Aug 192025
 


Edward Hopper Folly Beach, Charleston, South Carolina 1929

 

Russia Did NOT Invade Ukraine (Paul Craig Roberts)
The EU and Kiev Are Losing, and Trump Is My Witness (Romanenko)
Ukraine’s Army Should Face No Size Limits – Macron (RT)
The Old World Order Cracked In Alaska (Bordachev)
An Offer He Can’t Refuse (James Howard Kunstler)
Red Carpet For A New World Order: What Really Went Down In Alaska (Poletaev)
Ukraine Strikes Key Oil Pipeline To EU – Hungary (RT)
Attack on Hungary Pipeline Shows Ukraine Will Stop at Nothing- Zakharova (Sp.)
Zelensky’s Main Argument Against Peace Is a Lie (Romanenko)
5 Takeaways From Trump’s Meeting With Zelenskyy And European Leaders (NYT)
Ukraine Wants Europe To Pay $100bn For Weapons Deal With US – FT (RT)
Ed Martin: Russia Hoax to Blow Up, Schiff and Biden’s DOJ Next (Margolis)
Trump Is About to Go Nuclear Against Mail-in Voting (Margolis)
Mary McCord (Sundance)
British Army Colonel: CIVIL WAR Is Coming (MN)
How Trump Broke the Democratic Party (Margolis)
Trump Vows Social Security Will Thrive for Another ‘90 Years’ (RCW)

 

 

Dubinsky
https://twitter.com/Dubinsky_pro/status/1957103940979368025

 

 

 

 

$1 trillion
https://twitter.com/FFT1776/status/1957100979557396609

MoscowLondon

Speech

 

 

Macgregor – at 16 min he discusses “security guarantees“

 

 

 

 

One step up and two steps back.

On Friday, Trump was well on his way towards peace. On Monday, he walked all of it back. He seems to be trying to make everybody happy, which is hardly ever a good idea, but certainly not if they want diametrically opposed things. Putin genuinely wants peace, provided it comes under his conditions, but Zelensky and the EU leaders are the war party if ever there was one. They, too, want peace, but only after Russia has been thoroughly defeated. and since they have no army to do it with, they want Trump to do it for them. It’s all just one false flag away.

We can perhaps give him the befit of the doubt, but the clown car spectacle in the White House yesterday doesn’t promise much good. Under the nomer of ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine, they were between ‘acts’, even discussing US troops in Ukraine, on top of a very large Ukrainian army. What they were not discussing is peace.

 

 

Pretty good history lesson from Paul Craig Roberts. Judging from how deeply the false story has been embedded in people’s minds, much needed.

“The restoration of Russian citizenship is completely legal under the international rules of self-determination. There is no effort on the part of Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to return to Ukraine.”

Russia Did NOT Invade Ukraine (Paul Craig Roberts)

A totally transparent blatant lie has been turned into a truth throughout the Western world. The lie is that Russia invaded Ukraine. I will provide the factual history which is easy to verify. When Washington overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014 and installed a puppet, Washington relied on the Banderites to push the government into hostility with the Russian settled areas of Ukraine, areas such as Crimea and Donbas, that originally were part of Russia. Whether or not the Banderites, followers of Stepan Bandera are neo-Nazis, they are certainly hostile to Russians. The conflict in Ukraine began in 2014 with street assaults on Russians in Donbas and government attempts to ban the use of the Russian language and other prohibitions placed on the Russian areas. These street assaults soon grew into artillery attacks on Donbas towns and occupation of Donbas territory by Ukrainian militias sporting Nazi insignia.

To protect themselves, Donbas formed into two independent republics–Luhansk and Donetsk–and formed paramilitaries to defend themselves. In 2014 Donetsk and Luhansk voted overwhelmingly to be reabsorbed into Russia like Crimea, but Putin refused. Instead, Putin relied on the Minsk Agreement, which Ukraine and the independent republics signed, and which Germany and France were supposed to enforce. The agreement, sponsored by Russia, kept Donbas in Ukraine but provided some autonomy, such as independent police and courts to protect the rights of the Russian inhabitants. Putin naively relied on the Minsk Agreement, which the chancellor of Germany and president of France later said was used to deceive Putin while the US built and equipped a large Ukrainian army.

By late 2021 this army was prepared to invade Donbas, much of which was already under Ukrainian occupation, and forcibly reincorporate Donbas into Ukraine without any autonomy. Faced with the abuse and possible slaughter of Russian people, Putin and his foreign minister Lavrov tried during December 2021-February 2022 to obtain a mutual security agreement with the West that would exclude Ukraine from NATO membership and contribute to mutual security by normalizing relations between Russia and the West. The Biden regime, NATO, and the EU flatly refused. The conflict followed this refusal. Seeing the writing on the wall and unable to avoid it, Russia gave official recognization to the Donbas republics. This allowed Donetsk and Luhansk to request Russia to come to their aid, which Putin did at the last minute eight years too late. As Russia was invited into Donbas, Russia did not even invade Donbas, much less Ukraine.

Putin designated the Russian intervention a “special military operation” limited to clearing Ukrainian troops from Russian areas. Seven months into the military intervention on September 30, 2022, Russia reincorporated the Russian areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson into Russia. The ground fighting has been limited to clearing Ukrainian troops from territory that is again part of Russia. Ask yourselves how and why did the truth get replaced by a lie? The answer is that those who profit from war provide the war propaganda. Now ask why does it matter? The answer is that propaganda is a barrier to understanding and to a peaceful diplomatic solution to a conflict that can easily spin out of control into a wider war.

The propaganda that the evil-dictator-war-criminal-Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the first step in reconstruction [of] the Soviet Empire places restraints on Trump and Putin’s ability to put East-West relations on a less dangerous footing. Already the Western whore media is screaming that Trump is selling out Ukraine, that Trump is selling out Europe, that Trump is putty in Putin’s hands. These and other such ignorant slogans will be used by the Zionist neoconservatives and US military/security complex to drive wedges between Trump and his supporters. Americans have been indoctrinated to think of Russia as the enemy for 75 years. The belief is institutionalized.

Progress toward peaceful relations requires truthful reporting and correction of established beliefs that are false. Can this be achieved when the well-placed neoconservative supporters of US hegemony are defending their interest, and the military/security complex is determined to protect its power and profit? Trump can expect little help from the media. Naive Russians should not get carried away with their hopes for an accommodation with the West. Powerful barriers are in the way of Russian hopes, and Russians have no means of removing the barriers. It is doubtful that Trump does.

Now ask yourselves a final question? Why is it PCR who is making the case for common sense and for truth? Why isn’t it the US foreign policy community, the Kremlin, the Chinese, the Russian media, the Western media, the German government, the British government, the government of India? Why aren’t Trump’s supporters making the case? I am only one voice easily shouted down as a “Putin agent/dupe” by the Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, NPR, BBC, MSNBC, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and the rest of the whore media and a plethora of internet sites sponsored by war-mongers. The normalization of relations between the West and Russia will take many voices. Where are those voices?

Note: The whores at the BBC and the rest of the presstitute media incorrectly report that Russia’s restoration of Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to Russian citizenship is illegal. The restoration of Russian citizenship is completely legal under the international rules of self-determination. There is no effort on the part of Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to return to Ukraine.

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“Kiev and the EU are pushing for a reinforced Ukrainian military, possible NATO deployment on Ukrainian soil or even eventual NATO accession.”

The EU and Kiev Are Losing, and Trump Is My Witness (Romanenko)

Monday’s White House summit featuring US President Donald Trump, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, and several senior EU figures ended without any grand announcements. Yet beneath the surface, a high-stakes diplomatic contest is unfolding over the Washington’s role in the Ukraine conflict. The lack of decisive outcomes suggests that the real work is happening behind the scenes. Trump’s behavior – in particular his decision not to echo Kiev’s or Brussels’s messaging in the post-meeting briefings – is a signal. He is asserting his control over the narrative, reflecting that he remains unpersuaded by EU and Ukrainian arguments for continued Western entanglement in the conflict.

A strategic tug-of-war
The summit and the diplomatic moves surrounding it are a tug-of-war, with Moscow’s goal being to remove Washington’s involvement in the conflict, while Brussel’s and Kiev’s is to keep it anchored in their corner. The absence of new sanctions or pressure on Russia following last Friday’s Putin-Trump summit in Alaska suggests Moscow is gaining momentum. Trump has even shifted from demanding a ceasefire to advocating direct peace talks – a position more congenial to Moscow. EU leaders and Zelensky came to Washington to reinforce Trump’s alignment. The want to persuade Trump: strengthen sanctions, maintain arms shipments, ensure Ukraine has a security architecture they want.

Thus far, though, their pull seems to be struggling. Trump, from the outset, appeared to put the EU and Ukraine on the defensive, signaling that their influence is limited. The backdrop is critical: just days before, Trump hosted Putin in Anchorage, and that summit paved the way for more flexible diplomacy that sidesteps EU-defined preconditions. European leaders arriving at the White House now are playing catch-up – trying to steer a conversation already impacted by Trump’s shift.

The security guarantees question
Everything hinges on security guarantees for Ukraine – a deeply contested issue. Moscow is adamant that any meaningful guarantee depends on Ukrainian neutrality and demilitarization. In contrast, Kiev and the EU are pushing for a reinforced Ukrainian military, possible NATO deployment on Ukrainian soil or even eventual NATO accession. These efforts by the Europeans appear desperate, even naïve – given that Russia is slowly but steadily winning the war on the ground. And as Russia makes military gains, Kiev’s and Brussels’ wiggle room in the negotiations shrinks. That said, their attempts shouldn’t be dismissed outright. The shape of the peace deal slow-cooked in Washington will determine Ukraine’s fate – and by extension, much of Europe’s future security structure.

