy industry-, are lined up against you, just in case you might want to express an opinion that doesn’t coincide with the narrative they have devised for you, your family, your community.

You are now no longer a human being. Not in the sense that western democracies once defined it. You still have two legs and a nose, but your brain has been switched off beyond the point where it is (was?!) capable of original and independent thought. Yes, that is you, today.

 

You never realized it, and how could you, but you are now among the first specimens of a whole new kind of “human” being. Which historians of the future will be sure is proof of a cross between humans and sheep. Either that or a very serious deterioration of brain power, even if no such thing might show up in an autopsy.

Letting your 2 year old child be injected with spike proteins is the exact same thing as letting Julian Assange rot in some prison because the CIA doesn’t like their secrets spilled. Both signal the end of your ability to think for yourself, to make your own decisions, and down the line, obviously, to protect the people, your spouse, your kids, your family, who are dearest to you.

Because no, you do not protect them by giving in to illegal demands about either what you are free to say and do, or to your freedom to not get inoculated with some commercial chemical product. You may think there is safety in complying with the behavior of the crowd, but the bottom of the sea is full of lemmings who had that exact same thought.

Standing up for Julian Assange equals standing up for the rights and freedoms of your children. Who you, make no mistake, surrender to the wolves if you don’t speak up. We do not live in times where these is safety in crowds or in silence. That is not an option.

Or it is, but then we must give up all that makes us human, all that is essential to being who we -potentially- are, essential to your beautiful kids living up to their full potential. Which they cannot possibly do if they follow your example and not use their voices to voice what their brains tell them. You’ll end up halfway murdering your children, just like you’re actively murdering yourself today.

But I have a successful career! I have smart kids! I have a nice house! I have a great car, and the next will be an electric one! Yeah, we know, we know.

It’s just that the essence of a human being is to not be a sheep or a lemming. The essence of a human being is not a house or a car, it is courage, and empathy, and love, and independent thought, independent living.

If we fail to defend the best and brightest and bravest amongst us – that would be Julian – how can we hope to defend the less bright and brave, our very children, and what would it even be worth if we do?

 

What the Assange sorry story, and the blown out of all proportions Covid debacle, make me think is that we live in a turning point of history. The information age has grown up faster than we have, than we ever could.

And it’s leaving us behind. The only defense mechanism we have left is a deep notion of what it means to be human, and how that divides us from other living species, or even from machines. And we are failing.

 

 

 

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Oct 262021
 


M. C. Escher Relativity Lattice 1953

 

Who Will They Blame When Everyone is Vaccinated?
Concerns About Suboptimal Vaccine Antibodies Erasing Natural Immunity (Blaze)
Informed Consent Disclosure To Vaccine Trial Subjects (NIH)
Why Won’t The CDC or FDA Reveal The VAERS URF? (Kirsch)
200,000 Grannies, No Problem. A Few Puppies? (Denninger)
Consider the Lowly Sandflies (Kunstler)
The Age of Exterminations (VI): The Great Famine to Come (Ugo Bardi)
Biden’s “C’mon, Man” Defense Will Not Fly on Religious Freedom (Turley)
Hertz Orders 100,000 Teslas For Rental Cars (Byte)
‘Unthinkable’ For High Court To Lift US Extradition Ban On Julian Assange (DM)
Allegation Of CIA Murder Plot Game-changer In Assange Extradition Hearing (R.)
A Guide To The US Appeal In The Assange Extradition Case (Gosztola)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scott Jensen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1452753030391246854

 

 

They will always find a witch to burn, or drown.

Problem is, how are we going to tell the vaxxed that they are in grave danger?

Who Will They Blame When Everyone is Vaccinated?

A question we have been asking for several months: Who are the political officials going to blame for rising COVID infection and hospitalization rates when the vaccination rates are well over 90 percent? What happens on a sociological scale when a vaxxed society realizes there is no magic panacea afforded by the vaccination narrative? Author Jack Cashill takes those questions head-on in a Spectator article noting we only need to look at Waterford, Ireland, to see the dynamic where an almost completely obedient and vaccinated population of 99.7% is facing rising COVID infection rates despite their good citizenship:


Cashill – […] “The arbitrary evolution of Irish COVID policy over the past 18 months has made it clear that public health officials and government policy makers have no idea what they are doing. If proof were needed, County Waterford provides it. According to data published on October 21, Waterford City South has the nation’s highest 14-day incidence rate at 1,486 cases per 100,000 and Tramore-Waterford City West has the third highest at 1,122 cases per 100,000. This is despite internal travel bans and the county’s more than 90 percent vaccination rate. Although Waterford is running three times the rate of the nation writ large, Ireland as a whole is not faring particularly well, especially given its draconian restrictions. In the seven days preceding October 21, Ireland reported 2,026 new cases. To put that number in perspective, wide-open Florida had 2,262 cases during that same period with a population more than four times greater than the Irish Republic’s.”

Read more …

More vaccines -> More Covid.

Concerns About Suboptimal Vaccine Antibodies Erasing Natural Immunity (Blaze)

In many areas of life, half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. But when it comes to vaccines, the opposite is true. Half-baked antibodies injected throughout the entire population can make the virus even stronger and negate people’s natural immunity. Thus, all the defenses of the leaky vaccine suggesting that it at least conveys “some” protection are actually extremely concerning, a point driven home by a nugget in the most recent surveillance report from Public Health England (PHE). On page 23 of PHE’s “COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report Week 42,” British health officials report a shocking finding. They believe their serology tests are underestimating the number of people with prior infection due to “recent observations from UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) surveillance data that N antibody levels appear to be lower in individuals who acquire infection following 2 doses of vaccination.”

In other words, the vaccine might be reducing the all-important N antibodies that one generates from natural infection. Kudos to former NYT reporter Alex Berenson for discovering this important point. Until now, we’ve been operating under the assumption that those with prior infection don’t need the vaccine to boost immunity and taking the shots would only expose them to the growing risk of side effects. However, what if the shots are actually sliding back the natural immunity generated in those with previous infection? What if that is related to the macro concern that a narrow-spectrum vaccine with suboptimal antibodies that only recognize the “S” (spike) protein of the virus but not the “N” (nucleocapsid) of the virus will cause B cells in those with the vaccine to learn to produce only S antibodies, which are slower-acting and less sterilizing (don’t stop transmission) than N antibodies, which are faster-acting and are more effective in their protection against the virus?

