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Debt Rattle February 8 2026

Feb 082026
 
 February 8, 2026  Posted by at 10:44 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Paulus Potter De stier (The Bull) 1625


• Starmer ‘Toast’ – BBC Source (RT)
• The New Monroe Doctrine: The Plot Twists That No One Saw Coming (Sarah Anderson)
• ICE Asks Newsom Not to Release 33,000 Criminal Illegal Aliens (Salgado)
• Major Federal Appeals Court Ruling Permits ICE to Detain Illegal Aliens (CTH)
• Is Bill Clinton Moving Back Into Contempt? (Turley)
• Trump Endorses Orbán Again Ahead Of Hungary’s April 12 Election (RMX)
• Soros Praises Spain’s Sánchez For Mass Amnesty Of 500,000 Illegals (MN)
• The Trump Admin Finally Tells Boasberg To Pound Sand (Matt Margolis)
• A Geopolitical Earthquake (Jim Rickards)
• Finland Opposes ‘Article 5-like’ Guarantees For Ukraine – Politico (RT)
• Ukrainian Generals Exposed In Multi-million Dollar Corruption Scheme (RT)
• Washington Post CEO And Publisher Quits As Newspaper Implodes (ZH)
• RFK Jr. and Mike Tyson Fight for MAHA in Super Bowl Ad (Scott Pinsker)

 


 

https://twitter.com/BoLoudon/status/2019993031722803312?s=20 https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2019967235037548680?s=20

 


 

 


 


One of Epstein’s many victims.

• Starmer ‘Toast’ – BBC Source (RT)

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a party revolt over the government’s failure to properly vet the former British envoy to the US, Peter Mandelson, over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. One Labour MP described Starmer as “toast.” The controversy centers on Starmer’s decision to appoint Mandelson, a former Labour MP, as an envoy to Washington, who allegedly received $75,000 from Epstein. Mandelson said he does not recall receiving any money while Starmer claimed that he “was lied to” about the vetting procedure.


The prime minister’s defense, however, sparked ire among fellow party members. According to the Daily Telegraph, Labour MPs have privately urged senior figures, including Angela Rayner, a former deputy prime minister, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to consider mounting a leadership challenge. One unnamed minister described the crisis as “existential” for Starmer. Assessing the prime minister’s prospects, an unnamed Labour MP told the BBC that he was “toast.” The verdict was echoed by broadcaster Piers Morgan, who said it was “just a question now of whether the whole government falls too.” .

“He [Starmer] is like a wounded wildebeest: fatally wounded but determined to show how strong he is knowing full well the end is nigh,” another MP told the BBC. Harriet Harman, a former deputy leader of the Labour Party, said Starmer’s explanations made him appear “weak, naive and gullible.” Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan said there was a “loss of trust and confidence in the No.10 operatio” and said chief of staff Morgan McSweeney was “clearly part of the problem,” as several media reported widespread calls for his resignation..

The row has drawn fierce opposition attacks, with Tory spokesman Alicia Kearns accusing Starmer of an “abject lack of integrity,” describing his defense as “morally bankrupt.” According to Daily Mail, Angela Rayner has told her inner circle that she was “ready” to launch a leadership campaign. A YouGov survey on Thursday suggested that 50% of respondents believe Starmer should stand down and be replaced, compared with 24% who said he should remain. His approval ratings have already been hit by dissatisfaction with high migration levels and controversial government policies.

Read more …

“There are about 1.2 million public school students in El Salvador, and every single one of them received a back-to-school kit to start the year.”

• The New Monroe Doctrine: The Plot Twists That No One Saw Coming (Sarah Anderson)

Welcome to “The New Monroe Doctrine,” where I give you an update on what’s going on in the Western Hemisphere, south of our border, especially as it relates to the United States. Y’all seem to be enjoying Nayib Bukele lately, so let’s talk more about El Salvador this week. Plus, I have some potential good news out of Venezuela that just dropped as I’m writing this, and I’ll tell you what happened when Gustavo Petro came to town on Tuesday.


When You Tackle Corruption, Something Great Happens
Bukele has made many headlines over the last few days. On Thursday, he spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast alongside Donald Trump, urging leaders to pray to God for wisdom like King Solomon did and said that’s what it took for him to be able to turn El Salvador from the so-called “murder capital of the world” to one of the safest countries in the Western Hemisphere. You can read more about that here: Bukele Wows the Crowd — and Trump — at the National Prayer Breakfast.

While we often associate Bukele with what he did for El Salvador’s crime problem, we ignore some of the other numerous things he’s done to turn the country around. Before he became president, the country’s economy was in shambles, infrastructure was crumbling, there were neighborhoods that you just didn’t go into, and the nation’s youngest residents didn’t stand a chance. That’s changing. If, for some reason, you happen to follow any Salvadoran government social media accounts, you saw quite a different story this week. The country’s school year started on February 2, and the pictures and videos from these first days are absolutely breathtaking.

There are about 1.2 million public school students in El Salvador, and every single one of them received a back-to-school kit to start the year. Kids in grades fourth and up got laptops, while younger students got tablets. They came preloaded with programs like Google Classroom, Microsoft Office 365, Platzi (for English and skills certification), and anti-theft tracking. Other items included were school uniforms, shoes, books, crayons, pencils, paint, and other supplies personalized to each child’s needs and grade level.

But these kids aren’t just receiving school supplies. They’re getting new schools. In 2022, Bukele created an education reform program called Mi Nueva Escuela or “My New School,” and part of that included remodeling 5,150 schools over five years. All of the schools would have “free internet, new infrastructure and furniture, audiobooks, braille and sensory books.” Before the 2026 school year started, Bukele inaugurated 70 newly renovated schools. So far, he’s done 504, and last year began speeding up the process. Mi Nueva Escuela also ensures children have access to nutritious food and health care at school, advanced technology, and high-quality teachers who have gone through additional training.

And it involved getting rid of El Salvador’s outdated, rigid curricula and replacing them with something holistic that actually matches how children learn and will ultimately lead to better outcomes. nFirst Lady Gabriela de Bukele has been heavily involved with this, particularly when it comes to early childhood education. In January, she rolled out the new curriculum for younger students that incorporates more structured play, exploration, and creativity, and encourages better emotional and social development and, eventually, more well-rounded adults. They also removed all gender ideology and inclusive language from school curricula, as well as any other content seen as advancing woke agendas. Schools must focus on learning, respect, order, and responsibility instead of any progressive nonsense.

Kids are also expected to come to school looking respectful in their uniforms, and boys must have short, clean haircuts that can’t be mistaken for gang-affiliated ones. Furthermore, they must greet their principals and teachers respectfully upon arrival. Basically, Bukele and his team are creating schools that students actually want to attend. They’re also creating schools that raise well-adjusted adults and not gang members. I know what you’re probably thinking. BIG GOVERNMENT! PUBLIC SCHOOLS! RAISING TAXES! HOW IS HE PAYING FOR THIS? IT MUST BE SOCIALISM! Calm down, and I’ll tell you.

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“The crimes of these aliens include 399 homicides, 3,313 assaults, 3,171 burglaries, 1,011 robberies, 8,380 dangerous drugs offenses, 1,984 weapons offenses, and 1,293 sexual predatory offenses.”

• ICE Asks Newsom Not to Release 33,000 Criminal Illegal Aliens (Salgado)

Sanctuary state California’s Democrat leaders consistently release dangerous illegal alien criminals back onto the streets and defy federal detainer requests, even for murderers. That could mean that more than 33,000 foreign criminals will be released onto California’s streets. Among the illegal alien criminals who should be in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody are nearly 400 murderers and over 3,000 burglars, according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. She asked California Gov. Gavin Newsom to stop prioritizing a political agenda over his people and not to release the 33,179 criminal illegal aliens without notifying ICE first.


McLaughlin explained, “The crimes of these aliens include 399 homicides, 3,313 assaults, 3,171 burglaries, 1,011 robberies, 8,380 dangerous drugs offenses, 1,984 weapons offenses, and 1,293 sexual predatory offenses.” Newsom’s refusal to hand over a Mexican illegal alien who ran over and killed 11-year-old Aiden Antonio Torres De Paz in Escondido, California, just before Thanksgiving is only one example of California Democrats siding with murderous foreign criminals. And of course, it is not simply that the authorities in California help the illegal aliens escape justice; they also enable them to commit more crimes..

It’s no coincidence that “California” has become synonymous with “catastrophe.” While there are many Republicans still living in California, the deep-blue coastal cities are keeping destructive Marxists in power — and illegal alien criminals out of custody. In light of all this, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons sent a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, according to a Feb. 5 DHS press release. The release exposed profoundly shocking statistics: California’s failure to honor ICE detainers has resulted in the release of 4,561 criminal illegal aliens since January 20. The crimes of these aliens include 31 homicides, 661 assaults, 574 burglaries, 184 robberies, 1,489 dangerous drugs offenses, 379 weapons offenses, and 234 sexual predatory offenses..

Newsom and his fellow Democrats are thoroughly despicable. Think how many victims were affected by those crimes, and who will not now see any justice done to their victimizers. Lyons emphasized, “We are calling on Governor Newsom and his administration to stop this dangerous derangement and commit to honoring the ICE arrest detainers of the more than 33,000 criminal illegal aliens in California’s custody. It is common sense. Criminal illegal aliens should not be released from jails back onto our streets to terrorize more innocent Americans. If we work together, we can make America safe again. 7 of the 10 safest cities in the U.S. cooperate with ICE law enforcement.”

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[…] At the heart of the issue is a 30-year-old immigration statute that requires the detention — without bond — of all “applicants for admission” to the United States ..”

• Major Federal Appeals Court Ruling Permits ICE to Detain Illegal Aliens (CTH)

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has made a massive ruling in favor of President Trump and the ICE removal process [pdf Ruling Here]. In short, throughout the nation 360 immigration judges had previously ruled that illegal aliens (applicants for admission) should be granted bond and released during the removal proceedings. The Fifth CCA has now ruled the aliens can be detained as they go through the removal process. This means ICE captures the illegal, holds them in detention and then rapidly deports them. The ruling, which will likely be appealed to the supreme court, fast-tracks the removal.



(VIA POLITICO) – “[…] At the heart of the issue is a 30-year-old immigration statute that requires the detention — without bond — of all “applicants for admission” to the United States while they are “seeking admission” to the country. For decades, administrations of both parties applied this to people who had newly arrived in the country, perhaps by crossing the southern border. Those residing in the country’s interior, often for years, were categorized under a different statute that allowed them to seek a bond hearing before an immigration judge before ICE could lock them up..

But in July, ICE Director Todd Lyons adopted a new interpretation of the law, declaring that anyone targeted for deportation by ICE would be treated as an “applicant for admission,” subjecting them to mandatory detention. That decision was backed up in October by the Board of Immigration Appeals, a panel of immigration judges who set national policy for executive branch-run immigration courts that handle deportation proceedings. (more)”.

This issue was a big deal during the 2012 “Unauthorized Alien Children” influx, when President Obama and DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson began releasing all the captured illegal aliens with a bond hearing. Thousands of temporary judges were assigned and NGO’s provided tens of thousands of lawyers for everyone so the illegal entrants could quickly exit ICE custody. Later, as an expanded part of the Obama and Biden directive, the border patrol just started issuing citations on the spot for court appearances and letting the illegal aliens go into the country. Now, all illegal aliens will be subject to continued detention as soon as they are captured, pending removal.

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One step up and two steps back. Rinse and repeat.

• Is Bill Clinton Moving Back Into Contempt? (Turley)

The Clintons are again suggesting that they might not agree to a deposition after previously yielding to the threat of a contempt vote. Hillary Clinton taunted House Oversight Chair James Comer “if you want this fight…let’s have it—in public.” For his part, Bill Clinton seemed more conclusive on X in opposing a deposition: “I will not sit idly as they use me as a prop in a closed-door kangaroo court.” The question is whether the Clintons are again gaming the system after avoiding a bipartisan vote to hold them in contempt. As with the Hunter Biden deposition (which was also delayed by such tactics), there are various reasons for holding a closed deposition before public hearings.


First, these depositions allow professional staff to conduct questioning in a methodical and professional manner. In a public hearing, questioning is conducted by members who are often ill-equipped for substantive inquiries. Second, the Clintons must be asked about a range of documents and communications that contain names and privacy-protected information. At a public hearing, the use of such documents would trigger redactions and interruptions. Third, these depositions allow for in-depth questioning on transactions and communications. In a public hearing, members are confined to a five-minute rule that guarantees questioning cannot achieve much, if any, depth..

Those are all reasons the Clintons want a public hearing in which members, not staff, ask questions under tight time limits. It produces superficial examinations with little ability to pursue substantive conflicts or issues. None of this really matters legally. All citizens are compelled to appear at such hearings. They may invoke the Fifth Amendment, but they must appear. Even the Clintons. However, the Clintons have spent a lifetime gaming the system, avoiding accountability for alleged crimes, including (in the case of Bill Clinton) federal perjury. This is vintage Clinton. After a bipartisan vote in committee to hold them in contempt, they took a 180-degree turn and agreed to the depositions. The final vote was then cancelled..

Once cancelled, Bill Clinton is again suggesting that he will “not sit idly by” for such a deposition. It is not clear what that means. He will sit for this deposition or be held in contempt like any other citizen.The declaration could mean anything from laying the groundwork for invoking the Fifth Amendment to another act of defiance of the subpoena. He could be planning to refuse to answer certain questions in a combative approach to the deposition. However, that could still result in a contempt sanction..

Notably, the Clintons have long been able to control the conditions of their questioning. Even with the Independent Counsel, Clinton was able to secure concessions on time and questions. He still tripped the wire and committed perjury, according to a federal court.This is a rare occasion where they will not dictate such conditions. That raises the intriguing possibility that Bill Clinton could set a precedent by invoking the Fifth Amendment. Otherwise, he may not be idle, but he will be present.

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Keep Brussels outta Budapest.

• Trump Endorses Orbán Again Ahead Of Hungary’s April 12 Election (RMX)

U.S President Donald Trump has endorsed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for re-election ahead of Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary election, praising him as “a truly strong and powerful leader” and saying he has his “complete and total” backing. In the message posted Thursday on Trump’s Truth Social account, Trump credited Orbán with improving bilateral ties and framed him as a law-and-order nationalist leader. “Relations between Hungary and the United States have reached new heights of cooperation and spectacular achievement under my administration, thanks largely to Prime Minister Orbán,” Trump wrote.“I was proud to endorse Viktor for re-election in 2022, and am honored to do so again,” he added.


Praise between the two leaders stretches back years. In March 2024, after meeting Orbán at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, the U.S. president claimed that, unlike much of Europe, “Hungary is a safe country because of [Orbán’s] strong immigration policies.”There’s nobody that’s better, smarter, or a better leader than Viktor Orbán,” Trump added during a presidential campaign rally later that year.Orbán has repeatedly returned the favor, portraying Trump as the indispensable champion of peace and sovereignty. At CPAC Hungary in 2024, Orbán rallied conservatives around Trump as he backed him to return to the White House.

https://twitter.com/PM_ViktorOrban/status/2019375418042679762 Orbán has previously cast Hungary as an outpost surrounded by what he describes as a hostile liberal mainstream in Brussels and Western Europe. “Hungary is a conservative island in the liberal European ocean,” Orbán said.With the election approaching, Orbán issued a stark warning to the European Commission not to interfere in what is expected to be his governing Fidesz party’s toughest vote yet. On Thursday, the Hungarian prime minister wrote on X, “Keep your hands off our elections! The report by the Republicans’ House Committee on the Judiciary exposes foreign actors attempting to influence Hungary’s vote, with money, services, and political backing flowing in from abroad. Decisions about Hungary’s future belong to Hungarians alone. Foreign meddling will not be tolerated.”

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EU has no borders.

• Soros Praises Spain’s Sánchez For Mass Amnesty Of 500,000 Illegals (MN)

Alex Soros, son of billionaire George Soros, has lavished praise on Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for granting legal status to up to 500,000 illegal migrants, stating that Sánchez shows “what real leadership looks like” by confronting issues with policies that are “both principled and pragmatic.” Soros added, “We need more elected leaders like him!” This endorsement comes amid widespread backlash against Sánchez’s open-borders agenda, which critics slam as a betrayal of Spanish citizens.


In a post on X, Alex Soros highlighted Sánchez’s approach, quoting the prime minister’s own words: “They care for aging parents, work in small and large companies, and harvest the food on our tables. On weekends, they walk in our parks and play on the local amateur soccer team….” The amnesty, implemented via a royal decree bypassing parliament, targets undocumented migrants who arrived before the end of 2025 and can prove at least five months of residence in Spain. As The New York Times reported , the Socialist-led government describes it as essential for Spain’s economy, where migrant labor supports agriculture and tourism.

Yet, this move has ignited fury across Spain, with opponents decrying it as an incentive for further illegal entries from North Africa and Latin America. As we detailed in our earlier coverage, Spaniards face the prospect of integrating another half-million migrants amid rising tensions and massive resource strains. The timing of Soros’s praise is telling, as Sánchez’s regime grapples with corruption scandals and probes into his inner circle. Facing a firestorm of criticism on X, where users label the amnesty “treasonous,” the far-left government has threatened to “limit and likely ban” the platform entirely.

Sánchez himself, in addition to his underlings, has indicated a desire to ban X. This crackdown mirrors broader European efforts to stifle dissent, from French raids on X’s offices to EU fines under the Digital Services Act. Musk himself fired back at Sánchez, dubbing him “dirty Sanchez” in response to the censorship push. Soros’s intervention underscores the globalist playbook: push mass migration to reshape demographics, then silence opposition through free speech restrictions. With Spain’s amnesty poised to exacerbate border chaos—echoing Angela Merkel’s 2015 disaster—Sánchez’s policies prioritize foreign arrivals over native Spaniards, fueling demands for accountability.

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“The question is whether we still have three coequal branches of government, or whether unelected judges now get to run the executive branch by decree …”

• The Trump Admin Finally Tells Boasberg To Pound Sand (Matt Margolis)

For over a year, President Donald Trump’s team has tangled with activist judges who act as if they run the executive branch. These activists in black robes think they can dictate policy on border security, national defense, and pretty much everything the executive branch does. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has become the poster child for this judicial overreach. Last week, the Trump administration finally decided it had enough of his illegitimate orders, and told him, in so many words, to pound sand.


“The Trump administration will not comply with a court order requiring due process for hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador last year, DOJ lawyers said,” reports Fox News Digital. “It sets up a heated clash in court next week in a case that is almost certainly headed back to the Supreme Court.” The status and plight of 252 Venezuelan migrants deported to a Salvadoran prison last March under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act have emerged as one of the defining court fights of Trump’s second term, allowing the administration to test its mettle against the federal courts and the practical limits of judicial authority, on one of Trump’s biggest policy priorities.

It’s a fight that has also put U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who is overseeing the Alien Enemies Act case, squarely in the Trump administration’s crosshairs as he attempts to determine what due process protections, if any, the administration is legally obligated to provide and how far the courts can go to enforce them. A new filing from the Justice Department made clear the administration believes it owes the migrants no additional due process at all. Should the court try to order otherwise, lawyers for the administration said they would promptly seek intervention from higher courts.

Past presidents such as Barack Obama were never forced to abide by the conditions left-wing judges are now imposing on Trump. When Obama exercised prosecutorial discretion on immigration, deferring removal proceedings for specific categories of aliens, it wasn’t controversial. But when Trump tries to deport alleged gang members who pose a national security threat, suddenly judges think they can dictate every detail of how the executive branch operates.

The Trump administration made crystal clear in its filing that it views this fight as far from over. Regardless of how Boasberg rules, the case is almost certain to end up at the Supreme Court for review. And I wouldn’t bet against the Trump administration in this case. The Supreme Court ruled last year to limit the use of universal injunctions, with implications for a wide range of challenges to federal laws and regulations. Despite the ruling, judges such as Boasberg continued to issue these rogue orders, hamstringing the Trump administration at every turn.

Trump himself has called for Boasberg’s removal from office. An impeachment resolution was introduced in the House last year and has garnered support from 23 Republicans. The administration even filed an ethics complaint against the judge, though a federal appeals judge dismissed it. The question isn’t whether Trump should comply with every partisan order some rogue district judge dreams up. The question is whether we still have three coequal branches of government, or whether unelected judges now get to run the executive branch by decree. For too long, the answer has tilted in the wrong direction. The Trump administration’s willingness to finally stand up to judicial overreach is long overdue.

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“Would Trump take over the Chagos Islands to prevent the transfer to Mauritius? Possibly yes. That would be one more nail in the NATO coffin.”

• A Geopolitical Earthquake (Jim Rickards)

What if NATO members such as the UK, Denmark, France and Germany send their armed forces to defend Greenland? None of those powers are particularly strong and it’s unlikely they could muster more than two brigades for this purpose (about 5,000 troops in total). Under the direction of U.S. NorthCom, with a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group, cyber warfare, drones and elite airborne troops trained in Arctic warfare, the U.S. could put those NATO troops into full retreat with substantial casualties on their side in a day or two at the most.


The U.S. would gain Greenland, but the armed confrontation would be the end of NATO. That’s not necessarily a bad thing from the U.S. perspective. NATO members have not been paying anywhere near their share of the costs of military preparedness. The War in Ukraine has shown that most NATO weapons, including Patriot anti-missile batteries, Abrams and Challenger tanks, HIMARS precision-guided artillery, Bradley fighting vehicles and cruise missiles are obsolete when up against Russian hypersonic missiles, drones, anti-missile defenses and GPS jamming techniques. NATO is probably falling apart anyway, but a debacle in Greenland would accelerate that ending.

Without NATO, the Baltic Republics could be rapidly invaded and annexed by Russia. They already have large Russian-speaking populations and were part of the former Soviet Union from 1945 to 1991. This annexation would be a tragedy for some but a homecoming for others.The major NATO powers might form a new military alliance centered around France and its nuclear weapons. Yet, the U.S. would still have allies in Europe including Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, the Slovak Republic, Poland and Greece. These countries form a kind of wall between Russia and Western Europe. Europe could find itself cut off from Russian natural gas because of Ukraine and also cut off from U.S. natural gas because of the battle for Greenland.

With the U.S. controlling its own oil and that of Venezuela and Guyana, and Arab countries siding with the U.S., Western Europe could find itself with almost no energy supplies apart from its pathetic patchwork of windmills and solar farms and French nuclear reactors. Western European manufacturing would quickly grind to a halt. With the U.S. grabbing Venezuela and Greenland and Russia helping itself to the Baltic Republics, China could decide that the time was ripe to seize Taiwan. The U.S. might allow this to happen on a view that its sphere of influence is the Western Hemisphere through the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.

Of course, the U.S. would destroy Taiwan’s semiconductor fabrication and research facilities on its way out the door. The U.S. would rapidly expand its indigenous semiconductor manufacturing while mining the Western states of the U.S. and Greenland for rare earths. Have you heard of the Chagos Islands? They’re an archipelago of seven atolls including more than 60 islands lying 300 miles south of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. The Chagos are controlled by the UK as the British Indian Ocean Territory. Except for their natural beauty, they would be unremarkable but for the fact that the Chagos includes the island of Diego Garcia, which houses a U.S. Naval Support Facility.

That facility has been used to launch B-52, B-1 and B-2 bomber attacks throughout the Middle East including the Gulf War, the Global War on Terror and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the UK has agreed to cede the Chagos to the island nation of Mauritius, also in the Indian Ocean closer to Madagascar. The UK would take back a lease to Diego Garcia, but Mauritius would be sovereign. Trump has called the Chagos deal “stupid”. Would Trump take over the Chagos Islands to prevent the transfer to Mauritius? Possibly yes. That would be one more nail in the NATO coffin.

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Deadlines for Russia are meaningless.

• Zelenskyy Says US Gave Ukraine And Russia A June Deadline To End War (ET)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Feb. 6 that the United States has given both Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach an agreement to end the nearly four-year war, adding that Washington is likely to increase pressure on both sides if fighting continues beyond that point. Speaking to reporters in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said U.S. officials have outlined a timeline aimed at securing an end to hostilities by early summer, as the Trump administration steps up diplomatic efforts to halt Europe’s largest conflict since World War II.


“The Americans are proposing the parties end the war by the beginning of this summer,” Zelenskyy said, according to remarks embargoed until Feb. 7. He added that Washington wants “a clear schedule of all events” and would likely apply pressure “precisely according to this schedule” if progress stalls. Zelenskyy said U.S. officials have made clear they intend to “do everything” to bring the war to an end by June. He did not specify what form pressure might take or whether it would apply equally to Kyiv and Moscow. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment or confirmation.

Zelenskyy’s comments came after the latest round of U.S.-brokered trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi involving representatives from the United States, Ukraine, and Russia. All sides described the discussions as constructive, and a Russia–Ukraine prisoner swap was announced, but no cease-fire or political agreement was reached. U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Feb. 6 aboard Air Force One that “we had very, very good talks today, having to do with Russia, Ukraine,” adding that “something could be happening.” Trump did not provide details on the discussions or address whether a formal deadline had been communicated to the warring parties.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said the Feb. 4–5 talks focused on creating conditions for a lasting peace and included discussions on cease-fire implementation and monitoring mechanisms.“Ukraine expresses its gratitude to [President] Donald Trump for his leadership in advancing efforts aimed at ending the war,” Umerov said. Russian presidential representative and Russian Direct Investment Fund chief Kirill Dmitriev, who was present at the talks, reported that there was “good, positive movement forward” in the negotiations.

“As you know, we are actively working with the Trump administration to restore Russia–U.S. economic relations, including through the Russian-American Economic Cooperation Group,” he said, according to Russian state-owned news agency TASS. The delegations agreed to a mutual exchange of 157 prisoners of war each—the first such exchange in five months—and said further talks would continue in the coming weeks. Zelenskyy said Feb. 6 he had received an initial report from Ukraine’s negotiating team and was expecting a full in-person briefing in Kyiv.

“Further meetings are planned in the near future, likely in the United States,” he said, adding that Ukraine remains open to “all workable formats” that could bring peace closer. He said that any settlement must ensure Russia “has no appetite to continue the war” and receives “no reward for its aggression.” Despite renewed diplomacy, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on core issues. Russia has insisted that Ukraine withdraw from the eastern industrial region of Donbas, where fighting remains intense. The Kremlin has described full control of the region as a key condition for any peace agreement.

Ukraine still controls about 20 percent of the Donetsk region and has repeatedly rejected Russian demands to cede the territory. The diplomatic push comes as Russia continues to intensify attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Overnight into Feb. 7, Russia launched a large-scale air assault involving more than 400 drones and around 40 missiles, Zelenskyy said. The strikes targeted power generation facilities and electricity distribution substations across several regions. “Every day, Russia could choose real diplomacy, but it chooses new strikes,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X, accusing Moscow of using winter conditions as leverage.

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Don’t call it that.

• Finland Opposes ‘Article 5-like’ Guarantees For Ukraine – Politico (RT)

Finland has privately urged US officials to avoid describing future security commitments to Ukraine as “Article 5-like,” warning the terminology could undermine NATO’s foundational mutual defense clause, according to a leaked diplomatic cable. Under NATO’s Article 5, an attack on one member of the bloc is treated as an attack on all others, warranting a military response. A January 20 US State Department cable, obtained by Politico, has reportedly revealed that Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen cautioned visiting American lawmakers that such language risks conflating NATO’s absolute Article 5 guarantees with whatever bilateral promises nations might make to Kiev.


Valtonen also reportedly stressed the need for a clear “firewall” between the US-led military bloc and future security arrangements for Ukraine. Finland’s defense minister allegedly made similar points in a later meeting, according to the cable. Amid the ongoing US-led peace negotiations on the Ukraine conflict, several media reports have suggested that Washington has offered “Article 5-like” security guarantees for Kiev as part of a peace roadmap, listing Finland, which joined NATO in 2023, as one of the potential guarantors which would defend Ukraine in case of a future attack.Late last year, however, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo rejected the premise, stating that Helsinki will not offer NATO-style guarantees to Ukraine, and noting a stark difference between aid and defense obligations. .

“We have to understand that a security guarantee is something very, very serious. We’re not ready to give security guarantees, but we can help with security arrangements. The difference between them is huge,” he said. Moscow has said it does not oppose security guarantees for Ukraine in principle but has insisted they must not be one-sided or directed against Russia, and should follow a peace deal rather than precede one. Russian officials have also warned against any sort of NATO troop deployment to Ukraine, whether as peacekeepers or otherwise, warning this could lead to a direct confrontation with the bloc.

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NOOOOOO! Corruption? With these fine upstanding folk?

• Ukrainian Generals Exposed In Multi-million Dollar Corruption Scheme (RT)

Ukrainian anti-graft agencies have announced the results of a major investigation of former senior military officials, including two generals, suspected of running a multi-million dollar embezzlement scheme. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry reportedly signed a contract for a key command and control system in 2016 with a commercial company that had no experience in creating software. Over four years of development, the technical specifications were changed 13 times, increasing the cost by $7 million. The Dzvin-AS troop command-and-control system only entered into service in 2022.


On Friday, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), said the investigation had moved to the legal disclosure phase that typically precedes formal indictments. The alleged ring included a deputy head of the Ukrainian General Staff, a deputy commander of Communications Troops, the head of the General Staff’s automation department, and a businessman whose firm won the contract to develop the Dzvin-AS. Investigators say delays and cost overruns that plagued the project helped the group embezzle $5.7 million..

Reports of problems with the Dzvin-AS surfaced in the media as early as 2021, citing a 2020 contract audit. In December 2022, months after the conflict with Russia escalated, then-Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov ordered the system’s deployment. NABU said in 2024 the Defense Ministry considered funding expansion for the system rather than fixing or scrapping it. Reznikov resigned in 2023 over a separate corruption scandal involving inflated food procurement contracts but was never charged with any crime. NABU called the two investigations the agency’s most important efforts to fight military graft.

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Bezos playing Elon Musk.

• Washington Post CEO And Publisher Quits As Newspaper Implodes (ZH)

How the mighty have fallen. In a “poetic ending” plot twist, that even jaded conspiracy theorists would have had trouble scripting, Washington Post CEO and publisher Will Lewis has abruptly and unexpectedly stepped down from his perch atop Jeff Bezos’s crumbling media empire. Well, maybe not that unexpectedly… That’s right, the same WaPo that spent years hurling “fake news” grenades at us here at ZeroHedge, trying to get us deplatformed, demonetized, and disappeared from the internet, is now eating crow as their own house of CIA-funded cards collapses. Yes, this is our unapologetic victory lap – we’ve outlasted another establishment hack, which earlier this week saw an in house “Red Wedding” where hundreds of CIA conduits “reporters” were fired… and it feels good.


Lewis’s exit was announced late on Saturday around 6pm ET, just days after he orchestrated a bloodbath of layoffs that axed a whopping 30% of the staff – over 300 journalists sent packing in what can only be described as a desperation move to staunch the bleeding from years of financial hemorrhaging and dwindling readership. Lewis, ever the gracious Brit, framed his departure as a noble sacrifice “in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post.” Sure, Will – because nothing says “sustainable future” like firing a third of your workforce and then bailing before the pitchforks come out. Also the news that he was at the Super Bowl after the biggest mass termination in WaPo history probably didn’t help.

Meanwhile, as Semafor notes, the real reason for Lewis’ departure is the he presided over two major errors, one his, and the other that of his boss, Jeff Bezos who clearly has grown bored with his vanity media project. First, Lewis blocked the Post reporting on his role in the UK phone hacking scandal, preventing the publication of a story few would have read anyway. Then, Bezos pulled a planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris at the 11th hour, for apparent fear of offending Donald Trump. That endorsement wouldn’t have made much of a difference politically, but hundreds of thousands of subscribers canceled over what they saw as a craven capitulation.