Moscow, meanwhile, remains unperturbed. After the meeting with Zelensky and the Europeans, Trump held a 40-minute phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Judging by the information released about the substance of the call, Trump made no demands and Putin offered no concessions. They talked about continuing direct Russia-Ukraine talks. They also discussed “elevating” the level of the talks, and according to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who was present at Monday’s meeting, direct talks between Putin and Zelensky could take place within two weeks. It is clear that the Kremlin remains steadfast and poised to consider setting the terms while it holds all the military cards.

In the end, the Washington summit may have lacked ceremony and a spectacular outcome, but it was loaded with geopolitical subtext: a contest over whether the US remains a supporter to Ukraine or begins to shift back toward a more transactional, realist posture. The EU, recognizing its diminishing leverage, is trying to reclaim the narrative as the battleground, at least for now, is clearly tilting against it.

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He knows exactly how Russia sees this. Calling for it regardless comes very close to a declaration of war.

Ukraine’s Army Should Face No Size Limits – Macron (RT)

A potential peace deal must not place limits on the size of Ukraine’s military, French President Emmanuel Macron has said, rejecting Russia’s demands. Earlier this year, Moscow reaffirmed that peace terms must include Ukraine’s neutrality and legally binding restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Kiev has dismissed the demand as unacceptable. Macron made his remarks following a meeting he attended in Washington on Monday with Vladimir Zelensky, several other European leaders and US President Donald Trump. He said European countries should take the lead in providing security guarantees for Ukraine and equipping its army.

“The first security guarantee is a robust Ukrainian army capable of repelling any attempted attack,” Macron told reporters following the negotiations. He added that the Ukrainian army should consist of “several hundred thousand men” and face “no limitations on its size,” according to Le Figaro. The Ukrainian army has struggled to replenish its ranks during the ongoing mobilization campaign, as Russia has steadily gained ground. Ukraine has long urged the West to provide guarantees similar to NATO’s collective defense, as an alternative to full membership in the alliance, which the US has rejected.

Trump said on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to security guarantees for Kiev, without elaborating. The two leaders met in Alaska on Friday, with both sides describing the summit as an important step toward peace between Russia and Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly said it would not tolerate any Western troops in Ukraine, even under the guise of peacekeepers, and insists that Kiev must abandon its plans to join NATO. Putin has also warned that Ukraine could use a potential ceasefire to regroup and rearm.

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“..after Anchorage, the Western refusal to acknowledge Russian interests is no longer an insurmountable barrier.”

The Old World Order Cracked In Alaska (Bordachev)

The meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska may go down as one of Russia’s most significant diplomatic wins. It was secured through years of military sacrifice, political perseverance, and relentless effort. Yet it is also a transition – a step into a new stage of the struggle for sovereign states in a fractured world. The most consequential result of Anchorage was the quiet burial of the West’s old formula: isolating and “strategically defeating” Russia. For decades, any state refusing to fall in line risked ostracism. That system cracked in Alaska. Not because of American goodwill – there is no such thing in international politics – but because of pressure. Pressure from Russia, from the so-called “global majority,” and from the turmoil tearing at America itself. Trump’s administration has shifted its approach, and the summit proved it.

The outcome was clear: American capabilities diminished, Russian ones enhanced. This, in turn, frees space for other nations to act more independently, even if they will not admit their debt to Moscow.Some talk of a “renaissance” in relations between Moscow and Washington. But there is nothing to restore. The ties that existed before 2022 were shaped by the USSR’s defeat in the Cold War, and cannot be recreated. Instead, dialogue will stabilize on new terms. The core will be recognition that Russia cannot be excluded from the international system. This simple fact means disputes between Moscow and the West, however sharp, are solvable in principle. Competition will remain fierce, especially over Ukraine. But after Anchorage, the Western refusal to acknowledge Russian interests is no longer an insurmountable barrier.

For Trump, Alaska delivered something equally valuable: a domestic win. In the US, relations with Russia have become central to the internal political struggle. One camp insists on preserving an ideological monopoly at all costs. The other argues for flexibility. Trump belongs to the latter – and needed a visible success to show his critics. The face-to-face meeting with Putin provided it. He strengthened his position at home, showing that he can engage Washington directly while sidestepping Western Europe. Foreign policy has always mattered more in Russia, domestic politics more in America. Each man walked away with what he most needed.

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“The USA can only mediate and propose terms. Ukraine needs help formulating terms that are not preposterous.”

An Offer He Can’t Refuse (James Howard Kunstler)

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is dropping in at the White House today so that Mr. Trump can read him the riot act. It’s that simple. Somewhere to or from Alaska, Mr. Trump concluded that a ceasefire would not work, for the excellent reason that seven previous ceasefires in Ukraine failed, and only reinforced distrust and disappointment between the warring parties. Instead, the goal is a peace settlement, an end to the war. The USA and Russia cannot make peace in Ukraine because the war is between Ukraine and Russia. The USA can only mediate and propose terms. Ukraine needs help formulating terms that are not preposterous. Russia’s terms have been clear and precise for years, most particularly: no NATO for Ukraine. What part of that is hard to understand? The EU wants missile bases on Russia’s border. It wants to draw Ukraine into its sphere of influence. Ukraine has been in Russia’s sphere of influence since. . . forever.

The US helped start this conflict in 2014, when Mr. Obama was in charge. It was always a cynical operation, in concert with the cynics of the EU. To put it as plainly as possible, Mr. Trump has called it off, recognizing the foolish futility of the scheme. But the EU players persist maniacally, even though they don’t have the money or the armaments to keep it up, and are otherwise jointly committing slow suicide of their own societies. Anyway, Ukraine is exhausted. Ukraine has lost. Sheer intransigence could keep it going a while longer, but then Russia will sweep west with more pointless bloodshed. The argument is over. Territorial realities must be faced. Agreements must be made.

For the moment, Mr. Zelenskyy is the one who must be brought to agreement. His position as leader of Ukraine is, shall we say, squishy. His term as elected president of Ukraine ended in May 2024, and he only continues to occupy his position under martial law, self-declared. The Russians recognize his leadership as a contingency, because there is nobody else just now. Mr. Trump will be discussing Mr. Zelenskyy’s fate with him today in the White House. (It’s a little like a scene from an Ingmar Bergman movie, don’t you agree?)

There are many ways for this to go. Mr. Z can simply refuse a peace settlement, politely or otherwise. (War continues for no good reason.) He made noises to that effect on Sunday. Or, he can pretend to go along and then flip to some opposite stance, as he has done before. Mr. Z remains an actor of the prima donna variety. He can pretend to parlay in Washington, and then direct his return flight to some country other than Ukraine and seek asylum there, leaving his position vacant and inviting chaos in Kiev. Or. . . he can just play it straight and face the territorial realities.

Namely, that 1) Russia occupies most of the eastern frontier provinces at issue and intends to keep them, since they are inhabited by speakers of Russian who, remember, Mr. Z outlawed some years ago, and who were subject to relentless artillery and missile attacks prior to February, 2022, which prompted Russia’s Special Military Operation. . . that 2) Crimea belongs to Russia. . . that 3) Ukraine will not join NATO. . . that 4) Ukraine will hold new elections ASAP. . . and that 5) Ukraine will substantially disarm. . . . Surely, I left some lesser details out, but that’s most of the meat on the table.

Mr. Z is probably aware that he holds zip in the way of leverage. He is probably thinking (as is everyone else paying attention to this psychodrama) that he will be extremely lucky to stay alive in the aftermath of this fiasco, whatever shadowy corner of the world he might flee to, or how many billions of purloined US dollars he’s managed to stash in the usual places that permit cash-stashing. Staying in Ukraine must be out of the question, considering the damage he’s done to his own people, and the animus it has generated. Who knows, maybe Mr. Trump has reserved a nice little villa for Mr. Z in West Palm, where the president can keep tabs on him? He could learn golf and open a dinner theater.

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“Pressuring Putin would take effort. Pressuring Europe and Ukraine would take effort. Even walking away would take effort – and the US can’t manage that.”

Red Carpet For A New World Order: What Really Went Down In Alaska (Poletaev)

The meeting in Anchorage opened with a choreographed spectacle unlike anything the world had seen before. Two massive airships rolled onto the tarmac one after the other. Two presidents emerged at the exact same moment. They began walking toward each other. Donald Trump paused on the red carpet, waiting as Vladimir Putin covered his part of the distance. The world held its breath. It must have felt something like July 1969, when millions watched Neil Armstrong step onto the lunar surface. A few more seconds, one small step – and then, the historic handshake. A giant leap for mankind. The staging seemed to promise that history would be made that very day. Hundreds of journalists from around the globe had gathered at Elmendorf-Richardson Air Force Base, anticipating dramatic announcements.

Instead, the ending fell flat. After closed-door talks, Trump and Putin appeared before the cameras to declare there was “no deal yet” – only an agreement to keep talking. The expanded session and working lunch were scrapped. Putin laid flowers at a cemetery for Soviet World War II pilots and headed home. So, what exactly was that? For Trump, the peace process boils down to optics. He wants the same kind of photo-op he just staged with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia: Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky shaking hands under his divine glow, the self-anointed peacemaker adding another jewel to his crown. The Kremlin sees it differently. Between the two largest nuclear powers, dialogue must be on an equal footing. A Putin-Zelensky meeting can only come as the result of terms worked out directly between Putin and Trump – terms Zelensky would have no choice but to implement.