It’s not like we weren’t confronted with some other warning signs that the vaccine could perhaps negate some of the immunity acquired from prior infection. In March, researchers from Mount Sinai in New York and Hospital La Paz in Madrid posted a preprint study indicating that at least the second Pfizer shot might weaken T cell immunity. In a shocking discovery after monitoring a group of vaccinated people both with and without prior infection, they found “in individuals with a pre-existing immunity against SARS-CoV-2, the second vaccine dose not only fail to boost humoral immunity but determines a contraction of the spike-specific T cell response.” They also note that other research has shown “the second vaccination dose appears to exert a detrimental effect in the overall magnitude of the spike-specific humoral response in COVID-19 recovered individuals.”

Thus, mass vaccinating with leaky suboptimal antibody production could serve as a Trojan horse and make people more susceptible to an ever-enhanced virus. It’s not like we had no warning about the possibility of viral enhancement through waning and suboptimal vaccine-mediated antibodies. On page 52 of Pfizer’s “Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for an Unapproved Product Review Memorandum,” it is admitted that antibody dependent disease enhancement was a possibility in the long run with waning efficacy. “However, risk of vaccine-enhanced disease over time, potentially associated with waning immunity, remains unknown and needs to be evaluated further in ongoing clinical trials and in observational studies that could be conducted following authorization and/or licensure,” write the FDA regulators in the memo.

[..] According to PHE data, 86% of all U.K. residents over age 12 have received at least one shot, including nearly everyone in a vulnerable age bracket. Yet the summer and early fall curve, as presented by Worldometer, has blown out the magnitude of the case curve last year when nobody was vaccinated, and the daily numbers are reaching close to their winter peak.

Read more …

Vaccines killing off antibodies is not a new idea. This is from March 2021.

“Informed consent disclosure to vaccine trial subjects of risk of COVID-19 vaccines worsening clinical disease.”

Informed Consent Disclosure To Vaccine Trial Subjects (NIH)

Aims of the study: Patient comprehension is a critical part of meeting medical ethics standards of informed consent in study designs. The aim of the study was to determine if sufficient literature exists to require clinicians to disclose the specific risk that COVID-19 vaccines could worsen disease upon exposure to challenge or circulating virus.

Methods used to conduct the study: Published literature was reviewed to identify preclinical and clinical evidence that COVID-19 vaccines could worsen disease upon exposure to challenge or circulating virus. Clinical trial protocols for COVID-19 vaccines were reviewed to determine if risks were properly disclosed.

Results of the study: COVID-19 vaccines designed to elicit neutralising antibodies may sensitise vaccine recipients to more severe disease than if they were not vaccinated. Vaccines for SARS, MERS and RSV have never been approved, and the data generated in the development and testing of these vaccines suggest a serious mechanistic concern: that vaccines designed empirically using the traditional approach (consisting of the unmodified or minimally modified coronavirus viral spike to elicit neutralising antibodies), be they composed of protein, viral vector, DNA or RNA and irrespective of delivery method, may worsen COVID-19 disease via antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). This risk is sufficiently obscured in clinical trial protocols and consent forms for ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials that adequate patient comprehension of this risk is unlikely to occur, obviating truly informed consent by subjects in these trials.

Conclusions drawn from the study and clinical implications: The specific and significant COVID-19 risk of ADE should have been and should be prominently and independently disclosed to research subjects currently in vaccine trials, as well as those being recruited for the trials and future patients after vaccine approval, in order to meet the medical ethics standard of patient comprehension for informed consent.

Read more …

Steve keeps pushing.

Why Won’t The CDC or FDA Reveal The VAERS URF? (Kirsch)

VAERS is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. It is the official system relied upon by the FDA and CDC for adverse event tracking. For example, if you report an adverse event in V-Safe, the app they told you about when you got vaccinated, you are told to file a VAERS report. It is essentially the mother of all adverse event reporting systems for vaccine events in the US. There is nothing more comprehensive than VAERS. The most important thing to know about VAERS is that it is always underreported. This is widely known. To properly interpret any safety data, you must know the underreporting factor (URF). For example, the famous Lazarus report estimated the VAERS URF to be over 100:

“Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. Low reporting rates preclude or slow the identification of “problem” drugs and vaccines that endanger public health.” The Baker paper, Advanced Clinical Decision Support for Vaccine Adverse Event Detection and Reporting, showed that “the odds of a VAERS report submission during the implementation period were 30.2 (95% confidence interval, 9.52–95.5).” In other words, the VAERS URF was at least 30 (since the system wasn’t perfect, 30 is a lower bound of the URF in that study), but they estimated that it was likely between 9.5 and 95.

The URF is normally calculated for very serious events since these are required to be reported for all vaccines by healthcare workers. That URF can then be applied to less serious events to create a conservative estimate of the true incidence rate (since less serious events would have a higher URF). The method for calculating the URF is well known. Sadly, the CDC has erroneously assumed that Vaccine Safety Datalink represents a fully reported comparator. This is clearly false as can be seen from slide 13 in ACIP Chair Grace Lee’s presentation delivered on August 30, 2021:

Read more …

“Fauci slaughtered tens of thousands of AIDS sufferers by blocking Bactrim in HIV+ persons for years, arguing he needed “controlled trials” first to “prove” that it worked to prevent PCP.”

“.. in the case of HIV it was AZT. This time its intentionally falsely labeled drugs that are called “vaccines” yet are not, along with a new drug from Merck that may be even more dangerous than the jabs.”

200,000 Grannies, No Problem. A Few Puppies? (Denninger)

If you want to know why God is sipping on a cold one and laughing at the evil in our nation and indeed the world you need nothing more. Fauci slaughtered tens of thousands of AIDS sufferers by blocking Bactrim in HIV+ persons for years, arguing he needed “controlled trials” first to “prove” that it worked to prevent PCP. We already knew it did, by the way, having learned that in the late 1970s with Leukemia patients — it cut the mortality rate of people with Leukemia during chemo by a huge amount. Fauci claimed that wasn’t good enough. 30,000, roughly, Americans got shoved in the hole, dead from PCP, as a result. This time around Fauci proclaimed that we had “insufficient evidence” to recommend that people use HCQ, Ivermectin, Budesonide and a whole host of other things at first indication of Covid-19.

The answer was “vaccines”, which did not exist for 11 months, and were not rolled out in size for a full year. In both cases pharmaceutical companies made billions; in the case of HIV it was AZT. This time its intentionally falsely labeled drugs that are called “vaccines” yet are not, along with a new drug from Merck that may be even more dangerous than the jabs. Two hundred thousand Grannies and Grandpas, mostly, died during the last 18 months without even being able to say goodbye to their loved ones, having been denied drugs that might have worked and might not have — but which were almost certainly better than being dead. If they did nothing, so what? Dead is dead, right? Well, neither Ivermectin or Budesonide killed me. I used both when I got Covid in August.