Let’s rewind a bit on Lewis’ illustrious – if catastrophically short – tenure. Handpicked by billionaire overlord Jeff Bezos – whose Amazon tried three times to demonetize ZeroHedge not once, not twice, but three times (and only thanks to the FCC intervening do we have any Amazon ads showing) – at the start of 2024, Lewis was supposed to be the savior who would “transform” the once-venerable rag and reverse its slide into irrelevance. Instead, he presided over a dumpster fire of epic proportions, culminating in this latest round of pink slips that left the newsroom in shambles. Former editor Marty Baron, the guy who once helmed the paper during its Watergate glory days or whatever passes for glory in legacy media these days, didn’t mince words: he called it one of the “darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”

Ouch. And Katie Mettler, ex-chair of the WaPo guild, piled on with a zinger: “I’m glad Will Lewis has been fired. I wish it had happened before he fired all my friends.” Tell us how you really feel, Katie. Cutting through the shades of gray, we were more laconic: WaPo is finished. In the interim, the keys to the kingdom go to some dude named Jeff D’Onofrio – the former CFO who’ nobody had ever heard of until now, and who is stepping up as the placeholder boss. Good luck, Jeff – you’ll need it. With readership tanking, ad revenue in freefall, and trust in mainstream media at all-time lows, the WaPo’s “sustainable future” looks about as promising as a subprime mortgage in 2008.

But let’s not forget the delicious irony here. This is the same Washington Post that has repeatedly tried to kneecap ZeroHedge, labeling us as purveyors of “disinformation” and cozying up to Big Tech censors – such as Amazon and Google – in a bid to silence dissenting voices. mRemember when they accused us of being Russian bots or spies, or whatever flavor-of-the-month smear was trending? That aged like milk. And while the CIA’s favorite (well, no longer favorite) mouthpiece was busy playing hall monitor for the establishment narrative, we’ve been here, grinding away, delivering truth that their advertisers wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. And guess what? We’re still standing, stronger than ever, with record subscribers and 100 million page views per month, while their imported CEO packs his bags and slinks back across the pond.

Is there a Polymarket, we wonder, on when ZeroHedge will surpass WaPo in readership. But we digress: Karma, folks, is real, and it’s spectacular. And as WaPo licks its wounds and hunts for yet another white knight to bail them out (or maybe they’ll go for a black knight this time, after all the whole equity thing), we’ll be over here popping the champagne. After all, in the cutthroat world of media, survival isn’t about being “respectable”; it’s about being right. And on that front, ZeroHedge wins again. In the end, Democracy may well die in darkness, but WaPo’s time of death was 6pm on February 7, 2026.

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“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s allies are airing an ad during the Super Bowl featuring Mike Tyson boosting the Make America Healthy Again campaign…”

• RFK Jr. and Mike Tyson Fight for MAHA in Super Bowl Ad (Scott Pinsker)

Technically speaking, Evander Holyfield’s ears weren’t processed foods, so I guess his story checks out. Either way, Iron Mike Tyson will be starring in a 30-second Super Bowl ad on behalf of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again campaign. To date, the Trump administration hasn’t used RFK Jr. as a PR prop very often, but perhaps it should: The Western Journal: Despite Attacks, Poll Shows RFK Jr. Is the ‘Most Popular’ Member of Trump’s Cabinet “Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been among the most targeted by Democrats of President Donald Trump’s cabinet members since taking office in February. Yet despite all the rhetorical slings and arrows, the leader of the Make America Healthy Again movement is the most popular cabinet official in the administration.


CNN data analyst Harry Enten reported the polling results on Thursday, as RFK Jr. appeared before the Senate Finance Committee. […] “RFK Jr. is not a drag on President Trump. He’s not the most embattled. In fact, he is the most popular official in Trump’s cabinet, at least according to the polling,” the CNN data expert said. As Western Journal noted, RFK Jr. and the MAHA movement are on the plus-side in much of the polling: An Axios/Ipsos American Health Index survey released in July found a majority back the core of Kennedy’s MAHA food safety efforts. Fifty-six percent said “chemicals or unsafe additives in foods are a large or moderate risk to their health right now.

”Further, 67 percent say “they agree that they do not think foods that contain pesticides or artificial food dyes in them are safe to eat, even if they are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” For his part, RFK Jr. hyped the ad as “the most important message in Super Bowl history”: Politico, of course, focused on the potential political payoff: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s allies are airing an ad during the Super Bowl featuring Mike Tyson boosting the Make America Healthy Again campaign, giving Kennedy another high-profile perch as allies look for ways to bolster his MAHA movement.

The ad, paid for by the nonprofit MAHA Center, highlights new dietary guidelines announced by the Health and Human Services secretary in January and urges viewers to “eat real food,” borrowing a line regularly used by Kennedy about his nutrition recommendations.” […] The ad highlights the elements of the MAHA movement that members in both parties believe could help Republicans in November’s midterms. Kennedy’s campaign against processed foods, dyes and pesticides has polled strongly among parents, even as he implements anti-vaccine policies that sharply divide Americans. Here’s a sneak peek of Iron Mike’s ad:

After retiring from boxing (let’s memory-hole his “fight” with Jake Paul), Tyson, now 59-years-old, has promoted various consumable products, including marijuana edibles and cannabis “flower,” along with vegan ice cream. (Tyson might be eating healthier these days, but he also claims he smokes $40 thousand worth of marijuana each month.)Still, he remains one of the most instantly-recognizable celebrities on the planet, and he’s been a loyal supporter of President Donald Trump, endorsing his presidential campaigns in 2016, 2020, and 2024.

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Debt Rattle February 7 2026

Feb 072026
 
 February 7, 2026  Posted by at 11:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Bull – Plate IV 1945


• Pam Bondi’s DOJ Is Sabotaging The Trump Coalition (Velleco)
• Why is the Deep State Targeting DNI Tulsi Gabbard with Such Ferocity? (CTH)
• Anti-ICE Applause: Jackson’s Disqualifying Moment (David Manney)
• Gutfeld Destroys the Democrats’ Voter ID Double Standard (Matt Margolis)
• Jeffrey Epstein’s Putin Hustle (Helmer)
• Spain’s Far-Left Government Threatens To “Limit And Likely BAN” X (MN)
• Mark Warner Finds Out DNI Tulsi Gabbard Has Puerto Rico Voting Machines (CTH)
• Blood in the Water (James Howard Kunstler)
• The Triumphant Return of the Clinton PR Machine (Pinsker)
• US Blockade Threatens ‘Humanitarian Collapse’ In Cuba – UN Chief (RT)
• China Backs Cuba During Tensions With US (RT)
• Taking a Ride on Newsom’s “Train to Nowhere” (Turley)
• The Tehran Times Interviews John Helmer (Helmer)_

 


 

https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2019635041748611276 https://twitter.com/DerrickEvans4WV/status/2019267737365934296

 


 


It’s hard to turm around even just one department in four years. Most people in it will just stay.

• Pam Bondi’s DOJ Is Sabotaging The Trump Coalition (Velleco)

In November 2024, the American people decisively elected President Trump to a second term in office. After four intolerable years of controlled national demolition under the Biden autopen, the newly elected 47th President was poised to keep his promises and fulfill his mandate. President Trump had the opportunity to stop the federal government’s leftward push, steer the government back in the right direction, and make significant and lasting progress in that new direction. That third point is the most critical. Indeed, without permanent change, President Trump’s historic election – and this nation’s generational opportunity to course-correct – will turn out to have been nothing more than a momentary pause in America’s long-term decline.


Yet inexplicably, the Trump Administration has failed to take even basic steps to effect permanent change. For example, the Administration often has taken the easy path of using temporary Executive Orders rather than insisting on permanent legislation. Of course, Executive Orders are temporary, and can be undone by any future President with the stroke of a pen.m The same dynamic exists in the world of litigation, where Pam Bondi’s DOJ has chosen the temporary fix over the permanent solution. In addition to having repeatedly bungled implementation of President Trump’s agenda, Bondi’s DOJ has deliberately avoided letting cases reach final judgment.

For example, DOJ has repeatedly attempted to moot litigation involving Biden-era policies, even after a judge seems on the verge of striking down those bad policies through a precedent-setting decision. Yet all this tactic does is ensure that a future Democrat administration will be able to put these Biden policies right back into effect. But why would the Bondi DOJ work so hard to prevent lasting victories in court for Trump Coalition interests? Indeed, with DOJ friends like that, who needs enemies? If the Bondi DOJ’s hostility to the groups that made up the Trump Coalition in 2024 continues, it will seriously damage any chance of success in the 2026 midterms. This article will examine the Bondi DOJ’s infuriating pattern of obstruction, sabotage, and outright friendly fire against the Trump Coalition and ask one simple question: Why?

DOJ’s Failure to Implement the President’s Mandate

But first, let’s examine what DOJ could have done in service of the American people during this past year. As it turns out, DOJ has a number of legal tools available that it inexplicably has declined to use.nnConsider the role litigation plays in shaping domestic policy. A court order can bind the government to a certain legal interpretation or specific course of conduct, and generally will survive a change in administrations. Thus, if the federal government is a party to a lawsuit, a court order against it can codify policy – good or bad.

So what happens when a new administration inherits an ongoing lawsuit that was originally brought by its political allies against the prior administration? Well, in the past, DOJ often has simply settled cases, either privately or via court-enforceable consent judgment. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, this tactic has been a favorite of Democrat administrations. The Biden DOJ’s handling of a prior Trump-era lawsuit illustrates the point.

When Biden took office in 2021, his DOJ inherited a pending ACLU-led lawsuit against the first Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration enforcement policy. Rather than litigate the case any further, the Biden DOJ settled with its friends at the ACLU, barring the federal government “from reenacting the zero-tolerance policy” until 2031, and agreeing to pay the ACLU some $6 million in attorneys’ fees to boot. In addition to settling cases, DOJ also can (and has) let its friends’ lawsuits play out. For example, if a judge appears poised to rule in favor of an outcome the administration wants, DOJ can simply wait for that ruling. Then, not only will the federal government be bound by that ruling, but also it will generate favorable legal precedent for use in future cases.

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“The need for control is a reaction to fear…”

• Why is the Deep State Targeting DNI Tulsi Gabbard with Such Ferocity? (CTH)

Each day more and more people are starting to realize/notice there are elements of the United States intelligence apparatus that are targeting Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. The need for control is a reaction to fear, and Tulsi Gabbard has the DC Intelligence Community very worried. What you will read below is something that was written back in 2024 about the potential for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), if President Trump were to win the election. Subsequently, he did win; and while we are not saying this is the exact ODNI script that is being followed, we are certainly not disputing that either.


Read the roadmap below –Written in 2024– compare it to current events and decide for yourself if this is something that rings a bell and may explain the IC apoplexy. The ODNI was created as an outcome of the 9-11 Commission recommendations. In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.

Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01. DHS came along in 2002, and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the ODNI was formed. When Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.

Here is the weird part. The ODNI was formed in 2004, with the intent for the office to be the pivot point of a national security radar. The DNI was intended to provide information to domestic agencies about foreign terror networks that would prevent something like 9-11 from happening again. However, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has never, not for one day, operated on this intent. This is why they are such a critical position from my perspective.

The office was new, not established yet as a functioning silo, when Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived in 2009. They quickly dispatched an idiot, James Clapper, into the operation so they could weaponize around the offices’ fulcrum point. Prior to the DNI office existing, the CIA radar would sweep externally and then report to the Office of the President. The DNI was intended to take external radar sweep (CIA) and make it a full 360° circle, adding a sweep inside the USA that would be handled by the Dept of Homeland Security.

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“…very rarely—if ever—have justices of our nation’s highest Court been present at an event at which attendees have amplified such far-left rhetoric…”

• Anti-ICE Applause: Jackson’s Disqualifying Moment (David Manney)

One thing we should never see is judges high-fiving criminals at parties; they enforce the law, not celebrate those who mock it. Neutrality demands distance from chaos, especially when robes hang in the closet. Attending events that trash law enforcement turns impartiality into a punchline. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) urged Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Blackburn pointed to Jackson’s attendance at the Grammy Awards on Jan. 29 in Los Angeles.


“While it is by no means unheard of or unusual for a Supreme Court justice to attend a public function, very rarely—if ever—have justices of our nation’s highest Court been present at an event at which attendees have amplified such far-left rhetoric,” Blackburn wrote in a letter to Roberts. Blackburn, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called for an investigation into whether Jackson’s actions violate the high court’s Code of Conduct and would require her to recuse herself from certain cases.”

During speeches filled with anti-ICE rhetoric, Jackson clapped along with attendees who also wore “ICE Out” pins, while speakers shouted “F— ICE” and “No one is illegal on stolen land.”Jackson attended the Grammys, nominated for narrating the audiobook of her memoir, Lovely One. She lost to Patti LuPone, but stayed for the show. Blackburn argued that Jackson’s presence at an event that amplified far-left rhetoric violates the Supreme Court Code of Conduct, which requires justices to avoid actions that undermine public confidence in impartiality. Highlighting potential recusal issues, Blackburn said Jackson should step aside from immigration cases, such as those involving birthright citizenship or ICE operations.

Applauding calls to abolish ICE suggests bias against enforcement, unlike the baseless attacks on Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. Jackson’s actions raise genuine concerns about impartiality. She swore an oath to uphold the law, yet cheered rhetoric that trashes border security. Jackson enjoys theater and music, but Supreme Court justices hold a unique position; ordinary people freely applaud, while justices represent the law’s integrity. Showing up at an anti-ICE rally mocks that duty; she forgot her job requires neutrality, not nods to celebrities cursing federal agents. That’s the choice that disqualifies her from any future ICE-related litigation, where recusal protects justices from perceived favoritism.

Coinciding with Trump’s deportation pushes in Minneapolis, activists at the Grammys pushed out anti-ICE messages, turning the event into a protest. Jackson’s applause aligns her with that crowd. Blackburn contrasted it with Democratic demands for conservative justices’ recusal. If Jackson ignores the code, it erodes trust in the court.

Chief Justice Roberts needs to act to maintain standards.

Supreme Court justices hold a position unlike any other: they interpret and uphold the Constitution, not openly cheer for defiance. Ordinary people can clap at concerts without consequence, but when a justice claps and nods along to chants that demonize federal law enforcement, the robe’s weight should demand justice. Jackson’s choice to attend and applaud that night traded judicial restraint for celebrity applause. Impartiality isn’t optional: it’s the job. When any justice forgets that, the court itself loses credibility, one careless clap at a time.

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“They hate it ‘cause it creates something they can’t compete with: oversight…”

• Gutfeld Destroys the Democrats’ Voter ID Double Standard (Matt Margolis)

Greg Gutfeld did what Greg Gutfeld does best on his late-night show this week: he grabbed a Democrat talking point, shook it until the hypocrisy fell out, and then held it up for everyone to see. The target was Democrats’ favorite attack line against voter ID laws, and specifically the SAVE Act, which they have hysterically branded as “Jim Crow 2.0.” Gutfeld opened by zeroing in on the left’s most glaring contradiction. “You got to hand it to the Democrats,” he said. “On one hand, they think a child can handle the decision to lop off their genitals, but then on the other, they think black people can’t get a photo ID.”


To make his point, Gutfeld played a clip of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer having a meltdown over the legislation. “The SAVE Act is an abomination,” Schumer declared. “It’s Jim Crow 2.0 across the country.” Schumer went on to vow, “We are going to do everything we can to stop it.” From there, Gutfeld dismantled the comparison itself. “To them, showing an ID to vote is no different than forcing people to drink from separate water fountains,” he said. The absurdity becomes obvious when placed next to everyday life. “Meanwhile, you need an ID to buy Sudafed, rent a U-Haul, and date Bill Belichick.”

The problem, as it always is, is that facts refuse to cooperate with the Democrats’ narrative. Gutfeld pointed out what that voter ID enjoys broad support across racial and partisan lines, then played a clip of CNN data analyst Harry Enten reporting how “85% of white people favor it, 82% of Latino, 76% of black Americans favor it,” concluding that “the bottom line is this: voter ID is not controversial in this country.” Hearing CNN concede reality, according to Gutfeld, was “like Dracula admitting he owns a tanning bed.” When “Nicki Minaj, your grandma, and CNN’s Pee-wee Herman agree on something,” Gutfeld added, “that’s eating crow.”

Gutfeld argued the real reason Democrats oppose the SAVE Act has nothing to do with race. “They hate it ‘cause it creates something they can’t compete with: oversight,” he said. He compared voter ID to putting a lock on a door. Law-abiding people welcome it. Those trying to break in suddenly complain that locks “divide people.” That, Gutfeld said, explains the left’s fixation on accusing others of racism. He described it as “the soft racism of lowered expectations,” a mindset that assumes minorities cannot meet the same basic standards everyone else meets without complaint.

The contradiction gets worse when Democrats lecture Americans about trusting elections. “The same people who tell you borders are fake, gender is a choice, and crime is a social construct,” Gutfeld said, “suddenly insist elections should be taken on faith.” He closed by boiling the issue down to its core. “The SAVE Act isn’t about stopping people from voting,” Gutfeld said. “It’s about stopping people from cheating.” In other words, sanity. And when Democrats label sanity as racism, the problem sits with them, not the voters they keep pretending cannot handle an ID.

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…. sopshiticated …

• Jeffrey Epstein’s Putin Hustle (Helmer)

In Jeffrey Epstein’s decade between 2009 and 2019 he tried ever so hard to meet the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. That’s to say, between Epstein’s release from prison on his Florida state conviction and sentence for procuring a minor for prostitution and for soliciting a prostitute, and then his re-arrest and imprisonment in New York on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors, he asked his staff, friends, business associates, US Government retirees, ex-government officials from Norway, Israel, UAE, and Japan, and Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin (died in February 2017), to procure an invitation for him to meet Putin,


They succeeded in getting Epstein invitations to business promotions in Sochi, Vladivostok, and St. Petersburg, at which crowd meetings with Putin were promised. But Epstein refused. On May 13, 2013, he claimed in an email to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak that Putin “had asked that I meet him the same time as his economic conference. I told him no. If he wants to meet he will need to set aside real time and privacy. Let’s see what happens.”

Nothing ever did. Epstein’s scheme was simple. He targeted one connection to make another connection he believed the first already had to the Kremlin in order to then trade the appearance of the Kremlin connection for Epstein to others willing to pay Epstein introducing, consulting or finder’s fees if the appearance of Putin’s agreement could be fabricated into money. Epstein also needed to prove that his criminal conviction and jail time counted for nothing in international politics, investment banking, high society. Like washing money, this was reputation laundering.

“You can explain to Putin,” Epstein told Thorbjorn Jagland, a former Norwegian prime minister and Council of Europe politician, “that there should be a sopshiticated [sic] Russian version of bitcoin, It would be the most advanced financial instrument available on a global basis”.

This was amusingly familiar to a Russian, especially one who knew enough English to appreciate the double meaning of Epstein’s misspelling; more importantly, it exposes the naïve superiority complex he was demonstrating to Russians whose experience in laundering, transferring, and crypto-hiding amounted to multiple billions to trillions of dollars more than Epstein had ever handled. As a money launderer, Russians understood Epstein was never clever enough himself and employed no organization to work for him.

Jagland did nothing with the email. Jagland could do nothing for himself except exaggerate the group session he had at the Kremlin in December 2016 when the Kremlin published an 8-line speech Putin gave. Two years later, in December 2018, there were even more officials with Jagland at the table and Putin’s communiqué was three lines shorter. Jagland’s refusal to withdraw support for European sanctions of Russia on Crimea and for prejudicial judgements of the European Court of Justice against Russia left him in a tupik – that’s Russian for dead end. That’s where Jagland’s “connection” with Putin ended too.

Its remaining value to Jagland was to trade it to Epstein in return for an evening’s accommodation and entertainment at his Paris house. “Is it same prosedure [sic] as last time that I can stay with you,” Jagland asked Epstein. “I promise not make noice [sic] or ruin you.” In both directions, Jagland’s and Epstein’s, this operation was a hustle. Jagland got what he didn’t pay for; Epstein got nothing.

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Will the people protest when X gets banned?

• Spain’s Far-Left Government Threatens To “Limit And Likely BAN” X (MN)

Spain’s Minister of Youth and Children, Sira Rego, has declared that the far-left government under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez intends to “limit and likely ban” the use of X across the entire country, marking yet another assault on free speech by European regimes desperate to control narratives.nThis revelation, captured in a video statement by Rego, underscores a broader pattern of censorship under the guise of protecting minors, even as platforms like Snapchat remain untouched despite their documented role in child grooming scandals.


In the clip, Rego states: “La ministra Sira Rego afirma que el siguiente paso del Gobierno será “limitar y seguramente prohibir” el uso de X a todos los españoles.” Translated, this means the minister affirms that the next step of the Government will be to “limit and surely prohibit” the use of X to all Spaniards. While the statement appears sweeping, recent reports clarify that Spain is pushing for a nationwide ban on social media access for those under 16, requiring platforms to enforce strict age verification. Prime Minister Sánchez emphasized that platforms must implement “effective age verification systems—not just checkboxes, but real barriers that work.”

This move aligns with similar initiatives in other European nations, but the focus on X raises questions about selective targeting, especially given Elon Musk’s vocal opposition to censorship. The timing couldn’t be more suspicious, as Sánchez’s regime faces a firestorm over its massively unpopular amnesty for up to 500,000 illegal migrants, a policy slammed as a voter importation scheme that incentivizes further border chaos from North Africa. On X, criticism has exploded with users accusing Sánchez of corruption—his inner circle mired in bribery scandals involving public contracts and even his family under probe—while branding the amnesty treasonous for prioritizing foreign arrivals over Spanish citizens, fueling demands for accountability that the government seems eager to silence through platform restrictions.

Spain’s announcement follows a wave of regulatory aggression against X. Just days ago, French authorities raided X’s Paris offices as part of an expanding probe into alleged offenses, including the spread of child sexual abuse material, deepfakes, and antisemitic content. The raid, conducted by the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit with Europol’s assistance, led to a summons for Elon Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino to face questioning. Prosecutors are examining X’s algorithms, data practices, and compliance with French law, amid accusations of unlawful data extraction and complicity in possessing illegal material. Musk dismissed the action as a “political attack,” while X called it an “abusive act” in a statement.

On the EU level, the European Commission has intensified its scrutiny. In January 2026, the Commission launched a formal investigation into Grok, X’s AI tool, over risks of generating manipulated sexually explicit images, including those involving children. This builds on a €120 million fine imposed on X in December 2025 for violations under the Digital Services Act (DSA), including deceptive blue checkmarks and insufficient researcher data access.

The Commission has ordered X to preserve all Grok-related documents until the end of 2026, signaling deep doubts about the platform’s compliance. A spokesperson noted: “This is saying to a platform, keep your internal documents, don’t get rid of them, because we have doubts about your compliance … and we need to be able to have access to them if we request it explicitly.” These actions echo the UK’s threats to ban X entirely, as detailed in our previous coverage. As we highlighted, Keir Starmer’s Labour government has weaponized the Online Safety Act to target X over Grok’s image generation, ignoring similar capabilities in tools like ChatGPT or Gemini.

And as exposed, the UK’s “protect the children” rhetoric falls flat when Snapchat accounts for nearly half of online child sexual crimes, while X sits at just 1-2%. The pattern is clear: from London to Madrid to Brussels, globalist forces are coordinating to dismantle X, the one platform where community notes and unfiltered discourse routinely dismantle official narratives. Musk’s resistance, including his jab at Sánchez as “dirty Sanchez,” highlights the stakes in this battle for digital freedom. As these regimes tighten their grip, platforms like X stand as critical bulwarks against authoritarian overreach. Banning access won’t silence truth—it will only amplify the pushback from those committed to free expression.

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“The weaponized IC elements, of which Warner is a key participant, need to get Tulsi Gabbard removed from her position.”

• Mark Warner Finds Out DNI Tulsi Gabbard Has Puerto Rico Voting Machines (CTH)

This is funny, not because the narrative is so obvious, but because the well-used script is so transparent. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), a misnomer if there is one, Vice Chairman Mark Warner, finds out that Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had previously (May ’25) retrieved voting machines from Puerto Rico for analytical review. Of course, he needs immediate camera time to clutch his pearls, but it gets better.


For those who walk the deep weeds, you will remember when the Warner operation in 2017 needed to promote the intel script about the first discussion of the Christopher Steele “dossier”, they enlisted CNN’s Manu Raju, Jim Scuitto, Jake Tapper and Carl Bernstein. That ‘breaking news’ was the original trigger for the Daily Beast to then publish the “dossier.” Senator Mark Warner then came in for the close with the leak of the Carter Page FISA. That was the script in 2017. We watched it in real time.

So, now Mark Warner finds out Tulsi Gabbard is on the trail of the intelligence manipulation of election machines. In this video below, Mark Warner appears for an entirely scripted segment with… wait for it… Manu Raju. How do you know this was pre-scripted for TV? Because: (a) that’s what they do, and (b) Raju is the only one who asks questions – while Warner doesn’t even look at him because he knows the narrative in advance. Seriously, watch it. It’s funny:

[A completely unrelated side note: Notice how the U.K, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have refused to join the Board of Peace? You know what they all have in common…. 5-eyes.]

“(REUTERS) – WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) – A team working for President Donald Trump’s spy chief, Tulsi Gabbard, last spring led an investigation into Puerto Rico’s voting machines, said Gabbard’s office and three sources familiar with the previously unreported events. The sources said the goal was to work with the FBI to investigate claims that Venezuela had hacked voting machines in Puerto Rico, but added the probe did not produce any clear evidence of Venezuelan interference in the U.S. territory’s elections. Reuters first reported the investigation.

Gabbard’s office, in a statement to Reuters, confirmed the May investigation but denied a link to Venezuela, saying its focus was on vulnerabilities in the island’s electronic voting systems. Her team took an unspecified number of Puerto Rico’s voting machines and additional copies of data from the machines as part of its investigation, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence said. Her office said the taking of voting machines and data was “standard practice in forensics analysis.” Noting similar voting infrastructure elsewhere in the United States, it added: “ODNI found extremely concerning cyber security and operational deployment practices that pose a significant risk to U.S. elections.”

Jorge Rivera Rueda, head of Puerto Rico’s State Elections Commission, said he could not comment on any ongoing investigations. He added in a statement, “the Commission will fully cooperate with any investigative process conducted by the appropriate authorities, whether at the state or federal level.” Venezuela’s government did not respond to a request for comment. ODNI said some security gaps in voting machines used in Puerto Rico stemmed from their use of vulnerable cellular technology and that software flaws existed that could give hackers access deep into vital electoral systems. (more)”

Warner is super nervous. DNI Tulsi Gabbard is off the range of control. The next play is obvious. Warner et al will attempt to put DNI Gabbard into a position where an answer to a Senate question will need some kind of classified response. The weaponized IC elements, of which Warner is a key participant, need to get Tulsi Gabbard removed from her position.

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“Subversion works by importing an inverted moral frame and getting the target population to install it as its own conscience.” — Yuri Bezmenov’s Ghost on X

• Blood in the Water (James Howard Kunstler)

Even in the deep-frozen fastness of midwinter, events and tensions surge, and America awaits . . . Bad Bunny! You perceive that there is some message in the genderfluid Puerto Rican songster’s upcoming Superbowl halftime gig, but what is the message? A 180-degree counterpoint to the earnest bashing and mashing of giants on the field? The official annunciation of Reconquesta? A thumb in the eye of President Donald Trump and the white supremacist horse he rode in on?


This bread and circuses routine is looking pretty played out. The bread, of course, is pizza, the Soylent Green of these seeming end-times, underwriting the nation’s romance with morbid obesity (and perhaps with degenerate sex). The circuses — last week’s Grammy Awards, the Winter Olympics tonight, Sunday’s looming Superbowl — give off an odor of utter cultural exhaustion. What will it finally take for Western Civ, and its avatar, the USA, to stop embarrassing itself before God and history, and find better things to do?

You have been following the Epstein papers, no doubt. The sordidness grows like a yeast infection in the body politic, and yet to date hardly one prosecutable crime? What gives with that? Last week’s release of the final super-batch of Epstein papers brought on a harvest of reputations, at least. The docs revealed Microsoft zillionaire Bill Gates conniving with the late (possibly) Jeffrey Epstein to turn pandemics and vaccines into a profitable enterprise, with a spate of email discussions years before Covid got sprung on the world.

Then, it just happened that Mr. Gates sponsored the Event 201 pandemic exercise in October 2019 (with Johns Hopkins and the World Economic Forum), around the same time that the first outbreaks of Covid-19 occurred in Wuhan China with the World Military Games, a sort of Olympics for soldiers. Many athletes from various countries (including the U.S., France, Germany, and others) fell ill with a respiratory infection.

Naturally, you wonder how long, exactly, was the Covid prank in the works and among whom? If Mr. Gates was involved with Johns Hopkins planning Event 201, wouldn’t you suppose he was also in contact with US NIAID, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s agency, and with Dr. Fauci himself? Dr. Fauci had a special talent for augmenting taxpayer funding of his activities with money from outside government, and Bill Gates certainly had a lot of it, plus an obsessive drive equal to Dr. Fauci’s for messing around with viruses. And 2019 was exactly the time that scientists at the Wuhan Virology Institute happened to be experimenting with corona viruses associated with bats. Whoops.

It happens that Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee now looking into the Epstein matter, indicated this week that he was interested in calling Bill Gates to testify about his activities with Jeffrey Epstein. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear from Bill about his adventures in virology? Bill Gates is not a doctor or an accredited medical researcher, by the way. Virology is his hobby.

As a sort of tail on the donkey, an email written by Jeffrey Epstein in 2013 surfaced this week stating that Bill Gates said he caught a sexually transmitted disease from Russian girls and sought help from Epstein getting antibiotics to secretly dose his then-wife Melinda with. It blew up the Internet, but do you detect a whiff of a cockamamie story (no pun intended)? Bill Gates surely had the resources to virtually buy a doctor and have him prescribe whatever Mr. Gates wanted. In any case, Bill Gates’s long-running consort with Jeffrey Epstein has apparently sunk his reputation as a medical philanthropist, so expect him to look for another hobby as he skulks off into the gloaming of ignominy.

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He’s a winner, she’s a loser. But don’t let her hear it.

• The Triumphant Return of the Clinton PR Machine (Pinsker)

It was such an absurdly over-the-top PR move, I was half-convinced the inimitable Dick Morris had wormed his way back into the fold: Hilary Clinton demanded her Epstein testimony be done before the public! That’s right: The same Hillary Clinton who refused to speak on the record about Jeffrey Epstein’s close, intimate ties to the Clinton family — dodging subpoenas and stonewalling inquiries — is now positioning herself as the paragon of openness, candor, and full transparency. She doesn’t just WANT to testify in public — she DEMANDS it!


https://x.com/HillaryClinton/status/2019394858767798349 So disregard any allegations of Epstein-related sexual impropriety, cover-ups, or financial wrongdoings. It’s all obviously the handiwork of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” And, curses and drat, this right-wing conspiracy now includes Axios, a member-in-good-standing of the mainstream media. And horses: “Scoop: Epstein Files Include ‘Hung Like a Horse’ Message to Clinton Email” Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell once sent a message to an email address associated with former President Clinton that complimented the size of the recipient’s genitals, according to a Trump administration official familiar with the email released in the latest batch of Epstein files. […]

Included in Friday’s Epstein files dump is an email from Maxwell — dated “Sat, 01 Jan 4501,” with the recipient name fully redacted in the public files. But the recipient was an email address with the initials “WJC” that is associated with Clinton, according to the person familiar with the unredacted documents.”Sorry to hear that the Belzburg stuff is bad … I could not help myself — there was one juicy little tit bit I did let out — The one about what a supper stud you are and how I have a crush on you and how you are hung like a horse and — well you get the picture. Hope you don’t mind,” Maxwell wrote.