That is the central landmine under today’s US-Russian dialogue. For Putin’s delegation, the task wasn’t to put on a show but to achieve some real movement beneath the surface. On the eve of Anchorage, I wrote: “What does Trump want? A ceasefire, and a meeting between Putin and Zelensky. What must Putin do? Ensure both happen on his conditions. Those conditions are clear: Ukrainian withdrawal from Donbass. The question is whether Trump signs on.” If the leaks are to be believed, the Russians at least nudged Trump closer to their position. He now seems willing to test whether he can pressure Ukraine and Europe into accepting Putin’s terms. That’s what the coming weeks will revolve around. By that measure, the Russian delegation achieved its goals – vital for the peace process, but impossible to sell to the public. No shiny photo.

So why doesn’t Trump simply bow out? The answer is simple: he can’t. He’s stuck in the groove he inherited from his predecessor, Joe Biden, and climbing out isn’t easy. Under Biden, Washington was the engine driving the war. Under Trump, America is just dead weight, lumbering forward on inertia. Pressuring Putin would take effort. Pressuring Europe and Ukraine would take effort. Even walking away would take effort – and the US can’t manage that. All America can do now is drift with the current: trickle in weapons and intelligence, without strategy or purpose, because that’s the path of least resistance. Trump hopes the war will somehow resolve itself without him having to deal with it. If we stick with analogies, America under Trump is a massive iron weight on a chain. Russia on one side, Europe and Ukraine on the other, all trying to swing it in their favor.

In Anchorage, Moscow won the round. Europe and Ukraine will bargain, but sooner or later they’ll have to swallow the loss of Donbass – just as they already swallowed the loss of the ’91 borders, the “no talks with Putin” stance, the Zelensky “peace plan,” and plenty more. Europe and Ukraine are prepared to give up much, as long as one thing remains: Western – above all, American – security guarantees to keep the Kiev regime alive. That’s the next big debate. But the reality hasn’t changed. Guarantees exist only if Putin agrees. And he will agree only if Kiev’s government is replaced with one loyal to Moscow. In official language: demilitarization and denazification. These conditions were written into the Istanbul agreements as far back as spring 2022

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“..the Ukraine conflict is “not our war” and that “as long as we [Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government] are in charge, Hungary will stay out of it.”

Ukraine Strikes Key Oil Pipeline To EU – Hungary (RT)

Russian oil supply to Hungary has been halted after Ukraine targeted the key Druzhba pipeline system, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. Moscow has informed Budapest that Russian experts are working to restore an “essential” transformer station targeted by a Ukrainnian strike, Szijjarto said. Druzhba is one of the world’s longest networks, transporting crude some 4,000km from Russia and Kazakhstan to refineries in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Szijjarto wrote in a post on X on Monday that “this latest strike against our energy security is outrageous and unacceptable.”

It is not yet clear when deliveries of oil through the pipeline could resume, he added. The diplomat reiterated that the Ukraine conflict is “not our war” and that “as long as we [Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government] are in charge, Hungary will stay out of it.” Unlike most other EU capitals, which supported Kiev after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Budapest took a neutral stance and refused to supply weapons to the government of Vladimir Zelensky. It also consistently called for peace and criticized Western sanctions against Russia as ineffective and more harmful to those who impose them.

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russian energy infrastructure throughout the conflict, including the Druzhba system and the TurkStream pipeline, which supplies natural gas to Turkish customers and several European countries, including Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece. The previous attack on Druzhba occurred last Wednesday, with Kiev confirming that it had sent drones to strike a key distribution station in Bryansk Region, western Russia.Moscow has condemned Ukrainian attacks on civilian energy infrastructure many times as acts of terrorism.

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While Zelensky is doing”peace talks”, Ukraine planned attacks on the Crimean bridge (another one), energy infrastructure, nuclear plants, and pipelines to European countries. With friends like this…

Attack on Hungary Pipeline Shows Ukraine Will Stop at Nothing- Zakharova (Sp.)

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday, commenting on the Ukrainian attack on an oil pipeline leading to Hungary, that Ukraine will stop at nothing. “For all these years, Russia has been warning the ideologues – those from the Obama-Maidan club – who’ve been fostering the Kiev regime, that this immoral and bloodthirsty monster will never stop and, like a filthy contagion, will spread throughout the world. In Africa, they have already committed terrorist attacks. They’ve popped up in the Middle East. They’ve sucked Central Asian citizens into terrorism.

They’ve taken control of the illegal arms trade in Europe. [And] they’ve perfected black market organ transplants for Western clients. Bankovaya will stop at nothing now,” Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram. Earlier in the day, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that oil supplies to Hungary had been suspended indefinitely due to another attack by Ukraine on an oil pipeline.

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“..the very Constitution that Zelensky has suddenly invoked as sacred… has long been on hold. And that’s not an accusation – it’s his own admission.”

“Ukraine’s democratic institutions haven’t just been “paused” – they’ve been systematically dismantled under the banner of wartime necessity.”

Zelensky’s Main Argument Against Peace Is a Lie (Romanenko)

Commenting on the outcome of the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky declared: “The Constitution of Ukraine does not allow the surrender of territories or the trading of land.” On paper, that sounds noble. The message is clear: Kiev won’t let others decide Ukraine’s fate behind its back. But take a closer look, and this principled stance starts to look less like constitutional fidelity – and more like political theater. Because the very Constitution that Zelensky has suddenly invoked as sacred… has long been on hold. And that’s not an accusation – it’s his own admission. Back in December 2022, while addressing Ukraine’s ambassadors, Zelensky quipped: “All the rights guaranteed by the Constitution – are on pause.”

The context? He was joking about how diplomats don’t get holidays. But the phrase stuck. Because it turned out to be more than a joke – it became official policy. Since then, Ukraine’s democratic institutions haven’t just been “paused” – they’ve been systematically dismantled under the banner of wartime necessity. National elections? Canceled indefinitely. Not just presidential or parliamentary – even local races were suspended, eliminating the public’s ability to hold any level of government accountable. Zelensky’s current term, once set to expire, has been extended without a vote – and without a clear end date. Opposition media? Silenced or outlawed. Dozens of TV channels and online outlets critical of the government were shut down or merged into a state-approved broadcasting platform. Independent journalism in Ukraine now walks a legal tightrope – with one foot over prison.

Religious freedom? Eroded beyond recognition. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, seen as too closely linked to Moscow, has been harassed, evicted from centuries-old monasteries, and branded a security threat. Worshippers face criminal charges for sermons, symbols, or even prayers deemed “unpatriotic.” Military conscription? Brutal and indiscriminate. Young men are pulled off the streets by recruiters, sometimes beaten or coerced into enlisting. Videos of forced mobilizations circulate regularly – and are met with silence or spin from the authorities. Political dissent? Treated as treason. Opposition politicians have been arrested, exiled, or sanctioned without trial. Entire parties have been banned. Ukraine’s Security Council now acts as judge and jury – blacklisting citizens, freezing assets, and deciding guilt without a courtroom.

Rights didn’t just get paused. They were overwritten. To be fair, this erosion didn’t start with Zelensky. It began back in 2014 when President Yanukovich was ousted in a manner that skipped any constitutional procedure. The army was then deployed – for the first time in post-Soviet history – against a domestic protest. The rule of law quickly gave way to rule by necessity. Courts rubber-stamped sanctions lists. Parliament became a formality. The Constitution was increasingly treated as a suggestion, not a boundary. Zelensky merely completed what others started. Under his watch, Ukraine is no longer governed by its Constitution – it’s governed by presidential decree. The Constitution hasn’t been a check on executive power for years. Instead, it’s become a stage prop: Shelved when inconvenient. Quoted when useful.

That’s precisely what happened after the Trump–Putin summit. As it became clear that the fate of the conflict was being discussed without Kiev at the table, Zelensky rushed to invoke constitutional law – not to restore legality, but to cling to legitimacy.

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Whaddaya know? New York Times (through a Greek paper).

5 Takeaways From Trump’s Meeting With Zelenskyy And European Leaders (NYT)

President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House on Monday, in a cordial but inconclusive push to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. Much of the meeting focused on what security guarantees the European nations and the United States would provide Ukraine if Zelenskyy agreed to a deal to end the fighting. Trump also spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin to begin setting up a possible direct meeting between Zelenskyy and the Russian leader, though it was not clear when or even whether such a session would come about. Here are five takeaways from the meeting.

The leaders presented a relatively united front
Three days after Trump gave Putin a literal red carpet welcome at their meeting in Alaska and abandoned several key positions he had staked out beforehand, he presided over a discussion with America’s traditional allies in which the participants largely emphasized common ground. Some differences broke through. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany argued for a ceasefire to be put in place before further negotiations with Russia, but was gently rebuffed by Trump. And President Emmanuel Macron of France suggested he was skeptical that Putin was dealing in good faith. “I am not convinced that President Putin also wants peace,” he told reporters at a news conference. But there were no blowups of the sort that ended a previous visit by Zelenskyy to the White House. All the participants appeared to agree with a plan to arrange direct talks between Zelenskyy and Putin even while other issues are worked out, such as the precise nature of the security guarantees for Ukraine and what if any territory Ukraine might be willing to cede.