I do not know if Ivermectin appreciably impacted the course of the disease because I hit it early and hard and thus perhaps it did nothing (hard to prove otherwise, isn’t it?) but the budesonide reversed symptom progression within 12 hours of initiation of use. I cannot attribute that change to mere chance. Is it proof? No. But do I believe it worked? You bet. And I’m still here; neither killed me, nor did either do any harm I can detect (nor did the virus itself) to my cardiopulmonary function from pre-infection baseline. Will any of these drugs work for everyone? Nope. Does vaccination? Nope.

St. Elizabeth’s, as of 10/22, makes quite clear that people winding up in the hospital, ICU or with a tube down their throat on a vent happens all the time in fully-vaccinated people. None of that is “rare” and, I remind you, this is a major hospital chain all over NE KY along with a couple of other states. Do the jabs “reduce the risk”? Probably. Do they work as well as using drugs at first hint of trouble? Since these “breakthroughs” that land people in the hospital, ICU or on a vent are hardly RARE — they’re extraordinarily common despite the lies the media, CDC and other hospitals have told — I maintain that I made the correct choice as I did not wind up in a hospital at all and now I have presumptive immunity that actually works unlike these “jabs” which, on the data certainly appear to NOT.

Read more …

“Dr. Fauci is ever more emblematic of the American predicament: maniacs and doofuses in charge of powerful institutions strategically positioned to wreck the country.”

Consider the Lowly Sandflies (Kunstler)

Some flinched when Dr. Fauci commanded the children of America to take the mRNA shots fraught with deadly side effects, but now it’s out that the agency he has controlled for decades like a Byzantine despot, the NIAD, gave a $1.6 million grant to a lab in Tunisia — that world-beating center of the bio-sciences — to study what happens when puppy-dogs are pinned down so that ravenous sandflies can chew their snouts off. I guess it didn’t go to well for the puppies. (And doesn’t one wonder exactly what was learned doing that?) We are not Tunisia, of course, at least not yet. We are the mighty USA, a nation imbued with the moral spirit of Walt Disney, and for us this puppy-dog caper might just be an experiment-too-far.

We’ll have to stand by months, maybe years, to find out what the effects are of mRNA shots in human children, but two known possibilities stand out: inflammation and scarring of the heart (myocarditis + sequelae), and an incrementally disabled immune system. Do you really want those shots in your children? — America might ask. And how does Dr. Fauci imagine the child vaxx program would be carried out? In the schools, I suppose, where the subjects of the experiment can be conveniently rounded-up every day. Would you suppose that roughly half the parents in the land would then withdraw their kids from the public school system and, if so, what becomes of the system when they’re gone? Not anything good, I promise you.

But consider that it is already a rotten system ever more incapable of turning out citizens who can speak English, write a coherent sentence, and add up a column of figures, let alone name the capital of Tunisia (warning: trick question!). Dr. Fauci is ever more emblematic of the American predicament: maniacs and doofuses in charge of powerful institutions strategically positioned to wreck the country. For now, they strangely enjoy protection within this matrix of captive institutions while carrying out their nefarious missions. So, the question arises: do Americans wish to live in a wrecked country?

Read more …

Seneca.

The Age of Exterminations (VI): The Great Famine to Come (Ugo Bardi)

Note how, in the calculation, the world population decline starts around 2050, some three decades after the start of the crash of the industrial and agricultural systems. Why is it that the population keeps growing while people are starving? Unlikely, to say the least. It is hard to quantify people’s intention to have children or not have them, so the modelers used past data on birthrates as a function of the gross domestic product (GDP). It was equivalent to “running in reverse” the demographic transition that took place in the 1960s when natality had collapsed in many regions of the world in parallel with an increase of the GDP per capita. The result was that a contraction of the GDP would cause people to have more children? These assumptions were later reconsidered and different results were obtained in 2004.

Now, the population starts declining around 2030, less than a decade after that food production starts collapsing, and that looks much more reasonable. Yet, even this curve has problems: would you really believe that in the midst of the great turmoil of the global collapse the result would be such a gentle decline? More likely, all the four horsemen of the apocalypse would enter the game and generate a disastrous general crash. This is called the “Seneca Effect.” You see the typical shape of the Seneca Curve in the figure: decline is much faster than growth. Models such as the one used for the “Limits to Growth” cannot reproduce a really sharp Seneca Curve because they do not consider the many possible “tipping points” that may affect the world system. But the historical data tell us that the Seneca shape is the typical behavior of population collapses. Here is the example of the data for the great famine in Ireland (From Ugo Bardi’s book “The Seneca Effect.”) You can clearly see the “Seneca Shape” of the curve, with a sharp decline following growth.

Read more …

“..the federal government must show that the burden imposed furthers a “compelling governmental interest” and is “the least restrictive means” of furthering that interest.”

Biden’s “C’mon, Man” Defense Will Not Fly on Religious Freedom (Turley)

“Come on, man,” seems to be President Biden’s signature response to any uncomfortable question. The phrase is meant to be both dismissive and conclusive in ending inquiries, frequently used to counter reporters before often walking away. Indeed, it is so often repeated that it appears on T-Shirts or coffee mugs and in remixes. This week, however, it was not the pesky press but freedom itself that got hit with a version of the comeback. When asked during a CNN town hall program about those still objecting to taking COVID vaccines, Biden mocked them and their claimed rights with “Come on, ‘freedom.’ ” He then called for any police officers, firefighters, medical personnel or other first responders to be fired en masse if they refuse to be vaccinated.

Biden’s response to the question was applauded by the CNN audience, as if to say “Freedomm Ptff, that is so last century.” And he reduced any vaccine refusals to claiming “I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID.” He is not alone in such rhetoric. Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot declared that police officers refusing to take vaccines are insurrectionists. The problem is that the courts already recognize some religious exemption arguments. Those arguments are based on both the constitutional protection of religious values but also laws like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §2000e-2(a), which declares unlawful any “employment practice for an employer … to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of such individual’s … religion.”

The federal government also is subject to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which prohibits the government and other covered entities like the District of Columbia from “substantially burden[ing]” a person’s exercise of religion. Under RFRA, there is no “Come on, man,” defense. Instead, the federal government must show that the burden imposed furthers a “compelling governmental interest” and is “the least restrictive means” of furthering that interest. There is a move in many states to refuse to allow such exemptions, but courts have pushed back. In New York, the state is appealing a preliminary injunction against its refusal to allow religious exemptions to its vaccine mandate. A lower court found the governor’s mandate “has effectively foreclosed the pathway to seeking a religious accommodation that is guaranteed under Title VII.”