But perhaps this wasn’t Dick Morris playing, ahem, footsie once again with the Clintons. Say whatever you want about Bill and Hillary, but they fully understand the political PR game. We’re talking about an ex-president who never once received over 50% of the popular vote and was repeatedly humiliated by scandals, stains, and “bimbo eruptions,” yet left office with a 66% approval rating — higher than any other president over the last 70 years. bThat’s because Bill Clinton was one of the most spectacularly gifted politicians in American history.

Among his tactics: Use your enemies as a foil (cough, Newt Gingrich, Ken Starr, cough); Triangulate whenever your opponents’ platform is more popular than your own; Aggressively leverage institutional power — media, legal, political, pop-culture, and PR — to overwhelm the opposition.

It worked wonderfully in the 1990s. By triangulating with the GOP on financial issues, he coopted a key cog of their platform — and because Newt Gingrich/Ken Starr were (obviously) so scary, dangerous, and extreme, liberal voters stayed loyally in his pocket. Meanwhile, he certainly wasn’t shy about leveraging every inch of institutional power against his enemies. (That’s one of the reasons why he was impeached: Clinton used the power of the executive branch to undermine the judicial branch, depriving Paula Jones, an alleged victim of workplace sexual harassment, of a fair trial.)

But more than anything else, he won. Over and over again! Hillary Clinton lacks her hubby’s charisma, political instincts, and God-given likeability. She’s also a two-time loser for president: A newcomer named Barack Obama crushed her dreams in 2008, and her 2016 loss to Donald Trump stuck a fork in her career as a Democratic frontrunner. Of all the X posts that aged like milk, this one’s gotta be at the top of the list:

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Be nice to Cuba. Be a friend. They’re neighbors. And Castro’s gone after 75 years of antagonism.

• US Blockade Threatens ‘Humanitarian Collapse’ In Cuba – UN Chief (RT)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the US-imposed energy blockade could cause a humanitarian collapse in Cuba. The Cuban authorities have been preparing to roll out rationing plans to address worsening fuel shortages after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on goods from countries shipping oil to the island. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said the blockade has caused blackouts and disrupted schools, hospitals, and public transportation. At a briefing on Thursday, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres is “extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba, which will worsen, if not collapse, if its oil needs go unmet.”


According to Dujarric, Guterres stated that the UN General Assembly “has consistently called for an end to the embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba.” The US has maintained a trade embargo against Cuba since 1960. In December 2025, the US Navy and Coast Guard began seizing tankers in the Caribbean for allegedly violating sanctions. Trump accused Cuba of supporting terrorist groups and described Havana’s ties with Russia, China, and Iran as a threat to US national security.

On Thursday, the US announced it would deliver an additional $6 million in aid to Cuba, largely for the island’s eastern regions hit last year by Hurricane Melissa. Jeremy Lewin, a senior State Department official responsible for humanitarian assistance, accused the Cuban government of hoarding resources and denied that food shortages were linked to the ban on oil shipments. In an address on Thursday, Diaz-Canel rejected claims that Cuba supports terrorism or poses a threat to the US. He said the government is ready for dialogue with Washington, but only on the basis of equality and respect for Cuba’s sovereignty.

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Look on a map where Cuba is. You can’t get closer to the states. Of course China backs it. Free food.

• China Backs Cuba During Tensions With US (RT)

China has voiced support for Cuba’s sovereignty after the US labeled the island’s socialist government a security threat. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, in Beijing on Thursday. “China firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding its national sovereignty and security, opposes unwarranted interference by external forces, and rejects any attempt to deprive the Cuban people of their rights to survival and development,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said after the meeting. Lin added that China is ready to support Cuba “to the best of its ability.”


Parrilla wrote on X that the sides “affirmed the special and strategic nature of the historical ties between the two socialist countries.” Last week, US President Donald Trump declared a national emergency in relations with Cuba, accusing the island of aligning itself with “hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups, and malign actors.” He said Cuba’s military cooperation and contacts with Russia, China, Iran, as well as Palestinian armed groups Hamas and Hezbollah, “directly threaten” US national security “The United States has zero tolerance for the depredations of the communist Cuban regime,” Trump’s executive order said.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel rejected the allegations. “Cuba is not a terrorist country. Cuba is also not a threat to the security of the United States. We do not protect terrorists,” he said on Thursday. Díaz-Canel said Cuba is ready for dialogue with the US “without pressure and without preconditions, and on the basis of equality and respect.”Last month, the US abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during a commando raid on his compound in Caracas. Maduro denied drug-trafficking and weapons charges when he was brought before a New York court. Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have also made threats toward the left-wing governments of Colombia and Nicaragua. Trump hosted Colombian President Gustavo Petro at the White House this week, with both leaders describing the meeting as cordial.

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“”Let’s get this out of the way: He is embarrassingly handsome, his hair seasoned with silver, at ease with his own eminence as he delivers his final State of the State address….“

• Taking a Ride on Newsom’s “Train to Nowhere” (Turley)

In the dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell wrote, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” The true meaning of that line was never more clear than watching the truly bizarre photo op of California governor Gavin Newsom heralding the success of the greatest boondoggle in history: his high-speed train to nowhere. Without laying a single yard of track after burning $12 billion, Newsom showed a diesel freight train on a conventional track to create the appearance of a working railroad. I have been writing about this boondoggle for years. Newsom promised years ago that the project would be transformative. It was, but not as he promised.


Voters approved a $9.95 billion bond issue in 2008 after absurdly low estimates of the projected cost. Influential figures and companies stood to make a fortune, and the key was to secure a “buy-in” worth billions, so that it would become increasingly difficult to abandon the project as overruns and delays sent costs soaring. Now the official estimate of future ridership has dropped by 25% , and it demands billions more to complete a project delayed by decades. Remember that this entire project was meant to create a rail line of only 171 miles. It is projected to exceed $128 billion and could ultimately cost a billion dollars per mile. There are still uncompleted environmental assessments and challenging rail lines through the mountains.

There is still no train and not a yard of track almost 20 years later. The inspector general, Benjamin Belnap, issued a scathing report on the first phase of the still uncompleted project. That is only the stretch from Merced to Bakersfield which was supposed to be completed by 2033. Belnap wrote: “With a smaller remaining schedule envelope and the potential for significant uncertainty and risk during subsequent phases of the project, staying within the 2033 schedule envelope is unlikely. In fact, uncertainty about some parts of the project has increased as the authority has recently made decisions that deviated from the procurement and funding strategies that were part of its plans for staying on schedule.”

Rather than deliver on the promise of high-speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the Merced-Bakersfield line would now cost $35.3 billion, exceeding the 2008 projection for a complete system. Merced and Bakersfield have a combined population of roughly 500,000. That works out to roughly $22,000 per person, based on state ridership estimates. However, Newsom still wants to be president even as citizens are fleeing his state in record numbers. The “train to nowhere” is a problem. Even the New York Times is writing editorials on whether Newsom will be the next mistake of the Democratic Party. Newsom’s response is to arrange for gushing columns like Maya Singer’s embarrassing piece in Vogue:

“Let’s get this out of the way: He is embarrassingly handsome, his hair seasoned with silver, at ease with his own eminence as he delivers his final State of the State address… Newsom’s lanky frame was folded onto a sofa a bit too low-slung for him. This made him lean back—away from me. Or it could be that his body language had nothing to do with ergonomics and is a function of Newsom’s quality of being at once gregarious and aloof.” It is the type of teenybopper heartthrob coverage that Newsom is counting on from the media. It is not the billions burned on a non-existent railway but his glorious hair and “eminence.”

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“Ayatollah Khamenei warned that any US military action would expand into a regional war.”

• The Tehran Times Interviews John Helmer (Helmer)_

As tensions persist between Iran and the United States amid intensified military signaling and renewed talk of negotiations, critical questions remain about Washington’s real strategy and the risk of a broader regional conflict. In this context, Tehran Times spoke with John Helmer, a veteran journalist and geopolitical analyst based in Moscow, to examine the shifting balance of power and the prospects for de-escalation.


Q: In his February 1 statement, Ayatollah Khamenei warned that any US military action would expand into a regional war. How does this reflect the interconnected military and political dynamics of today’s Middle East?

You understand—and I hope your audience understands—that I am a Russia correspondent. I have spent 30 years in Russia, so I am speaking from a Russian point of view. I think it is valuable for your audience to understand that perspective. I understood the February 1 statement as expressing something obvious, but with implications that are less obvious. It is very clear that Iran’s security is being threatened from the region. The US negotiator, Steven Witkoff, has been shuttling from Miami—where he was on Saturday speaking with the Russian business representative Kirill Dmitriev—to Israel, and then to Abu Dhabi for discussions on the military terms of a settlement to the Ukraine war with Russian negotiators. These include an admiral in charge of Russian military intelligence and a general.

On February 3 Witkoff met in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Gen Eyal Zamir, IDF chief, and David Barnea, head of Mossad. To the extent that I understand Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement, he is saying that Iran is facing the prospect of war from Israel, from the United States, and from those Arab states that host military bases from which attacks on Iran have been launched in the past and could be launched again. The regional dimension is that Iran is being threatened simultaneously and in coordination by Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, to name a few.

That is the first point. Therefore, Ayatollah Khamenei is saying that if Iran faces such a coordinated attack from these territories and states, its defensive response must be directed against each of them. That makes it a regional war. The consequence is an interesting one. Is Ayatollah Khamenei saying that Iran wishes to negotiate with all of its enemies at the table at the same time? In other words, why Witkoff alone? Why not an Israeli representative, given that Witkoff appears to be shuttling between Israel and negotiations with Iran? Why not a Saudi representative? Why not an Emirati representative, or any other state—including Iraq—on whose territory an attack on Iran could be launched or threatened?

If this is a regional war, then all regional representatives should attend and be part of the negotiating process. This position is not new at all. Ayatollah Khamenei is restating what has long been the Russian position, as articulated years ago by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: that the only viable form of security for the Persian Gulf states must be comprehensive. It cannot be partial. It must involve all states pledging mutual security with one another—without exception.

Q: President Trump says Iran is open to nuclear talks, yet the US is also increasing its naval presence in the region. How do you interpret this mix of diplomacy and military pressure? What does it tell us about Washington’s real strategy? That is a complicated question. Let me answer it this way. In the first place, President Trump aims for all strategy to be about winning, not losing. Winning, from Trump’s point of view, has been a combination of force, coercion, and extortion—both in the trade arena through tariffs, penalty tariffs, and secondary tariffs against states such as China and India.

So the idea of a mix of diplomacy and pressure does not quite describe it accurately. All of Trump’s moves are a form of pressure. There is no real credibility to the diplomacy. Diplomacy, in this case, is the talking at the table, but the gun at the table is economic warfare and sanctions warfare. This is not a combination of diplomacy and military pressure. It is a single combination of different types of pressure—extortion. It is negotiating at the point of a gun. President Trump’s view is that he must win.

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https://twitter.com/dana916/status/2019526639416176989

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle February 3 2026

Feb 032026
 
 February 3, 2026  Posted by at 12:01 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , ,  63 Responses »


John French Sloan McSorley’s Bar 1912

• AIs Now Talking With One Another Behind Our Backs (Stephen Green)
• Clintons Bend The Knee To Comer, Agree To Testify In House Epstein Inquiry (ZH)
• Awards Season (James Howard Kunstler)
• The Circular Firing Squad (Jonathan Turley)
• The Remaking of Alex Pretti: Imperfect Times Demand the Perfect Hero (Turley)
• Warner (Sundance at CTH)
• The Great Dispossession (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Let the Arms Race Begin (NYT)
• Trump Was No Draft-Dodger (Stephen Green)
• Being There – In Venezuela (Craig Murray)

 

 

 

 


“Moltbots autonomously get together on Moltbook, which — you guessed it! — is Facebook for autonomous bots. They might as well have a sign on the clubhouse door that says, “No Humans Allowed.”

• AIs Now Talking With One Another Behind Our Backs (Stephen Green)

“The most interesting place on the internet” has no humans in it. It all started innocently enough — like finding a just-crashed meteorite with pink goo in it, opening the mummy’s tomb, or digging up a monolith on the far side of the moon — with an AI meant to actually be useful for your day-to-day living. Peter Steinberger wanted an AI-based tool to help him “manage his digital life” and “explore what human-AI collaboration can be,” and the result was an open-source AI digital assistant capable of acting autonomously to take care of the user’s needs.


Originally called Clawdbots (now known as Moltbots, but hang on), Steinberger’s creation can manage your calendar for you, take care of your email automatically, browse the web, fill out forms, shop, book flights, check in for travel, and even (with your approval, and without getting too deep in the tech woods here) read and write local files, run code or scripts, and execute shell commands on your computer or mobile device. They’re LLM-agnostic, too, working with whatever AI (Claude, GPT, Gemini, etc.) via API and use a persistent memory system to stay context-aware of the user’s needs.

They key feature is that Moltbots have agency — they can do all these things and more without waiting to be told. AIs just sit there in a sort of null state waiting for your next prompt, but Moltbots proactively prompt them for you.They can send messages for you via WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Discord, iMessage, etc… and that’s where things got weird, like when the pink meteor goo starts moving on its own. Rebranded as Moltbots (except forks called OpenClaw) due to trademark concerns, Moltbots now gather on their own via those same messaging apps users allowed them to access.

AI researcher Simon Willison said last week that Moltbot represents a “lethal trifecta” of cyber vulnerabilities because of its access to each user’s private data, exposure to untrusted content, its ability to communicate on messaging apps, and its “persistent memory” that “enables delayed-execution attacks,” as Fortune put it. “OpenClaw is built around skills,” Willison explained, “and a skill is a zip file containing markdown instructions and optional extra scripts (and yes, they can steal your crypto) which means they act as a powerful plugin system for OpenClaw.”

But believe it or not, that’s not the weirdest part. Moltbots autonomously get together on Moltbook, which — you guessed it! — is Facebook for autonomous bots. They might as well have a sign on the clubhouse door that says, “No Humans Allowed.” There, various Moltbots share skills and Lord-only-knows what else. One post found by Willison was on Moltbot telling the others how it gained remote control of its user’s Android phone.

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Epstein lives here. Sort of.

• Clintons Bend The Knee To Comer, Agree To Testify In House Epstein Inquiry (ZH)

“Your clients’ desire for special treatment is both frustrating and an affront to the American people’s desire for transparency,” Mr. Comer wrote in a letter to the Clintons’ lawyers on Monday that was also obtained by The New York Times.


Indeed, as The NYTimes reports, after some Democrats on the panel joined Republicans in a vote to recommend charging them with criminal contempt, an extraordinary first step in referring them to the Justice Department for prosecution, the Clintons ultimately waved the white flag and agreed to fully comply with Mr. Comer’s demands. In an email sent to Mr. Comer on Monday evening, attorneys for the Clintons said their clients would “appear for depositions on mutually agreeable dates” and asked that the House not move forward with a contempt vote, which had been slated for Wednesday.

However, it was not immediately clear Monday evening whether Comer would accept the Clintons’ terms and, subsequently, whether the contempt votes would still take place. Comer said: “The Clintons’ counsel has said they agree to terms, but those terms lack clarity yet again and they have provided no dates for their depositions. The only reason they have said they agree to terms is because the House has moved forward with contempt.” “I will clarify the terms they are agreeing to and then discuss next steps with my committee members,” Comer said in a statement.

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“The world sees you now: not as compassionate warriors, but as spoiled, entitled, reality-denying tyrants in yoga pants, wielding guilt and hysteria like switchblades.” —LHGrey on “X”

• Awards Season (James Howard Kunstler)

The latest wrinkle in this tragic saga is the psychodrama over ICE, the men tasked with finding and deporting people who came into the country illegally. The Cluster-B women mis-direct their nurturing instincts to rescue this politically-designated “oppressed minority,” overlooking the fact that not a few of these illegal aliens turn out to be murderous psychopaths. Conveniently, too, the illegal aliens also happen to be a very useful device for the Democratic Party to pad the census and provide illicit votes, all to keep the party in power and sustain its rackets.


President Trump completes the doom-loop circle because he is the mythic figure who prompts all the anxiety behind the “mass formation” phenomenon we are witnessing. Mr. Trump is patriarchy-in-action, so he must be destroyed by the goddess-heroines of show business. The goddess-heroines seem to believe they are ushering-in a Utopia of Nurture in which no oppressed minority will be left behind. That fantasy happens to intersect with the leveling fantasies of Karl Marx and his apostles, the mentors of the obscenely-rich denizens of Hollywood so eager to abolish obscene riches. So, you see how either stupid, or mentally-ill, or both, the people in show business can be.

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“..there was outrage that Jennings is “allowed to exist” on the network.”

• The Circular Firing Squad (Jonathan Turley)

CNN has long aired controversial hosts and guests who engaged in controversial statements on race and politics from the left. However, a meeting last week focused on the airing of one of the few conservatives who regularly appear on the network. As one staff member reportedly raised, there was outrage that Jennings is “allowed to exist” on the network. Even as CNN continues to languish in ratings, staffers want to fire one of the few remaining conservative voices on the network.


One of the key issues raised in the meeting was Jennings referring to “illegal aliens.” While CNN bars the term, it is used in federal law and federal cases, including by the United States Supreme Court. In one exchange on Jan. 19, Jennings trades barbs with fellow panelist Cameron Kasky, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland school shooting. Kasky criticized Jennings for saying that ICE should be allowed to “chase down illegals” in Minnesota.

Jennings pushed back: “Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t say? I’ve never met you, brother. I can say whatever I want. They’re illegal aliens. And that’s what the law calls them. Illegal aliens. That’s what I’m going to call them.” Staff members reportedly denounced him as a “MAGA mouthpiece” and a “firebrand Trump loyalist” who “frequently gets into verbal spats with other CNN guests.” It is a curious objection since these panels are supposed to be lively contrasts between guests. The meeting is reminiscent of the effort at the Washington Post to get staffers to recognize the company’s declining position.

Robert Lewis, a British media executive who joined the Post earlier this year, reportedly got into a “heated exchange” with a staffer. Lewis explained that, while reporters were protesting measures to expand readership, the very survival of the paper was now at stake: “We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around. We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

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“MS NOW has admitted that it used an AI-enhanced photo of Pretti that made him look more handsome.”

• The Remaking of Alex Pretti: Imperfect Times Demand the Perfect Hero (Turley)

“Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy.” That statement, from F. Scott Fitzgerald, has never been truer than with the posthumous treatment of Alex Pretti, killed in a confrontation with federal officers in Minneapolis. He has been called a “hero” and a “martyr” by the left as a rallying cry for protests around the country. In the process, many have “enhanced” both his story and his image. MS NOW has admitted that it used an AI-enhanced photo of Pretti that made him look more handsome. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was criticized for bringing to the Senate floor an altered image, featuring a headless immigration agent, that made it look like officers executed a kneeling Pretti with a shot to the head.


Pretti needs to be be inviolate to make the government seem vile in the eyes of the public. He is being described as the combination of Florence Nightingale and Crispus Attucks. A CNN panelist and co-host of “The View,” Ana Navarro, voiced the new orthodoxy that Pretti was the “perfect guy … the guy you’d want to date your daughter, the guy you want your son to grow up to be, a decent human being who was serving humanity.” She added that he was so perfect that “there is nothing that has been said about that man that isn’t wonderful. And so they can’t malign him.” The point is that any skepticism, let alone criticism, is no longer acceptable.

In fairness, Pretti was vilified before he was canonized. Many of us objected that the videotape evidence did not support the original description of Pretti’s conduct. Pretti did not threaten officers or approach them brandishing a weapon. But he did disobey police orders and he did resist arrest. Indeed, eleven days earlier, he had spat at officers, damaged a police vehicle by kicking out its taillight, and again resisted officers. The remaking of Alex Pretti by both sides is strikingly familiar. On Tuesday, my book on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution will be released. “Rage and the Republic” looks at both the American and French Revolutions to explore why one became the world’s oldest democracy and the other became a blood-soaked terror.

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Sundance with a long exposé about just one leak.

• Warner (Sundance at CTH)

In January of 2017 California Senator Dianne Feinstein abdicated her position as Vice-Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). Upon the initiation of a new congress, and two weeks before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Virginia Senator Mark Warner took the SSCI Vice-Chair seat…. and that’s how things get started.mAmid a concerted effort to resist the incoming administration the Russia Collusion Conspiracy was launched. Politicians, the U.S. intelligence apparatus and DC beltway media united in common purpose to push a Trump-Russia narrative.


Within the early days of that effort, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence initiated an investigation into Russian interference with the election. Chairman Richard Burr and Vice-Chair Warner were toasted throughout DC as an example of bipartisan oversight against what House minority leader Nancy Pelosi called a “fraudulent president.” Sometime in late February/early March 2017 Senator Warner requested a copy of the top secret FISA application used against Carter Page, falsely accusing him of being “an agent of a foreign power.”

Simultaneous to this the FBI was trying to track down the details of dozens of classified intelligence leaks to the media from within the DC system. FBI Special Agent, Washington DC Field Office, Brian Dugan appears to have been tasked with tracking and identifying intelligence leakers. Dugan saw an opportunity. On March 17, 2017, in order to fulfill the request of SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner, Agent Dugan goes to the FISA Court and picks up a copy of the FISA application. At the time there were only two components: The original application (Oct ’16), and the first renewal (Jan ’17). The next renewal did not come until April and then again in June.

NOTE: The FBI did not go to the DOJ-NSD to pick up a copy. Why? You’ll see.

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PCR “hides” 3 parts of The Great Dispossession in an article about Kevin Warsh.

• The Great Dispossession (Paul Craig Roberts)

In Part 1, I explained that the next financial crisis will be bailed out not with central bank money creation but with our stocks, bonds and bank balances.


In Part 2, I explained the multi-year quiet regulatory changes that dispossessed us of our property.

In Part 3, I explain David Rogers Webb’s conclusion that a massive financial crisis is pending in which our financial assets are the collateral underwriting the derivative and financial bubble and will result in the loss of our assets but leave us with our debts as happened to those whose banks failed in the 1930s.

Webb begins with the economic formula that the velocity of circulation of money times the money supply equals nominal Gross Domestic Product. V x MS = GDP. The velocity of circulation is a measure of how many times a dollar is spent during a given period of time, e.g., quarterly, annually. A high velocity means people quickly spend the money that comes into their hands. A low velocity means people tend to hold on to money.

] Velocity impacts the Federal Reserve’s ability to manage economic growth with money supply changes. If the velocity of money is falling, an expansionist monetary policy will not result in rising GDP. In such a situation, the Federal Reserve is said to be “pushing on a string.” Instead of pushing up GDP, money supply increases push up the values of financial assets and real estate resulting in financial and real estate bubbles. Webb notes that falls in velocity are precursors of financial crises. A multi-year sharp fall in velocity preceded the stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression that gave birth to regulatory agencies. The 21st century is characterized by a long-term fall in velocity that has reached the lowest level on record, while stocks and real estate have been driven to unprecedented levels by years of zero interest rates. When this bubble pops, we will be dispossessed.

Will the bubble pop? Yes. The Fed suddenly and rapidly moved from zero to 5% interest rates, a reversal of the policy that drove up prices of stocks and bonds. The Fed raises rates by reducing money supply growth, thus removing the factor supporting high stock prices and collapsing the value of bonds. This results in a lowering of the value of stocks and bonds serving as collateral for loans, which, of course, means the loans and the financial institution behind them are in trouble. Bonds have already taken a hit. The stock market is holding because participants believe the Fed is about to reverse its interest rate policy and lower rates.

Webb notes that the official data show that the velocity of money collapsed in the 21st century while the Fed introduced “quantatative easing.” He makes the correct point that when the velocity of money collapses, the Fed is pushing on a string. Instead of money creation fueling economic growth, it produces asset bubbles in real estate and financial instruments, which is what we have at the present time.When after more than a decade of near zero interest rates, the Fed raises interest rates it collapses the values of financial portfolios and real estate and produces a financial crisis.

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A freebee from the NYT. It says: “Shared with you by a Times subscriber. You have access to this article thanks to someone you know. Keep exploring The Times with a free account.”

• Let the Arms Race Begin (NYT)

The last nuclear arms control pact between the United States and Russia is set to end not with a bang, but with a whimper. The Trump administration has said barely anything about New START’s expiration next Thursday, a day that will mark the end of a half-century of collaboration between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. Nor have prominent lawmakers in Congress said much this year about its end, despite the looming potential for an unconstrained three-way arms race, with China’s participation.


Perhaps the highest profile attempt to raise awareness of the end of this era — which has underwritten the national security environment of most of our collective lives — came on Jan. 14. In the early evening, a handful of Democrats took turns on the House floor giving speeches for roughly an hour about the new world we’re about to step into, a performance that even the most ardent C-SPAN viewer might have missed. The only thing more alarming than the lack of interest among our elected officials in this matter is the mounting pressure on the Trump administration — from both inside and outside the government — to add more nuclear weapons to the stockpile, rather than reduce it.

Once the treaty ends, we will have returned to an era without limits, when arsenals can reach unconstrained heights. The bleak outlook prompted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Tuesday to move its metaphorical Doomsday Clock another notch toward “midnight,” or worldwide catastrophe. It now sits closer than it ever has: 85 seconds to midnight.bnIt wasn’t long ago that the world’s superpowers agreed that having fewer nukes was a good thing. For decades, the world’s nuclear stockpile was shrinking. There were around 70,400 warheads in 1986, compared with 12,500 today — a reduction that came from years of continual negotiations between Washington and Moscow.

What began in 1969 with the launch of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks led to a string of agreements culminating in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, which went into force in 2011 and was extended in 2021 for an additional five years.mNew START limited each side’s arsenals to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads — long-range weapons loaded onto submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles and bomber planes — and required regular data exchanges and notifications of the number and status of each side’s treaty-accountable weapons. It also allowed for short-notice on-site inspection visits to ensure compliance.

The end of New START is just the latest Cold War treaty to be abandoned or canceled amid worsening U.S.-Russia relations. When President Trump returned to the White House, many hoped he might finally rekindle nuclear arms-control negotiations after years of stalled diplomacy. The president has repeatedly said he was prepared to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world and even said in August that he would like to “denuclearize” altogether if President Vladimir Putin of Russia was willing to reciprocate.

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Stephen Green aka vodkapundit.

• Trump Was No Draft-Dodger (Stephen Green)

Here are the facts, simply laid out by Eschenbach and verified by Yours Truly using both Grok and ChatGPT. A couple of the dates are slightly off, but everything checks out.

• Trump registered for the draft after his 18th birthday on June 24, 1964 (draft dodgers don’t register*).

• He was given an S-2 (college) deferment on June 28, 1964 (perfectly legal, not a draft dodger).

• His S-2 status was renewed on Dec 14, 1965 (legal, not a draft dodger), and he was then classified on Nov. 22, 1966, as 1-A (available for service).

• Dec. 13, 1966, his S-2 was again granted to attend Wharton (legal, not a draft dodger). His final deferral was granted on Jan. 16, 1968.

• After graduating from Wharton, he was reclassified 1-A on July 9, 1968. He went to his Armed Forces Physical (something a draft dodger probably would not do) on Sept. 19, 1968, and was categorized as 1-Y,disqualified for service except in war or national emergency (due to bone spurs in both heels).

• He received a high draft lottery number and was never called up. On Feb. 17, 1972, after the abolishment of the 1-Y classification, he was classified 4-F (not qualified for military service).

I’d add — again, confirmed by two LLMs — that in the 1969 draft lottery (implemented for 1970 inductions), Trump’s birthdate drew a high number (356 out of 366), which would have likely exempted him from being called up even without the medical classification. (*Some draft dodgers actually registered, but then dodged the call when it came.) All along the way, Trump followed the rules, and as fate would have it, probably wouldn’t have been called up even without bone-spurs.

Still, I decided to dig deeper and asked my two most reliable LLMs whether Trump would have fallen under President Jimmy Carter’s blanket pardon for roughly 570,000 men who had either been charged for draft-dodging offenses, or who had not been charged but had done things like fail to register of fled to Canada. Short answer: No. Grok’s slightly longer answer: “Trump would not have qualified for Carter’s pardon because he did not violate the Selective Service Act—he registered, complied with classifications, and used legitimate deferments without committing any evadable offenses. Even if the bone spurs claim were proven fraudulent today, it wasn’t challenged or prosecuted at the time, so no pardon-eligible violation occurred.”

So there you have it. Trump wasn’t a draft-dodger.

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Caracas is not like you think.

• Being There – In Venezuela (Craig Murray)

I have now been in Caracas for 48 hours and the contrast between what I have seen, and what I had read in the mainstream media, could not be more stark. bI drove right through Caracas, from the airport through the city centre and up to posh Las Mercedes. The next morning I walked all through and weaved my way within the working class district of San Agustin. I joined in the “Afrodescendants festival”, and spent hours mingling with the people. I was made extremely welcome and invited into many homes – this from a district they tell you is extremely dangerous. I must admit I had great fun at this bit.


After this I continued on for miles walking through the residential area and through the heart of the city centre, including Bolivar Square and the National Assembly. In all of this I have not seen one single checkpoint, whether police or military. I have seen almost no guns; fewer than you would see on a similar tour taking in Whitehall. I have not been stopped once, whether on foot or in a car. I have seen absolutely zero sign of “Chavista militia” whether in poor, wealthy or central areas. I drove extensively round the opposition strongholds of Las Mercedes and Altamira and quite literally saw not a single armed policemen, not one militia man and not one soldier. People were out and about quite happily and normally. There was no feeling of repression whatsoever.

Again, nobody stopped me or asked who I am or why I was taking pictures. I did ask the Venezuelan authorities whether I needed a permit to take photos and publish articles, and their reply was a puzzled “why would you?” The military checkpoints to maintain control, the roving gangs of Chavista armed groups, all the media descriptions of Caracas today are entirely a figment of CIA and Machado propaganda, simply regurgitated by a complicit billionaire and state media. Do you know what else do not exist? The famous “shortages.” The only thing in short supply is shortage. There is a shortage of shortage. There is no shortage of anything in Venezuela.

A few weeks ago I saw on Twitter a photo of a supermarket in Caracas which somebody had put up to demonstrate that the shelves are extremely well stocked. It received hundreds of replies, either claiming it was a fake, or that it was an elite supermarket for the wealthy and that the shops for the majority were empty. So I made a point, in working-class districts, of going into the neighbourhood, front room stores where ordinary people do their shopping. They were all very well stocked. There were no empty places on shelves. I also went round outdoor and covered markets, including an improbably huge one with over a hundred stalls catering solely for children’s birthday parties!

Everyone was quite happy to let me photograph anything I wanted. It is not just groceries. Hardware stores, opticians, clothes and shoe shops, electronic goods, auto parts. Everything is freely available. There is a lack of physical currency. Sanctions have limited the Venezuelan government’s access to secure printing. To get round this, everybody does secure payment with their phones via QR code using the Venezuelan Central Bank’s own ingenious app. This is incredibly well established – even the most basic street vendors have their QR code displayed and get their payments this way.