Trump spoke only in vague terms about security guarantees for Ukraine
Trump said on social media that the meetings were fruitful and that the leaders discussed “security guarantees for Ukraine, which Guarantees would be provided by the various European countries, with a coordination with the United States.” Earlier, addressing reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked whether the United States would send U.S. troops to Ukraine as part of any peacekeeping effort. Trump did not answer the question directly, but said that the United States would “help them out.” “We’ll be involved,” Trump said. The European leaders pressed Trump on providing a security guarantee similar to NATO’s Article 5, meaning that an attack on Ukraine would be considered an attack on all NATO countries. “We will give them very good protection and very good security,” Trump said. When asked what kind of security guarantees he wanted, Zelenskyy said: “Everything.”

Trump engaged in some shuttle diplomacy with Putin
President Joe Biden once referred to Putin as a “murderous dictator,” but Trump has long held a more positive view of the Russian president. On Monday, Trump continued to portray Putin as genuinely interested in finding a way to end the war he had started. At one point, Trump broke off his session with the European leaders in the East Room of the White House to call the Russian leader. Afterward, Trump brought Zelenskyy and the European leaders into the Oval Office to describe his discussion with Putin, according to President Alexander Stubb of Finland.

Russia and Ukraine will work on a possible Putin-Zelenskyy meeting
Trump said in a social media post that he had called Putin to begin arranging a meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin. He said he would then seek to meet with both leaders in a trilateral session. But it was unclear if all the parties were on board. Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy aide, said in a statement that Putin and Trump had a “frank and very constructive” phone conversation about the meeting with Zelenskyy and the European leaders at the White House. In diplomatic shorthand, “frank” often signals that the two sides did not fully agree. The statement said the Russian and American leaders had agreed to appoint more senior negotiators for direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, but did not mention whether Putin would participate. While Putin has not refused outright to meet with Zelenskyy, he has made it clear that he does not consider the Ukrainian president either legitimate or his equal.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine would buy $90 billion of American arms
Trump has said he does not want to provide more aid to Ukraine, but is willing to sell arms to help the Ukrainians fend off the Russian assault. Zelenskyy expressed particular interest Monday in acquiring more Patriot air-defense systems to help minimize the damage from relentless Russian missile attacks. Zelenskyy told reporters Monday that as part of any security guarantees, Ukraine would buy $90 billion in American weapons through Europe, and that the United States would buy drones from Ukraine. He said that a formal agreement still had to be arranged. But a deal of that scale would be a substantial step toward assuring that Ukrainian forces continue fighting against Russia and have a robust defense in place should a peace deal be reached.

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And they’ll pay it, with money they and their citizens don’t have.

Ukraine Wants Europe To Pay $100bn For Weapons Deal With US – FT (RT)

Ukraine has proposed that its European backers spend $100 billion providing it with American weapons, the Financial Times reported. Kiev continues to seek security guarantees from Washington. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and the heads of several Western European states held talks with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday to discuss the ongoing conflict and diplomatic attempts to resolve it. Trump, who has repeatedly questioned the previous administration’s unconditional aid to Kiev, announced last month that Washington’s NATO allies would effectively pay for the US-made weapons being sent to Ukraine. In addition to the weapons procurement proposal, Ukraine is preparing a $50 billion deal to produce drones domestically, FT reported, citing four people familiar with the matter and a document Kiev reportedly shared with the US.

Although the document contains limited details, FT said Ukraine intends to purchase at least 10 Patriot air defense missile systems. Ukraine’s European supporters have struggled to ramp up production to meet Kiev’s needs, as Ukrainian forces have steadily been losing ground to the Russian army. After a one-on-one meeting in Alaska on Friday, Trump claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready to agree to security guarantees for Ukraine, though he did not provide specifics. Ukraine has previously urged the West to provide security guarantees equivalent to NATO’s collective defense, while several European states have offered to deploy peacekeepers. Russia, however, has stressed that it will not tolerate any Western troops in Ukraine.

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“..director of the Department of Justice Weaponization Working Group..”

Ed Martin: Russia Hoax to Blow Up, Schiff and Biden’s DOJ Next (Margolis)

Ed Martin, the director of the Department of Justice Weaponization Working Group, joined Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” for an explosive interview about ongoing investigations into government abuse of power. Martin confirmed that his office is reviewing criminal referrals involving Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), New York Attorney General Letitia James, and matters tied to the Russia hoax and January 6 investigations. Bartiromo opened by asking Martin to assess “a decade of dirty tricks” against Donald Trump. Martin agreed, saying the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, launched under Attorney General Pam Bondi, is tasked with uncovering the truth. “We’ve got more stuff going on, a lot of it we can’t talk about because of the nature of it, but it’s going like crazy,” he revealed.

He credited Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard with declassifying materials tied to the Russia hoax and forwarding them as a criminal referral. “What we have in the Department of Justice now is a Weaponization Working Group and the backing of our leadership to go and find this stuff,” Martin explained. He said his team can trace the origins of the hoax precisely. “We know now the birthday of the Russia hoax. It’s Dec. 8, 2016 where the Obama administration, including Obama, said, ‘Don’t put the truth out; lie, and ask the media to help us,’ and The Washington Post and others jumped right in.” Martin confirmed allegations go beyond Schiff’s role in pushing false collusion claims. “There’s a referral from Bill Pulte about a mortgage fraud, about Adam Schiff. That’s publicly discussed. His own lawyers have been out there. Now there’s more on Adam Schiff, and all we’re gonna do again is get to the facts of this and use all the tools that we have in our system.”

Martin stressed that if wrongdoing is uncovered, Schiff would face accountability. Martin drew a stark picture of Biden’s Justice Department targeting everyday Americans. “Joe Biden’s Justice Department actively targeted American citizens, Catholics who went to Mass, parents who went to school boards,” he said. “Carter Page was destroyed by the Russia hoax, and we’re sitting around and pretending it’s okay.” Martin added that those involved in orchestrating the hoax, including Obama officials in a December 2016 Situation Room meeting, must face consequences: “It wasn’t really bad. It needs to be held accountable in every way we can.” Martin confirmed he had personally visited James’ Brooklyn property after a referral raised questions. “One of the referrals is about that property that she has. It’s a very prominent neighborhood in Brooklyn, and I wanted to lay eyes on it,” he said. “If you’re prosecuting something, you’re careful.”

Martin declined to give specifics but hinted at grand jury activity: “When you get a criminal referral, one of the tools you have is a grand jury, and I’ll leave it to you to infer what I mean.” The conversation then turned to January 6, where Martin said the DOJ’s investigation revealed widespread government overreach. “They basically turned government on to make the hoax work,” Martin told Bartiromo. “The FBI and others were putting American citizens on terrorism watch lists, they were auditing their IRS tax returns, they were targeting the American people. They didn’t do this to the terrorists after 9/11, and they were doing it to American citizens.” Martin also alleged misconduct by the January 6 Committee itself: “Of course [they destroyed evidence]. We’re all in that too, and trust me, a lot of people did not get a pardon that were involved in the select committee,You w and they ought to be keeping an eye on their mailbox, because there’s a lot to be asked about.”

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High time.

Trump Is About to Go Nuclear Against Mail-in Voting (Margolis)

President Donald Trump has been warning for years that mail-in ballots and voting machines are riddled with vulnerabilities that invite fraud and undermine trust in elections. We’ve discussed these vulnerabilities here at PJ Media extensively, and now Trump is taking action on them. On Monday morning, President Trump announced on Truth Social that he will issue an executive order to put an end to mail-in ballots before the 2026 midterms and restore “honesty and integrity” to America’s elections. In a lengthy post on Truth Social, Trump announced, “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.”

He argued that such machines cost “Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.” Trump said the United States stands alone in continuing to use widespread mail-in voting. “We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED,” he wrote. The president made clear that he intends to act quickly, pledging to use executive authority to move the plan forward. “WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections,” Trump said.

He also challenged the notion that states hold full control over election administration. “Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do,” Trump wrote.President Donald Trump has been warning for years that mail-in ballots and voting machines are riddled with vulnerabilities that invite fraud and undermine trust in elections. We’ve discussed these vulnerabilities here at PJ Media extensively, and now Trump is taking action on them. On Monday morning, President Trump announced on Truth Social that he will issue an executive order to put an end to mail-in ballots before the 2026 midterms and restore “honesty and integrity” to America’s elections.

In a lengthy post on Truth Social, Trump announced, “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.” He argued that such machines cost “Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.” Trump said the United States stands alone in continuing to use widespread mail-in voting. “We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED,” he wrote. The president made clear that he intends to act quickly, pledging to use executive authority to move the plan forward.

“WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections,” Trump said. He also challenged the notion that states hold full control over election administration. “Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do,” Trump wrote. Trump reiterated that elections cannot be trusted under the current system. “ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS,” he declared.

He then vowed that he would not back down. “I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS,” he said, calling mail-in voting a “HOAX” and voting machines “a complete and total disaster.” He ended his post with an urgent warning about the stakes. “THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX, USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!!! REMEMBER, WITHOUT FAIR AND HONEST ELECTIONS, AND STRONG AND POWERFUL BORDERS, YOU DON’T HAVE EVEN A SEMBLANCE OF A COUNTRY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!!” Trump concluded, signing off as “DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”

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X thread.

Mary McCord (Sundance)

1/ To give you an idea of the scope of influence of Mary McCord as a key corrupt and unlawful DC functionary, consider what we can document.