Likewise, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals this month affirmed such a preliminary injunction against Western Michigan University. The university allowed students to ask for individual exemptions but failed to grant religious exemptions under its discretionary policy.

Read more …

“The deal caused Tesla’s market valuation to hit the $1 trillion mark.”

“It’s a striking decision given that Hertz filed for bankruptcy last year..”

Hertz Orders 100,000 Teslas For Rental Cars (Byte)

Rental car company Hertz has ordered 100,000 Tesla Model 3s as part of a massive push to electrify its fleet — the largest purchase of electric vehicles ever, according to Bloomberg. It’s a massive deal reportedly worth $4.2 billion, pushing the automaker’s valuation past the $1 trillion mark for the first time ever. Shares were just two dollars shy of reaching the $1,000 mark on Monday, a new record for the Elon Musk-led company. Musk’s own net value soared in response to the news as well, crossing the quarter trillion mark. “Electric vehicles are now mainstream, and we’ve only just begun to see rising global demand and interest,” Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields told Reuters.


It’s a striking decision given that Hertz filed for bankruptcy last year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the company’s market value has recovered, Bloomberg reports. Even more so, it’s a major win for Tesla, giving vast numbers of potential customers a first-hand look at the electric carmaker’s offerings when they travel. Bloomberg reports that Hertz is hoping to push maintenance and refueling costs down by switching to electric cars, as well as planning to build out a customers-only charger network. To celebrate the deal, Hertz hired quarterback celeb Tom Brady for a cheesy ad, showing off its new Tesla fleet. Now, the ball is in Tesla’s court to deliver the vehicles. “There is quite an execution journey ahead of us,” Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn told Reuters.

Read more …

“‘It would be such a stain on the system in this country that I certainly hope there will be enough pressure and realisation of how devastating it would be for this country ..”

‘Unthinkable’ For High Court To Lift US Extradition Ban On Julian Assange (DM)

The editor-in chief of WikiLeaks believes it would be ‘unthinkable’ for the High Court to lift a US extradition ban on website founder Julian Assange. Speaking ahead of a crunch hearing at the High Court this week, Kristinn Hrafnsson said would be ‘totally unacceptable’ for judges to overturn a decision blocking the extradition of the Australian activist. The High Court is due to hear an appeal this week against a January decision not to extradite the 50-year-old to face charges relating to WikiLeaks’ publication of secret military files due to concerns that he would be a suicide risk in a US prison. And Mr Hrafnsson told a press briefing in London on Monday: ‘It is unthinkable that the High Court will come to any other decision but to uphold the magistrates’ court decision. Anything else is totally unacceptable.


‘It would be such a stain on the system in this country that I certainly hope there will be enough pressure and realisation of how devastating it would be for this country if somehow the judge comes to the decision of reversing the magistrates’ court decision.’ The briefing panel, which also included Mr Assange’s lawyer and partner Stella Moris and director of international campaigns at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Rebecca Vincent, said the forthcoming hearing follows an investigation, published by Yahoo News, which alleged plots to abduct or kill Mr Assange. A security firm, under investigation in Madrid, is also alleged to have spied on Mr Assange on behalf of the CIA while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and been part of the alleged plot. Ms Moris said: ‘This is a game-changer going into the appeal because it shows the true nature, the true origins, the true criminality of the US actions against Julian and it completely taints any semblance of legality of this appeal going into it.’

Read more …

It certainly should be.

Allegation Of CIA Murder Plot Game-changer In Assange Extradition Hearing (R.)

The partner of Julian Assange said on Monday a media report that the CIA had plotted to kill or kidnap the WikiLeaks founder was a game-changer in his fight against extradition from Britain to the United States. U.S. authorities will this week begin their appeal against a British judge’s refusal to extradite Assange – who is wanted on 18 criminal charges including breaking a spying law – because his mental health problems meant he would be at risk of suicide. Last month, Yahoo News reported CIA officials had drawn up options for former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration for dealing with Assange while he was holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, including assassinating or kidnapping him.

[..] “This (Yahoo report) is a game changer going into the appeal because it shows the true nature, the true origins, the true criminality of the U.S. actions against Julian,” his fiancee Stella Moris, with whom Assange has had two children, told reporters. WikiLeaks came to prominence when it began to publish thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables in 2010. Soon afterwards Sweden sought Assange’s extradition from Britain over allegations of sex crimes. When he lost that case against extradition in 2012, he fled to the Ecuadorean embassy. He was finally dragged out from the embassy in April 2019 and jailed for breaching British bail conditions, although the Swedish case against him had already been dropped.

U.S. authorities then sought his extradition. Although the British judge on Jan. 4 rejected Assange’s arguments that the case was political and an assault on freedom of speech, Moris said there was a real risk that, if found guilty, he would be held in a maximum security prison in almost total isolation. That would lead him to attempting suicide, Moris concluded. U.S. lawyers aim to challenge the ruling against U.S. extradition and the evidence given by a key expert at a two-day High Court appeal hearing in London starting on Wednesday. No result is immediately expected, and Moris said the process could be fast, with Assange extradited by next summer, or it could take years. “Both prospects are terrifying,” she said. Currently, Assange is being held at London’s top security Belmarsh Prison where Moris visited him on Saturday, saying he looked very thin. “He was looking very unwell,” she said.

Read more …

Kevin Gosztola spells it all out.

A Guide To The US Appeal In The Assange Extradition Case (Gosztola)

On October 27, the High Court of Justice in the United Kingdom will hear the Crown Prosecution Service argue on behalf of the United States government that a lower court improperly blocked the U.S. from extraditing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The proceedings in London are expected to last two days and will involve five grounds for appeal that were previously approved by the High Court of Justice. (Two were reinstated by the court after a hearing on August 11.) District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled on January 4 that Assange’s mental health was such that it would be “oppressive to extradite him” to the U.S. But two days later, she accepted the U.S. government’s objections and ordered him to remain in jail while her decision was appealed.

Assange is detained at Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh in London, a high-security prison where he has been held since he was expelled from the Ecuador Embassy on April 11, 2019. He faces 18 charges—17 of which are charges under the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act is a U.S. law passed in 1917 that the Justice Department has increasingly wielded against media sources who share “classified” documents or talk about sensitive information with journalists. Because Assange is the first publisher to be charged under the law, press freedom organizations around the world have roundly condemned the political prosecution. It also is part of a troubling development where the U.S. government increasingly seeks to impose its domestic laws on foreign nationals. Assange is an Australian citizen and has no ties whatsoever to the United States.