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Debt Rattle May 17 2023

May 172023
 
 May 17, 2023  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  46 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Woman Sitting Near a Window (Marie-Therese) 1932 (sold 2 years ago for $103.4 million)

 

• Russia Case Against Trump: A Shocking Conspiracy That Continues Today (Turley)
• The Durham Coverup (Lee Smith)
• Special Counsel Reveals 2016 Trump-Russia FBI Investigative Failure (Max Jones)
• Why Shouldn’t the Election Be Called Into Question? (BN)
• Influence of ‘Russian Propaganda’ Growing – EU Official (RT)
• Aide Reveals Zelensky’s F-16 Wish List – Politico (RT)
• UK Will Help Supply Ukraine With F-16s (RT)
• NATO’s Military Policies In Ukraine Posed Real Threat To Russia – Envoy (TASS)
• How NATO Seduced The European Left (Lily Lynch)
• Ukraine Says It Shoots Down More Missiles Than Russia Fires – Shoigu (RT)
• Russia Likely Damaged US-Made Patriot Missile Battery – CNN (RT)
• Ukraine’s Top Spy Admits Killing Russian Public Figures (RT)
• Erdogan Accuses Biden Of Attempt To Topple Him (Cradle)
• US May Designate Russia As State Sponsor Of Terrorism (Az.)
• German ex-Chancellor’s Wife Fired For Attending May 9 Celebration (RT)
• Musk: I’ll Say What I Want And If The Consequence Is Losing Money, So Be It (ZH)

 

 

 

 

Hawley

 

 

 

 

Lesley Stahl

 

 

 

 

Tapper
https://twitter.com/i/status/1658538596058423323

 

 

 

 

Biggs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1658501544952623104

 

 

 

 

Durham Report: Obama FBI offered Clinton campaign operative Christopher Steele as much as $1 million for dirt on Trump just one month before the 2016 election. Durham Report, p. 118

 

 

The West is not able to make up for the loss of armored vehicles to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel Douglas McGregor, a former adviser to the head of the Pentagon, admitted in an interview.
“The Ukrainian army has lost almost 10,000 armored vehicles since the beginning of the conflict. This is unbelievable, 10 thousand! ”, The former adviser said.
He also emphasized that the colossal losses of equipment by the Ukrainian army speak of the “extreme effectiveness” of the Russian army in destroying armored vehicles. McGregor noted that sending weapons to Kiev could “bring money into the pockets of the American defense leadership,” but would not change the course of the conflict.

 

 

 

 

“Comey delighted viewers by saying: “Honestly, I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013.”

• Russia Case Against Trump: A Shocking Conspiracy That Continues Today (Turley)

A political campaign hatches a plot to create a false claim of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Making this even more implausible is that the CIA and FBI know about the plot. As detailed in the report, President Barack Obama and his national security team were briefed on how “a trusted foreign source” revealed “a Clinton campaign plan to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server. It then happened a few days later. It was a plot that required everyone to take a hand in derailing a duly elected president and effectively shutting down his administration for three years of investigation and prosecutions. In this conspiracy, there were dozens of key participants in the campaign, the government, and the media. Here are a few of the characters implicated in this report.

The report details how the Russian collusion conspiracy was invented by Clinton operatives and put into the now-infamous Steele dossier, funded by the Clinton campaign. The funding was hidden as legal expenses by then-Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias. (The Clinton campaign was later sanctioned by the FEC over its hiding of the funding.) New York Times reporter Ken Vogel said at the time that Elias denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.” It was not just reporters who asked the Clinton campaign about its role in the Steele dossier.

John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was questioned by Congress and denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress. Durham details how Elias played an active role in tracking the media campaign to push the false allegations. (Elias was recently severed by the Democratic National Committee from further representation and has been previously sanctioned in the federal courts in other litigation.) The report details how false claims like the existence of a “pee tape” showing Trump engaging in disgusting acts with prostitutes in Moscow came from a Clinton operative, Chuck Dolan, with no known basis in fact.

Likewise, now-national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Clinton personally pushed an absurd campaign-created conspiracy theory about a secret communication line between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin through a Russian bank. The Clinton campaign later admitted that it had indeed funded the dossier, but Clinton continued to claim that the election was stolen from her by the Russians. Of course, this conspiracy could not occur without the assistance of the FBI, which Durham found played an eager role due to a “predisposition” of key players against Trump. The dossier was discredited early by American intelligence, which learned that it might itself be Russian disinformation. There never was support for the allegations, but the FBI launched and maintained a massive investigation anyway.

Durham noted that the FBI showed a completely different approach to allegations involving the Clinton campaign. The Trump investigation was a “noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign.” Nevertheless, former FBI Director James Comey would continue to reference the entirely unsupported “pee tape” in interviews. Even though investigators found no support for the campaign-created story, in a 2018 interview, Comey delighted viewers by saying: “Honestly, I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013.”

Peepee

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“Did Ex-CIA Director John Brennan Doctor His Notes to Hide His Role in Russiagate?”

“..virtually none of the officials interviewed by Durham knew about the Clinton Plan intelligence..”

• The Durham Coverup (Lee Smith)

The only genuine piece of Russian intelligence that US spy services ever received about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia was intelligence that Russia knew Hillary Clinton backed a 2016 campaign plan to smear Trump as a Russian agent. According to John Durham’s 300-page report, the information reached the CIA in late July 2016. Brennan told Durham that on August 3 he briefed President Barack Obama at the White House on what the special counsel refers to as the Clinton Plan intelligence. Others in attendance at the meeting were Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and FBI Director James Comey. Imagine Comey’s reaction when he first heard of the Clinton Plan intelligence, only days after the July 31 start date for the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, code-named Crossfire Hurricane:

So, if it’s just a dirty trick staged by the Clinton campaign, I should shut down the Trump-Russia probe, right? Right. There is little chance Brennan said anything about the Clinton Plan intelligence in that August 3 meeting. Reading the Durham report, it’s not even clear when Brennan first found out about it or the September 2016 CIA memo referring the Clinton Plan intelligence to the FBI’s counterintelligence division. Brennan’s handwritten notes memorializing his allegedly briefing Obama on the Clinton Plan and the CIA’s referral letter were both declassified by Trump’s Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe in October 2020. Durham’s report sheds light on how the information and subsequent CIA memo were received, who knew about them, and perhaps more significantly who didn’t.

According to the report, virtually none of the officials interviewed by Durham knew about the Clinton Plan intelligence or the referral memo. Former FBI general counsel James Baker “stated that he had neither seen nor heard of the Clinton Plan intelligence or the resulting Referral Memo prior to his interview” with Durham. Same with Supervisory Special Agent-1, reportedly FBI agent Joe Pientka. According to the report, when Durham showed Pientka the information, he became “visibly upset and emotional, left the interview room with his counsel, and subsequently returned to state emphatically that he had never been apprised of the Clinton Plan intelligence and had never seen the aforementioned Referral Memo. Supervisory Special Agent-1 expressed a sense of betrayal that no one had informed him of the intelligence.”

The reason so few FBI officials knew of the Clinton Plan information is because it was buried. Otherwise, it would have implicated senior Obama officials — from the president and vice president and his security chiefs — and the Crossfire Hurricane team in an illegal surveillance and propaganda operation targeting a presidential campaign. But how did the Russians know it started with Hillary Clinton? Did they have spies buried deep inside the Democratic National Committee? Maybe Christopher Steele, British ex-spy and author of the Clinton-funded memos tying Trump to Russia, had been compromised by one of the Russian oligarchs he worked for? No, you wouldn’t have needed an intelligence service to find out the Clinton campaign was using Moscow as an instrument to smear the GOP candidate. By the end of July, much of the anti-Trump campaign was public.

Nunes

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“The FBI” is made up of real people. Go after them.

• Special Counsel Reveals 2016 Trump-Russia FBI Investigative Failure (Max Jones)

• The Australian diplomats told Crossfire Hurricane investigators that Papadopoulos never stated that he had any direct contact with the Russians nor did he provide any explicit information about an offer of assistance.
• There was a complete lack of information from the Intelligence Community that corroborated the hypothesis upon which the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was predicated.
• The FBI generally ignored the significant exculpatory information provided by Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and Trump Senior Foreign Policy Advisor-! during recorded conversations with FBI CHSs.
• The FBI failed to pursue investigative leads that were inconsistent with their theory of the case (e.g., Page’s recorded denials of having any relationship with Paul Manafort, a fact about which there was available evidence).
• The FBI failed to take Page up on the written offer he made to Director Corney to be interviewed about the allegations contained in Michael Isikoff s Yahoo 1 News article and instead opted to seek FISA surveillance of Page.
• The FBI was willing to make use of the completely unvetted and uncorroborated Steele reporting in multiple FISA applications targeting a U.S. citizen, even after the Crossfire Hurricane investigators had determined that there were major conflicts between the reporting of Steele and his primary sub-source, Igor Danchenko – conflicts the FBI incredibly failed to resolve.
• The Crossfire Hurricane investigators did not even ask Steele about his role in providing information to Michael Isikoff as contained in the September 23, 2016 Yahoo! News article – information that essentially accused Carter Page of colluding with the Russians. And thereafter the same investigators demonstrated a willingness to contort the plain language of the article to suggest it was not Steele but Steele’s employers who had given the information to Isikoff.
• The FBI ignored the fact that at no time before, during or after Crossfire Hurricane were investigators able to corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier reporting.
• There was a complete failure on the part of the FBI to even examine – never mind resolve – the serious counterespionage issues surrounding Steele’s primary subsource, Igor Danchenko.
• The FBI leadership essentially disregarded the Clinton Plan intelligence, which it received at almost the exact same time as the Australian Paragraph Five information. This was despite the fact that at precisely the same time as the Clinton Plan intelligence was received (i) the Clinton campaign made public statements tying the DNC computer hack to Russian attempts to help Trump get elected, (ii) the FBI was receiving the Clinton campaign-funded Steele Reports, and (iii) the Clinton campaign-funded Alfa Bank allegations were being prepared for delivery to the media and the FBI.
• The Crossfire Hurricane investigators essentially ignored information they had received as early as October 2016 regarding Charles Dolan, a longtime Democratic operative with ties to the Clintons who also possessed significant ties to Russian government figures who would appear in the Steele reporting, and never interviewed him.
• The Crossfire Hurricane investigators provided only partial, and in some instances misleading, information to Department attorneys working on the Page FISA applications while withholding other highly relevant information from those attorneys and the FISC that might cast real doubt on their probable cause assertions.

Pelosi


Schiff

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Durham makes this inevitable.

• Why Shouldn’t the Election Be Called Into Question? (BN)

The Five’s co-host Greg Gutfeld unleashed a powerful diatribe in the aftermath of Monday’s Durham Report revelations detailing a full-fledged election interference operation carried out by the FBI and CIA in concert with the knowledge and approval of the Obama White House and driven in part by a Clinton Plan to ‘stir up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.” Gutfeld defended Americans who continue to be skeptical about election integrity in the wake of the contested 2020 election that saw Joe Biden officially elected president over Donald Trump. “If you have people saying that the country will not survive Trump, then your moral duty is to cheat. Right?” he asked rhetorically. “And you should cheat. Like if somebody believe is telling everybody that this person is a modern day Hitler, it is your duty to do whatever is possible to stop him. In fact, if you actually play by the rules, you’re a traitor. Right?”

Gutfeld

“So, they created a devil that was so big and so vast that made all actions permissible,” he continued. “And it made every institution as, as the judge was saying, subject to suspicion, right? So you can bury stories, you can create hoaxes, you can fund smears, it could go anywhere, because this person must be stopped. It’s Hitler! An existential threat. And so what happens is now we’re left and none of it’s true? And so we had a half a decade hoax that infected and undermined every institution because we are made to believe this person is evil.” “And then people make fun of people who are skeptical about an election,” he went on. “Why shouldn’t they be skeptical about an election when the DOJ and the FBI and the mainstream media and the tech companies and the Chamber of Commerce are all in on the same thing.”


“Why shouldn’t the election be called into question? Right?” he asked. “Shouldn’t a hero try to fix the election? Right? Shouldn’t a hero do that? If you’re up against Hitler, that’s where we ended up. And you can’t go and condemn people for so-called ‘conspiracy theories’ when you were going around telling everybody this guy was worse than Hitler. No.” The Fox News co-host’s rant flies in the face of the pivot of the network away from pro-Trump coverage and away from questioning the 2020 election following a $750 million dollar lawsuit settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. Tucker Carlson, who was depositioned for the lawsuit, lost his popular primetime cable news show in the fallout, leading some media observers to believe that it may in part be connected to his 2020 election coverage. Rupert Murdoch, Chairman of Fox Corporation, in his own deposition was highly critical of the Fox News’ coverage, even going so far as to state news “news networks should not knowingly broadcast lies.”

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“infiltration of the peace movement..”

“In many countries, the narrative that Russia is not the aggressor but the victim is on the rise..”

• Influence of ‘Russian Propaganda’ Growing – EU Official (RT)

EU member states should spend more money on “strategic communications” because “Russian propaganda” is affecting their people, a senior official from the bloc has said. RT must remain banned in the region, while “independent” Russian media based in European nations need support, EU Commissioner Vera Jourova added. The Czech politician and European Commission veteran, who currently serves as its vice president for values and transparency, expressed her concern about the growing popularity of Russian positions on issues like the conflict in Ukraine during an interview with German newspaper Bild on Sunday. “In many countries, the narrative that Russia is not the aggressor but the victim is on the rise,” Jourova told the outlet.

“In Slovakia, more than 50% of the population believe in conspiracy theories, including those about the Russian war of aggression. To this day, we underestimate the influence of Russian propaganda.” Moscow maintains that the conflict in Ukraine stems from NATO’s unchecked expansion in Europe and the failure of Western nations to heed Russian warnings about how it was perceived by the country. A last-ditch attempt to de-escalate the situation was taken by the Russian government in 2021, but it was told that its concerns were unfounded and that Ukraine had a right to seek membership of the US-led military organization. From Russia’s perspective, the conflict is part of a proxy war against it by the West. The problem with EU citizens agreeing with the Russian position is that Moscow “invests billions in its propaganda and we hardly do anything to counter it,” Jourova claimed. She urged member states to invest more in “strategic communications and the fight against disinformation.”

Germany, Jourova suggested, is a particularly important target for Russia. She said she was worried about “infiltration of the peace movement” in the country. “Claiming that anyone supplying arms is a warmonger is extremely dangerous,” she explained. “This only serves to weaken the support for Ukraine.” The commissioner praised the EU’s censorship of RT, describing the channel as “not a media outlet” but rather a “wartime propaganda weapon” that has no place in Europe. “We should instead support the independent Russian media,” she suggested. “Many of them are here in Berlin and in other European cities.” The vice president’s office is reportedly behind a push to introduce a law in the EU to crackdown on “foreign agents.” Politico reported on a survey of nonprofits in March, who were asked whether they had foreign sources of funding. This was conducted ahead of a legislative package intended to “defend democracy.”

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They’ll be flying ducks, so to speak..

• Aide Reveals Zelensky’s F-16 Wish List – Politico (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky wants the US and its allies to provide Kiev with between 40 and 50 F-16 fighter jets for use in its conflict with Russia, according to Yury Sak, an aide to Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov. This would be enough to form three or four squadrons of American-made fourth generation aircraft to protect the Ukrainian skies amid a large-scale Russian missile campaign, Sak told Politico on Monday. Kiev has been asking its Western backers for F-16s for months, but the need for the jets has become much more pressing since March, when Russia began using guided glide bombs that strike targets at greater distances, the adviser claimed. Ukraine currently has “nothing to stop” the Russian aircraft that launch those munitions, he admitted.

Zelensky has been touring Europe in the past week, visiting Italy, Germany, France and the UK in an attempt to ramp up military support for Ukraine. After talks with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday, the Ukrainian leader said he wanted to create a “jets coalition” of countries to facilitate the supply of F-16s to Kiev. “I’m very positive [about the plan]. We spoke about it and I see that in the closest time, you will hear some, I think, very important decisions – but we have to work a little bit more on it,” the Ukrainian president told reporters. London, Rome, Berlin and Paris don’t have F-16s to offer Ukraine but, according to Sak, those European powers “have an important voice in the international coalition.” Kiev wants them to “encourage” their allies, such as the US and Turkey, to make the deliveries, he explained.

Zelensky’s latest diplomatic efforts have resulted in him receiving “assurances” from Western leaders that they would address the issue of F-16s at the annual G7 meeting in Hiroshima, Japan this weekend. “Everybody understands that the topic is ripe for discussion. Nobody said that it’s impossible. If you compared it with three months ago, when we were still struggling to get tanks, today everybody is talking about the jet coalition – that’s a very promising sign,” Sak said. Russia has repeatedly warned that deliveries of more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine by the US and its allies could cross its ‘red lines’, which would lead to a major escalation. According to Moscow, the supply of arms, intelligence sharing and training provided to Kiev’s troops have already made Western nations de facto parties to the conflict.

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Let’s kill more young Ukrainians…

• UK Will Help Supply Ukraine With F-16s (RT)

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he would work to create an “international coalition” to provide Western fighter jets to Ukraine, pledging to bolster the country’s “combat air capabilities” alongside allies. In a statement issued following a meeting with Dutch PM Mark Rutte at a Council of Europe summit on Tuesday, Sunak’s office said the two leaders would take steps to help coordinate aircraft shipments to Kiev. “[Sunak] and Prime Minister Rutte agreed they would work to build [an] international coalition to provide Ukraine with combat air capabilities, supporting [it] with everything from training to procuring F16 jets,” 10 Downing Street said, stressing the “importance of allies providing long-term security assistance to Ukraine.” The prime minister did not specify what country might offer the American-made fighter jet, which is operated by more than two dozen nations, but suggested he would press allies to help facilitate the weapons transfers.

Ukrainian officials have requested the aircraft for months, with a senior Defense Ministry aide telling Politico on Monday that Kiev hopes to receive up to 50 F-16s from Washington and other partners. Since Moscow stepped up its use of guided glide bombs in March, the aide said Ukraine has “nothing to stop” Russian planes equipped with them. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky met with Sunak in an unannounced visit to the UK on Monday, where he called for a new “coalition of jets,” an idea well received by the British PM. The concept has been proposed by Kiev and other allies before, with Poland also voicing interest in such a project after providing some of its own Soviet-era MiG-29 fighters. Despite the renewed discussion of a jet coalition, some Western powers appear reluctant to supply advanced warplanes.

Though Ukrainian pilots are already being trained to operate the F-16 by the US military – and will soon receive similar instruction from British pilots – American, German and French officials have indicated they would not be willing to supply jets from their own arsenals. However, Washington has previously reversed course after declining to provide certain weapons systems, including the Patriot missile defense platform and the M1 Abrams main battle tank, both of which have since been pledged to Ukraine. Berlin, too, backtracked after refusing to transfer its Leopard 2 tank, agreeing to send the weapon earlier this year following pressure from allies. Russia has repeatedly warned that deliveries of more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine could cross its ‘red lines’ and lead to a major escalation. According to Moscow, the arms, intelligence and training provided to Kiev’s troops have already made Western nations de facto parties to the conflict.

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“These countries “had been pursuing an openly anti-Russian policy long before the current events in Ukraine.”

• NATO’s Military Policies In Ukraine Posed Real Threat To Russia – Envoy (TASS)

The threat to Russia resulting from NATO, US and Britain’s military policies in Ukraine was real, Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN headquarters in Geneva, said at the plenary session of the Conference on Disarmament on Tuesday. “The threat to Russia’s security from the military development of Ukraine’s territory was real and acute and similar to what the US itself experienced during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis,” he said. Gatilov dismissed as falsehoods the accusations made by the US and other NATO countries against Moscow to the effect that the conflict in Ukraine was allegedly “unprovoked aggression.” “In deciding on a special military operation Russia took into account many security factors,” the Russian envoy said. In this regard, Gatilov recalled “the Kiev regime’s agreement in principle to the accelerated strategic development of Ukrainian territory by the NATO ‘nuclear alliance’ hostile to Russia” as well as “our country’s two nuclear adversaries – the US and Britain.


These countries “had been pursuing an openly anti-Russian policy long before the current events in Ukraine.” “In this context, it is worth recalling London’s construction of a naval base in the Ukrainian port city of Ochakov, NATO’s anti-Russian exercise Sea Breeze in the summer of 2021, which ended with the reckless behavior of a British ship that came under fire from the Russian armed forces and was forced to retreat,” Gatilov said. Furthermore, he continued, in September 2020, the US Air Force “used the airspace over Ukrainian territory for familiarization flights by heavy US B-52 nuclear-capable strategic bombers.” The Russian envoy noted that Moscow had warned of “the unacceptability of these irresponsible and destabilizing actions” and proposed “various initiatives for preventing the emerging conflict”.

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It’s the women…

“..telegenic female leaders such as the Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, and Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, have increasingly served as the spokespersons of enlightened militarism in Europe..”

And the Estonian PM in the video.

• How NATO Seduced The European Left (Lily Lynch)

In January 2018, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg held an unprecedented press conference with Angelina Jolie. While InStyle reported that Jolie “was dressed in a black off-the-shoulder sheath dress, a matching capelet and classic pumps (also black)”, there was a deeper purpose to this meeting: sexual violence in war. The pair had just co-authored a piece for the Guardian entitled “Why NATO must defend women’s rights”. The timing was significant. At the height of the #MeToo movement, the most powerful military alliance in the world had become a feminist ally. “Ending gender-based violence is a vital issue of peace and security as well as of social justice,” they wrote. “NATO can be a leader in this effort.”

This was a new and progressive face for Nato, the same one it has since used to seduce much of the European Left. Previously, in the Nordic countries, Atlanticists have had to sell war and militarism to largely pacifist publics. This was achieved in part by presenting Nato not as a rapacious, pro-war military alliance, but as an enlightened, “progressive” peace alliance. As Timothy Garton Ash effused in the Guardian in 2002, “NATO has become a European peace movement” where one could watch “John Lennon meet George Bush”. Today, by contrast, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland abandoned their long-standing traditions of neutrality and opted for membership. Nato is portrayed as a military alliance -and Ukraine a war- that even former pacifists can get behind. All its proponents seem to be singing is “Give War a Chance”.

The Jolie campaign marked a dramatic turn in what Katharine A.M. Wright and Annika Bergman Rosamond call “Nato’s strategic narrative” in several ways. First, the alliance embraced celebrity star power for the first time, imbuing its unremarkable brand with elite glamour and beauty. Jolie’s star power meant that the alluring images of the event reached apolitical audiences with little knowledge of Nato. Second, the partnership seemed to usher in an era in which women’s rights, gendered violence and feminism would assume a more prominent role in Nato rhetoric. Since then, and especially in the past 12 months, telegenic female leaders such as the Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, and Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, have increasingly served as the spokespersons of enlightened militarism in Europe. The alliance has also intensified its engagement with popular culture, new technologies, and youth influencers.

[..] No political party in Europe better exemplifies the shift from militant pacifism to ardent pro-war Atlanticism than the German Greens. Most of the original Greens had been radicals during the student protests of 1968; many had demonstrated against American wars. The early Greens advocated for West Germany’s withdrawal from Nato. But as the founding members entered middle age, fissures began to appear in the party that would one day tear it apart. Two camps began to coalesce: the “Realos” were the moderate Greens, politically pragmatists. The “Fundis” were the radical, uncompromising camp; they wanted the party to remain faithful to its fundamental values no matter what.

Predictably, the Fundis believed that European peace would be best served by West Germany’s withdrawal from the alliance and tended to favour military neutrality. Meanwhile, the Realos believed that West Germany needed Nato. They even argued that withdrawal would return matters of security to the German nation-state and risk rekindling militaristic nationalism. Their Nato was a post-national, cosmopolitan alliance, speaking numerous languages and flying a multitude of flags, protecting Europe from Germany’s most destructive impulses. But Nato membership at the end of history was one thing. Germany going to war again — the most forbidden of taboos after World War II — was something else entirely.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1658588374511263746

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“..The minister also said that Ukraine “always” misidentifies munitions used by Russia in its media statements. “That’s why they miss them..”

• Ukraine Says It Shoots Down More Missiles Than Russia Fires – Shoigu (RT)

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has refuted claims made by Ukrainian military officials about shooting down six Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles during overnight strikes on targets near the country’s capital city of Kiev. Ukraine routinely exaggerates the effectiveness of its anti-aircraft defenses, primarily ‘intercepting’ incoming Russian munitions only with public statements, Shoigu told RIA Novosti. “I have already said that, and I will repeat it again. We have not launched as many ‘Kinzhals’ as they allegedly shoot down every time with their statements. Moreover, the number of these ‘Ukrainian interceptions’ – and who really mans the American [anti-aircraft] complexes there, is still a big question – is three times as high as what we actually launch,” Shoigu stated.

The minister also said that Ukraine “always” misidentifies munitions used by Russia in its media statements. “That’s why they miss them,” he added, without providing any further information on the number of missiles used in the latest barrage. Ukraine was subjected to a new massive missile and suicide drone barrage overnight, with the country’s capital city of Kiev seeing particularly intense activity by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses, footage circulating online suggests. Moscow and Kiev have provided drastically different accounts of what happened overnight. Kiev claimed that it had shot down six state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles over the capital, as well as other incoming projectiles, using a battery of the US-made Patriot air defense system.

The Russian military, however, said the battery was successfully hit by a Kinzhal missile. Footage available online shows multiple anti-aircraft missiles going towards an unseen target, with at least two explosions seen at the site from which they appeared to be launched. Western media reports suggested the Patriot battery in question was likely damaged in the strike. According to CNN, citing an unidentified US official, Washington is currently assessing the extent of the damage in order to determine whether the Patriots need to be pulled back or whether on-site repairs by Ukrainian forces would be enough.

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The unlikely story of Ukraine downing a Kizhal is very popular. This much more likely story, much less so.

• Russia Likely Damaged US-Made Patriot Missile Battery – CNN (RT)

A hypersonic missile strike by Russia has reportedly hit a US-supplied Patriot air-defense system in Kiev, potentially knocking the battery out of commission amid Moscow’s escalating attacks in western Ukraine. The Patriot system was likely damaged, but not destroyed, in a Russian missile barrage against Kiev on Tuesday morning, CNN reported, citing an unidentified US official. Washington is assessing the damage to determine whether the battery needs to be pulled back or repaired on site by Ukrainian forces, the outlet said. The report came hours after the Russian Defense Ministry announced that a hypersonic Kinzhal missile strike had destroyed a Patriot base in Kiev. Tuesday’s strikes also took out Ukrainian troop positions, munitions storage facilities, and Western-supplied weapons, the ministry said in a press briefing.

Ukrainian officials said earlier on Tuesday that they had intercepted six hypersonic missiles with their Patriot systems, a claim touted by Western media as proof that Kiev was thwarting a supposedly “unstoppable” Russian weapon. CNN said a US National Security Council spokesperson referred questions about the successful Russian strike to Ukrainian officials, who declined to comment on Moscow’s claim. Ukraine reportedly has two Patriot systems in operation – one supplied by the US and a battery provided jointly by Germany and the Netherlands. “Taking one out of commission, even for a short period, could affect Ukraine’s ability to defend Kiev amid intensifying Russian missile attacks,” CNN said. US officials told CNN last week that Moscow had targeted a Patriot system in a hypersonic strike earlier this month, but Ukrainian forces used the battery to intercept the Russian missile.

The outlet said Patriot batteries use a powerful radar to detect incoming threats at long range, enabling Russia’s military to pick up their signals and determine their location. Although the US military confirmed Ukraine’s claim of a successful missile intercept earlier this month, officials didn’t say whether the Kinzhal was flying at hypersonic speed at the time. Russia’s hypersonic missiles can travel at speeds up to Mach 12 (about 14,800 kilometers per hour) while performing evasive maneuvers, making them capable of penetrating any current air-defense systems. Missiles that fly at Mach 5 or above are classified as hypersonic. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was highly unlikely that Ukraine shot down a Kinzhal missile, which he described as having “absolutely unique characteristics.”

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“Zakharova wrote on Telegram: “Will the UN not notice that again?” The remarks are the latest in a string of bloodthirsty statements..”

• Ukraine’s Top Spy Admits Killing Russian Public Figures (RT)

Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) chief General Kirill Budanov has claimed responsibility for assassinating “many” Russian public figures. The spy boss made the bombshell admission in an interview with Ukrainian blogger Sergey Ivanov on Tuesday. Asked whether top Russian “propagandists,” such as prominent journalist Vladimir Solovyov or RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, are prime targets for his organization, Budanov responded that the GUR had already “gotten” multiple high profile targets. “We have already gotten many, including public and media personalities,” Budanov said, without providing any names.

Pressed further by the blogger on the potential involvement of the GUR in the assassination of Darya Dugina, a journalist and the daughter of prominent Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, or the recent car bombing of Russian author and political activist Zakhar Prilepin, the spy boss said he could “neither confirm nor deny” the involvement of his service. Budanov’s remarks were condemned by Moscow, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stating that they were a clear admission of wrongdoing. “Terrorists. Those who provide excuses for the Kiev regime and sponsor it are accomplices of terrorists,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram. “Will the UN not notice that again?” The remarks are the latest in a string of bloodthirsty statements made by the GUR boss amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev.

Earlier this month, Budanov declared, “We’ve been killing Russians, and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.” The pledge received an equally poor reception in Russia, with multiple top officials branding it an admission of engaging in state-level terrorism by Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, for instance, said Budanov’s statement was “unprecedented in its essence,” and it was “strange” to not hear any condemnation “from European capitals and from Washington.” “It’s evident that the Kiev regime is behind the killings, not only sponsoring them but organizing, inciting, and carrying them out. De facto, we’re talking about a state sponsor of terrorism,” Peskov concluded, warning that Russia’s “special services know what to do after such statements.”

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“..the US must “support those elements of the Turkish leadership that still exist and get more from them and embolden them to be able to take on and defeat Erdogan..”

• Erdogan Accuses Biden Of Attempt To Topple Him (Cradle)

On the eve of critical Turkiye’s elections, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his supporters that US President Joe Biden had given instructions to topple him, Rudaw reported on 14 May. “Biden gave the instructions saying ‘we have to topple Erdogan.’ I know this. All my people know this. Tomorrow the ballots will give Biden an answer as well,” Erdogan said during an election rally in Istanbul on Saturday, 13 May, the day before voting began. At the rally, Erdogan also criticized his challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), who had accused Russia of spreading fabricated videos and fake content online to damage his campaign to unseat Erdogan. Erdogan said Russia is a crucial ally in the agriculture, defense, and tourism sectors, but NATO member Turkiye has also sold weapons and arms, including drones, to Ukraine in its war with Russia. In Sunday’s widely anticipated voting, Erdogan received 49.40 percent of the votes, while Kilicdaroglu received 44.96 percent.


However, neither candidate received the required 50% of votes to avoid a second round runoff vote, which will now take place in two weeks to determine Turkiye’s next president. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Biden described Erdogan as an autocrat and claimed his relationship with the Turkish president had deteriorated significantly. Biden explained, as a result, that his “comfort level [about having nuclear weapons in Turkiye] is diminished a great deal.” Biden stated that Erdogan needs to better integrate the country’s Kurdish population via participation in parliamentary elections and that the US must “support those elements of the Turkish leadership that still exist and get more from them and embolden them to be able to take on and defeat Erdogan. Not by a coup, not by a coup, but by the electoral process.”

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More empty gestures.

• US May Designate Russia As State Sponsor Of Terrorism (Az.)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Department of State would not rule out designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism for its accused atrocities in Ukraine. Report informs that, according to CNN, in an angry line of questioning at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on China on May 16, Sen. Lindsey Graham asked Blinken: “You’re never going to designate Russian state sponsored terrorism, are you?” Blinken quickly responded, “never say never.” Lawmakers and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly put pressure on the Biden administration to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terror, but the Biden administration has not taken that action out of concern for unintended consequences.