• McCord submitted the fraudulent FISA application to spy on Trump campaign. Oct. ’16

• McCord created the Logan Act claim used against Michael Flynn and then went with Sally Yates to confront the White House. Feb ’17

• McCord then left the DOJ and went to work for Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler on Impeachment Committee. ’18

• McCord organized the CIA rule changes with Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson. ’18

• McCord led and organized the impeachment effort, in the background, using the evidence she helped create. ’19

• McCord joined the FISA Court to protect against DOJ IG Michael Horowitz newly gained NSD oversight and FISA review. ’19

• McCord joined the J6 Committee helping to create all the lawfare angles they deployed. ’21

• McCord then coordinated with DA Fani Willis in Georgia. ’21

• McCord was working with Special Counsel Jack Smith to prosecute Trump. ’22

• McCord is now coordinating a Lawfare attack process against Donald Trump in term #2.

• McCord testified that AG Pam Bondi must recuse herself from investigating McCord. ’25

• Joe Biden pardoned Mary McCord. ’25

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“..almost every plausible way forward from here involves some kind of violence in my view.”

British Army Colonel: CIVIL WAR Is Coming (MN)

A retired British Army Colonel is warning that he believes a civil war in the country is now inevitable because politicians are unwilling to take meaningful actions to fix societal collapse. Colonel Richard Kemp, who has served on the Joint Intelligence Committee and the Cabinet Office crisis centre COBRA, urges that an alliance “of the hard left and Islamist extremists” will clash with broadly conservative British people and that it will lead to widespread prolonged unrest. Kemp suggests that “together with other causes,” these Islamist leftists will “come together to threaten the cohesion and the culture, the entire culture and political existence of the West.” Kemp, who fought counter insurgency in Northern Ireland, served in the Gulf war, Bosnia, and commanded in Afghanistan, asserts that the agitators are “fostered by,” and “funded to a large extent, by our international enemies like Russia, China, Iran, and other countries as well.”

In an interview with podcaster Conor Tomlinson, Kemp remarks that politicians in the UK are “in a state of bewilderment, they’re like rabbits in headlights,” and that while they understand how the unrest is being fomented, they are unable or unwilling to put a stop to it. Kemp says of political leaders that their “horizon is four years,” and “They want to keep a state of equilibrium for that time, they want to do what they can to make sure they win the next election.” “They don’t want to take the radical sort of action that might be necessary to address these sorts of problems,” the Colonel stresses, highlighting mass migration as one major issue. “There’s only so much that I think people can take of that, and they’ve been very quiet up until now, the people in the UK have not really raised their voices against this, or in a very limited way only. But the more it develops, and it is going to develop more and more, the more unrest we are going to see,” Kemp emphasises.

He adds, “they have no option. I’m not encouraging or supporting this, but I think the people will feel they have no option than to take action into their own hands rather than rely on political leaders who are doing nothing, in their eyes.” “I think there is every likelihood, I don’t know what the timeframe is, but I would go so far as to not just predict civil unrest, but civil war in the UK in the coming years if this situation continues which I believe it will,” he urges. “I’d hate to be right on this, but I believe that I know there is no political solution to the situation Britain faces today,” Kemp further declares, adding “When I say there is no solution, I don’t mean there actually isn’t a solution, but there is no solution that any of our politicians are willing to take… because they are afraid of doing anything significant.”

As we’ve previously highlighted, these views are shared by London King’s College war professor Dr David Betz, who believes the UK is already “past the tipping point,” for near future civil war. Betz stated earlier this year, “There isn’t anything they can do, it’s baked in. We’re already past the tipping point, is my estimation… we are past the point at which there is a political offramp. We are past the point at which normal politics is able to solve the problem… almost every plausible way forward from here involves some kind of violence in my view.” Kemp’s interviewer Conor Tomlinson notes that Colonel Kemp has never even heard of Professor Betz and arrived at the same conclusion completely independently, Which “makes his well-informed warnings all the more alarming.”

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They broke themselves. No help needed.

How Trump Broke the Democratic Party (Margolis)

President Trump has had a very productive second term, but according to Victor Davis Hanson, Trump’s biggest accomplishment isn’t legislation; it’s that he shattered the Democratic Party’s façade—and left it flailing. “Donald Trump’s greatest legacy, he broke the Democratic Party and he turned it. … He exposed it for what it was,” Hanson explained in an interview. “It was a bicoastal elite party with a bunch of billionaires who spend lavishly, and a bunch of subsidized poor, and a professional class that feels frustrated.” Hanson described the party’s urban base as young, well-paid professionals struggling in sky-high-cost blue cities. “That’s what the Mamdani constituency is. Frustrated, young prof—white professionals,” he said. Meanwhile, he argued, Democrats have abandoned the working class, along with what he called “muscular classes”—Hispanic and black males, and working-class white voters.

Trump, Hanson pointed out, didn’t just survive this shift—he thrived. “If you look at 2016, ’20, and ‘24, Donald Trump’s white vote is pretty constant,” he said. Despite losing the popular vote in 2016 and 2020, Trump won both the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2024 with the same base. Hanson credited this to Trump picking up women, young voters, and 55% of Hispanic males, along with roughly 25% of black males and 10–15% of Asian males. “So how could that be if he was supposed to be a racist according to the Democrats?” Hanson asked. He explained it’s the Democrats’ condescending approach to voters. “Basically, this is a caricature, but the Democratic attitude toward a black truck driver or a Mexican American electrician was something like this: ‘Now, you don’t know what’s good for you… They’re going to be good for you. I don’t care what you say about your schools being swamps, crime going up. Remember that.’”

He highlighted how the party lectures Americans on everything from gender policies to energy prices. “‘Men have a right to transition, and they are now women, and they’re gonna compete in your daughter’s sports.’ And ‘You don’t know what’s good for you because you’re too ignorant, but I will represent you.’ ‘I’m a black, uh, woman with a PhD.’ ‘I’m a Hispanic woman’ that’s, uh, your congresswoman.’ ‘I am your white liberal Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pel— and I will tell you what is good for you. Got it?’” Hanson called out Barack Obama’s infamous talk with black Democratic activists as a perfect example of this elitism. “‘You think Donald Trump’s good or something.’ ‘You’ve gotta get out there and support Harris.’ ‘You’re suffering basically from Marxist false consciousness. And I, and as an elite, know what’s good for you and I will tell you. Now, go do it,’” Hanson paraphrased.

He reserved particular scorn for former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose policies he described as symbolic rather than practical. “Everything about him represents what I just said. Sanctimonious, self-righteous, talk down. I don’t think California is suffering from not enough freeways or it’s too crowded. It’s suffering from racist legacies of clover leaves, and I’m going to make non-racist clover,” Hanson said. Hanson summed up the party’s attitude with a single biting phrase: “It’s a Karen scold.” By treating voters like children and lecturing them on everything from energy prices to social norms, Hanson argued, the Democrats have made themselves easy prey for Trump—a truth the left can’t seem to accept.

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“..one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever signed into law,”

Trump Vows Social Security Will Thrive for Another ‘90 Years’ (RCW)

Nearly a century removed, the Republican president heralded his Democratic predecessor for “one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever signed into law,” the bill that created Social Security. The program turned 90 this month. Without reform, its 100th anniversary is not guaranteed. President Trump still heralded FDR for the program, created at the height of the Great Depression, and vowed in the Oval Office to preserve and improve it “for 90 years and beyond.” The president said this was his “sacred pledge to our seniors.” Had he not returned to the White House, Trump boasted, “Social Security was going to be destroyed.”

And true to his word, Trump has not meddled with senior benefits. His marquee legislation has, in fact, reduced their tax burden by making Social Security benefits tax-free. But the actuarial tables are less rosy than the president put on in front of the cameras. According to new estimates from the program’s chief actuary, Karen Glenn, Social Security will not make it to its 100th birthday as things stand. Instead, the trust fund will be insolvent in just seven years. Money was expected to run out by the first quarter of 2033, but after the One Big Beautiful Bill became law and made benefits tax-free, that forecast was moved up slightly to the fourth quarter of 2032.

At that point, according to analysis by the Congressional Research Service, the federal government would have three options at the point: increase taxes, decrease benefits, or a combination of the two. Trump, who will have joined the ranks of former presidents by then, seemed unconcerned with those predictions. “You keep hearing stories that ‘in six years, seven years, Social Security will be gone,’” he told reporters, “and it will be if the Democrats ever get involved because they don’t know what they’re doing.” So long as his party is in control, he promised, “it’s going to be around a long time with us.”

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RFK

Climate

Rosita

Bloom

Life

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 142022
 


Caravaggio Adoration of the Shepherds 1609

 

Clinical Outcomes Among Patients Infected With Omicron (medRxiv)
Omicron 91% Less Likely To Be Fatal Compared To Delta: CDC Study (NYP)
Supreme Court Blocks Biden’s OSHA Vaxx Mandate (ZH)
Not Surprising, And Deserved By All (Denninger)
Rand Paul Labels Fauci ‘Juvenile Political Creature’ For Playing The Victim (SN)
Dr. Oz Calls Fauci A ‘Petty Tyrant,’ Challenges Him To Debate (Hill)
Florida Family Fighting for Ivermectin: Appeals Court Expedites Case (ET)
Do Antigen Tests Work If You Are Asymptomatic? (Kirsch)
Why DID The Science Establishment Try So Hard To Silence Lab Leak Theory? (DM)
Dems’ Voting Bill Is ‘Crass Power Grab’ By ‘Clown Car’ Running DC (JTN)
“Mother Of All” Supply Chain Shocks Looms As China Locks Down Ports (ZH)
What The West Gets Wrong About Putin (Malmgren)
US Envoy In Europe Says ‘Drumbeat Of War Is Sounding Loud’ (Hill)

 

 

The most vaccinated state in the Union:

 

NHS nurse

 

 

Lord Frost
https://twitter.com/i/status/1481574856827232258

 

 

First time (?!) I see a science report claim deaths from Omicron. Well, sort of:

“Rates of ICU admission and mortality after an outpatient positive test were 0.26 (0.10-0.73) and 0.09 (0.01-0.75) fold as high among cases with Omicron variant infection ..”