Each of the charges, aside from a conspiracy to commit a computer crime offense, solely relate to the documents that were submitted by U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning to WikiLeaks in 2010: the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs, the U.S. State Embassy cables, and the Guantanamo Files. The general allegations in the indictment against Assange directly criminalize the publication of information.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Still eating
https://twitter.com/i/status/1452481253647785996

 

 

 

 

You may have noticed that: 13 x 13 = 169 and 31 x 31 = 961 which makes the two operations true even if read in reverse.
But this is not the only case.

 

 

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Sep 272021
 
 September 27, 2021  Posted by at 8:53 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  87 Responses »


M. C. Escher Symmetry Drawing 1948

 

Natural Immunity Emerges As Potential Legal Challenge To Vaccine Mandates (Y!)
Lancet Covid Origins Panel Disbanded Over Ties To Peter Daszak (DM)
Dear Idiot: I Will Laugh (Denninger)
We Are All Cattle Now (Eugyppius)
The NBA’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Trying to Push Around the League (RS)
How The US Vaccine Effort Derailed And Why We Shouldn’t Be Surprised (G.)
Treating Antisocial Elements For What They Are (K.)
Inside The CIA’s Secret War Plans Against Wikileaks (Y!)
CIA Was Ready To Wage Gun Battle In London Streets Over Assange (RT)
Mike Pompeo And The CIA’s War On WikiLeaks and Julian Assange (Gosztola)
CIA’s Assange Abduction/Murder Plan Raises Questions For Australia (Crikey)

 

 

“Medical science has made such tremendous progress that there is hardly a healthy human left”
– Aldous Huxley

 

 

No infections, lots of excess deaths. Why?

 

 

 

 

O’Looney

 

 

Launch 1,000 cases.

Natural Immunity Emerges As Potential Legal Challenge To Vaccine Mandates (Y!)

The argument that natural immunity against COVID-19 is an alternative to vaccination is emerging as a potential legal challenge to federally mandated vaccination policies. Vaccination is already required for certain workers and some college students. The federal government, despite steeper legal hurdles to imposing vaccination, has also invoked the U.S. Department of Labor to mandate inoculation for health care workers and is expected to roll out a larger policy effectively mandating vaccination for a majority of U.S. workers. The stated goal behind mandatory vaccination policies is to protect against the spread of disease, meaning that the crux of any policy is immunity.

The notion that a previous COVID-19 infection provides natural immunity that can be at least as good as vaccination in some people is something a judge would likely need to consider in a challenge to a mandatory policy, especially against a government actor. “I think that a judge might reject a rule that’s been issued by a body, like the U.S. Department of Labor or by a state, that has not been sufficiently thought through as it relates to the science,” Erik Eisenmann, a labor and employment attorney with Husch Blackwell, told Yahoo Finance. Some recent research, which looks at hundreds of thousands of cases in Israel and has yet to undergo peer review, indicates that natural immunity might be at least as effective as vaccination in certain people.

Other peer-reviewed research cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which looks at dozens of cases in the U.S., indicated that certain people who suffered from a COVID-19 infection did not create antibodies (ie, natural immunity) at all. In August, the CDC published a study of 246 Kentucky residents, concluding that vaccination offers higher protection than a previous COVID infection. The CDC said the study went through a “rigorous multi-level clearance process” before submission, though analysis was conducted before the Delta variant became prevalent in the U.S. The CDC says the Kentucky data indicates that vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity alone, and medical professionals widely recommend vaccination for everyone who is eligible — including those who have experienced a prior COVID-19 infection.

Legally challenging COVID-19 vaccine mandates involves both science and law. The scientific arguments are based on certain studies over the past year, including the Israel study, and studies out of Cleveland Clinic and Washington University. A June study that tracked 52,238 Cleveland Clinic employees found that within 1,359 previously infected and unvaccinated people, none contracted a subsequent COVID-19 infection over the five-month study. The findings led authors to conclude that prior infection makes a person “unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.” Nevertheless, Cleveland Clinic stated afterwards that it continued to recommend vaccination for people previously infected, stressing that the research was conducted in late 2020 and early 2021 before the emergence of the Delta variant.

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I don’t trust Jeffrey Sachs.

Lancet Covid Origins Panel Disbanded Over Ties To Peter Daszak (DM)

The chairman of a COVID-19 origins task force affiliated with the Lancet scientific journals has disbanded the commission over its ties to controversial researcher Peter Daszak and his EcoHealth Alliance. Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday that he was concerned with the links to Daszak, who led the task force until recusing himself from that role in June. Daszak, who lives in New York, devoted his career to championing so-called ‘gain of function’ research to engineer coronavirus to be more deadly to humans, arguing that it was the best chance to detect and prevent a global pandemic. Shocking documents released this week revealed his 2018 proposal to help the Wuhan Institute of Virology engineer bat coronaviruses to be more deadly, by inserting genetic features that are similar to those found in SARS-CoV-2.

There is still no conclusive proof as to whether COVID-19, a coronavirus linked to bats, first jumped to humans from a wild animal or in a lab setting. But from the early days of the pandemic, Daszak has made every effort to paint the lab origin hypothesis as a ‘conspiracy theory,’ including masterminding a letter in the Lancet that established a veneer of scientific consensus that natural origin was the only possibility. If the virus did emerge from a lab performing the experiments he championed, it would be a crushing blow to Daszak’s research. Natural origin, on the other hand, would vindicate his life’s work seeking to prevent the next pandemic. Several members of the disbanded Lancet task force have collaborated with Daszak or EcoHealth Alliance on projects in the past.

‘I just didn’t want a task force that was so clearly involved with one of the main issues of this whole search for the origins, which was EcoHealth Alliance,’ Dr. Sachs told the Journal. Sachs said a new Lancet Covid-19 Commission would continue studying the origins for a report to be published in mid-2022, but broaden its scope to include input from other experts on biosafety concerns, including risky laboratory research. It comes just days after the release of bombshell documents showing Daszak’s 2018 funding request to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) seeking $14.2 million to fund gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab.

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“Their data, official public health data, says that (1) the jabs wear off, (2) those who were jabbed are spreading the disease and (3) you who got jabbed are at high risk of getting ****ed.”