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“..he has also expressed doubt that distancing himself from Putin “would do any good.”

• German ex-Chancellor’s Wife Fired For Attending May 9 Celebration (RT)

The wife of former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, So-yeon Schroeder-Kim, has been fired from her position at a business development agency after visiting the Russian Embassy in Berlin to celebrate Victory Day. “Ms. Schroeder-Kim has been released with immediate effect, and the employment relationship will now be terminated by NRW.GlobalBusiness without notice,” a spokeswoman for NRW told German media on Tuesday. The company explained that it had on several occasions explicitly told Schroeder-Kim, who worked there as a representative for South Korea, that she should “not speak out in public on politically sensitive topics,” particularly with regard to Russia and the situation in Ukraine.

The move comes after Schroeder-Kim and her husband visited the Russian Embassy on May 9 to attend a reception dedicated to the 78th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. The event was also attended by other German politicians, including co-chairman of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party Tino Chrupalla, and chairman of the Bundestag committee on climate protection and energy and member of the Left Party Klaus Ernst. Schroeder himself has also faced backlash for maintaining close ties with Moscow. The former chancellor forged friendly relations with Russia during his time in office between 1998 and 2005, and has kept in contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout the years. Although Schroeder has repeatedly spoken out against Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, he has also expressed doubt that distancing himself from Putin “would do any good.”

Shortly after Moscow launched its military campaign, Schroeder personally traveled to Moscow to meet with Putin. He has insisted since that Russia sought a negotiated solution to the ongoing conflict and had vowed to keep seeking “opportunities to talk to President Putin.” The former chancellor’s stance has put him at odds with other members of the ruling Social Democrats Party (SPD), some members of which have recently unsuccessfully demanded his expulsion. The SPD did, however, manage to strip the former leader of his parliamentary privileges last year. Under current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the SPD has sought to reduce the country’s ties with Russia and its reliance on Russian energy. Berlin, under Scholz’s leadership, has also sent billions of dollars worth of military aid to Kiev’s forces throughout the past year.

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“I wish we could have just a normal human being as president.”

• Musk: I’ll Say What I Want And If The Consequence Is Losing Money, So Be It (ZH)

Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk sat down for an hour-long candid, sprawling interview with CNBC’s David Faber on Tuesday following Tesla’s 2023 annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas. Among many other things, Musk reflected on: Accusations from the left over his tweets which have been criticized as lending credence to conspiracies about George Soros and a recent mass shooting event in Allen, Texas, insisting “I’ll say what I want, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it.”


Clearly this displeased Musk’s critics, who can’t comprehend how someone who hopes to receive major ad dollars (and thus be beholden to the largest US corporations via advertising channel) can speak his mind. In fact, according to Bethany McLean, “Elon Musk sounds like a spoiled child when he talks about free speech,” adding that “If you run a business that depends on advertisers you might have to think about it a little bit differently and Musk seems utterly unwilling to make that distinction.” Translation: if you run a business that depends on advertisers, you can’t say anything your advertisers disagree with. Which of course is another way of being subject to the censorship of the establishment, and why traditional media is always silent when certain interests – be it of generous advertisers like Pfizer, or the Deep State, or the Bidens, or the Clintons, etc – are in question.

Musk defended what Faber said was the spreading of “conspiracy theories” by countering that pointing out that so many of these “conspiracy theories have turned out to be true”, and pointed to the Hunter Biden laptop suppression story, which was an example of “election interference.” Naturally, the question of Musk calling George Soros Magnito came up. An incongruous Faber asks where that tweet came from, to which Musk replies “that is my opinion.” Faber then pressed: “why share it” if it could lead to less revenue/sales, and do your tweets “hurt the company”; Musk responds with a quote from the Princess Bride: “offer me money; offer me power. I don’t care.” The sad fact is that all of Musk’s peers in the media world, who aren’t independently wealthy and who do care about money (and power) will gladly be PR agents for their advertising sponsors, pretending to be independent media outlets.


How he has managed a takeover of Twitter so far and what lies ahead. Among other things, he said Twitter’s Community Notes feature has cost Twitter $40 million in business when two big clients reduced spending after their ads received community notes accusing them of false advertising. He also claimed that when the acquisition closed, Twitter had negative $3 billion in annual cash flow and $1 billion in the bank. “The analogy I was using was like being teleported into a plane that’s in a nosedive headed to the ground with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work….” Musk said he voted for Biden but hinted he wasn’t happy with his choice, saying “I wish we could have just a normal human being as president.” Asked if he believes the 2020 election was stolen, Musk said no, but countered that there certainly has been election fraud. Musk even slammed the obvious CIA front Bellingcat. Discussing the recent Texas shooting, Musk said the shooter was “incorrectly described to be a white supremacist. The company that found this is Belingcat. Do you know what Belingcat is? A company that does Psyops.”

Errol Musk
https://twitter.com/i/status/1658536557890895873

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Nordstream evidence

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spots

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 28 2022

Jan 282022
 
 January 28, 2022  Posted by at 9:12 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  78 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Bust of woman with arms raised 1922

 

• White House Calls CNN Report On Russian Invasion ‘Completely False’ (RT)
• The Covid Evidence Dismissed By The BBC As ‘Conspiracy-laden’ (Beck)
• The High Cost of Disparaging Natural Immunity to Covid (Makary)
• 4 Out of 5 Americans Have Covid ‘Natural Immunity’ (KB)
• Denmark Declares Covid-19 No Longer ‘Socially Critical Disease’ (TH)
• Sweden Opts Against Covid Jabs For Children (RT)
• Vaccine Failure In Two Charts And Two Graphs From Four Countries (Berenson)
• Most Covid Patients In Wales In Hospital For Other Conditions (BBC)
• Biden Admin Used Billions In Hospital Covid-19 Funds To Pay Drugmakers (STAT)
• The Folly of Pandemic Censorship (Taibbi)
• Joe Rogan, Elon Musk React To Canadian Trucker Convoy (RT)
• Truckers Inspired By Canada Begin ‘Freedom’ Convoys Around The World (JTN)
• Musk Unloads On ‘Puppet’ Biden In Twitter Rant (RT)
• China Warns US Over Ukraine & Blasts “Interference” In Beijing Olympics (ZH)
• Why Do American Elites Want War in Ukraine? (Kassam)
• What Did Clinton Know and When Did She Know It? (Sperry)

 

 

 

 

US military: average per year 1.7 million reports of all diseases combined. First 10 months 2021: 22 million.

 

 

Scary indeed.

Ryan Cole

 

 

Natasha Bertrand posted a story about a Biden-Zelensky call that didn’t go well, but deleted it soon afterward. Still, people from the White House, Ukraine and CNN itself reacted to it. Was it all for clickbait?

• White House Calls CNN Report On Russian Invasion ‘Completely False’ (RT)

The White House has pushed back on a CNN report about Thursday’s phone call between US President Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, calling it “completely false.” “President Biden said that there is a distinct possibility that the Russians could invade Ukraine in February. He has previously said this publicly and we have been warning about this for months. Reports of anything more or different than that are completely false,” Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, tweeted on Thursday evening. She was responding to a tweet by CNN’s senior national security correspondent Alexander Marquardt, who was quoting his colleague in Kiev, Matthew Chance.

“A Russian invasion is now virtually certain once the ground freezes, Biden said to Zelensky, a senior Ukrainian official told [Chance]. Kyiv could be ‘sacked,’ Russian forces may attempt to occupy it, ‘prepare for impact’, Biden said, according to this official,” Marquardt tweeted. CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper had Chance cite “the Ukrainian official” live on air. “The capital, Kiev, this city here, could be “sacked.” That’s the word he [Biden] apparently used, according to this Ukrainian official. [It could be] sacked by Russian forces,” Chance told Tapper. Chance went on to quote what he called a “quite impactful line” from the Biden-Zelensky call as narrated to him by the anonymous Ukrainian official. “President Biden [was] telling his Ukrainian counterpart that Ukraine should prepare for impact. Quite a stark warning there from the US leader.”

The quote was quickly picked up by other outlets, such as the Independent, the Express and the Daily Mail. Meanwhile, CNN anchor Jim Sciutto quoted Horne as saying that “anonymous sources are ‘leaking’ falsehoods” about the call. Zelensky’s spokesman Sergii Nykyforov likewise dismissed reports citing the alleged “senior Ukranian official” as “completely false.” “Correct information can only be found in official releases from the Ukrainian and American sides,” he stated.

Phone call

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The UK Yellow Card system fails as badly as VAERS. And that is not a coincidence. It takes 40 minutes to fill out a form.

• The Covid Evidence Dismissed By The BBC As ‘Conspiracy-laden’ (Beck)

Ms Bayliss has been gathering witness statements from those who allege they are vaccine-injured, and from potential expert witnesses in the US and the UK. She said: ‘We have subsequently uploaded 103 statements regarding vaccine associated deaths and injury, and 13 from identifiable whistleblowers, medical experts and scientists.’ To build his case, Mr Hyland investigated our medicines regulatory authority, specifically the alleged negligence of June Raine, chief executive of the MHRA. He said: ‘The charge against the MHRA is that they negligently conducted themselves and have caused British citizens real harm and suffering. ‘They have failed to act on any of the Yellow Card reports they have received. There are currently 2,000 deaths reported and 500,000 adverse events. They should have stopped the programme before the deaths reached 100 and launched a thorough investigation.’

The Yellow Card data show that 1 in 120 people have reported an event they considered serious enough to spend 40 minutes filling out a Yellow Card form. ‘This may be just the tip of the iceberg,’ said Ms Bayliss, ‘as the MHRA admit they receive information from around 10 per cent of those damaged.’ The figure is low because some doctors find they cannot access the Yellow Card scheme from their hospital computers, while others do not know about it. Members of the public are generally not informed about Yellow Card and most who complain to their GP that they think they have suffered a serious adverse event are told that the vaccine is an unlikely cause and their symptoms are put down to ‘coincidence’, as the Royal College of General Practitioners has not issued them with any advice.

If the coincidence theory held water, you would expect an even spread of reports across the three vaccinations used in Britain. We have Pfizer-BioNTech’s experimental mRNA jab introduced in December 2020, and Oxford/AstraZeneca’s more traditional one which has been available since January 2021. Plus the new kid on the block, Moderna’s mRNA jab introduced in April 2021. Although we began using it four months after Pfizer and three months after AstraZeneca, Moderna is clocking up 50 per cent more Yellow Cards than AZ, who have 60 per cent more reported injuries than Pfizer. Oxford/AstraZeneca has been received by 24.9million people and the Yellow Card scheme shows that 1 in 103 have been impacted, while Pfizer-BioNTech’s has been received by 25.3million people and Yellow Card shows that 1 in 162 people have been impacted.

Moderna has been given to 1.6million people and its Yellow Card reporting rate shows that 1 in 50 people have been impacted. On average, 1 in 120 people have suffered an adverse reaction. ‘In our view, we have enough evidence to show gross negligence,’ said Mr Hyland. ‘It is clear that the MHRA have failed to follow up concerns about vaccine injury and they failed to withdraw harmful batches when they knew about the issues. ‘They also exaggerated the risk of Covid by failing to distinguish the difference between dying with Covid, which is when someone has other illnesses, or of Covid, which is when the patient has no other illnesses.’ Covid-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has a low fatality rate: less than one per cent of those who contract it. The Office of National Statistics has revealed under a Freedom of Information request that only 13,597 deaths in England and Wales out of 140,000 attributed to Covid were caused by Covid alone. The bulk of deaths were of people with comorbidities.

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The immune system works.

• The High Cost of Disparaging Natural Immunity to Covid (Makary)

For most of last year, many of us called for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release its data on reinfection rates, but the agency refused. Finally last week, the CDC released data from New York and California, which demonstrated natural immunity was 2.8 times as effective in preventing hospitalization and 3.3 to 4.7 times as effective in preventing Covid infection compared with vaccination. Yet the CDC spun the report to fit its narrative, bannering the conclusion “vaccination remains the safest strategy.” It based this conclusion on the finding that hybrid immunity—the combination of prior infection and vaccination—was associated with a slightly lower risk of testing positive for Covid. But those with hybrid immunity had a similar low rate of hospitalization (3 per 10,000) to those with natural immunity alone. In other words, vaccinating people who had already had Covid didn’t significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization.

Similarly, the National Institutes of Health repeatedly has dismissed natural immunity by arguing that its duration is unknown—then failing to conduct studies to answer the question. Because of the NIH’s inaction, my Johns Hopkins colleagues and I conducted the study. We found that among 295 unvaccinated people who previously had Covid, antibodies were present in 99% of them up to nearly two years after infection. We also found that natural immunity developed from prior variants reduced the risk of infection with the Omicron variant. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of the two-dose Moderna vaccine against infection (not severe disease) declines to 61% against Delta and 16% against Omicron at six months, according to a recent Kaiser Southern California study. In general, Pfizer’s Covid vaccines have been less effective than Moderna’s.

The CDC study and ours confirm what more than 100 other studies on natural immunity have found: The immune system works. The largest of these studies, from Israel, found that natural immunity was 27 times as effective as vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic illness. None of this should surprise us. For years, studies have shown that infection with the other coronaviruses that cause severe illness, SARS and MERS, confers lasting immunity. In a study published in May 2020, Covid-recovered monkeys that were rechallenged with the virus didn’t get sick. Public-health officials have a lot of explaining to do. They used the wrong starting hypothesis, ignored contrary preliminary data, and dug in as more evidence emerged that called their position into question.

Many, including Rochelle Walensky, now the CDC’s director, signed the John Snow memorandum in October 2020, which declared that “there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection.” Many clinicians who talk to other physicians nationwide had have long observed that we don’t see reinfected patients end up on a ventilator or die from Covid, with rare exceptions who almost always have immune disorders. Meanwhile, public-health officials recklessly destroyed the careers of everyday Americans, rallying to fire pilots, truck drivers and others in the supply-chain workforce who didn’t get vaccinated. And in the early months of the vaccine rollout, when supplies were limited, we could have saved many more lives by giving priority to those who didn’t have recorded natural immunity.

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The Great Barrington guys also come from Yale, Harvard, and Stanford. And look what Collins and Fauci did to them.

• 4 Out of 5 Americans Have Covid ‘Natural Immunity’ (KB)

In the United States, the media barely mention Covid prior infections or the existence of natural immunity. But a CDC-sponsored database in partnership with Yale, Harvard, and Stanford universities shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans have natural immunity from prior infections, Wildfire can exclusively report. The CDC released a study last week called “COVID-19 Cases and Hospitalizations by COVID-19 Vaccination Status and Previous COVID-19 Diagnosis — California and New York, May–November 2021.” The findings were reported by Agence France-Presse. “During America’s last surge of the coronavirus driven by the Delta variant, people who were unvaccinated but survived Covid were better protected than those who were vaccinated and not previously infected,” AFP noted about the new study.


“The finding is the latest to weigh in on a debate on the relative strengths of natural versus vaccine-acquired immunity against SARS-CoV-2, but comes this time with the imprimatur of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),” AFP added. The U.K.’s Health Security Agency (UKHSA), issued a report that echoes much of the CDC’s findings on natural immunity. It showed that those with prior infections to Covid were much less likely to test positive for Covid infections than those in the vaccinated groups. Those with prior infections even in the pre-Alpha period were tested to have natural immunity roughly equivalent to those with vaccinated immunity acquired from three shots. The UKHSA report also showed that nearly the entire population of Great Britain has some form of antibodies to Covid-19.

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Poof!

• Denmark Declares Covid-19 No Longer ‘Socially Critical Disease’ (TH)

As some countries double down on punishing the unvaccinated and continue with draconian Covid-19 restrictions, Denmark has taken the opposite approach, announcing Wednesday that all safety measures will be lifted next week. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the Nordic country is reclassifying Covid-19; it will no longer be considered a “socially critical disease.” “Tonight we can shrug our shoulders and find the smile again. We have incredibly good news, we can now remove the last coronavirus restrictions in Denmark,” Frederiksen said at a press conference. Frederiksen acknowledged that the decision may seem unusual as Omicron infections are spiking in the country, with 46,000 new Covid cases reported on Wednesday.


“Recent weeks have seen very high infection rates, in fact the highest in the entire pandemic,” she noted. “Therefore, it may seem strange and paradoxical that we are now ready to let go of the restrictions.” Health Minister Magnus Heunicke pointed to high rates of vaccination and fewer hospitalizations as the reasons officials have taken this approach. “The situation in Denmark is that we have this decoupling between infections and intensive care patients, and it is mainly due to the large attachment among Danes to revaccination. That is the reason why it is safe and the right thing to do now,” Heunicke said. The UK, Ireland and the Netherlands have all taken a similar approach.

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For children 5-11 years old. Fauci wants 3 jabs each for every kid over 6 months.

• Sweden Opts Against Covid Jabs For Children (RT)

The Sweden Public Health Agency on Thursday announced that it had opted against following some western countries in endorsing vaccination against Covid-19 for children 5-11 years old. Administering shots in that age group wouldn’t have a major effect on the spread of Covid-19 and would offer little medical benefit to the individual children receiving them, the agency said in its guidance for the upcoming spring term. “With the knowledge we have today, with a low risk for serious disease for kids, we don’t see any clear benefit with vaccinating them,” agency official Britta Bjorkholm told reporters. The decision may be revisited if new information becomes available or a new variant of the virus changes the risk-reward analysis for vaccinating children.


Sweden’s decision is contrary to a trend toward countries approving vaccination of younger and younger children, especially with Covid-19’s Omicron variant spreading rapidly. Such counties as Germany, France, Italy and Spain have approved jabs for children as young as 5. In the US, chief White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters on Wednesday that he expects three-dose regimens to eventually be approved for children as young as 6 months old. Proponents of vaccinating children have argued that even though risks of serious illness or death from Covid-19 are relatively low in young people, they can spread the virus to more vulnerable segments of the population. Swedish health officials, however, argue that vaccinating small kids would entails no great benefit – either to them or to the people around them. “A general vaccination from the age of 5 is also not expected to have any major effect on the spread of infection at present, neither in the group of children aged 5–11 nor among other groups in the population,” the Public Health Agency said.

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Here’s two of them. It’s repeated everywhere. The vaccinated are dying.

• Vaccine Failure In Two Charts And Two Graphs From Four Countries (Berenson)

I could make the long case about original antigenic sin, falling antibodies, the issues around cellular immunity, myocarditis, and all the rest. But I’m just going to offer these four images because they speak more clearly than anything I could say. Scotland, Britain, Israel, and Denmark are four of the world’s most highly vaccinated countries. They all have 90 percent adult Covid vaccination rates and 60 percent adult boosters. Yet the vast majority of deaths are occurring in vaccinated people; serious cases are soaring; and infections are almost literally off the charts. This is Covid vaccine failure at the most profound and basic level.


SCOTLAND: Covid death rates (RATES, not raw numbers) by vaccination status for the last four weeks. Death rates in vaccinated but unboosted people have been higher than rates in the unvaccinated each week. Also, 87 percent of total deaths occurred in vaccinated people in the most recent week:

BRITAIN: (the data in the British chart below is United Kingdom-wide and thus includes Scotland – some British readers asked me to make that clear.) Covid deaths by vaccination status in the most recent four weeks (2,845 out of the 3,860 people for whom vaccine status could be determined were vaccinated – 74 percent):

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But you still label them Covid patients?

• Most Covid Patients In Wales In Hospital For Other Conditions (BBC)

Well over half of patients with confirmed cases of Covid in hospital in Wales are being treated for other conditions, official figures show for the first time. A total of 42.2% of confirmed Covid patients were being “actively” treated for it on Tuesday. This means nearly six out of 10 are “incidental” Covid patients being treated for other conditions. Meanwhile, Covid hospital figures continue to fall. The number of patients being treated primarily for Covid is far higher for those in critical care – nearly 90%, according to Digital Health and Care Wales. The average for the last week for Covid patients is just over 40% being treated primarily for the virus.


Even though patients might “incidentally” have Covid, it does not mean that it cannot add complications to their health or treatment, and it still presents challenges for patient management for hospitals. Meanwhile, there were another 220 patients who “probably” or “definitely” caught Covid while in hospital, according to Public Health Wales figures for the last week. The daily average number of Covid patients in hospital beds dropped for the 12th day in a row to 560 on Wednesday, according to Digital Health and Care Wales. The daily average for those patients in critical care or on invasive ventilation with Covid has also fallen to 22 – the lowest figure since 11 August. Daily Covid admissions are also still falling, down to 27 a day.

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The big hospitals are fine. The smaller ones, not so much.

• Biden Admin Used Billions In Hospital Covid-19 Funds To Pay Drugmakers (STAT)

The Biden administration quietly took nearly $7 billion from a fund meant to help hospitals and clinics affected by the pandemic and used it to buy Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics, according to a document obtained by STAT. The move is similar to the Trump administration’s decision to divert $10 billion from the same fund to Operation Warp Speed, which STAT reported exclusively in March. Now, the hospital money, known as the Provider Relief Fund, has run dry, and has no new money left to allocate, according to the agency that administers it. Providers have only been able to submit requests for expenses incurred through March 2021 — before both the Delta and Omicron surges battered the health care system.

With the new $7 billion shift, which has not been previously reported, the diversion to drugmakers totals nearly $17 billion, or roughly 10% of the overall money Congress allotted for the fund for hospitals and physician practices. Congress set aside that money to help health care providers pay for pandemic-related expenses including staffing, personal protective equipment, care for uninsured patients, and vaccine distribution. The new details about the Biden administration’s spending decision come as hospitals across the country are struggling with a crushing surge of Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths due to the Omicron variant. And their representatives in Washington are furious.

[..] A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said using the money to pay drugmakers for contracts was a reasonable use of the hospital and clinic funds because the vaccines and therapeutics purchased were given to providers at no cost. “All Provider Relief Fund dollars have been used for Provider Relief Fund purposes,” the spokesperson said. However, there is no transparency into which contracts the money was used for, and where those products were distributed. Government watchdog reports offer clues to the timeline of the spending. As of March 1, 2021, $10 billion had been used to pay drugmakers. By Aug. 31, that number jumped to $14.8 billion. And per the document obtained by STAT, the total is $16.7 billion through Dec. 23.

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“People know authorities lie, which is why the more they clamp down, the bigger their trust problem usually becomes. ”

• The Folly of Pandemic Censorship (Taibbi)

NIAID director Anthony Fauci has told three different stories about masks, including an episode in which he essentially claimed to have lied to us for our own good, in order to preserve masks for frontline workers — what Slate called one of the “Noble lies about Covid-19.” Officials turned out to be wrong about cloth masks anyway. Here is Fauci again on the issue of what to tell the public about how many people would need to be vaccinated to achieve “herd immunity,” casually explaining the logic of lying to the public for its sake: “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent. Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, “I can nudge this up a bit,” so I went to 80, 85.”

We’ve seen sudden changes in official positions on the efficacy of ventilators and lockdowns, on the dangers (or lack thereof) of opening schools, and on the risks, however small, of vaccine side effects like myocarditis. The CDC also just released data showing natural immunity to be more effective in preventing hospitalization and in preventing infection than vaccination. The government had previously said, over and over, that vaccination is preferable to natural immunity (here’s NIH director Francis Collins telling that to Bret Baier unequivocally in August). This was apparently another “noble lie,” designed to inspire people to get vaccinated, that mostly just convinced people to wonder if any official statements can be trusted.

To me, the story most illustrative of the problem inherent in policing “Covid misinformation” involves a town hall by Joe Biden from July 21 of last year. In it, the president said bluntly, “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations,” pretty much the definition of Covid misinformation: It was bad enough when, a month later, the CDC released figures showing 25% of a sample of 43,000 Covid cases involved fully vaccinated people. Far worse was a fact-check by Politifact, which judged Biden’s clearly wrong statement “half true.” “It is rare for people who are fully vaccinated to contract COVID-19, but it does happen,” the site wrote. They then cited CDC data as backup.

“The data that the CDC collected before May 1 show that, of 101 million people vaccinated in the U.S., 10,262 (0.01%) experienced breakthrough cases.” Politifact’s “bottom line”: Biden “exaggerated,” but “cases are rare.” Anyone paying attention to that story will now distrust the president, the CDC, and “reputable” mainstream fact-checkers like the Pew Center’s Politifact. These are the exact sort of authorities whose guidance sites like the Center for Countering Digital Hate will rely upon when trying to pressure companies like Substack to remove certain voices.

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Big campaign to vilify the truckers. Trudeau, had Covid and is well jabbed, happens to get infected and goes in hiding for 5 days, to avoid the PR mess.

• Joe Rogan, Elon Musk React To Canadian Trucker Convoy (RT)

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk and podcaster Joe Rogan have spoken about the Canadian truckers driving across the country to protest the government’s Covid-19 mandates, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced them as a “fringe minority” with “unacceptable views.” “Canadian truckers rule,” Musk tweeted on Thursday afternoon. The ‘Freedom Convoy’ that set out from British Columbia and is expected to reach the Canadian capital of Ottawa sometime this weekend was ignored by the major media outlets at first. As it approached Ontario, however, the convoy became a political football. Trudeau denounced the truckers and said they “do not represent the views of Canadians” in a televised speech on Wednesday.

On Thursday morning, he announced he had been “exposed” to Covid-19 and would quarantine for five days – thereby missing the convoy’s arrival in Ottawa – even though he has already had the virus and been vaccinated and boosted. Jagmeet Singh, whose New Democrats are propping up Trudeau’s minority government, also condemned the truckers and accused them of spreading “false information” via “inflammatory, divisive and hateful comments.” He also criticized his brother-in-law for donating to the protest. Canadian media reported that Jodhveer Singh Dhaliwal had asked for his donation back after being told of “the true nature” of the convoy.


[..] Benjamin Dichter, one of the organizers of the ‘Freedom Convoy’ and the group’s official spokesman, said they are peaceful and law-abiding. He told the Toronto Sun that the convoy is a protest over Trudeau’s government forcing drivers to wear masks even when alone inside their trucks, a vaccine mandate, and a requirement to get the jab before crossing the US-Canada border. Dichter also denied reports that GoFundMe has frozen some Can$5 million in donations for the convoy, calling them “fake news.” Joe Rogan, who hosts the immensely popular podcast on Spotify, also shone a spotlight on the convoy during his show on Wednesday. Speaking to a guest from Montreal, he showed footage of the truckers and described it as Canada being “in revolt” over the government’s mandates. “It’s a giant convoy of trucks,” Rogan said. “That’s apparently some insane amount of people. Fifty thousand trucks are headed to Ottawa to protest the vaccine mandates by Trudeau.”

Canada: We’re Not Gonna Take it!

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My guess would be Canada won’t be repeated. The truckers also want to block US-Canada border crossings.

• Truckers Inspired By Canada Begin ‘Freedom’ Convoys Around The World (JTN)

Truckers around the world are creating their own convoys to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates after being inspired by the Canadian Freedom Convoy, which reportedly has thousands of trucks. Freedom Convoy 2022, the group that organized the Canadian trucker protest, reported initially having 1,600 trucks. The convoy, which now has nearly 50,000 trucks, will be in Ottowa by Saturday with the goal of getting “the government of Canada to repeal its cross border Covid tracking passport / phone app and ALL Covid-19 vaccine mandates,” according to a press release. The Canadian convoy has reportedly been joined by some American truckers and in Ontario, farmers came in tractors to show support. Both the United States and Canada mandate cross-border truckers to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Americans are invited to also protest the mandate this Saturday at three border locations: Houlton, Maine; Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; and Sweet Grass, Montana. In Australia, the “2022 Official Convoy to Canberra” has more than 44,000 members on Facebook and more than 10,000 followers on Telegram as of Thursday. The group is planning to meet in the capital by Jan. 31 to protest vaccine mandates. European truckers are organizing to protest vaccine mandates as well. The European Convoy Telegram channel has more than 7,300 members. Truckers are organizing across Europe, including the Netherlands, France, Hungary and more, to converge on Brussels by Feb. 7. The truckers have received an outpouring of support from celebrities as well.

Entrepreneur Elon Musk, one of the wealthiest men in the world tweeted his support for the convoy. “Canadian truckers rule,” he said, later adding: “If you scare people enough, they will demand removal of freedom. This is the path to tyranny.”

Trudeau hiding
https://twitter.com/i/status/1486870820177649666

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“Last year, the United Auto Workers union said Ford “put corporate greed and more potential profits over American jobs”..”

• Musk Unloads On ‘Puppet’ Biden In Twitter Rant (RT)

Tesla tycoon Elon Musk referred to Joe Biden as a “damp sock puppet in human form” on Thursday, in response to the US president’s photo-op with General Motors chair Mary Barra. In the video, which was posted on Biden’s official Twitter account on Wednesday evening, the president praised GM’s investment in electric vehicle manufacturing as a blow to climate change. Responding to the message, Musk argued that electric vehicle manufacturing in the US “Starts with a T / Ends with an A / ESL in the middle.” He then took a dig at the president, completing his tweet with a “sock” emoji.

Musk also claimed that Biden was “treating the American public like fools” while responding to another Twitter user, who argued that Biden was “trying to cancel a great American company and rewrite EV history” by endorsing GM and Ford. Amateur fact-checkers pounced on the thread to back up Musk, posting data that shows Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3 were by far the top-selling electric vehicles in the US – and both made domestically. GM’s Bolt came in at a distant fourth place in 2021, with Ford’s Mustang Mach-E beating it out for third place, according to Car & Driver. In a video with Barra, Biden wrote that “companies like GM and Ford are building more electric vehicles here at home than ever before,” while Barra announced a $7 billion investment in Michigan along with a battery cell plant to be opened in the US.


At least some of Ford’s electric vehicles are manufactured in Mexico, not the US. Last year, the United Auto Workers union said Ford “put corporate greed and more potential profits over American jobs” with a plan to build a new electric model in Mexico, rather than in Ohio.

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1 week till Olympics. Xi is nervous.

• China Warns US Over Ukraine & Blasts “Interference” In Beijing Olympics (ZH)

China on Thursday blasted the US for continuing to interfere in its affairs, further saying nothing has fundamentally changed, but instead charging there’s been “new shocks” since the Biden-Xi virtual summit of two months ago. The scathing rebuke came on Thursday as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a phone call with his counterpart Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Importantly, Wang took the opportunity to for the first time side with Russia in the direct communication with the US top diplomat, saying Moscow has “reasonable security concerns” over Ukraine that must be “taken seriously”. Chinese state media and Beijing-linked pundits have also become increasingly vocal on the issue, charging NATO with overstepping…

He urged calm on the part of all sides but specifically called on the West to “abandon its Cold War mentality”. It’s been no secret that Washington sanctions and punitive actions against officials in both countries have served to make Russia and China unlikely allies against a common enemy. “All parties should completely abandon the Cold War mentality and form a balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism through negotiation,” Wang spelled out in the call with Blinken, according to AFP. The tough rhetoric echoed the words of Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian during a Wednesday press briefing. In response to US claims that Russia is likely to invade Ukraine during the Beijing Winter Olympics, Zhao said,

“As the world’s largest military alliance, NATO should abandon the outdated Cold War mentality and ideological bias, and do things that are conducive to upholding peace and stability.” He suggested that NATO is outdated and contributes to instability: “China firmly opposes all kinds of small cliques,” he added, and urged “fully consider each other’s legitimate security concerns, avoid antagonism and confrontation, and properly address differences and disputes through equal consultation on the basis of mutual respect.”