We now have 1 case reported in UK, 1 case US (debunked), 1 case Israel (no evidence), and yesterday 1 case in Greece, “with” Omicron.

As case numbers have gone up 5 fold everywhere. If Omicron is at all capable of killing people, we should have seen a lot more reports like these. We do not.

Clinical Outcomes Among Patients Infected With Omicron (medRxiv)

Background: The Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant of SARS-CoV-2 has rapidly achieved global dissemination, accounting for most infections in the United States by December 2021. Risk of severe outcomes associated with Omicron infections, as compared to earlier SARS-CoV-2 variants, remains unclear.

Methods: We analyzed clinical and epidemiologic data from cases testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection within the Kaiser Permanente Southern California healthcare system from November 30, 2021 to January 1, 2022, using S gene target failure (SGTF) as assessed by the ThermoFisher TaqPath ComboKit assay as a proxy for Omicron infection. We fit Cox proportional hazards models to compare time to any hospital admission and hospital admissions associated with new-onset respiratory symptoms, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, mechanical ventilation, and mortality among cases with Omicron and Delta (non-SGTF) variant infections. We fit parametric competing risk models to compare lengths of hospital stay among admitted cases with Omicron and Delta variant infections.

Results: Our analyses included 52,297 cases with SGTF (Omicron) and 16,982 cases with non-SGTF (Delta [B.1.617.2]) infections, respectively. Hospital admissions occurred among 235 (0.5%) and 222 (1.3%) of cases with Omicron and Delta variant infections, respectively. Among cases first tested in outpatient settings, the adjusted hazard ratios for any subsequent hospital admission and symptomatic hospital admission associated with Omicron variant infection were 0.48 (0.36-0.64) and 0.47 (0.35-0.62), respectively. Rates of ICU admission and mortality after an outpatient positive test were 0.26 (0.10-0.73) and 0.09 (0.01-0.75) fold as high among cases with Omicron variant infection as compared to cases with Delta variant infection. Zero cases with Omicron variant infection received mechanical ventilation, as compared to 11 cases with Delta variant infections throughout the period of follow-up (two-sided p<0.001). Median duration of hospital stay was 3.4 (2.8-4.1) days shorter for hospitalized cases with Omicron variant infections as compared to hospitalized patients with Delta variant infections, reflecting a 69.6% (64.0-74.5%) reduction in hospital length of stay.

Conclusions: During a period with mixed Delta and Omicron variant circulation, SARS-CoV-2 infections with presumed Omicron variant infection were associated with substantially reduced risk of severe clinical endpoints and shorter durations of hospital stay.

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There we go again: “..just one of the 52,297 people infected with Omicron died..”.

Really? Where is the case description? Where are the details? It would be so unique that surely it would make headlines.

Walensky gives it away:

“We MAY see deaths from Omicron but I suspect that the deaths that we’re seeing now are still from Delta. ”

Omicron 91% Less Likely To Be Fatal Compared To Delta: CDC Study (NYP)

Omicron poses a “substantially reduced risk” of serious illness compared to Delta — and is more than 90 percent less likely to kill those infected, according to a federally funded study. The study, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Wednesday, said it proved “compelling evidence of an intrinsically less severe infection” from the variant that currently accounts for 90 percent of cases in the US. The evaluation of more than 70,000 infected Californians saw those with Omicron less than half as likely to need hospitalization as those with Delta — and about 75 percent less likely to need intensive care. Those hospitalized also needed to stay approximately 70 percent less time, with a median treatment time of 1.5 days compared to five days for those with the previous dominant variant.


Even though the study looked at three times as many people with Omicron, none of them needed to go on a ventilator in the hospital — compared to 11 in the far smaller group with Delta. Most encouragingly, just one of the 52,297 people infected with Omicron died — a reduction of 91 percent compared to 14 deaths in the 16,982 studied with Delta. It did not say how old those who died were, or if they were vaccinated. CDC director Rochelle Walensky told reporters that it likely means the recent increase in deaths is a lagging effect of the Delta variant, not the one rapidly replacing it. “We may see deaths from Omicron but I suspect that the deaths that we’re seeing now are still from Delta,” Walensky revealed.

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Threatening people’s lives and livelihoods over taking medicines, experimental or not, has always been a no-go. SCOTUS should not be needed for that. And they still leave the mandate for healthcare workers in place.

Supreme Court Blocks Biden’s OSHA Vaxx Mandate (ZH)

Despite the misinformation spewed forth by Justice Sotomayor, The US Supreme Court has blocked the Biden administration’s vaccine-or-test rule for US businesses, but allows vaccine mandate for most health care workers. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) argue against the Department of Labor, in the Court’s first hearing, that: “OSHA’s sweeping regulatory dictate,” will “irreparably injure the very businesses that Americans have counted on to widely distribute COVID-19 vaccines and protective equipment to save lives—and to keep them fed, clothed, and sustained during this now two-year-long pandemic.” The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule would have required 80 million workers to get shots or periodic tests. The OSHA ruling vote was 6-3 with Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan in dissent.

“Permitting OSHA to regulate the hazards of daily life – simply because most Americans have jobs and face those same risks while on the clock – would significantly expand OSHA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization.” Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said during arguments that he thinks it’s hard to argue that the 1970 law governing OSHA “gives free reign to the agencies to enact such broad regulation.” The court allowed a separate rule to take effect requiring shots for workers in nursing homes, hospitals and other facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid payments from the federal government (which will be interesting given that California just allowed COVID positive healthcare workers to go back to work).

The vaccine mandate for healthcare workers vote was 5-4 with Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett in dissent, which means Roberts and Kavanaugh joined liberal justices in allowing the HHS mandate on healthcare workers to stand. So with over 1 million COVID cases per day, record high inflation, Sinema blew out the filibuster, record low approval rating, and now his vaxx mandate in tatters, this seems to sum things up rather well… “This must be Biden’s worst day in office.”

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Karl is overdoing the I told you so. At some point, it gets ugly.

Not Surprising, And Deserved By All (Denninger)

The OSHA ruling got blown up by the Supremes, 6-3 as I expected. This leaves all the private-sector employers who issued mandates in front of it fully exposed for any and all bad side effects. I expect the lawsuits to start imminently and they will bankrupt plenty of people. Good. I hope every single virtue-signaling CEO and HR Karen gets in the ass. They deserve it. “OSHA has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the *****–19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here.” Exactly and as I noted the Senate explicitly declined to approve such a measure in the last couple of months and in fact explicitly disapproved it.

Yes, it went nowhere in the House as expected but you need both houses of Congress to concur when it comes to an authority. I said this would get official notice by The Supremes and it did. “In fact, the most noteworthy action concerning the ******* mandate by either House of Congress has been a majority vote of the Senate disapproving the regulation on December 8, 2021. S. J. Res. 29, 117th Cong., 1st Sess. (2021).” With the Senate explicitly disavowing same and nothing in the Congressional Record nor acts over the last two years this was clearly doomed and died a well-deserved death. Now onto CMS. Here I predicted the most-likely outcome was a split decision upholding the mandate in nursing homes and other non-consensual situations.

What we got was a 5-4 upholding it on technical grounds and, having read the opinion, you won’t like why it happened. Let’s be blunt: You ****ed yourself, America, and you deserve this outcome. You put the Federal Government in charge of what it pays for when it comes to medical care. You let them, not you or your doctor, make those decisions. You have in fact cheered this on and allowed it. You even allowed it when Trump promised to stop it during the campaign, along with all of its corruption, and then on election night all three planks dealing with the medical monopolies, which were a mere start, disappeared and yet fully half the nation continued to suck his dick.

[..] Actions — and deliberate inactions — have consequences. I don’t like the outcome but it wasn’t illogical considering what was argued and what we, the people have permitted and set in motion over the last three decades. The solicitors on the State side failed to argue that (1) these are experimental injections and (2) as of now they don’t even ****ing work and even Pfizer’s CEO admits it.

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“Does he not realise I have people arrested once every month or two who have threatened to attack me, plus I have been attacked, and he’s going to come and blame his attacks on me?”

Rand Paul Labels Fauci ‘Juvenile Political Creature’ For Playing The Victim (SN)

Following the explosive latest exchange between Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci Tuesday, Fauci ran to CNN and MSNBC to complain more about how the Senator is attacking him for his own political gain, prompting Paul to label the NIAID head “juvenile”. On Chris Hayes’ show Fauci, stated “What you saw at the hearing today was pure ad hominem. And I called him [Paul] out because that’s exactly what he’s doing: he’s raising money.” Note that during the hearing Fauci did not present any evidence to counter Paul’s claims that the NIAID Director has continually lied under oath and has actively attempted to shut down scientists and doctors who disagree with him. Fauci attempted to shift the narrative to personal attacks against him.