Dear Idiot: I Will Laugh (Denninger)

So The Miami Herald — and Yahoo — think they can print this without consequence? “That’s why we were glad President Biden stopped asking nicely, started requiring vaccinations everywhere he had power to do so. We were also glad when employers followed suit. And if that’s a problem for you, then, yes, goodbye, sayonara, auf wiedersehen, adios and adieu. We’ll miss you, to be sure. But you’re asking us to choose between your petulance and our lives. And that’s really no choice at all.” Is that so? Well here’s a bit of science for you, *******: The jabs don’t work. In fact you admit they don’t work. If you believed they did work you wouldn’t care about us. You might call us stupid, but that’s the end of it right? You’re safe, we’re not. So what? You live your life and if we kill ourselves, so be it. You don’t ban beer because I can drink myself to death, right?

So why are you all up in arms? There’s only one answer: You know you did something stupid and put yourself in a worse position rather than a better one when you got vaccinated! So now, having done something that you know is dumb you insist others join you in your ritualized suicide cult, headed by Biden, Fauci and Rochelle. Have a look at Scotland if you think I’m wrong on this. Their data, official public health data, says that (1) the jabs wear off, (2) those who were jabbed are spreading the disease and (3) you who got jabbed are at high risk of getting ****ed. Not a little ****ed either. Indeed you traded what was 18 months to get rid of the extra 100lbs for a non-sterilizing, lightly-tested jab that on the history was very unlikely to work out well. It never had before for any coronavirus, so why would you believe, without years or even decades of evidence, that “this time its different”?

So when — not if, when — you get a so-called “breakthrough” infection the evidence is you will get screwed faster, harder, and more-certainly than someone never vaccinated. You’re at least as likely to die. Indeed, if you talk to clinicians they will tell you point-blank that once you get into the hospital being vaccinated has no statistical benefit on outcome. Oh sure, it appears being jabbed comes with a lower risk of death close in to your vaccination date, but remember, when you got vaccinated you also took a wildly-elevated risk of myocarditis which, on the data, progresses to heart failure a frightening part of the time within five years and which is asymptomatic until there is nothing you can do about it because the root, PAH, is not detectable from outside the body by non-invasive means.

If that turns out badly five years down the road you either get a heart transplant (at six-figure cost, permanent disability and permanent dependence on anti-rejection drugs) or you’re dead. Never mind those people who took the first jab, got hammered by it, couldn’t go back for the second due to the risk of immediate death and now are stuck with permanent compromise from infection and wildly elevated risk of mortality. By the way that’s in the data too and your demands and screaming are why those people are screwed. Just in case you missed that let me say it again: You screwed them. Many among us, myself included, calculated that the risk from infection was less than the risk from being jabbed. I was right. I got infected, placed no burden on the health care system, survived, recovered, I have no apparent bad lasting effects, my exercise tolerance is back to where it was and I gained durable, broad and deep immunity which the jabs do not confer.

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“Coronavirus vaccines have been used in animals for years, with extremely unimpressive results.”

We Are All Cattle Now (Eugyppius)

There is nothing surprising about the failure of our vaccines. In fact it was totally predictable. Coronavirus vaccines have been used in animals for years, with extremely unimpressive results. The problem is that coronaviruses infect the mucosal surfaces of the lungs, at what is basically the very edge of the reach of our immune systems. You could say that this their grand strategy. They work their way in from our least protected borders. Typically, nasal spray vaccines are preferred in animals to stimulate immunity in the mucosa. Unfortunately, even the sprays achieve immunity that „is often short-lived, requires frequent boosting, and may not prevent re-infection.“ This is after decades of vaccine development and the considerably reduced safety standards observed in veterinary medicine.

Our own SARS-2 vaccines, despite their fancy mRNA and virus vector technology, are entirely of a piece with veterinary standards. They have a poor side effect profile, they provide only temporary and partial protection against infection, and they are deployed on a vast scale with no regard for the evolutionary pressure they place on the virus or their broader consequences for infection dynamics. These are normal standards in the context of industrial livestock, where most animals are not raised to live very long in any event, and the risk of occasional accidents — inadvertently favouring or even causing lethal superstrains, or inflicting widespread vaccine injuries — can be weighed against the economic loss associated with mortality from infections.

Of all animal coronavirus vaccines, the most successful is that which prevents IBV, or infectious bronchitis virus, in chickens. IBV is mainly deadly to chicks, who are vaccinated almost immediately after hatching with a live, attenuated virus vaccine. These kinds of vaccines are preferred over deactivated virus vaccines in animals, because they elicit a better immune response. The reason is simple: The weakened vaccine virus actually infects you and your immune system remembers the event accordingly. Some SARS-2 attenuated virus vaccines are even in development for humans, but it is unlikely they will ever be used, because they are very dangerous. The attenuated virus, because it replicates in the cells of the vaccinated, can reacquire its prior virulence via mutations. This happened with early attenuated vaccines against poliovirus in humans.

And there is an added danger, that the recently vaccinated might come into contact with the wild virus, and recombination events might then combine splice together the genomes of both, yielding unpredictable, potentially very lethal, mutant strains. IBV vaccines protect the chickens from infection for only about nine weeks. That‘s long enough for the chickens destined to be eaten, but those raised for their eggs require constant boosters. They receive two or three attenuated virus vaccines at first, and then periodic deactivated virus boosters thereafter, to maintain their protection. Adenovirus vector vaccines have been tried in chickens, with efficacy similar to that induced by the attenuated virus vaccines. This is very likely an unstated reason that vaccine vector and mRNA messenger technology were used for our own SARS-2 jabs. It was known from experience with animals that deactivated virus vaccines would not work nearly as well, and that attenuated viruses were too dangerous.

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You sure it’s not the league trying to push the players around?

The NBA’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Trying to Push Around the League (RS)

One by one, the basketball players — non-vaccinated star here, fully-inoculated veteran on mute down there, a full-on anti-vaxxer front-and-center — logged into the video conference. The annual summer meeting of the powerful NBA union had gone virtual again on August 7, and high on the agenda for the season ahead was a proposed mandate from the league office that 100 percent of players get vaccinated against Covid-19. One response echoed from squares across the screen, according to players and an executive on the call: “Non-starter. Non-starter.” The NBA had relied on science above all to lead the sports world through the Covid nightmare, from the league’s outbreak-driven shutdown to a pandemic-proof playoff bubble in Disney World to game after game with fans back in the stands.

But after two plagued seasons of non-stop nasal swabbing, quarantining and distrust, unvaccinated players were pushing back. They made their case to the union summit: There should be testing this year, of course, just not during off-days. They’d mask up on the court and on the road, if they must. But no way would they agree to a mandatory jab. The vaccine deniers had set the agenda; the players agreed to take their demands for personal freedom to the NBA’s negotiating table. This month, league officials caught a break: Two of America’s most progressive cities, New York and San Francisco, would require pro athletes to show proof of one Covid-19 vaccination dose to play indoors, except with an approved medical or religious exemption. Which meant that one of the NBA’s biggest stars — one known for being receptive to conspiratorial beliefs — would be under heavy pressure to get a shot. And if Brooklyn Nets superstar Kyrie Irving could be convinced to take the vaccine, then maybe, just maybe, the whole league could create a new kind of bubble together.