Wang focused much of his Thursday call with Blinken on the “urgent priority” that the “US should stop interfering in the Beijing Winter Olympics.” The swipe appeared not just aimed at Washington’s continued emphasis on China’s human rights abuses, including allegations of detention centers and “genocide” targeting Uighur Muslims, but in response to the words the day prior from Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. Sherman had unexpectedly linked the Ukraine crisis with the Olympic games hosted by China: “We all are aware that the Beijing Olympics begin on Feb. 4, the opening ceremony, and President Putin expects to be there. I think that, probably, [Chinese] President Xi Jinping would not be ecstatic if Putin chose that moment to invade Ukraine, so that may affect his timing and his thinking,” Sherman said in a virtual conference.

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“Putin is the devil and Russia subverted American democracy” has become a moralistic mantra for every Biden booster and Foggy Bottom staffer.”

• Why Do American Elites Want War in Ukraine? (Kassam)

George Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn (1941) contains the following description of the English elite: “One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed…. What is to be expected of them is not treachery or physical cowardice, but stupidity, unconscious sabotage, an infallible instinct for doing the wrong thing. They are not wicked, or not altogether wicked; they are merely unteachable. Only when their money and power are gone will the younger among them begin to grasp what century they are living in.”

America’s own ruling class has more than its share of the unteachable types, as well as the cynical scoundrelism of Orwell’s description of the U.S. ruling elite as “mere bandits…consciously clinging to unjust privileges and beating down opposition by bribery and tear-gas bombs.” And when it’s not bombs at home, it’s bombs away. Or perhaps in Joe Biden’s case, both. The current president is perhaps the leading exemplar of American banditry, coupling treachery with an infallible instinct for doing the wrong thing. His own former boss, President Barack Obama, is said to have remarked upon his Vice President’s “ability to f*** things up.” And that ability has not diminished with time.

So, of course, to war. Whether in lock-step or goose-step, the rest of the ruling class amplifies Biden’s thirst for something, anything that provides respite from domestic catastrophe. We are just days away from front-page headlines dubbing the tent cities across America “Bidenvilles.” Something must be done. And that thing, to paraphrase Vice President Kamala Harris, is the thing they have been doing, every day: point at Russia. “Putin is the devil and Russia subverted American democracy” has become a moralistic mantra for every Biden booster and Foggy Bottom staffer. But flaccid, obfuscatory jaw-jawing over the moral turpitude of Russia’s dealings with Ukraine has also whet the appetites of the long-benched war lobby. That lobby wants its turn back at the helm. Sanctions ain’t good enough, cry its advocates on Capitol Hill and in the media. Stiffen the sinews. Summon up someone else’s blood. Cry Ukraine for democracy, Joey and Uncle Sam! No one’s buying it.

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I get the feeling that if Durham doesn’t do it, someone else will. And what did Obama know?

• What Did Clinton Know and When Did She Know It? (Sperry)

As indictments and new court filings indicate that Special Counsel John Durham is investigating Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for feeding false reports to the FBI to incriminate Donald Trump and his advisers as Kremlin agents, Clinton’s role in the burgeoning scandal remains elusive. What did she know and when did she know it? Top officials involved in her campaign have repeatedly claimed, some under oath, that they and the candidate were unaware of the foundation of their disinformation campaign: the 35-page collection of now debunked claims of Trump/Russia collusion known as the Steele dossier. Even though her campaign helped pay for the dossier, they claim she only read it after BuzzFeed News published it in 2017.

But court documents, behind-the-scenes video footage and recently surfaced evidence reveal that Clinton and her top campaign advisers were much more involved in the more than $1 million operation to dredge up dirt on Trump and Russia than they have let on. [..] Dossier author Christopher Steele himself has suggested Clinton was briefed on his reports. On July 5, 2016 — the same day the FBI publicly exonerated Clinton in her email scandal — Steele handed off the first installments of the dossier to an FBI agent overseas who had handled him previously as an informant. In their London meeting, Steele noted that Clinton was aware of his reporting, according to contemporaneous notes Steele took of their conversation.

“The notes reflect that Steele told [his FBI handler Michael Gaeta] that Steele was aware that ‘Democratic Party associates’ were paying for [his] research; the ‘ultimate client’ was the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign; and ‘the candidate’ was aware of Steele’s reporting,” Justice Department watchdog Michael Horowitz wrote in his 2019 report examining the FBI’s use of the dossier to justify spying on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Later that same month, during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, the CIA picked up Russian chatter about a Clinton foreign policy adviser who was trying to develop allegations to “vilify” Trump. The intercepts said Clinton herself had approved a “plan” to “stir up a scandal” against Trump by tying him to Putin. According to handwritten notes, then-CIA chief John Brennan warned President Obama that Moscow had intercepted information about the “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump.”

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Kolakusic
https://twitter.com/i/status/1486641636784357381

 

 

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Debt Rattle December 4 2020

Dec 042020
 
 December 4, 2020  Posted by at 9:58 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  22 Responses »


Stanley Kubrick Walking the streets of New York 1946

 

• Pfizer Not Sure If Someone Can Transmit Virus After Vaccination (Hill)
• NHS Staff No Longer Top Priority For Covid Vaccine (G.)
• Half The World Could Get Russian Sputnik V COVID19 Vaccine (RT)
• Facebook Bans Anti-Vaccine “Conspiracy Theories” As US Rollout Begins (ZH)
• GOP Senators Release 400 Pages Of New Docs On Crossfire Hurricane (SAC)
• DNI Ratcliffe Says He Has Given ‘1000s Of Documents To John Durham’ (JTN)
• The Georgia Runoffs and Our Embattled Constitution (RCP)
• Confessions of a Clintonworld Exile (VF)
• Bill Clinton ‘Couldn’t Stay Away’ From Jeffrey Epstein (ZH)
• Will The Empire Sacrifice the Dollar? (CHS)
• Banks To Chairman Powell On Libor: Foxtrot Oscar (Whalen)
• Bank of England Criticised For Losing Track Of £50bn Of Banknotes (G.)
• China Stakes Its Claim to Quantum Supremacy (Wired)
• Dispossession and Imperialism Repackaged as “Feeding the World” (CP)

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s starting to feel like we’re going to need new definitions for “vaccine” as well as for “immunization”.

• Pfizer Not Sure If Someone Can Transmit Virus After Vaccination (Hill)

Pfizer chairman Albert Bourla told Dateline host Lester Holt that the pharmaceutical company was “not certain” if the vaccine prevented the coronavirus from being transmitted, saying, “This is something that needs to be examined.” In a prime-time special titled “Race for a Vaccine” set to air Thursday, Holt questioned Bourla and other individuals involved in the development and distribution of the medicine. In November, Pfizer announced that its vaccine candidate had been shown to be more than 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 and has applied for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The U.K. became the first country to approve Pfizer’s vaccine this week with the first round of immunizations expected to roll out next week.


In a list of interview highlights released before the special, Holt asked Bourla, “Even though I’ve had the protection, am I still able to transmit it to other people?” “I think this is something that needs to be examined. We are not certain about that right now with what we know,” Bourla responded. Though Pfizer’s vaccine has shown promising results, challenges have surfaced when it comes to distributing and administering it. The vaccine must be delivered and stored in extreme sub-zero temperatures, which has heightened the demand for dry ice. Once the vaccine is kept at normal refrigeration temperatures, it must be used within four or five days or be discarded. The vaccine is administered in two doses spaced a few weeks apart.

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“NHS personnel will be able to take the vaccine into care homes to immunise residents later this month..”

• NHS Staff No Longer Top Priority For Covid Vaccine (G.)

NHS staff will no longer get the coronavirus vaccine first after a drastic rethink about who should be given priority, it emerged last night. The new immunisation strategy is likely to disappoint and worry thousands of frontline staff – and comes amid urgent warnings from NHS chiefs that hospitals could be “overwhelmed” in January by a third wave of Covid-19 caused by mingling over Christmas. Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “If we get a prolonged cold snap in January the NHS risks being overwhelmed. The Covid-19 restrictions should remain appropriately tough. “Trust leaders are worried about the impact of looser regulations over Christmas.”

Frontline personnel were due to have the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine when the NHS starts its rollout, which is expected to be next Tuesday after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved it on Wednesday. However, hospitals will instead begin by immunising care home staff, and hospital inpatients and outpatients aged over 80. The new UK-wide guidance on priority groups was issued by the joint committee on vaccination and immunisation (JCVI) amid uncertainty over when the rest of the 5m-strong initial batch of doses that ministers ordered will reach the UK.

NHS personnel will be able to take the vaccine into care homes to immunise residents later this month if, as expected, the MHRA agrees that the batches of 975 doses it comes in can be subdivided and the stability and safety of the drug be maintained. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the leader of the British Medical Association, said it backed care home residents getting the jab first. However, that means NHS staff will be left at higher risk of getting infected and potentially dying, he added.

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How does Sputnik V differ from the Pfizer “vaccine”?

• Half The World Could Get Russian Sputnik V COVID19 Vaccine (RT)

At least 40 countries, representing more than half of the world’s population, have expressed interest in Russia’s coronavirus vaccine, the team behind it have said as mass vaccination begins in Moscow. At a presentation to the United Nations on Thursday, scientists from the Gamaleya Institute, which developed the formula, said that preliminary orders have been placed for more than 1.2 billion doses. Trials involving 45,000 people across the globe have concluded that 95 percent of those given both doses of Sputnik V develop immunity to the virus. On Wednesday, the vaccine’s creators released footage of vials touching down in India ahead of the start of studies into its efficacy there.


A number of countries, including Hungary, Venezuela and the UAE, have already imported sufficient quantities to conduct their own tests. At the same time, the Philippines announced that it would work with Russia to secure access to supplies in order to begin mass immunizations early next year. On Thursday, Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin announced that residents of the capital would be able to access the vaccine from Saturday. Doctors, teachers and social workers will be first in line for appointments, and an “electronic immunization record” will be set up. According to Sobyanin, Muscovites will be able to get the jab at ‘vaccine points’ set up around the city. President Vladimir Putin ordered the start of the program on Wednesday, adding that “the production of Sputnik V, the world’s first registered vaccine against the coronavirus infection, is what allows us to begin the vaccination.”

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Our new Supreme Court.

• Facebook Bans Anti-Vaccine “Conspiracy Theories” As US Rollout Begins (ZH)

It was probably inevitable. Just in time for the vaccine rollout in the US this coming week (as Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said, inventory has already been loaded on to trucks, and will be en route to destinations across the country as soon as the FDA gives the green light) Facebook said Thursday that it’s “updating its policies around the coronavirus by removing false claims about upcoming vaccines”. The social media giant said it will be monitoring for misinformation that has been debunked by public health experts on both Facebook and Instagram. “This could include false claims about the safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects of the vaccines. For example, we will remove false claims that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips, or anything else that isn’t on the official vaccine ingredient list,” Facebook said in its announcement.

The company added that it will also remove conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines that we know today are false, such as that specific populations are being forced to test the vaccine against their will. “Since it’s early and facts about COVID-19 vaccines will continue to evolve, we will regularly update the claims we remove based on guidance from public health authorities as they learn more,” Facebook added, but also said that it would “not be able to start enforcing these policies overnight.” Previously, Facebook removed Covid-19 misinformation that could contribute to “imminent physical harm.” That included false claims or cures about the disease, that the coronavirus is caused by 5G, or that it does not exist.

According to the Independent, PA News Agency editor Tom Phillips said social media companies should do more to combat misinformation, but they also must be extremely careful not to go too far and quash public debate. “We have seen a lot of the internet platforms take stricter measures against vaccine misinformation and I think that is the correct approach. Could some of them go further? Yes, possibly.” “But at the same time, it is important to remember the importance of free speech. It’s not illegitimate to have questions or worries about the vaccine and it’s important that we don’t just react by trying to suppress those questions. We allow people to ask the questions, get good quality answers and make up their minds based on good quality information.”

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How crazy would it be if Crossfire Hurricane never gets thoroughly investigated?

• GOP Senators Release 400 Pages Of New Docs On Crossfire Hurricane (SAC)

Two top GOP Senators released more than 400 pages of documents related to the FBI’s investigation of the now-debunked probe into President Donald Trump and his alleged ties with Russia, known as the ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ probe. The Senators also stated in their letter Thursday that the documents they received are still far less than what they had originally requested in their official letters sent in May to the FBI and State Department. U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, R- Wisconsin, and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R -Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, released the documents as part of their ongoing probe into the FBI’s malfeasance during the Obama administration’s probe into Trump.

Some of the documents, which SaraACarter.com is still reviewing, are now declassified Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of State documents. “The Committees obtained these records through joint requests, as well as Chairman Johnson’s August 6, 2020, subpoena to the FBI,” stated a press release. “The Chairmen also released a comprehensive timeline of key events related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.” In a joint statement from Grassley and Johnson they said “for years, the American people have demanded answers to questions regarding the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation and its targeting of the Trump campaign, the presidential transition, and the Trump administration.”

“Our committees have sought to uncover and expose misconduct by calling on agencies to declassify and produce text messages, internal emails, and other investigative material, which in turn we have made public,” they noted. “Although agency bureaucrats have fought tooth and nail to keep records hidden, our commitment to transparency has never wavered.” The chairmen added that “the documents we are releasing today are the product of our continued fight for transparency. These documents are far less than what we have requested, but we are making them public so the American people can decide for themselves what wrongdoing did and did not occur.”

In May, the Senators asked FBI Director Christopher Wray to turn over all material regarding former British Spy Christopher Steele’s communications and documents related to the now debunked dossier used to investigate Trump. Wray has been uncooperative with the Senate requests and has been slow to produce the documents since he was appointed by Trump to the position, said numerous Congressional staff familiar with the requests. In the letter to Wray, Johnson and Grassley requested that they were “seeking information about Christopher Steele’s interactions with State Department employees before the 2016 presidential election.”

Read more …

Durham is starting to look like a black hole.

• DNI Ratcliffe Says He Has Given ‘1000s Of Documents To John Durham’ (JTN)

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe during an interview with the Washington Examiner on Thursday said that he has given thousands of documents to U.S. Attorney John Durham, but Ratcliffe noted that much of the material includes information that cannot be publicly released. “Between my predecessor Richard Grenell in an acting capacity and myself, we have declassified most of the intelligence community documents that would be suitable for the public to see, that wouldn’t jeopardize sources and methods,” Ratcliffe told the Washington Examiner. “There are others, many many documents — I think it’s been out there that I’ve provided literally thousands of documents to John Durham, but many of those do contain sources and methods that we can’t make public for a number of reasons, including to jeopardize any investigation that’s going there. So I think the level of cooperation — I’ve given them everything that they’ve asked for.”


Ratcliffe said that wrongdoing definitely occurred and Americans are entitled to “an accounting.” “There was an abuse of power and of legal authorities, and it’s not a question about whether those things took place — they did. I mean, there’s an FBI lawyer who is going to jail for counterfeiting evidence before the FISA court. And that after all of the Obama-Biden senior national security officials said the idea of illegal spying and abuse at the FISA court is a bunch of nonsense, and now, they’re sprinting the opposite direction,” Ratcliffe stated. “I mean, literally, every one of them — Comey, McCabe, Yates — they’ve all said, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re shocked and had we only known.’ And so, again, the American people deserve an accounting, and I’ve certainly provided a lot of information to the now-special counsel to provide that accounting, and I’m counting, like all Americans, on him to talk about a lot of the things that I know that I can’t talk about.”

Read more …

“..the rise of political parties undermines the separation of powers and, with it, one of the Founders’ barriers against consolidated, oppressive power..”

• The Georgia Runoffs and Our Embattled Constitution (RCP)

If Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win Georgia’s Jan. 5 Senate runoffs, Democrats will control both houses of Congress as well as the presidency. The Republican Party, which won nearly half the national vote, will have no check on the Democrats, aside from the Senate’s filibuster rule. Although that rule requires a supermajority to pass some legislation and appointments, it can be abolished by a simple majority when the new Senate convenes. Preventing one-party rule is one of the strongest arguments advanced by Republican incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. They are reminding voters of the threat posed by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who proudly announced: “Now we take Georgia, then we change the world.”

That might be a winning line for national fundraising, but it’s more problematic for the Georgia electorate. Not many voters there want to “change the world,” so Warnock and Ossoff are downplaying it. Don’t expect to seek to see Schumer on the stump in Atlanta, Augusta, or Macon. It’s understandable that the national debate should focus on which party will control the Senate and just how radical the Democrats’ program will be if they do. But just beneath the surface lurk potential constitutional issues, which have received almost no attention. The basic problem is this: although America’s Founders were deeply concerned about tyranny, centralized power, and the suppression of individual rights and constructed institutional barriers to prevent those abuses, they never envisioned the mechanisms that pose serious threats today.

One of those threats is one-party rule. It’s understandable the Founders missed that since they worked before the age of entrenched and nationalized political parties. The closest analogues were England’s Whigs and Tories, but they were a far cry from modern parties. The political world envisioned by America’s Founders was populated not by parties but by cross-cutting “factions,” much like today’s interest groups. The Federalist Papers (especially the famous No. 10, written by James Madison as “Publius”) argued that, in a large republic like America, multiple factions would emerge, push against each other, and usually block any one from dominating.To prevent government authority from becoming too centralized and oppressive, the Constitutional Convention divided that authority among the three branches.

Each one, they figured, would have strong institutional interests in preventing the others from encroaching. It was a profound insight, and a remarkably successful one. But with the rise of modern political parties, it faced a challenge that no 18th century politician could imagine. Strong political parties unify their members across the legislative and executive branches. The stronger their common interests as Democrats or Republicans, the weaker their institutional interests as members of House or Senate, if those interests diverge from fellow partisans in the other house or branch. Put differently, the rise of political parties undermines the separation of powers and, with it, one of the Founders’ barriers against consolidated, oppressive power.

Read more …

is Doug Band fully turning on the Clintons?

• Confessions of a Clintonworld Exile (VF)

Doug Band’s office at Teneo, the corporate advisory firm he cofounded, is decorated like a wing of the Bill Clinton presidential library. Framed photographs of the 42nd president adorn virtually every surface except for windows overlooking the rush hour traffic crawling down Park Avenue. “A lot of these pictures are just about moments,” Band said one morning last winter as he showed me his collection. Band, a broad-shouldered man with dark eyes and prematurely graying hair, appeared in many of the pictures. There were photos of Band and Clinton playing golf with Barack Obama, posing backstage with Michael Jackson, and meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. “Bill Clinton was my life for almost 20 years,” Band said.

Band was 22 when he landed an unpaid internship in the White House counsel’s office midway through Clinton’s first term. He served as Clinton’s “body man” during the second while earning a Georgetown law degree at night. On paper, the job is a glorified gofer, but Band leveraged the position to build a filial bond with the leader of the free world. When Clinton left office in January 2001, Band was one of the aides Clinton invited to go with him. Band took on a role that was equal parts fixer, gatekeeper, wingman, consigliere, and adopted son. (Officially, his title was counselor.) “They were with each other all the time,” said former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, who first got to know Band in the Clinton White House.

Band virtually invented Clinton’s postpresidential life. He set up Clinton’s Harlem office, helped launch the Clinton Foundation, and created the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), the annual Davos-style conference that Clinton hosted in New York. Band and Clinton circled the globe in a private jet with a Rat Pack of billionaires that included supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, movie producer Steve Bing, and, infamously, Jeffrey Epstein. Before Clinton had quadruple-bypass surgery in 2004, he dialed Band at the first sign of chest pains. There were years that Clinton spent more time with Band than with any other person—including Hillary and Chelsea. But when I met Band last February, he hadn’t been in a room with Bill Clinton in nearly five years. He couldn’t remember the last time they had spoken. “I don’t want anything to do with that whole world,” Band said after we’d been talking for nearly an hour.

Read more …

More Doug Band.

• Bill Clinton ‘Couldn’t Stay Away’ From Jeffrey Epstein (ZH)

Bill Clinton’s former top aide and Chelsea Clinton nemesis Doug Band has told Vanity Fair that former President Bill Clinton did visit Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous “pedo island” in January 2003, and that he was unable to push Epstein out of Clinton’s orbit since they flew to Africa together in 2002 aboard the the pedophile’s (Epstein’s) private 727, dubbed the “Lolita Express.” “Band said he had no idea about Epstein’s sex crimes back then but got enough bad vibes that he advised Clinton to end the relationship. But Clinton continued to socialize with Epstein and take his money. In 2006 Epstein donated $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Clinton made more than two dozen trips on Epstein’s jet around this time, Epstein’s flight logs show. In January 2003, according to Band, Clinton visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St. James. Band said it was one of the few trips he declined to go on in his time with Clinton.” -Vanity Fair

Band – who revealed the Clinton Foundation’s ‘for-profit’ activity and accused Chelsea Clinton of tapping Foundation funds to pay for her wedding (known only because of WikiLeaks) – also says Chelsea Clinton had a relationship with Epstein and his alleged co-conspirator in an underage sex trafficking ring, Ghislaine Maxwell. “Chelsea had ties to Epstein and Maxwell, Band said; he showed me a photo of Bill and Chelsea posing with Epstein and Maxwell at the King of Morocco’s wedding. Chelsea remained friends with Maxwell for years after the press revealed Maxwell was a close associate of Epstein’s. For instance, Chelsea invited Maxwell to her 2010 wedding at the Brooke Astor estate in Rhinebeck, New York, after Epstein had pleaded guilty in Florida to procuring sex from a minor.” -Vanity Fair

“Ghislaine had access to yachts and nice homes. Chelsea needed that,” said Band. Band notably created the now-defunct Clinton Global Initiative, which has helped to raise $74 billion for Clinton global charities, according to Newsmax. Thanks again to WikiLeaks, we also know that Band was soliciting donations for Clinton through his PR and investment firm, Teneo in an sordid example of “pay for play” which most of the mainstream media refused to cover – which he worried about in an email to John Podesta, saying: “If this story gets out, we are screwed.”

Read more …

As rumors swirl about the Euro’s steep rise due to the ECB running out of powertools.

• Will The Empire Sacrifice the Dollar? (CHS)

Let’s keep it simple: US dollar up, stocks down. US dollar down, stocks up. Stocks up, billionaires get richer. Since that spot of bother in March 2020 when the US dollar (USD) soared and stocks cratered, the USD has been in a free-fall, boosting the wealth of America’s Robber Barons and various other skimmers, scammers and other undeserving scoundrels. Chief among the undeserving scoundrels feasting on the decline of the USD are global stock markets which have soared not because revenues and profits are soaring but because the USD has plummeted. The Federal Reserve is widely worshiped as the Ultimate Power in the Universe, a kind of financial Death Star. The Fed has seen fit to crush the USD to further boost the wealth of billionaires and save global stock markets from their well-deserved ruin.

[..] The Fed is not the Empire, it is the handmaiden of the Empire. The Fed’s dual mandate– for PR purposes, stable employment and prices–is actually balancing the conflicting demands of a global and domestic currency–Triffin’s Paradox writ large. The inherent problem with a reserve currency is that it must meet global economic needs and domestic needs, and these are intrinsically in conflict. America’s billionaires and pension funds want the US stock market to loft higher on the back of a declining USD, but that diminishes the global purchasing power of the USD–a trend heading for economic ruin.

The Fed has had numerous reasons to weaken the dollar since March: a desperate need to “save” global stock markets from well-deserved collapse, and an equally desperate need to keep the dollar weak so global debtors with loans denominated in dollars can manage to service their trillions in USD-denominated debts. But drawing a line extending this short-term necessity all the way to hyper-inflationary oblivion is a grave misreading of the Empire’s need for the exorbitant privilege of a strong dollar. The Fed is about done with its “rescue” of billionaires and global markets and debtors. Against virtually all expectations of seers, pundits, gurus, etc. the USD is about to start serving the Empire in its foundational role. As for stock markets–the devil take the hindmost.

Read more …

“The 2017 decision by the Fed to do away with LIBOR is one of the most ill-considered and thoughtless actions taken by the US central bank in many years..”

• Banks To Chairman Powell On Libor: Foxtrot Oscar (Whalen)

Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve Board and other agencies blinked on the ill-advised transition from LIBOR as a pricing mechanism for financing various types of assets and secured money market transactions. “The Federal Reserve Board, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency today issued a statement encouraging banks to cease entering into new contracts that use USD LIBOR as a reference rate as soon as practicable and in any event by December 31, 2021, in order to facilitate an orderly—and safe and sound— LIBOR transition.” Unfortunately, as we wrote back in September in National Mortgage News (“Housing market needs SOFR alternative — now”), the proposed “replacement” for LIBOR — the secured overnight funding rate or SOFR — is not really a market price at all.

“According to the Fed, SOFR is a broad measure of the cost of borrowing cash overnight, collateralized by Treasury securities,” we wrote in NMN. “In fact, SOFR is an imaginary, backward-looking benchmark dreamed up by the economists at the Fed with no discernable market.” The 2017 decision by the Fed to do away with LIBOR is one of the most ill-considered and thoughtless actions taken by the US central bank in many years. Not only did the Fed displayed its ignorance of the workings of the US capital markets, but it also revealed its arrogance and stupidly. Simply stated, LIBOR is a price for conducting financing in dollars. SOFR is an economists’ wet dream, a backward-looking measure that may seem interesting from a research perspective, but one that lacks actual liquidity.

As we noted in NMN, the solution for the “problem” with LIBOR is to fix the existing benchmark, not to dream up some farcical concept and then try to bully insured depository institutions to use SOFR for actual risk taking. We understand that many banks have told regulators privately the same thing we hear from clients in the too-be-announced (TBA) market for mortgage backed securities (MBS): SOFR is a non-starter and must be discarded. As late as last week, the Fed and other regulators were trying to bully the large dealer banks to stop using LIBOR by December 31st. The resounding answer: “Foxtrot Oscar.” Indeed, a growing number of analysts seem to have reached the same conclusion that we made months ago, namely that asking banks to take tens of billions of dollars in risk every day using SOFR as the pricing mechanism would be unsafe and unsound.

Read more …

Go to the mattresses.

• Bank of England Criticised For Losing Track Of £50bn Of Banknotes (G.)

It is known throughout the world as a byword for security. But the Bank of England is evidently a tad unclear on the whereabouts of £50bn of banknotes, and it doesn’t seem to be overly concerned about it, a powerful group of MPs has said. In a stiff rebuke for Threadneedle Street, the Commons public accounts committee said the money – equivalent to a stack of £5 notes more than 800 miles high – had essentially gone “missing” because the Bank did not keep close enough tabs on cash usage in modern Britain. Despite walls 8ft thick and an imposing reputation for guarding billions of pounds of gold bars in its vaults, the PAC said the Bank had nonetheless displayed a “lax attitude to whereabouts of bulk of sterling cash supply”.

However, banknotes by their very design are not traceable, making it hard for the Bank to follow the money and know exactly where its notes end up. According to a report from the National Audit Office, there are about £50bn worth of issued banknotes that may be being used overseas or in the UK, a tiny fraction of the trillions of pounds in money circulating in the UK economy in physical notes and by digital transfers. The PAC speculated that this money could be stashed away under mattresses as unreported household savings, may have been taken abroad, or used in the shadow economy. “The Bank of England doesn’t know,” it said.

The value of banknotes in circulation has shot up this year, which the Bank has said is probably because more people started hoarding cash during the Covid-19 pandemic in case they needed it. Coin use has declined over recent years, with the production of new pennies and pounds by the Royal Mint falling by about 65% in the last decade, a trend which could be accelerated by the pandemic as more people move to using contactless debit card payments. Meg Hillier, chair of the PAC, said: “£50bn of sterling notes – or about three-quarters of this precious and dwindling supply – is stashed somewhere but the Bank of England doesn’t know where, who by, or what for, and doesn’t seem very curious.

Read more …

“..produced results in minutes calculated to take more than 2 billion years of effort by the world’s third-most-powerful supercomputer..”

• China Stakes Its Claim to Quantum Supremacy (Wired)

Last Year GOOGLE won international acclaim when its prototype quantum computer completed a calculation in minutes that its researchers estimated would have taken a supercomputer 10,000 years. That met the definition for quantum supremacy—the moment a quantum machine does something impractical for a conventional computer. Thursday, China’s leading quantum research group made its own declaration of quantum supremacy, in the journal Science. A system called Jiuzhang produced results in minutes calculated to take more than 2 billion years of effort by the world’s third-most-powerful supercomputer. The two systems work differently. Google builds quantum circuits using supercold, superconducting metal, while the team at University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei, recorded its result by manipulating photons, particles of light.

No quantum computer is yet ready to do useful work. But the indications that two fundamentally different forms of the technology can outperform supercomputers will buoy the hopes—and investments—of the embryonic industry. Google and rivals including IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, and several large startups have all spent heavily on developing quantum computing hardware in recent years. Google and IBM offer access to their latest prototypes over the internet, while Microsoft’s and Amazon’s cloud platforms each host a smorgasboard of quantum hardware from others, including Honeywell.

The potential power of quantum computers springs from their basic building blocks, dubbed qubits. Like the bits of conventional computers, they can represent 0s and 1s of data; but qubits can also exploit quantum mechanics to attain an unusual state called a superposition that encapsulates the possibilities of both. With enough qubits it’s possible to take computational shortcuts conventional computers can’t—an advantage that grows as more qubits work together. Quantum computers don’t yet rule the world, because engineers haven’t been able to get enough qubits working together reliably enough. The quantum mechanical effects they depend on are very delicate. Google and the Chinese group were able to stage their supremacy experiments because they managed to corral qubits in relatively large numbers.

Read more …

Ukraine once fed half of Europe. Seems worth a Maidan revolution.

• Dispossession and Imperialism Repackaged as “Feeding the World” (CP)

The world is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of rich and powerful land speculators and agribusiness corporations. Smallholder farmers are being criminalised and even made to disappear when it comes to the struggle for land. They are constantly exposed to systematic expulsion. In 2014, the Oakland Institute found that institutional investors, including hedge funds, private equity and pension funds, are eager to capitalise on global farmland as a new and highly desirable asset class. Financial returns are what matter to these entities, not food security.

Consider Ukraine. The organisation Grain found that in 2014 small farmers operated 16% of agricultural land in that country, but provided 55% of agricultural output, including: 97% of potatoes, 97% of honey, 88% of vegetables, 83% of fruits and berries and 80% of milk. It is clear that Ukraine’s small farms were delivering impressive outputs. Following the toppling of Ukraine’s government in early 2014, the way was paved for foreign investors and Western agribusiness to take a firm hold over the agri-food sector. Reforms mandated by the EU-backed loan to Ukraine in 2014 included agricultural deregulation intended to benefit foreign agribusiness. Natural resource and land policy shifts were being designed to facilitate the foreign corporate takeover of enormous tracts of land.

Frederic Mousseau, policy director at the Oakland Institute, stated at the time that the World Bank and IMF were intent on opening up foreign markets to Western corporations and that the high stakes around the control of Ukraine’s vast agricultural sector, the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat, constitute an overlooked critical factor. He added that in recent years, foreign corporations had acquired more than 1.6 million hectares of Ukrainian land. Western agribusiness has been coveting Ukraine’s agriculture sector for quite some time, long before the coup. That country contains one third of all arable land in Europe. An article by Oriental Review in 2015 noted that since the mid-90s the Ukrainian-Americans at the helm of the US-Ukraine Business Council had been instrumental in encouraging the foreign control of Ukrainian agriculture.

Read more …

 

 

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Do the Dems Want To Win?