Appearing on Fox News, Paul shot back, claiming that Fauci is now going even beyond saying he ‘is science’ and cannot be questioned, by suggesting that questioning him is encouraging violence. “It was a cheap shot by a politician, not a scientist,” Paul said, further noting “he’s blaming me for a death threat, but when [Republican members of Congress] were shot at by a Bernie Sanders supporter [in 2017], not one Republican stood up and said, oh, this is Bernie Sanders’s fault”. “We were not juvenile enough to do that,” Paul continued, adding “But he [Fauci] came to the hearing today and accused me of somehow inciting some lunatic person.” Paul further urged, “Does he not realise I have people arrested once every month or two who have threatened to attack me, plus I have been attacked, and he’s going to come and blame his attacks on me?”

“I think he has lied to the American public. I think that he funded the lab in Wuhan that in all likelihood this virus came from. I think he as ignored natural immunity. I think he has told people to wear a cloth mask when they don’t work,” Paul emphasised. In a further appearance, Paul said of Fauci “He didn’t answer the question why is he smearing these three doctors? I’m proud of the fact people go to RandPaul.com raising money to fire Fauci because he is a menace.” “Everything he said has been incorrect. And I think he is part of the problem, Paul continued, adding “Even from the very beginning the fact that this virus came from a lab in Wuhan he has denied it and worked to cover it up and denigrated anybody who raises this question as a conspiracy theorist.”

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I wouldn’t trust Oz at the far end of a ten foot pole, and this makes me think his campaign team is looking for -cheap- publicity, whether over the back of Fauci, or that of Rand Paul.

Dr. Oz Calls Fauci A ‘Petty Tyrant,’ Challenges Him To Debate (Hill)

GOP Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, more commonly known as “Dr. Oz” from his TV program “The Dr. Oz Show,” called infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci a “petty tyrant” and challenged him to a debate on COVID-19. “It’s past time Fauci faces the fact that he got COVID wrong. So, doctor to doctor – let’s debate. This Doctor is in, are you?” Oz said in a tweet Thursday while posting a campaign ad attacking Fauci. “Let’s get the facts straight here. You and me. Let’s have a debate, doctor to doctor, and give the American people the truth about COVID-19. I’m game. Anytime. Anywhere. Dr. Fauci, are you in?” Oz said in the campaign video.


Fauci has been under attack by Republicans throughout the pandemic, as many in the party disagree with how the country’s leading infectious diseases expert has guided the U.S. through the coronavirus. Oz said on Newsmax on Thursday that he wants to debate Fauci on vaccine mandates, natural immunity from COVID-19 infections and delays with drugs such as monoclonal antibodies. “He is a petty tyrant. He got COVID wrong. He continues to get it wrong,” Oz told the outlet, noting that “doctors like me” think Fauci has not managed the pandemic correctly.

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Mayo Clinic would rather have people die than give in. That redefines “shameless”.

Florida Family Fighting for Ivermectin: Appeals Court Expedites Case (ET)

Florida’s First District Court of Appeal has expedited the process to decide a lawsuit filed by the family of a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator at a Jacksonville hospital. Attorneys for Mayo Clinic Florida have until 10 a.m. Jan. 13 to respond to the appeal filed by the family of 70-year-old Daniel Pisano. Then the family’s attorneys will have until Jan. 14 to file additional arguments. At that time, a three-panel judge could be appointed to decide the case. Mayo Clinic has said Pisano, who has been on a ventilator 22 days, has a slim chance of survival. But an outside doctor, who is not affiliated with Mayo Clinic, testified in an emergency hearing Dec. 30 that there’s still a good chance to save him—although there’s no time to delay, the physician said.

In a desperate attempt to save their loved one, the Pisano family has begged Mayo Clinic to try a protocol widely used by independent physicians around the country and developed by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance. Mayo Clinic officials have refused and attorneys have fought the family’s wishes vigorously in court. Claudia Pisano, Daniel Pisano’s wife of 51 years, and their son, Chris, have power of attorney and legally have the right to ask for the treatment of their choice, their attorneys have argued. But Daniel Pisano is declining fast and running out of time, they say. The family’s trusted doctor, Dr. Eduardo Balbona of Jacksonville, testified that in order to save him the hospital must quickly allow treatment—with ivermectin and other drugs and supplements—he’s used to help dozens of critically ill COVID-19 patients recover.

Being on the ventilator is doing harm to Pisano and other patients fighting COVID-19, Balbona testified. After considering the testimony in the three-hour hearing, Judge Marianne Aho, of Florida’s Fourth Judicial Circuit, denied the family’s plea to force Mayo Clinic doctors to step aside and let Balbona treat their dying loved one. Aho wrote, “An individual’s right to privacy is one of self-determination, the right to accept or refuse. It is not a right to demand a particular treatment. It is not a right to substitute one’s judgment as to which treatments must be made available by others. There is no right, constitutional or otherwise, of a patient to substitute one’s judgment for a medical professional.” The family disagrees saying the Florida Patient’s Bill of Rights gives them the right to choose between treatment options and they’ve offered to release Mayo Clinic from all liability in following through with that care. They filed an appeal Jan. 9.

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Stop testing healthy people.

Do Antigen Tests Work If You Are Asymptomatic? (Kirsch)

Here’s what you need to know about antigen rapid tests: 1/ In general, each test brand will test for a specific antigen. They may or may not tell you which antigen they detect. 2/ Each brand has a different sensitivity. For low sensitivity tests, it will be fruitless to test if you are not symptomatic because it will almost certainly be negative. It would be nice if they correlated the results with PCR cycle thresholds, but those are non-standard as well. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there are no standards to inform you on 1 and 2 above. There is no “reference standard” that they compare to.


This of course means that you can be wasting serious money taking tests when you are asymptomatic because the certain brands will never be positive if you are asymptomatic. I want to thank Dr. Byram Bridle for pointing this out to me. They really should tell you, “Hey, if you aren’t symptomatic, don’t bother to take our test.” The manufacturers are never going to tell you that (since they aren’t required to), but I thought you should know.

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How about a Special Counsel?

Why DID The Science Establishment Try So Hard To Silence Lab Leak Theory? (DM)

There are now two core questions over the birth of this pandemic: did Covid emerge through some kind of scientific mishap or through natural transmission from animals? And why did the science establishment work so hard to silence dissident voices? Indeed, it seems incredible that not only does Farrar remain in a job in which he directs so much crucial medical research, but even saw his annual salary rise by £28,000 to £512,000 last year, according to latest accounts. For Sir Jeremy is a pivotal figure in the sequence of secretive events that followed the emergence of a new disease in Wuhan in late 2019. Many of the growing concerns revolve around a secretive teleconference Farrar led on February 1 2020, as fears over the emerging pandemic exploded.

And the more we learn through leaks, freedom of information requests, interviews and tenacious investigations, the more it smacks of an establishment conspiracy to stifle debate over high-risk science – ironically by accusing those who challenge the consensus of being conspiracy theorists. The call involved the two most influential scientists in America – controversial presidential adviser Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins, then head of the US major funding body financially supporting high-risk research into bat coronaviruses conducted in Wuhan – plus 11 experts including Sir Patrick Vallance, our government’s chief scientific adviser. We know from Farrar’s book and previous email disclosures that several key participants, including Farrar, were concerned the deadly new virus was linked to research in Wuhan, home to several labs carrying out research into bat coronaviruses.

One Australian-based virologist said he was ‘80 per cent sure this thing had come out of a lab’ while another key participant was ‘60 to 70 per cent’ convinced. After their hour-long discussion, Farrar remained uncertain, saying ‘this will remain grey unless there is access to the Wuhan lab’. Yet, following that call and the airing of those views, the scientists’ public stance changed with bizarre speed for such a vexatious scientific conundrum – especially given the lack of data from Wuhan or any assistance from Beijing. They began publishing punchy statements dismissing lab leaks in the most prestigious science journals, some of which have extensive commercial ties to China. And they were backed by patsy politicians and supine journalists, whose hostility was inflamed by then President Donald Trump’s allegations about the ‘China virus’.

The result was this vital debate was set back at least a year. Farrar and two other Wellcome Trust experts signed a key statement in the Lancet medical journal praising Chinese efforts to tackle the disease while saying they ‘strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid does not have a natural origin’. It later emerged the article was covertly organised within days of the call by Peter Daszak, a British scientist whose New York organisation funnelled US funds to research partners at Wuhan Institute of Virology, China’s top biosafety lab. Farrar also quietly assisted five scientists, four of whom were on that call, to write a commentary in Nature Medicine that firmly stated the authors ‘do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible’. This hugely-influential statement has been accessed 5.62 million times and cited by more than 2,000 academic papers.

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Come for the headline, stay for the content.

Dems’ Voting Bill Is ‘Crass Power Grab’ By ‘Clown Car’ Running DC (JTN)

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a proponent of election integrity reform, said Wednesday that the bills currently making their way through Congress that are designed to federalize elections are part of “the same clown car that has driven this constitutional republic to a disastrous edge.” He made the comments following President Joe Biden’s and Vice President Kamala Harris’ speeches on Tuesday in Georgia regarding Democrats’ voting legislation. Blackwell, former mayor of Cincinnati, told the John Solomon Reports podcast Wednesday that the Democrats’ election bills are “a crass power grab by the … clown car that is now running Washington, D.C.”