When asked directly about Irving’s vaccination status — or his plans to change it — multiple people familiar with his thinking declined to answer directly. But one confidant and family member floated to Rolling Stone the idea of anti-vaxx players skipping home games to dodge the New York City ordinance… or at least threatening to protest them, until the NBA changes its ways. “There are so many other players outside of him who are opting out, I would like to think they would make a way,” says Kyrie’s aunt, Tyki Irving, who runs the seven-time All-Star’s family foundation and is one of the few people in his regular circle of advisors. “It could be like every third game. So it still gives you a full season of being interactive and being on the court, but with the limitations that they’re, of course, oppressing upon you. There can be some sort of formula where the NBA and the players can come to some sort of agreement.”

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“..vaccine misinformation campaigns overwhelmingly popular in conservative circles..”

How The US Vaccine Effort Derailed And Why We Shouldn’t Be Surprised (G.)

The cause of flagging vaccine uptake in the United States has flummoxed national health authorities, who in May loosened mask guidance in hopes it would encourage more people to get vaccinated, in July again recommended masks because of the Delta variant, and hoped August’s full FDA approval of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine would increase vaccine mandates. In a September speech, just days before the US slipped behind Japan, Joe Biden channeled national exasperation: “Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated even though the vaccine is safe, effective and free.” He called for vaccine mandates impacting 100 million Americans, two-thirds of US workers.

However, all these strategies have failed to encourage more than 900,000 Americans per day to get vaccinated in recent weeks, far lower than nearly 3m doses administered per day in April, the height of the vaccination push. Finally, in mid-September, the country’s slow progress allowed Japan to surpass the US both in terms of vaccination rate per 100,000 people and percentage of the total population with one or both shots. There are very specific, well-documented reasons that Americans are hesitant to take vaccines. They vary from the troubling way the medical system treats people of color, to vaccine misinformation campaigns overwhelmingly popular in conservative circles, to logistical challenges.

But population health researchers, whose work considers how society as a whole is fairing, said low vaccine uptake may be looked at another way: as the predictable outcome of a campaign subject to entrenched social forces that have diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1980s. “When I look at this I do see a very familiar pattern,” said Dr Steven Woolf, a prominent population health researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University. “When Operation Warp Speed came out I thought I was just seeing a modern example of this old problem where the scientific community developed the vaccine at ‘warp speed,’ but the implementation system for getting it out into the community was inadequate”. Woolf calls this “breakthrough without follow-through”. In that light, the plodding vaccination campaign could be seen as one more aspect of the American “health disadvantage”.

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“These and others in the anti-vax movement are basically enemies of society and need to be treated accordingly, without hesitation…”

Treating Antisocial Elements For What They Are (K.)

Day-to-day life in Greece is excessively determined by people defying laws, rules and reason; it’s disappointing and extremely frustrating. But this, as former prime minister Kostas Simitis once said, is Greece and it doesn’t look like it’s changing much. It’s exhausting for citizens yearning for basic normalcy to be assailed by the prevalent delinquency and to feel that their quality of life is being constantly undermined, often with the tolerance of the state apparatus. Right now, events are being defined by our fellow citizens who refuse to get the Covid vaccine and by the obstinacy of deniers of all stripes. Whether they’re jerks, kooks, nitwits, thugs, vote-mongers or religious fanatics is neither here nor there. They are a swarm that is endangering the lives of the rest of us, having a negative impact on the quality of everyday life and obstructing the vital functions of society.

The state, therefore, has an obligation to all the “normal” people in this country to decisively deal with such antisocial elements. Admittedly, there are more antisocial Greeks out there. There are the unconscionable priests and monks who preach against the vaccines, the lawyers exploiting the anti-vax movement, the judges approving the exhumation of Covid victims, the relatives suing doctors for a payout, the parents calling the police on teachers implementing the law, the nurses and other state workers who refuse to be vaccinated but expect to keep getting paid… These and others in the anti-vax movement are basically enemies of society and need to be treated accordingly, without hesitation. Especially given that the overwhelming majority of the political world claims to support vaccinations.

The truth is that the antisocial behavior we are seeing right now is not the result of the pandemic. It may appear so, but is, in fact endemic and manifests in all sorts of ways: violence in the soccer arena and on the streets; interminable protest rallies and marches; sit-ins at schools and universities; increasingly aggressive and unruly driving; sound pollution; nasty graffiti; posters pasted willy-nilly on public walls; grimy bowls of water and food scattered here and there for strays; and, of course, in the inability or indifference of the state to these and so many other such phenomena. And even in the favorable decisions and amendments passed by every government to accommodate those breaking the rules and shirking their obligations. At the end of the day, it’s the suckers who dream of a different kind of Greece who end up paying the price.

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Edward Snowden @Snowden: “Stop what you’re doing and read this. The CIA developed plans to kill or kidnap an award-winning journalist whose work they did not like — before they charged him with a crime. The case against Julian Assange must be dropped—and condemned.”

Inside The CIA’s Secret War Plans Against Wikileaks (Y!)

In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation. Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.” The conversations were part of an unprecedented CIA campaign directed against WikiLeaks and its founder. The agency’s multipronged plans also included extensive spying on WikiLeaks associates, sowing discord among the group’s members, and stealing their electronic devices.

While Assange had been on the radar of U.S. intelligence agencies for years, these plans for an all-out war against him were sparked by WikiLeaks’ ongoing publication of extraordinarily sensitive CIA hacking tools, known collectively as “Vault 7,” which the agency ultimately concluded represented “the largest data loss in CIA history.” President Trump’s newly installed CIA director, Mike Pompeo, was seeking revenge on WikiLeaks and Assange, who had sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden on rape allegations he denied. Pompeo and other top agency leaders “were completely detached from reality because they were so embarrassed about Vault 7,” said a former Trump national security official. “They were seeing blood.”