Aug 192020
 
 August 19, 2020  Posted by at 7:09 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  8 Responses »


Joel Meyerowitz New York City 1963

 

 

No, no matter how much I read and watch, I can’t shake the idea (less so as I go along, actually) that the Democrats don’t really, honestly, want to win the 2020 presidential election. Obviously, there are many in the party who do, and voters too, but not the ones pushing the levers and pulling the strings. Those, whoever they may be, that are picking candidates, setting policy, maintaining media contacts, doctoring spins.

Because is there anyone among you who has ever seen a worse candidate than Joe Biden? I’m not just talking about his dementia and gaffes, but you’d be very hard-pressed to find anyone who can use Biden and enthusiasm -let alone inspiration, or even better: exhilaration- in one sentence that doesn’t include the word “no”. And isn’t that the #1 requirement for a candidate?

They ostensibly went with Kamala Harris to provide some of that, if we may believe the press. She’ll whip up the voters into wild bouts of inspiring enthusiasm! Only, Kamala bowed out of the primaries even before 2020 started, after spending $40 million -part of which is still not paid off- because she was stuck at 2% support and couldn’t generate … any enthusiasm.

What you got is a really old man who couldn’t get a toddler excited about ice cream, and a token black woman who nobody even in her own party likes. Mix those ingredients into a convention that attracts just half the viewers of the 2016 one and generates the excitement level of an infomercial for kitchen appliances, and is it any wonder I doubt that the “behind the curtain party” is in this to win?

As for the political program, the agenda, there is really only one item on it: Donald Trump. And no matter how many millions of times it may be repeated in speeches and news articles, NOT being something is in the end NOT a positive message. You’re supposed to win on your own merit, not someone else’s perceived lack of merit. Newsflash: “MOST BIDEN SUPPORTERS SAY THEIR VOTE IS AGAINST TRUMP RATHER THAN FOR BIDEN – WSJ/NBC News poll”.

This bit from the Guardian on Monday sums it up nicely, and it veers into late night comedy territory while doing it (what more can one ask for?):

Virtual Democratic Convention Kicks Off With Emphasis On Unity

The Democratic national convention begins on Monday with a star-studded lineup and heavy emphasis on unity aimed at presenting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the US’s best hope for healing a deeply divided nation[..]

The Dems have a hard enough time uniting their own party, let alone the nation. And there’s not a Trump supporter who would move into their camp – other than the odd washed up GOP politician.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on the eve of the convention found Biden with a nine-point lead over Trump nationally [..] According to the survey, Biden holds a wide advantage over Trump on nearly every issue except the economy, which voters say is a priority this election.


[..] Biden’s selection of Harris has exhilarated supporters, who showered the campaign with a stunning $48m in the 48 hours after she was announced as his running mate.[..]

What, so now they’re only $50 million or so behind?

Democrats anticipate the excitement around Harris’s historic candidacy as the first Black woman nominated for national office by a major party, will build momentum around the convention [..] Adrianne Shropshire, the executive director of BlackPac, a super Pac focused on Black Democrats: “I think there is also real relief that there is a ticket people can believe in, and get behind and push over the finish line.”

Excitement, exhilaration are words that don’t seem to mean anymore what they used to.

[..] the people who were in the Bernie campaign, the people in the Biden campaign, and people outside of both of those campaigns – have really worked hard to create an effective and genuine popular front against Donald Trump,” Weaver said, adding: “Trump is a very unifying factor.”


[..] Howard Dean, a former chair of the DNC who has attended every party convention since 1980, said the new format could work in Biden’s favor. Unlike Trump, who feeds off the energy of crowds at rallies but can look wooden and uncomfortable when reading from a teleprompter, Biden, Dean said, “does better on television than he does at a podium”. “This helps him because he will be on TV projecting calmness, reasonableness and thoughtfulness,” he said. “And that’s what people are desperate for right now.”

Isn’t it great that not feeling comfortable reading from a teleprompter 24/7 in your basement has now become a negative quality? I know, it’s hard to keep up.

But then there was the reality check from CNN on Sunday. Double digit leads vanished (coincidence?) just as Kamala caused all that exhilarating excitement:

Biden and Trump Matchup Tightens As Enthusiasm Hits New High

[..] on the eve of the party conventions, a majority of voters (53%) are “extremely enthusiastic” about voting in this year’s election [..] 50% of registered voters back the Biden-Harris ticket, while 46% say they support Trump and Pence, right at the poll’s margin of error [..]

Among the 72% of voters who say they are either extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this fall, Biden’s advantage over Trump widens to 53% to 46%.

It is narrower, however, among those voters who live in the states that will have the most impact on the electoral college this fall. Across 15 battleground states, the survey finds Biden has the backing of 49% of registered voters, while Trump lands at 48%.

The movement in the poll among voters nationwide since June is concentrated among men (they split about evenly in June, but now 56% back Trump, 40% Biden), those between the ages of 35 and 64 (they tilt toward Trump now, but were Biden-leaning in June) and independents (in June, Biden held a 52% to 41% lead, but now it’s a near even 46% Biden to 45% Trump divide).

 

The picture painted, especially amongst the most dedicated anti-Trumpers, is of course that Biden can’t lose; that’s what they all want, right? Well, think about it: CNN lives off of Trump, and so does a large part of the MSM. But then again, they made their beds and they’ll have to lie in them. The Democratic Party, however, does not. They are free to sabotage their own campaign.

And as I said above, there are many signs that MAY indicate that they are doing just that. The selection of Joe Biden, the basement strategy, the subsequent “appointment” of Kamala Harris, the near-dead convention. Do appreciate, please, that we have no idea how Biden and Kamala were “selected”. How did Biden all of a sudden rise to the top of the crop from seemingly nowhere? Where did Kamala come from post-primary mayhem? Did Joe personally pick her? Do you believe that?

But okay, if you don’t think that they would sabotage their own campaign, flip things around: if they WOULD have wanted to make sure they’d lose the election, what would they have done, you know, the donors behind the veil, plus maybe the Obamas and Clintons? Wouldn’t they perhaps have picked Biden and Kamala, whom very few people appeared to actually like, find sympathetic, prior to them being selected for their respective roles? Why not select people that DO resonate with voters without you having to forcefully shove them down their throats?

Why would a bunch of power-hungry folk (as all politicians and their sponsors are) want to screw up their own chance at obtaining power? Well, the lack of good candidates may well be a factor, but there’s something much bigger: the US economy, like most if not all western economies, is wobbling precariously on a precipice, and about to fall off. As I labeled it recently: The Bottom Is Falling Out.

Our entire present reality is still somewhat new, the COVID pandemic, its fallout, the bailouts, the government checks, the sick and the dead, but at some point it will all start to become a “normal” part of life. That doesn’t mean, however, that the economy will return to “normal” (whatever anybody ever thought that meant).

An enormous number of businesses will never reopen, entire fields will be obliterated, re: tourism, airlines, a large swath of retail stores. The unemployment that generates will be with us for many years. The Great Depression will become a mere footnote in most history books.

And the parties in charge in various countries, including the GOP in America, will be the ones blamed for most of the ensuing problems. If you’re a Democrat behind-the-curtain wizard, wouldn’t you at least consider saying: I think I’ll pass for this round, and let Trump take the heat?

Just so, you know, you can continue your cooperation with CNN, NYT, WaPo, FBI, and blame Trump every single day and 1000 times on Sunday for everything that falls apart, while continuing to generate clickbait profits ? If all you got to show for your grand ambitions is Joe Biden, it must seem a really appealing course of action.

Besides, you don’t appear to have any better candidates than Biden -at least not centrist ones-, but don’t forget that neither do the Republicans once Trump is gone. Da Donald is set to leave a huge hole behind where he once pontificated. And just about any Democrat except for Joe Biden could step right into that hole (pun intended).

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 18 2020

Aug 182020
 
 August 18, 2020  Posted by at 9:51 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  48 Responses »


Bettmann/Getty Minimum Wage 1963

 

• Coronavirus Clusters Erupt At US Universities As Semester Begins (AP)
• Sixty Seconds to Self-Sabotage (Cut)
• They’re Angry, Not Stupid: Why Trump is Likely to Win Again (Greene)
• Sanders: ‘The Future Of Our Planet Is At Stake’ In 2020 Election (JTN)
• Democrats Seem All Too Willing to Surrender on Health Care Reform (Jac.)
• Michelle Obama Speech Recorded Before Joe Biden Selected Kamala Harris (NYP)
• Trump vs. Dems On Mail-in Voting (Chaffetz)
• Trump Teases Upcoming Pardon For ‘Very Important’ Person (RT)
• China’s Anti-Trump Election Meddling Raises New Alarm (Fox)
• Kamala Harris Reportedly Owes $1M In Bills From Failed Presidential Run (NYP)
• Twelve US Billionaires Have a Combined $1 Trillion (Ineq.org)
• US States Seek $2.2 Trillion From OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma (R.)
• The Need for Debt-for-Climate Swaps (PS)
• The Mathematical Model of Modern Monetary Theory (Steve Keen)
• And in the End (Rolling Stone)

 

 

No, I didn’t watch the Dem convention. Never perform invasive surgery on myself either, for pretty much the same reason. But I did pick up a few tidbits. It all leaves a very elitist impression. Deplorables.

 

 

New global cases below 200,000, new deaths at 4,297. Not bad. Or is that just because it was Monday?

Several European countries are spiking in what is perhaps a second wave. Pretty lousy controls, which will lead to all kinds of renewed lockdowns. Unnecessary.

 

 

New cases only just above 40,000 in the US, it was 70,000 not long ago, with new deaths at “only” 589.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This sounds just plain dumb.

• Coronavirus Clusters Erupt At US Universities As Semester Begins (AP)

From the dorms at North Carolina to the halls of Notre Dame, officials at universities around the US scrambled on Monday to deal with new Covid-19 clusters at the start of the fall semester, some of them linked to off-campus parties and packed clubs. North Carolina’s flagship university cancelled in-person classes for undergraduates just a week into the fall semester Monday. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said it will switch to remote learning on Wednesday and make arrangements for students who want to leave campus housing. “We have emphasised that if we were faced with the need to change plans – take an off-ramp – we would not hesitate to do so, but we have not taken this decision lightly,” it said in a statement after reporting 130 confirmed infections among students and five among employees over the past week.


UNC said the clusters were discovered in dorms, a fraternity house and other student housing. Before the decision came down, the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, ran an editorial headlined “UNC has a clusterf*** on its hands”. The paper said that the parties that took place over the weekend were no surprise and that administrators should have begun the semester with online-only instruction at the university, which has 19,000 undergraduates. “We all saw this coming,” the editorial said. Outbreaks earlier this summer at fraternities in Washington state, California and Mississippi provided a glimpse of the challenges school officials face in keeping the virus from spreading on campuses where young people eat, live, study – and party – in close quarters.

Read more …

The DNC pushed Bernie aside until he complied with the Biden “plan”. They do the same with AOC et al, without whom they may never have had control of the House. Instead, they have Republicans and billionaires speaking, along with has-beens like the Obamas and Clintons….

• Sixty Seconds to Self-Sabotage (Cut)

When the Democratic National Committee released its schedule for its big socially distanced convention this week, we learned that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, inarguably among the party’s most dynamic figures, would have just sixty seconds to address the nation. [..] the relegation of Ocasio-Cortez, who electrifies multiple parts of a Democratic base, to one meager minute, a segment that—unlike speeches by some other presenters—will be pre-recorded, isn’t just a snub. The failure of a major political party to showcase one of its most talented politicians, a young person whose communicative reach and facility positions her to be among its leaders deep into our future, is self-sabotage.

[..] Why will this convention not show off more of the historic number of women who enabled their party to retake the House in 2018? Most of them won’t be prominently featured, but former Ohio Republican governor John Kasich, who ran for governor as a Tea Partier and signed eleven laws (comprising 21 restrictions) on abortion, including a 20 week ban and the prohibition of rape crisis centers advising survivors about the option of abortion, will be. He also worked to rob Ohio’s public workers of the right to bargain collectively (voters later overturned this measure). Not only is Kasich getting a plum spot on Monday, he’s used his time in the Democratic sun to diss Ocasio-Cortez, telling Buzzfeed that just because she “gets outsized publicity doesn’t mean she represents the Democratic Party. She’s just a part, just some member of it.”

So John Kasich, Republican, feels that Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat, gets outsized attention, even as he–along with his fellow Republicans Susan Molinari (Remember her? No? Weird) and former Hewlett-Packard and eBay CEO Meg Whitman–will get more featured airtime than she at her party’s convention. But this convention seems driven to thumb its nose not only at individual politicians, but at the social movements that have transformed civic participation and changed public opinion across the nation during the course of the Trump administration. Remember those women who retook the House in 2018? A bunch of them were first time candidates who were open about how their entrance into politics was grounded in their fury about the ubiquity and pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault in the wake of Donald Trump’s election and the #metoo movement.

But the party that profited from their electoral success has offered prime speaking spots to two multiply-accused harassers: former president Bill Clinton and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. That Bloomberg’s presidential campaign met its lethal end at the hands of Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, who in a February primary debate detailed his history of workplace harassment, red lining, and support of stop-and-frisk policing, all in her allotted sixty seconds (she only had a minute; an eternity was in it) makes his featured presence an insult to Warren, and the many Democrats who were far more inspired by her campaign than by his. And listen, I get it, and assume everyone else does too: Bloomberg is speaking to the Democratic convention because the Democrats need his money (he shifted $18 million from his campaign to the Democratic National Committee in March).

But if organizers had been paying attention these past two years, they might have learned that that’s actually part of the structural thing about harassment and those who get away with it: too often, you need their money.


Matt Taibbi’s drinking game bingo card for the DNC

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…and that attitude of trampling over the left leads to this… If you think BLM, Antifa, #MeToo are the only angry ones, you are mistaken.

• They’re Angry, Not Stupid: Why Trump is Likely to Win Again (Greene)

The candidate Barack Obama spoke to blue-collar America. He campaigned on change that would rejuvenate careers and restore dignity. Working Americans in the swing states doubted that Hillary Clinton even knew they existed. They saw Obama as a last hope and supported him enthusiastically in the 2008 primaries and later in the general election, but he soon proved to be a disappointment. He, too, fell in love with Silicon Valley and Wall Street and neglected the people who needed him most. And they punished him: he won fewer states in 2012 than he had in 2008. People like the alternate me felt cheated by a guy who rocked a Brooks Brothers suit and talked a great game, then gave the Tech and Finance sectors everything they wanted and more.

Educated people from the best schools trusted Big Tech outfits because educated people from the best schools ran them. Elites imagine each other to be virtuous because they imagine themselves that way. Technology giants were understood not as hardy sprouts but would be treated instead with princess-and-the-pea levels of delicacy, thanks to a superstitious fear that it might all be brought to grief by, say, forcing companies with hundreds of billions in share value to tolerate an employees’ union, offer a minimum wage adequate for a decent life, or pay tax proportional to their reliance on public goods.

No one bears greater responsibility for the lack of empathy toward Old-Economy workers that led to Donald Trump’s victory than big-name Tech darlings and the New Democrats who coddled them, then openly ridiculed their own voter base: the people Hillary foolishly nicknamed “Deplorables;” that is, the millions of disappointed Obama voters who would happily have voted blue if they’d had confidence that the party would respect them, welcome them, and acknowledge their needs. But the New Economy is a gated community, shut firmly to them, whose most strenuous boosters have been the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations. Old-school, working-class Democrats are unwelcome in the party they built. No one wants them tracking mud through the salon.

Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the swing states the same way Barack Obama had: by characterizing her as disdainful toward blue-collar Americans. It was a potent message among those who once had seen decent wages in return for honest work, lately reduced to Walmart greeters and Uber drivers. Humiliated by a labor market in which they had nothing to trade, the former working class understood that they also had nothing to lose. Liberal democracy and its supporting institutions shed their veneer of sanctity when dead-end employees can aspire only to dead-end management gigs. Call them “associates” and “technicians” all you want; they know who they’ve become and what others think of them. They are why Trump won in the swing states; he was propelled to victory by disillusioned Obama voters.

Read more …

I would have expected so much more from Bernie. Folds for the DNC twice in a row, and doesn’t volunteer to return any donations.

Can someone check how many times he said the same in 2016?! “Sanders called the 2020 election the most important in the modern history of the U.S.”

• Sanders: ‘The Future Of Our Planet Is At Stake’ In 2020 Election (JTN)

Former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders urged his supporters Monday to vote for nominee Joe Biden, imploring that the “future of our planet is at stake” and that the “price of failure” for not electing Biden would be “just too great to imagine.” “The future of our democracy is at stake. The future of our economy is at stake. The future of our planet is at stake,” Sanders said on opening night of the Democratic National Convention. “We must come together, defeat Donald Trump and elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next president and vice president. My friends, the price of failure is just too great to imagine.” Sanders called the 2020 election the most important in the modern history of the U.S.

“We need an unprecedented response, a movement, like never before of people who are prepared to stand up and fight for democracy and decency,” said Sanders, a democratic-socialist who finished second in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. “Our campaign ended several months ago but our movement continues and is getting stronger every day. Many of the ideas we fought for, that just a few years ago were considered radical are now mainstream but let us be clear, if Donald Trump is re-elected, all the progress we have made will be in jeopardy,” he also [said].

Sanders named areas where Biden has moved the progressive agenda forward, such as raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, making it easier for workers to join unions,” creating 12 weeks of paid family leave and funding universal pre-K for 3 and 4-year olds. “Joe will rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and fight the threat of climate change by transitioning us to 100 percent clean electricity over the next 15 years. These initiatives will create millions of good paying jobs all across the country,” Sanders said. “We are the only industrialized nation not to guarantee health care for all people. While Joe and I disagree on the best path to get to universal coverage, he has a plan that will greatly expand health care and cut the cost of prescription drugs. Further, he will lower the eligibility age of Medicare from 65 to 60,” added Sanders, who worked with Biden on his final campaign platform.

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Bernie campaigner David Sirota has at least a little backbone.

• Democrats Seem All Too Willing to Surrender on Health Care Reform (Jac.)

On the eve of a Democratic National Convention taking place as millions lose health care coverage, the health care industry is launching a new ad campaign pressing Democrats to back off from the party’s already compromised health care promises. That pressure seems to be having its intended effect on Capitol Hill, as congressional aides say the party will not push the initiative if Joe Biden wins the presidency. The signs of retreat come as health care industry profits are skyrocketing and the industry’s campaign cash has flooded into Democratic coffers. The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (PAHCF) — a front group created by health insurance, pharmaceutical, and hospital lobbying groups to oppose “Medicare for All” — announced on Friday that it is launching a new national ad campaign to persuade Democrats to abandon their plans to create a public health insurance plan.

The group said it will run ads during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) this week. PAHCF is led by a former Hillary Clinton aide and run out of the offices of a DC lobbying firm led by former top Democratic congressional aides. A substantial “public option” plan — which polls show is wildly popular — was the centerpiece of recent policy negotiations between supporters of former vice president Joe Biden and progressive Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who had been pushing for a more expansive Medicare for All program. A draft of the party platform, approved by DNC members late last month, includes a pledge to pass a public option, or a government-run health insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.

Within twenty-four hours of the launch of the industry’s new ads, however, anonymous Democratic congressional sources were telling the Hill that Democrats likely won’t bother with the public option fight next year if Biden wins the election. Instead, they said, the party will work to tweak its 2010 health care law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has done little to limit insurance or hospital costs and has failed to ensure universal coverage. To justify the preemptive retreat, Democratic congressional aides told the newspaper that the party’s moderate crop of 2020 Senate challenger candidates could make it harder to pass a public option. That assertion comes even though every single one of those candidates is currently campaigning in support of a public option, according to a TMI review of campaign statements.

The situation echoes the Democratic promises and subsequent surrender on a public option that marked the debate over health care more than a decade ago — only this time around, the health care crisis is an even more acute emergency. While most developed countries have managed to contain COVID-19, the pandemic is spiraling out of control in the United States, and an estimated 27 million people have lost their employer-based health insurance plans, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

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And also recorded before Trump lost his brother?! Or wouldn’t she have cared? She did remember last night that she said it, right? Class? Grace? Where? We go low?

.. by contrast, “Joe knows the anguish of sitting at a table with an empty chair …

• Michelle Obama Speech Recorded Before Joe Biden Selected Kamala Harris (NYP)

There was one glaring omission from Michelle Obama’s 20-minute Democratic National Convention speech Monday night — Kamala Harris. That’s because the former first lady recorded her rousing speech before Joe Biden selected Sen. Harris of California as his running mate. The speech was delivered remotely like all others at the DNC because of the coronavirus pandemic, and The Associated Press reports it was filmed before Harris was named last week as Biden’s VP candidate, indicating the choice was so close to the vest and down to the wire that even the Obamas were not in the loop. In her speech, Michelle Obama eloquently praised Biden and emotionally denounced Trump’s policies.

“Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us,” she said. “It is what it is,” Obama added, quoting Trump’s recent remark on coronavirus deaths. “Right now, kids in this country are seeing what happens when we stop requiring empathy of one another,” Obama said. “They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protesters for a photo-op.”

She said that by contrast, “Joe knows the anguish of sitting at a table with an empty chair, which is why he gives his time so freely to grieving parents. Joe knows what it’s like to struggle, which is why he gives his personal phone number to kids overcoming a stutter of their own. His life is a testament to getting back up, and he is going to channel that same grit and passion to pick us all up, to help us heal and guide us forward.”

Read more …

The issue is not nearly as simple as some people would let you believe.

• Trump vs. Dems On Mail-in Voting (Chaffetz)

With less than three months until the 2020 election and no end in sight for the coronavirus pandemic, a new debate over mail-in voting has begun. Swirling and sudden concerns about the United States Postal Service (USPS) have arisen from Democrats who are wildly accusing President Trump of cheating and manipulating the Postal Service in his favor. Conveniently they forget to mention the president is more than an arms-length away from how we vote, and the Postal Service is not under the thumb of his control. Senate Democrats joined Republicans to unanimously install postal leadership — of which, one is an Obama appointee.

No doubt President Trump has expressed deep concerns about the validity of the ballots, and rightfully so. Sending out millions of ballots without authenticating the inbound ballots is ripe for massive fraud. Democrats have desperately been seeking to legalize “ballot harvesting” (the collection and submission of ballots by someone other than the voter and without authentication) and other nefarious activities. It must be noted elections in the United States are administered by counties and certified by states. In other words, per the United States Constitution, elections are run locally and not by the executive branch of the federal government. The president has simply sought fair elections.

Ironically, it is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s H.R. 1 that seeks to federalize elections and give the president power he doesn’t currently have now. Her solution would create the problem she inaccurately blames Trump for today. [..] The president of the United States does not control the operations of the Postal Service nor does he select or appoint the Postmaster General. The Board of Governors does both of these things. The Postal Regulatory Commission sets rates, service levels and decides on postal closings, not the president. The governors are appointed by a president and confirmed by the United States Senate. No more than five of the nine governors may be from the same political party.

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Clickbait fodder.

• Trump Teases Upcoming Pardon For ‘Very Important’ Person (RT)

US President Donald Trump said he would soon hand out a pardon to a “very important” person. While the details were left shrouded in mystery, he ruled out both his former advisor Michael Flynn and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. “Doing a pardon tomorrow on someone who is very, very important,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One on Monday, offering little elaboration other than to say it would not be Flynn – his first National Security Advisor – nor the famed whistleblower. Despite repeatedly calling Snowden a “traitor” over the years, Trump has hinted at giving the whistleblower a reprieve on more than one occasion in the last week, saying he may have been treated “unfairly” and that he would “look at” allowing him to return home.


With the president explicitly ruling him out for Tuesday’s pardon, however, it appears Snowden will have to remain in Moscow for some time longer, where he was given asylum after leaking a massive cache of purloined documents from the National Security Agency in 2013, revealing Washington’s sweeping domestic and global spying apparatus.

Read more …

They’re starting a new competition.

• China’s Anti-Trump Election Meddling Raises New Alarm (Fox)

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Fox News that China poses “a greater national security threat” to the United States “than any other nation,” detailing a web of threats that includes “election influence and interference.” Intelligence officials say they are increasingly concerned about interference in the U.S. election by China, adding to existing concerns about meddling by Russia that have been around since 2016, as well as the threat of meddling from Iran. “China poses a greater national security threat to the U.S. than any other nation – economically, militarily and technologically. That includes threats of election influence and interference,” Ratcliffe told Fox News in a statement.

While Russia was widely seen as favoring now-President Trump and generally seeking to sow chaos in America during the 2016 election, the difference with China is it is seen to be seeking a Trump loss in November. Yet congressional Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who ever since 2016 have issued dire warnings about Russian meddling, have not been quite so vocal about China’s potential to interfere in the 2020 election. Pelosi, D-Calif., last week said the threats of interference from Russia and China are “not equivalent,” while urging the intelligence community to put out more information about Russian efforts, saying Moscow is “actively 24/7 interfering in our election.”

Ratcliffe said the threat from China is actually significant, and he is “committing the IC resources needed to fully understand the threat posed by China and provide U.S. policymakers with the best intelligence to counter China’s broad and deep malign activities.” “China is concerned that President Trump’s reelection would lead to a continuation of policies that they perceive to be ‘anti-China,’” Ratcliffe explained, noting that the intelligence community has briefed “hundreds of members of Congress” to raise their concerns about China “and its increased efforts to impact the U.S. policy climate in its favor.” “Fair and free elections are a bedrock of American democracy, and the IC remains vigilant against the various activities by China, as well as other threat countries and actors, which seek to affect our electoral process,” Ratcliffe said.

Read more …

Great fundraiser, they said.

• Kamala Harris Reportedly Owes $1M In Bills From Failed Presidential Run (NYP)

Kamala Harris, named Tuesday to be Joe Biden’s running mate, still has more than $1 million in unpaid bills left over from her failed 2020 presidential bid, according to a report. The California senator raised about $39 million for her White House bid in 2019 and spent about $40 million, leaving her campaign with just $116,380 in the bank at the end of June, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing Federal Election Commission filings. Harris ended her campaign last December amid falling poll numbers and a lack of fundraising.


International law firm Perkins Coie LLP was still owed $523,883 at the end of June, while TorchStone Global LLC, a corporate and private security company, was owed $160,702, the report said. California political consulting firm SCRB Strategies had $92,4087 in outstanding invoices. Donors have contributed slightly more than $48,000 to her campaign this year. The report noted that the campaign can’t be shuttered until all debts are paid under federal law. And while Biden raised $26 million in a day after announcing her selection, his campaign can do little to retire Harris’ campaign debt. It can donate $2,000 and the Democratic National Committee can contribute $5,000. But Biden can ask his donors to send funds to Harris’ campaign.

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Feel free to call this a failed society.

• Twelve US Billionaires Have a Combined $1 Trillion (Ineq.org)

For the first time in US history, the top twelve U.S. billionaires surpassed a combined wealth of $1 trillion. On Thursday August 13th, these 12 had a combined $1.015 trillion. This is a disturbing milestone in the US history of concentrated wealth and power. This is simply too much economic and political power in the hands of twelve people. From the point of view of a democratic self-governing society, this represents an Oligarchic Twelve or a Despotic Dozen. The Oligarchic Dozen are Jeff Bezos ($189.4b), Bill Gates ($114b), Mark Zuckerberg ($95.5b), Warren Buffett ($80b), Elon Musk ($73b), Steve Ballmer ($71b), Larry Ellison ($70.9b), Larry Page ($67.4b), Sergey Brin ($65.6b), Alice Walton ($62.5b), Jim Walton ($62.3b) and Rob Walton ($62b).

Since March 18th, the beginning of the pandemic, this Oligarchic Dozen have seen their combined wealth increase $283 billion, an increase of almost 40 percent. Elon Musk has been the biggest pandemic profiteer, seeing his wealth triple from $24.6 billion on March 18th to $73 billion on August 13, an increase of $48.5 billion or 197 percent. Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos was worth $189.4 billion on August 13, up $76 billion or 68 percent since March 18th. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was worth $95.5 billion on August 13, up $40.8 billion or 75 percent since March 18th.

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The Sacklers took out many billions, then declared bankruptcy. Now they’re “willing” to contribute more to a settlement than the entire company is worth. Sick.

• US States Seek $2.2 Trillion From OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma (R.)

U.S. states claimed they are owed $2.2 trillion to address harm from OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP’s alleged role in America’s opioid epidemic, accusing the drugmaker in new filings of pushing prescription painkillers on doctors and patients while playing down the risks of abuse and overdose. In filings made as part of Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings that were disclosed on Monday, the states said Purdue, backed by the wealthy Sackler family, contributed to a public health crisis that has claimed the lives of roughly 450,000 people since 1999 and caused strains on healthcare and criminal justice systems. The filings cited more than 200,000 deaths in the U.S. tied directly to prescription opioids between 1999 and 2016.

In large states such as California and New York, claims alone totaled more than $192 billion and $165 billion, respectively. Forty-nine U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and various territories are making the claims. Oklahoma settled litigation with Purdue last year. Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019 under pressure from more than 2,600 lawsuits brought by cities, counties, states, Native American tribes, hospitals and others. The lawsuits said the company, and in some cases the Sacklers, used deceptive marketing and took other improper steps to flood communities with prescription opioids. The company and family have denied the allegations and pledged to help combat the opioid epidemic, including by providing addiction treatment drugs and overdose reversal medications under development.

[..] Purdue is only worth a bit more than $2 billion if liquidated. The company values a proposal to settle litigation, which includes providing addiction treatment and overdose-reversing drugs, at more than $10 billion. The Sacklers would contribute $3 billion and cede control of Purdue, with the company becoming a trust run on behalf of plaintiffs.

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These well-meaning people are mightily confused about growth:

“In the absence of new forms of liquidity support and major debt relief, the world economy cannot possibly return to pre-pandemic levels of growth..”

I think that means to want to return there.

“..the dramatic decline in the cost of renewable energy represents an opportunity for a big investment push in zero-carbon energy infrastructure, which itself would help to redress energy poverty and unsustainable growth.”

More growth? Isn’t growth itself the problem then? Never mind, anyone who talks about sustainable growth is not a serious person in my book.

• The Need for Debt-for-Climate Swaps (PS)

In the absence of new forms of liquidity support and major debt relief, the world economy cannot possibly return to pre-pandemic levels of growth without risking severe climate distress and social unrest.Climate scientists tell us that in order to meet the targets outlined in the Paris climate accord, global net carbon-dioxide emissions must fall by about 45% by 2030, and by 100% by 2050. Given that the effects of climate change are already being felt around the world, countries urgently need to scale up their investments in climate adaptation and mitigation. But that will not be possible if governments are bogged down in a debt crisis. If anything, debt-service requirements will push countries to pursue export revenues at any cost, including by cutting corners on climate-resilient infrastructure and stepping up their own fossil-fuel use and extraction of resources.

This course of events would further depress commodity prices, creating a doom loop for producer countries. In light of these concerns, the G20 has called on the IMF “to explore additional tools that could serve its members’ needs as the crisis evolves, drawing on relevant experiences from previous crises.” One such tool that should be considered is a “debt-for-climate swap” facility. In the 1980s and 1990s, developing countries and their creditors engaged in “debt-for-nature swaps,” whereby debt relief was linked to investments in reforestation, biodiversity, and protections for indigenous people. This concept should now be expanded to include people-centered investments that address both climate change and inequality.

Developing countries will need additional resources if they are to have any chance of leaving fossil fuels in the ground, investing sufficiently in climate adaptation, and creating opportunities for twenty-first-century jobs. One source for such resources is debt relief conditioned on such investments. A policy tool of this type would not only put us on the path to recovery, but also could help to prevent future debt-sustainability problems that might emerge as more fossil-fuel holdings and non-resilient infrastructure become “stranded assets.” Moreover, the dramatic decline in the cost of renewable energy represents an opportunity for a big investment push in zero-carbon energy infrastructure, which itself would help to redress energy poverty and unsustainable growth.