The CIA’s fury at WikiLeaks led Pompeo to publicly describe the group in 2017 as a “non-state hostile intelligence service.” More than just a provocative talking point, the designation opened the door for agency operatives to take far more aggressive actions, treating the organization as it does adversary spy services, former intelligence officials told Yahoo News. Within months, U.S. spies were monitoring the communications and movements of numerous WikiLeaks personnel, including audio and visual surveillance of Assange himself, according to former officials. This Yahoo News investigation, based on conversations with more than 30 former U.S. officials — eight of whom described details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange — reveals for the first time one of the most contentious intelligence debates of the Trump presidency and exposes new details about the U.S. government’s war on WikiLeaks. It was a campaign spearheaded by Pompeo that bent important legal strictures, potentially jeopardized the Justice Department’s work toward prosecuting Assange, and risked a damaging episode in the United Kingdom, the United States’ closest ally.

Isikoff

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With the Russians….

CIA Was Ready To Wage Gun Battle In London Streets Over Assange (RT)

At the peak of preparations for hostilities in 2017, the CIA was allegedly expecting Russian agents to help Assange flee the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. In such a contingency, the Americans, together with the British, were planning to engage in street battles against the Russians, potentially starting a firefight, ramming a Russian diplomatic vehicle, or shooting at the tires of a Russian plane to prevent it from lifting off, the story said. The attempt to spring Assange was reportedly expected on Christmas Eve. “It was beyond comical,” a former senior official told the outlet regarding the situation in the vicinity of the embassy at the time. “It got to the point where every human being in a three-block radius was working for one of the intelligence services – whether they were street sweepers or police officers or security guards.”

The CIA was also deliberating plans to kill Assange and other members of WikiLeaks, the report said. Alternatively, the agency was considering snatching him from the embassy and bringing him to the US, or handing him over to the British authorities. At the time, the UK wanted Assange for skipping bail in an extradition trial on a request from Sweden – a case that has since been dropped. The possibility of carrying out a successful rendition or assassination were described as “ridiculous” by one intelligence official, because of the location. “This isn’t Pakistan or Egypt – we’re talking about London,” the source was quoted as saying. There was also resistance in the Trump administration because such an operation might be deemed illegal under US law. A source said using CIA powers meant only for spy-versus-spy activities would be “the same kind of crap we pulled in the War on Terror.”

As far as the CIA was concerned, WikiLeaks prompted these extreme measures after the so-called ‘Vault 7’ publications, which exposed a cyber-offensive toolkit used by US agents. The leak of those tools was a major humiliation for US intelligence, so “Pompeo and [then-Deputy CIA Director Gina] Haspel wanted vengeance on Assange,” Yahoo was told. Pompeo had to do some legal maneuvering so the agency could go more aggressively after Assange and WikiLeaks without having then-president Donald Trump sign off such operations. When, shortly after taking office, he infamously called WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” during a public speech, it was more than just rhetoric, according to the report. Designating in that way allowed the CIA to file its snooping under “offensive counterintelligence” activities, which it’s allowed to conduct on its own volition. “I don’t think people realize how much [the] CIA can do under offensive [counterintelligence] and how there is minimal oversight of it,” a former official said.

Credico Isikoff

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Twitter thread.

Mike Pompeo And The CIA’s War On WikiLeaks and Julian Assange (Gosztola)

Journalists for Yahoo! News finally confirmed a narrative around Mike Pompeo and the CIA’s war on WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, which I outlined back in October 2019. It’s an important report. WikiLeaks’ publication of “Vault 7” materials from the CIA was hugely embarrassing. Even though the CIA had increased spying operations against WikiLeaks, they still were surprised the media organization obtained a trove of the agency’s extremely sensitive files.

CIA director Mike Pompeo was afraid President Donald Trump would learn about the “Vault 7” materials and think less of him. “Don’t tell him, he doesn’t need to know.” But it was too important. Trump had to be informed.

[..] Recall, CIA director Mike Pompeo’s speech at CSIS, a Washington think tank, where he labeled WikiLeaks “a non-state hostile intelligence service.” That was all to fuel a climate for aggressive action targeted against Assange, WikiLeaks staff, and associates. The CIA could not prove WikiLeaks was working at the behest of the Russian government. So rather than claim authority to target WikiLeaks that way officials sought to reframe the organization as a “hostile entity.” Then it wouldn’t matter that they weren’t working for Russia.

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Australian media are useless too.

CIA’s Assange Abduction/Murder Plan Raises Questions For Australia (Crikey)

Revelations by a large number of former US officials, reported by Yahoo! News, that the CIA planned to abduct and render Julian Assange to the United States — and contemplated murdering him — raise more uncomfortable questions for the Australian government and its policy of trying to pretend Assange doesn’t exist. Yahoo’s investigation relies on accounts from eight former officials about the plan to kidnap Assange from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, among dozens of other sources about the Trump administration’s determination to go after Assange and WikiLeaks. The Trump administration went where even the whistleblower-hating Obama administration refused to go and launched a prosecution for espionage and conspiracy, but until now it was widely thought its plans were limited to legal extradition.

It is now clear the CIA — under Republican Mike Pompeo, who would go on to be Trump’s secretary of state — developed plans to abduct Assange and illegally render him to the US via a third country. There was discussion “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration of murdering him. There was also scenario planning about what violent measures US and UK agents might take to thwart a hypothetical Russian attempt to help Assange escape to Russia. The most obvious question for the Australian government is whether the CIA discussed with Australian intelligence officials its plans to abduct or murder an Australian citizen, or whether Trump administration figures — some of whom were alarmed by the CIA’s planning — alerted the Turnbull government at a political level.

It would say much about how unimportant Australia was, and how little we have spoken up for Assange, if the entire process was conducted without anyone bothering to raise it with the Australian government. The extent of Australian knowledge of the plans for Assange is likely never to be clarified because Australia’s intelligence agencies are able to operate behind a bipartisan wall of secrecy far stronger than that which applies to US agencies, where independent congressional oversight, a better-protected media, a stronger whistleblower culture and better disclosure laws mean much more scrutiny for intelligence agencies. In Australia there’s virtually none, with limited parliamentary oversight, brutal gag laws for intelligence officials, vexatious prosecutions and police raids on journalists willing to try to pierce the secrecy.

But there’s another angle that is also important. What sparked the CIA’s fury at WikiLeaks and set it to planning to kidnap or murder Assange was that WikiLeaks in 2017 revealed a trove of CIA software exploits, known as “Vault 7”, which had been stolen from the intelligence agency. That release was followed, within months, by news that the National Security Agency had had some of its own trove of software exploits stolen, which led to Microsoft publicly criticising intelligence agencies for failing to alert companies to exploitable software faults. The two cases illustrated how Western intelligence agencies were a key threat to our cybersecurity by intentionally leaving security weaknesses in commonly used systems so they could exploit them — leading to other states, or organised crime, to exploit them as well, in some cases using the very software tools bought or developed by intelligence agencies.

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