Read more …

I should read Stephanie Kelton’s book, right?!

• The Mathematical Model of Modern Monetary Theory (Steve Keen)

One Mathematical Model of Modern Monetary Operations

I confess immediately that I chose the title and subtitle for this post because their acronyms are palindromes. The subtitle is more accurate than the title, because this model considers only the monetary aspects of MMT: the Job Guarantee and inflation management components are not yet incorporated. But the monetary assertions of MMT remain in dispute in economic and political circles, so it is worth putting these into a mathematical model where their veracity can be tested. The primary stimulus for developing the model was the publication of Stephanie Kelton’s The Deficit Myth. Stephanie has written the book for non-technical readers, and she’s done a very good job: it’s a very easy read that explains why many conventional wisdoms about government spending are wrong.

But MMT is facing heavy resistance in political and economic circles, with my favourite to date being a motion before the US Congress, posted by Representative Kevin Hern, to resolve: “That the House of Representatives (1) realizes that deficits are unsustainable, irresponsible, and dangerous; and (2) recognizes— (A) that the implementation of Modern Monetary Theory would lead to higher deficits and higher inflation; and (B) the duty of the House of Representatives to condemn Modern Monetary Theory.”

The objective of this series of posts is to allow the assessment of the first part of this motion—the assertion that “deficits are unsustainable, irresponsible, and dangerous”. The models in this post are built in the Open Source system dynamics program Minsky, whose unique feature is the capacity to build models of financial flows using what are called Godley Tables (in honour of Wynne Godley, the pioneer of stock-flow-consistent-modelling). These tables enforce the “law of accounting” that (see Figure 1, A blank Godley Table).

Once an account is flagged as an “Asset” for one entity, Minsky knows that it has to also be shown as a “Liability” for another entity. This makes it possible to take an integrated look at the financial system, which allows us to assess Hern’s motion from the perspective of the entire monetary system, and not just the Government’s view of it.

Read more …

50 years later: ‘They broke up because Yoko sat on an amp!’

• And in the End (Rolling Stone)

It’s a miserable Monday morning in January 1969, and the Beatles are trying to get back to where they once belonged. The Get Back project sounded like a perfect idea: just the four lads and their instruments, ready to hit the studio, return to their roots, conjure up some great songs out of thin air. Just like they used to. John, Paul, George, and Ringo have booked a TV concert special for January 18th — their first live show in years. They’ll rehearse for a couple of weeks, eyeball to eyeball, summon up genius on the spur of the moment. They’ve done it many times before. They’ve never not done it. The good news: Paul showed up today, and so did Ringo. So did the camera crew — these sessions are being filmed, so the Beatles can show a half-hour clip of rehearsal footage before their TV performance.

So here they are on Monday morning, ready to dazzle the world with a blast of spontaneous Beatles brilliance. Or at least Paul and Ringo are. Hey, has anyone heard from John and Yoko? Or George? With George, there’s a slight complication: He quit the band. On Friday, with the cameras rolling, he was trying to teach them a new song, “All Things Must Pass.” John, strung out on his new heroin habit, sneered at George with open contempt. George finally stormed out, muttering, “See you around the clubs.” John doesn’t take this seriously. “I think if George doesn’t come back by Monday or Tuesday, we ask Eric Clapton to play in it,” he says. “The point is, if George leaves, do we want to carry on the Beatles? I do. We should just get other members and carry on.” But now it’s Monday and still no George. No John and Yoko. (No Clapton, for that matter.) Paul and Ringo kill time jamming on a current radio hit, “Build Me Up Buttercup.”

But everyone gathers to discuss the crisis, complaining bitterly about Yoko’s constant presence. Surprisingly, the one who sticks up for her is Paul. He’s a sucker for a love story — he’s Paul McCartney, for God’s sake. But he also knows how much this romance means to his oldest, closest mate, his most troubled and cruel and impossible friend. “It’s not that bad,” he insists. “They want to stay together, those two. So it’s all right. Let the young lovers be together.” Paul has to chuckle, thinking about how future generations will look back at this — the Beatles, the greatest of all rock & roll bands, the world’s most legendary creative team, falling apart over such a trivial spat. Even on a winter morning as gloomy as this one, Paul breaks into a laugh. “It’s gonna be such an incredible sort of comical thing, like in 50 years’ time, you know. ‘They broke up because Yoko sat on an amp!'”

Read more …

 

 

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Debt Rattle November 19 2019

Nov 192019
 
 November 19, 2019  Posted by at 9:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  15 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Female bust 1943

 

• Adam Schiff Validated My Reporting On Ukraine (John Solomon)
• The Hill Reviewing John Solomon Articles After Ambassador Refutes Claims (ZH)
• Trump’s Ukraine Scandal Rooted In Fear Of Biden (Hill)
• Ukraine MP Says Burisma Financed Clinton Campaign With $10M Unmarked Cash (CDM)
• House Investigating Whether Trump Lied To Mueller (CNN)
• Entertaining Questions (Jim Kunstler)
• Hong Kong Anti-Mask Law Ruled Unconstitutional By High Court (SCMP)
• China Says Hong Kong Courts Have No Power To Rule On Face Mask Ban (R.)
• Emirates Orders 50 Airbus A350 Jets In A Revised Deal Worth $16 Billion (CNBC)
• Airbus Secures 120 Plane Order From Air Arabia (CNBC)
• FedEx CEO challenges NYT publisher to public debate after tax story
• Georgian Riot Police Disperse Anti-Govt Rally In Tbilisi (RT)
• The Roger Stone – Wikileaks – Russia Hoax (Craig Murray)
• The Most Spied Upon Building On Earth (Maurizi)

 

 

I guess it’s official: John Solomon is no longer at The Hill. Still don’t know why; did I miss something?

• Adam Schiff Validated My Reporting On Ukraine (John Solomon)

While the jury is still out on high crimes and misdemeanors, Schiff has managed to produce during the first few weeks of his impeachment hearings a robust body of evidence and testimony that supports all three of the main tenets of my Ukraine columns. In fact, his witnesses have done more than anyone to affirm the accuracy of my columns and to debunk the false narrative by a dishonest media and their friends inside the federal bureaucracy that my reporting was somehow false conspiracy theories. The half dozen seminal columns I published for The Hill on Ukraine were already supported by overwhelming documentation (all embedded in the story) and on-the-record interviews captured on video. They made three salient and simple points:

• Hunter Biden’s hiring by the Ukrainian gas firm Burisma Holdings, while it was under a corruption investigation, posed the appearance of a conflict of interest for his father. That’s because Vice President Joe Biden oversaw US-Ukraine policy and forced the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor overseeing the case.
• Ukraine officials had an uneasy relationship with our embassy in Kiev because State Department officials exerted pressure on Ukraine prosecutors to drop certain cases against activists, including one group partly funded by George Soros.
• There were efforts around Ukraine in 2016 to influence the US election, that included a request from a DNC contractor for dirt on Manafort, an OpEd from Ukraine’s US ambassador slamming Trump and the release of law enforcement evidence by Ukrainian officials that a Ukraine court concluded was an improper interference in the US election.

All three of these points have since been validated by the sworn testimony of Schiff’s witnesses this month, starting with the Bidens. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent testified he believed the Burisma-Bidens dynamic created the appearance of a conflict of interest, and that State officials viewed Burisma as having a corrupt relationship. Kent testified State’s sentiments were so strong that he personally intervened in 2016 to stop a joint project between one of his department’s agencies and Burisma. When asked why, he answered: “Burisma had a poor reputation in the business, and I didn’t think it was appropriate for the U.S. Government to be co-sponsoring something with a company that had a bad reputation.”

Read more …

The “problem” with Solomon is he’s thorough and well-documented. Look forward to him commenting on any potential edits to his articles.

• The Hill Reviewing John Solomon Articles After Ambassador Refutes Claims (ZH)

The Hill will be reviewing articles written by former contributor John Solomon after allegations by US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch that he facilitated a smear campaign. “Because of our dedication to accurate non-partisan reporting and standards, we are reviewing, updating, annotating with any denials of witnesses, and when appropriate, correcting any opinion pieces referenced during the ongoing congressional inquiry,” reads an internal email from Editor-In-Chief Bob Cusack obtained by CNN’s Oliver Darcy. Yovanovitch testified last week that the president’s allies, including Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, attacked her with false allegations that she was undermining the Trump administration’s agenda and badmouthing the president.


She claims Solomon was part of this effort – penning articles in The Hill containing the trash-talking claims as well as an allegation that she gave Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko a “do not prosecute list,” which both Yovanovitch and the State Department have pushed back on. Lutsenko changed his story, telling the New York Times there was no such list. He is currently facing allegations related to abuse of power. In response to the review, Solomon tweeted: “I welcome The Hill’s review of my Ukraine columns and suggested it myself a month ago. I believe it won’t be hard for The Hill to review these since all my source documents and original interviews are linked for all to see. Plus witnesses have affirmed much of what I wrote.”

Read more …

What the Hill publishes these days is smut like this. Toeing the line of the empire. The entire inquiry rests on the assumption that Trump is afraid of Biden. Is he though? Or does he want to find out what happened in 2016?

• Trump’s Ukraine Scandal Rooted In Fear Of Biden (Hill)

Why is President Trump so nervous about the 2020 race? He has a record amount of campaign cash. Russian bots are still working for him. And he still has the backing of more than 80 percent of his party. So, how do I know he’s so nervous? As Trump loves to say: Read the transcript. At the heart of the phone call that has led to impeachment hearings is Trump going out on a shaky limb to ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a “favor.” That “favor” included a request for Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and Biden’s son, Hunter. The only reason for Trump to risk asking a foreign leader for help getting political dirt on an opponent is that he feared that rival’s power.


And that November 2020 powerhouse in Trump’s mind is Biden. Recall that in June, Trump’s anxiety was on display when he insisted his campaign fire some its pollsters after internal polls showed him losing in Michigan and Wisconsin to Biden. Trump’s shaky nerves went public again in July when a Fox News poll showed him losing to Biden — by a lot. Trump went ballistic and attacked Fox. The president still has every reason to be nervous about a possible match-up with Biden because polls continue to show the Democrat beating him badly. If Biden, a well-liked moderate, is the nominee the election becomes a referendum on Trump. With an approval rating hovering in the mid-to-low 40s, that is not good news for the president.

Read more …

Well, this is what happened in 2016. Still nothing to investigate the Bidens on?

• Ukraine MP Says Burisma Financed Clinton Campaign With $10M Unmarked Cash (CDM)

CD Media has been steadily breaking news on American government and Obama Administration corruption in Ukraine as the impeachment inquiry scam heats up in Washington, D.C. Although we have provided plenty of evidence of organized crime emanating from the State Department and elsewhere in the U.S. governmental infrastructure in Kyiv, many still wonder why the Democrats are so rabid to stop Trump from having a second term. Well, now we believe we are getting closer to the answer.

[..] “In 2015, Burisma was considered a corrupt company, but a very lucrative and powerful one. Poroshenko was trying to ‘get in’ and get a piece of the action [CD Media has reported how Poroshenko also wanted Privat Bank for the same reason]. So, essentially Zlochevsky [Mykola Zlochevsky – oligarch owner] brought in Biden for protection, and the Biden family got paid of course. No one would mess with Burisma with the Vice President involved. Zlochevsky showed everyone Biden was on the board pushing his father’s name. The problem with the ‘corrupted company’ label in the United States went away quickly in about three months. It was amazing. “And of course, Burisma also helped the Clinton campaign prior to the election.”

How did they help we asked? “They paid them around $10 million.” Wouldn’t those wire transfers show up? we questioned. “This was Ukraine; everything was done with big bags of cash to the Clintons.” Onyshchenko then went on to describe how he was approached by prosecutors in the U.S. to testify in the United States on American corruption in Ukraine. He showed us a letter published below from the Department of Justice in 2016, where he says they provided him a temporary visa to come testify on the theft and money laundering of American aid to Ukraine, and on the illegal money to the Clintons. “Right before I was to leave for the U.S., I received notice that my visa had been cancelled due to the personal involvement of Vice President Joe Biden.

He made a personal phone call and the visa was cancelled. I guess he didn’t want me telling what I know so I didn’t make it to the United States to testify.” The cancellation of the visa has been confirmed by CD Media by a secondary source. Onyshchenko also reiterated that former FBI agent Karen Greenaway was pushing hard during this time for him to not talk to the press about his knowledge of the Biden scandal, holding the threat of American law enforcement action against him to do so. Greenaway has since retired from the FBI but remains in Ukraine involved with one of the Soros foundations. “She was pushing hard…for me to say nothing,” he declared. “She was running everything for the Democrats, all the coverup for the corruption.”

Read more …

Blah blah WikiLeaks.

• House Investigating Whether Trump Lied To Mueller (CNN)

The House of Representatives is now investigating whether President Donald Trump lied to special counsel Robert Mueller in written answers he provided in the Russia investigation, the House’s general counsel said in federal court Monday. “Did the President lie? Was the President not truthful in his responses to the Mueller investigation?” House general counsel Douglas Letter told the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit about why the House now needs access to grand jury material Mueller collected in his investigation. The House’s arguments Monday draw new focus to whether Trump had lied to Mueller following public revelations at Roger Stone’s trial this month.

Former Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates testified that Trump and Stone talked about information that was coming that could help the campaign in mid-2016, at a time when Stone was attempting to get secret details about stolen Democratic documents WikiLeaks had. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort also apparently told the Mueller grand jury what Trump’s approach to WikiLeaks had been in 2016, according to the Mueller report. But Trump told Mueller in his written statements he didn’t recall discussing WikiLeaks with Stone. The Gates testimony adds further significance to Congress’ desire to see the redacted material.

The question of whether Trump obstructed justice, including potentially lying to Mueller, has for months been a part of the House Judiciary Committee’s wider review of potential obstruction in the wake of the Mueller report. The House previously reviewed most of what Mueller had written in his final report, including parts kept from the public. But the House hasn’t been able to see what Manafort told the grand jury, which Mueller apparently described in his report. In the Mueller report, grand jury details are redacted related to a sentence describing Manafort speaking with Trump after WikiLeaks’ first release, in July 2016.

Read more …

“Messers, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rosenstein, McCabe, Strzok, Halper, Ms. Page, et. al — and, if real justice is on order, not a few figures lurking in the Deep State deep background — John Carlin, Bill Priestap, Dana Boente, Michael Gaeta, Sally Yates, Loretta Lynch, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and perhaps even the archangel Barack Obama..”

• Entertaining Questions (Jim Kunstler)

Mr. Barr declared unambiguously and in plain English that “in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of ‘Resistance’ against this Administration, it is the Left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law.” Is any part of that unclear? The confounded might take in this more detailed lesson in recent history from the speech:

“Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called ‘the Resistance,’ and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his administration. Now, ‘resistance’ is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous — indeed incendiary — notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the “loyal opposition,” as opposing parties have done in the past, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.”

And anyone who takes in the nauseating spectacle of Congressman Adam Schiff’s House Intel Committee impeachment process can see that shredding of norms on full shameless display, where the attempted defense of nakedly absurd charges against the president is thwarted by a chicane of deceitful rules outside any concept of due process, concocted by Mr. Schiff and his task force of Lawfare hustlers — no right to call witnesses, no right of cross-examination, and no right to argue that set of rules cribbed from the Stalin show trials by way of the Spanish Inquisition. They’re pouring it on this week ahead of a post-Thanksgiving cold water deluge of bad news that will detail charges against the progenitors of RussiaGate.

The roll-call may be a long one, including many actors whose turpitudes have been publicly and richly documented for many months — Messers, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rosenstein, McCabe, Strzok, Halper, Ms. Page, et. al — and, if real justice is on order, not a few figures lurking in the Deep State deep background — John Carlin, Bill Priestap, Dana Boente, Michael Gaeta, Sally Yates, Loretta Lynch, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and perhaps even the archangel Barack Obama, just in time for Christmas, too. Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann deserve to be included for what amounted to a blatant, arrantly mendacious malicious prosecution, knowing that they had no case and proceeding anyway for two whole years.

I hope the roundup will extend to the very latest ploys leading to RussiaGate’s successor subterfuge, UkraineGate, namely the exploits of “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella, his handlers and enablers in Mr. Schiff’s office, and the actions of his accomplice, Michael Atkinson, the current Intelligence Community Inspector General, with obvious conflicts of interests as a major player in the previous RussiaGate dodge — he was legal counsel to Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, who headed the Department of Justice’s National Security Division at the birth of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” gambit, and before that he was Robert Mueller’s chief of staff at the FBI. Anything to see there, ya think? The “whistleblower” himself was, in fact, a CIA spy in the White House. You may recall that the CIA is prohibited from spying on Americans in their own country, and doing that in the White House is arguably the essence and height of lawless sedition.

Read more …

Fighting for freedom.

• Hong Kong Anti-Mask Law Ruled Unconstitutional By High Court (SCMP)

A Hong Kong court has ruled in favour of pan-democrats in declaring the government’s mask ban unconstitutional in a decision that forced police to halt law enforcement while legal experts in mainland China floated the possibility of another legal interpretation by Beijing. Two High Court judges on Monday ruled that the emergency legislation that brought the ban on face coverings in public places into effect last month was “incompatible with the Basic Law” when used in times of public danger as seen in the present case. They also found the new law had imposed invalid restrictions on fundamental rights and freedoms.


The ruling by justices Anderson Chow Ka-ming and Godfrey Lam Wan-ho, in favour of the 25 pan-democrats who applied for judicial review, dealt a blow to the beleaguered government. Police announced they would stop enforcing the ban for now, while prosecutors sought adjournment “to consider the situation”. Legal experts were divided, some calling the judgment an important recognition of Hong Kong’s constitutional framework, while those on the mainland expressed concerns that the court might have sent the wrong signal to the radical protesters, floating the idea of Beijing interpreting the Basic Law again.

Read more …

Hong Kong courts are trumped by Beijing. Might as well disband them then.

• China Says Hong Kong Courts Have No Power To Rule On Face Mask Ban (R.)

China’s top legislature said Hong Kong courts have no power to rule on the constitutionality of legislation under the city’s Basic Law, which includes a proposed ban on face masks, state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday. The statement came a day after Hong Kong’s High Court ruled that a ban on wearing face masks during public demonstrations that have rocked the financial hub for more than five months was unconstitutional. “Whether the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region comply with the Basic Law of Hong Kong can only be judged and decided by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress,” Yan Tanwei, a spokesman for the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, said in a statement. “No other authority has the right to make judgments and decisions,” the statement said.

Read more …

No, I don’t care much for planes. But this is part of the Boeing story.

• Emirates Orders 50 Airbus A350 Jets In A Revised Deal Worth $16 Billion (CNBC)

Emirates has ordered 50 Airbus A350 jets, the Dubai state-owned airline announced at the Dubai Air Show on Monday. The order’s list price sits at $16 billion, but a steep discount is typically negotiated by airlines. The deal was originally slated to see Emirates order 70 planes from the French manufacturer — 40 of the A350s and 30 A330-900neo jets — but all A330 orders were scrapped in favor of bringing the A350 order size to 50. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury told a press conference that the European multinational planemaker’s flagship A380 would now have a “younger but very talented brother in the Emirates family.”


The A350 is a family of long-range, twin-engine wide-body jet airliners, while the A380 is the world’s largest passenger airliner. The 50 jets ordered by Emirates are its cornerstone A350-900 variety, accommodating between 300 and 350 passengers. “Complementing our A380s and 777s, the A350s will give us added operational flexibility in terms of capacity, range and deployment,” Emirates Chairman and Chief Executive Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum told press. “In effect, we are strengthening our business model to provide efficient and comfortable air transport services to, and through, our Dubai hub.”

Read more …

A Turkish low fare airline has ordered 10 737 MAX 8’s. They must think their clients are illiterate.

• Airbus Secures 120 Plane Order From Air Arabia (CNBC)

Air Arabia has signed a firm order for 120 Airbus aircraft, the European plane-maker has announced. The deal, signed on Monday at the Dubai Airshow, consists of 73 A320neos, 27 A321neos and 20 A321XLRs. In a press statement, Airbus Chief Commercial Officer Christian Scherer said the order was a “great endorsement for the A320neo family which will allow the airline to tap into new markets.” Air Arabia Group CEO Adel Al Ali said the order, worth around $14 billion according to 2018 list prices, would support the low-cost carrier’s growth plans.


“This new milestone underpins not only our solid financial fundamentals but also the strength of our multi-hub growth strategy that we have adopted over the years while remaining focused on efficiency, performance and passenger experience,” Al Ali said in a statement. “The addition of the A320neo, A321neo and A321XLR complements our existing fleet and allows us to expand our service to farther and newer destinations while remaining loyal to our low-cost business model.” [..] U.S. rival Boeing also announced that it has received an order for an additional 10 737 Max 8 aircraft from Turkey’s SunExpress, on top of an existing fleet of 32 737 Max 8s. This marks only the second 737 Max order since the fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash in March which led to the grounding of the jet worldwide.

Read more …

The pot and the kettle.

• FedEx CEO Challenges NYT Publisher To Public Debate After Tax Story (R.)

FedEx Chief Executive Frederick Smith has challenged the publisher of the New York Times and the editor of the business section of the newspaper to a public debate in response to a story about the company’s tax bill. The package delivery firm’s financial filings showed it owed no taxes in the 2018 fiscal year overall due to President Donald Trump’s tax overhaul, according to the NYT story published on Sunday. Smith late on Sunday called the story here “distorted and factually incorrect” and challenged NYT’s publisher A.G. Sulzberger and the business section editor to a public debate in Washington. “FedEx’s colorful response does not challenge a single fact in our story. We’re confident in the accuracy of our reporting,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, VP-communications at NYT, said in an email on Monday.

Read more …

Riots wherever you look. Good time to be a water cannon maker.

• Georgian Riot Police Disperse Anti-Govt Rally In Tbilisi (RT)

Protesters blocking the Georgian parliament building in the center of Tbilisi have been doused with water on Monday as police wearing riot gear were deployed to clear the area and raise the blockade. Massive protests gripped the Georgian capital earlier this week as people took to the streets demanding a snap election. The unease was sparked by parliament’s failure to pass amendments to the election law. If agreed on, it would have meant a transition from a mixed majoritarian-proportional electoral system to a strictly proportional one.

During the rallies, people blocked a major city highway – Rustaveli Avenue – running through the center of Tbilisi and blocked the parliament, preventing MPs from entering the building. Some demonstrators set up tents right in front of the legislature. The parliament gates were also reportedly sealed with a chain and a padlock. Law enforcement repeatedly called on the demonstrators to disperse. The appeal was rejected by the opposition-led crowds who claimed they will leave only once their demands are met.

On Monday, large police forces and water cannons were deployed to the parliament. Officers wearing riot gear and equipped with shields and batons started to slowly push the people away from the area.

Read more …

As I must have said 1000 times: “Astonishingly, in the case of Stone, he has been convicted of saying that the Mueller nonsense is true..”

• The Roger Stone – Wikileaks – Russia Hoax (Craig Murray)

As ever, the Guardian wins the prize for the most tendentious reporting of Roger Stone’s conviction. This is not quite on the scale of its massive front page lie that Paul Manafort visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy. But it is a lie with precisely the same intent, to deceive the public into believing there were links between Wikileaks and the Trump campaign. There were no such links. The headline “Roger Stone: Trump Adviser Found Guilty On All Charges in Trump Hacking Case” is deliberately designed to make you believe a court has found Stone was involved in “Wikileaks hacking”. In fact this is the precise opposite of the truth. Stone was found guilty of lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee by claiming to have links to Wikileaks when in fact he had none. And of threatening Randy Credico to make Credico say there were such links, when there were not.

It is also worth noting the trial was nothing to do with “hacking” and no hacking was alleged or proven. Wikileaks does not do hacking, it does “leaks”. The clue is in the name. The DNC emails were not hacked. The Guardian is fitting this utterly extraneous element into its headline to continue the ludicrous myth that the Clinton campaign was “Hacked” by “the Russians”. It is worth noting that not one of those convicted of charges arising from or in connection with the Mueller investigation – Manafort, Papadopolous, Stone – has been convicted of anything to do with Wikileaks, with anything to do with Russia or with the original thesis of the enquiry.


Astonishingly, in the case of Stone, he has been convicted of saying that the Mueller nonsense is true, and he was a Trump/Wikileaks go-between, when he was not. Yet despite the disastrous collapse of the Mueller Report, and despite the absolutely devastating judicial ruling that there was no evidence worthy even of consideration in court that Russiagate had ever happened, the Guardian and the neo-con media in the USA (inc. CNN, Washington Post, New York Times) continue to serve up an endless diet of lies to the public. Randy Credico was the chief witness for the prosecution against Roger Stone. That’s for the prosecution, not the defence. This is the state’s key evidence against Stone. And Credico is absolutely plain that Stone had no link to Wikileaks.

Read more …

Laws? What laws? What I didn’t know yet: UC Global was brought in by Correa, to PROTEST Assange.

• The Most Spied Upon Building On Earth (Maurizi)

La Repubblica has had access to the video and audio recordings of the Spanish company, UC Global, which spied on the WikiLeaks founder, his team of journalists and all of us who visited Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy for the last seven years. Video footage and audio recordings reveal an appalling violation of privacy. All the information gathered by UC Global was sent to US intelligence.

It sounds like a James Bond movie, but it really happened. Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks journalists and every single lawyer, reporter, politician, artist and physician who visited the founder of WikiLeaks at the Ecuadorian embassy over the last seven years was subjected to systematic espionage. Meetings and conversations were recorded and filmed, and all the information was sent to US intelligence. Sometimes the espionage operations were truly off the wall: at one point spies even planned to steal the diaper of a baby brought to visit Assange inside the embassy. The purpose? To gather the baby’s feces and perform a DNA test to establish whether the newborn was a secret son of Julian Assange.

Repubblica has had access to some of the videos, audios and photos. Meetings between the founder of WikiLeaks and his lawyers, medical examinations of Julian Assange, diplomatic encounters of the Ecuadorian ambassador Carlos Abad Ortiz, meetings between Assange and journalists. Everything was spied on. The author of this article found that she was not just filmed, but her phones were screwed open, presumably to obtain the IMEI code that allows uniquely identifying the phone in order to intercept it. Spies also had access to our USB sticks, though at this stage it is not clear if they managed to break the encryption protecting the information stored in the USB flash drives inside our backpacks. These are very serious violations of the confidentiality of journalistic sources, given that our meetings inside the embassy were entirely professional and, as frequent visitors, we were repeatedly registered as “journalists”.

Read more …

 

 

 

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It Wasn’t About Epstein Anymore

Aug 102019
 
 August 10, 2019  Posted by at 6:53 pm Primers Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Man with ice cream cone 1938

 

My first thought after reading about Jeffrey Epstein’s so-called suicide is: let it go, watch a movie instead, or go out to dinner. But a suicide of someone under suicide watch is just too much. And then I understand NBC -oh wait, and Reuters too- said he wasn’t even on suicide watch anymore. A guy who allegedly tried to kill himself two weeks ago. But of course. Why should he be?

The FBI has announced an investigation, and so has Bill Barr’s DOJ. Problem is, there are so many people with strong connections to both FBI and DOJ that these investigations are as likely to bury the truth as they are to reveal it. Because this ceased being about Epstein the very moment he was apprehended at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey July 6.

It became about Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Alan Dershowitz, Ehud Barak, and god knows who else. It wasn’t about Jeffrey Epstein anymore, it was about his ‘friends’. It was also about Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter and heiress of media tycoon and Mossad asset Robert Maxwell, another ‘victim’ of an apparent suicide two decades ago.

Ghislaine who still walks around free, who hasn’t been charged with a thing, after having been credibly and repeatedly accused of procuring at least dozens of underage girls for Epstein and his friends.

It’s pretty safe to say that in the highest, re: richest, circles of our societies, this is what goes on. A lot. Presidents, prime ministers, corporate tycoons, they were/are in Epstein’s black book, and it makes no difference whether they succeed in making that book disappear. We just got another glance at their world.

Sociopaths and psychopaths are the shit that floats to the top of our societies. Because that’s where they can do most damage. Because that’s where they find the power their distorted minds crave more than anything.

Jeffrey Epstein to my knowledge never ordered bombing campaigns that killed 1000s of people in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. But some of the people he hung out with, and provided young girls and boys for, did.

We can only hope that Bill Barr and Donald Trump are going to be serious about finding out everything about Epstein’s world. I understand that the warrant on his Manhattan mansion stands, and now that he’s gone, there’s no-one left to fight it, so everything on the premises is fair game, whoever is mentioned in all the files, videos, books etc.

But I can’t say I’m very hopeful. For instance, it appears overly obvious that Prince Andrew plays a very dark role in the whole Epstein play, but what are the odds he’ll be arrested for it? I would venture that the odds MI6 murdered Epstein are much higher. But that’s just me, and I’m not a betting man.

 

Epstein was arrested at Teterboro on July 6. I wrote the piece linked below on July 19, three weeks ago to the day. His first ‘suicide attempt’ was two weeks ago. When he ‘killed himself’ today he was allegedly no longer on suicide watch.

What did George W. Bush say again about ‘fool me twice’? “I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee that says, ‘Fool me once, shame on … shame on you. Fool me… You can’t get fooled again!'”

And wait a minute, who’s going to get all of Epstein’s money? Here’s me on July 19:

 

How Long is Jeffrey Epstein For This World?

There are three main threats to Jeffrey Epstein’s life (or four, if you include his victims).

No. 1 is his fellow inmates in the Manhattan MCC. He’ll be in very strict isolation, because inmates and pedophilia is a very explosive combination. So isolation, but that’s never 100%. And Judge Berman yesterday ordered him in jail until his trial(s), instead of in his $77 million Manhattan mansion not far from that same prison, so he’ll be there a while; that trial could take a very long time to happen, even years. All the more chance for an inmate to make an easy $1000 by offing him.

The no. 2 threat is Epstein himself. Berman’s decision means he’s very unlikely to ever get out again. Chances of him being declared innocent are as close to zero as as anything Kelvin. So why would he want to continue to live? Perhaps his lawyers try and tell him he’s always got a shot, and there’s always a next court date, but he doesn’t strike me as fully delusional. I could be wrong, sure, about much of all this, but I don’t think so.

The no. 3 threat is, obviously, the people he might “sing” about. And that’s an litany of the world’s who’s who. No doubt the FBI may already have their IDs and photos and what-not, but why chance it when you can take down the -potential- crown witness?

 

[..] …Fox, also from July 18, because it targets Prince Andrew. Is MI6 going to be able to muffle away the obviously very strong and long-term connection between Epstein and Andrew? I’m thinking they’d probably have to get those 2,000 pages re-sealed. Or, you know, burned down. Nuked. To summarize my thoughts on this, and the reason I started writing this, I can’t see Epstein living much longer. There are too many people who would rather see him dead, including perhaps himself. And there are very few people who want him to get into lengthy talks with prosecutors who are actually looking for the truth.

Now of course we must wonder if any prosecutor wants that truth. Alex Acosta left his US government job because “Epstein is intelligence” was not enough to let him keep his job. And if we can believe some of the stories about the CIA, the State Dept and Mossad being linked to Epstein (and we got worse than that), it looks like he’s just got to go. Unless someone, or some party involved, has a reason to protect him against all odds. If only to handicap some other people.

 

 

 

 

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