After listing the Biden administration’s unpopular policies and political failures, such as “soaring inflation” and the supply chain crisis, Blackwell explained how the Democrats want to unconstitutionally federalize elections. “[E]lections take place at the local level, in a decentralized way, because, one, that is where you have transparency, that’s where you have familiarity, that’s where you have buy-in,” he said. “And if you start to take it away from states and localities, you run the risk of the same clown car that has driven this constitutional republic to a disastrous edge taking control of our elections. It won’t stand.”

Blackwell criticized Democrats for their inconsistency on showing ID to vote versus providing proof of vaccination as Washington, D.C.’s vaccine mandate — which includes showing a vaccine card and photo ID at venues such as restaurants and gyms — goes into effect Saturday. Regarding voter ID, he said, “To equate these common-sense reforms that states are putting in place to ensure the integrity of the election system as being a throwback to Jim Crow is an insult to all Americans, especially those in the African-American community.”

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Zero covid will mean zero supplies.

“Mother Of All” Supply Chain Shocks Looms As China Locks Down Ports (ZH)

Over the past month, as Wall Street turned increasingly optimistic on US growth alongside the Fed, with consensus (shaped by the Fed’s leaks and jawboning) now virtually certain of a March rate hike, we have been repeatedly warning that after a huge policy error in 2021 when the Fed erroneously said that inflation is “transitory” (it wasn’t), the central bank is on pace to make another just as big policy mistake in 2022 by hiking as many as 4 times and also running off its massive balance sheet… right into a global growth slowdown.


And, as we have also discussed in recent weeks, one place where this growth slowdown is emerging – besides the upcoming deterioration in US consumption where spending is now being funded to record rates by credit cards before it encounters a troubling air pocket – is China and its “covid-zero” policy in general, and its covid-locked down ports in particular. But what until recently was a minority view confined to our modest website, has since expanded and as Bloomberg writes overnight, the effects of restrictions in China as the country maintains its Covid-zero policy “are starting to hit supply chains in the region.” As a result of the slow movement of goods through some of the country’s busiest and most important ports means shippers are now diverting to Shanghai, causing the types of knock-on delays at the world’s biggest container port that led to massive congestion bottlnecks last summer that eventually translated into a record number of container ships waiting off the coast of California, a glut that hasn’t been cleared to this day.

With sailing schedules already facing delays of about a week, freight forwarders warn of the impact on already back-logged gateways in Europe and the US and is also why HSBC economists are warning that the world economy could be headed for the “mother of all” supply chain shocks if the highly infectious omicron variant which is already swamping much of the global economy spreads across Asia, especially China, at which point disruption to manufacturing will be inevitable. “Temporary, one would hope, but hugely disruptive all the same” in the next few months, they wrote in a research note this week first noted by Bloomberg. For those who have forgotten last year’s global shockwave when China locked down its ports for several days, a quick reminder: it led to an unprecedented hiccup in global logistics and shipping which hasn’t been resolved to this day. That’s because China is the world’s biggest trading nation and its ability to keep its factories humming through the pandemic has been crucial for global supply chains.

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Disappointing. Advisor to 3 different presidents, Malmgren, tells me nothing I don’t already know about Putin. And he doesn’t appear to say what it is the west gets wrong.

What The West Gets Wrong About Putin (Malmgren)

In 1999, Vladimir Putin suddenly sprang from bureaucratic obscurity to the office of Prime Minister. When, a few months later, Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and Putin was voted in as President, governments around the world were taken by surprise yet again. How could this unknown figure have amassed national voter support with so little media attention? I had first met Putin seven years before and was not surprised by his rapid domination of the new Russia. We were introduced by Yevgeny Primakov, widely known as “Russia’s Kissinger”, who I had met in Moscow multiple times during the Cold War years when I advised Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford. Primakov was a no-nonsense thinker and writer. He was also a special emissary for the Kremlin in conducting secret discussions with national leaders around the world.

When Yeltsin tasked his advisor Anatoly Sobchak with identifying and recruiting Russia’s best and brightest, Putin, then a local politician in his hometown of St Petersburg, was top of his list — so Primakov took Putin under his wing to tutor him in global power and security issues. Eventually, Primakov introduced Kissinger to Putin, and they became close. That both Primakov and Kissinger took time to coach Putin on geopolitics and geosecurity was a clear demonstration that they saw in him the characteristics of a powerful leader. It also showed Putin’s capacity for listening to lengthy lessons on geopolitics — as I was soon to learn.

In 1992, I received a call from a meeting organiser at the CSIS think tank inviting me to join a US-Russia St Petersburg Commission to be chaired by Kissinger and Sobchak. The purpose would be to help the new Russian leadership in opening channels of business and banking with the West. Most of the Western members would be CEOs of major US and European companies, as well as key officials of the new Russian government. I would attend as an expert. I was told that a “Mr Primakov” had personally asked if I could make time to participate. I could hardly refuse such a request, and I was intensely curious about the emerging Russian leadership, especially about Putin.

Arriving at the first meeting, I saw several people gathered around Kissinger and a man I was told was Putin. An official identified himself to me and said he had been asked by Primakov to introduce me to Putin. He interrupted the conversation with Kissinger to announce my arrival; Putin warmly responded that he was looking forward to chatting with me about how I see the world from inside Washington. We spoke on several occasions between meetings, and he arranged to sit next to me at a dinner, accompanied by his interpreter. At that dinner, he asked me: “What is the single most important obstacle between your Western businessmen and my fellow Russians in starting up business connections?”

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The neocons are with Biden now.

US Envoy In Europe Says ‘Drumbeat Of War Is Sounding Loud’ (Hill)

Washington’s envoy in Europe on Thursday issued a stark warning of war in Eastern Europe amid Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s border but said the U.S. and the majority of its allies support ongoing dialogue to tamp down tensions. “We’re facing a crisis in European security. The drumbeat of war is sounding loud, and the rhetoric has gotten rather shrill,” said Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Carpenter spoke with reporters following a meeting of the OSCE focused on advancing diplomacy between the U.S., Europe and Russia, the conclusion of an extraordinary session of three diplomatic meetings on the continent this week and in response to Russian military provocations.


“There’s close to 100,000 troops on the Russian side of its border with Ukraine. Their presence and the live fire measures being carried out are raising many questions about Moscow’s intention,” Carpenter said. The OSCE meeting, which took place in Vienna on Thursday, was the first inaugural permanent council meeting of 2022 but was overtaken by discussions surrounding Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s border. Both nations are members of the security group. It was the first time Russian and Ukrainian officials met in person to discuss what Moscow calls its security concerns and followed bilateral talks between the U.S. and Russia in Geneva on Monday and between Russia and NATO on Wednesday in Brussels.

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Aftter an 8-hour shift wearing a properly fittted N95 mask:

 

 

 

The only half mask that works, according to Steve Kirsch.

 

 

 

Carson

 

 

 

 

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

 

Nov 182019
 
 November 18, 2019  Posted by at 9:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  28 Responses »


Salvador Dali Cubist self portrait 1926

 

Leaked Report Concludes Russia May Have Influenced Brexit Vote (AP)
Hong Kong Police Storm Into University After Violent Standoff (ZH)
Another Chapter in the Democrats’ 2020 Clown Car Disaster (Taibbi)
Morrison Told Schiff Panel: Nothing Improper During Trump-Zelensky Call (ZH)
In Trump-Nixon Impeachment Comparison, Pelosi Raises Specter Of Resignation (R.)
Pelosi: Trump’s Conduct Is ‘So Much Worse’ Than Nixon’s (NBC)
About Trump (Sylvain Laforest )
Fed Fears Next Crash Fatal – John Rubino (USAW)
China Quietly Bails Out Another Bank (ZH)
Airbus Exec: Boeing’s 737 MAX Grounding Benefits No One (CNBC)
Pictures of Prince Andrew Partying and Sweating (DM)
Against Economics (David Graeber)

 

 

Britain’s RussiaRussia craze continues. This concerns a bunch of Russian oligarchs with British citizenship who have donated to the Tories, and they are conveniently labeled “Russia”. For all we know they may be sworn enemies of Putin. And even if they’re not, they’re also not “Russia”. When the Brits show us Skripal, we can talk.

Leaked Report Concludes Russia May Have Influenced Brexit Vote (AP)

Questions about the British government’s failure to release a report on Russia’s interference in the country’s politics have continued to dog Prime Minister Boris Johnson as critics said leaks from the document raised concerns about the security of next month’s election. The report from Parliament’s intelligence committee concludes that Russian interference may have affected the 2016 referendum on Britain’s departure from the European Union, though the impact is “unquantifiable,” the Sunday Times reported. The committee said British intelligence services failed to devote enough resources to counter the threat and highlighted the impact of articles posted by Russian new sites that were widely disseminated on social media, the newspaper reported.

Emily Thornberry, the opposition Labour Party’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, said the leaks raise questions that deserve answers ahead of the December 12 poll. “Boris Johnson therefore needs to clear up the confusion, spin and speculation around this [intelligence committee] report by publishing it in full at the earliest opportunity,” she told the Times. “If not, people will rightly continue to ask: what is he trying to hide from the British public and why?” Johnson’s government has said it needs more time to review the security implications of the report. It says it will release the report after the election.

Critics have alleged the report is being withheld because it shows Russians have made large donations to the Conservative Party, which is seeking to win a majority that would allow Johnson to push his Brexit deal through Parliament. Security Minister Brandon Lewis dismissed the criticism. Asked about Russian donors to the campaign, Lewis told Sky television on Sunday that all contributions are reported to the proper authorities and the donors in question all have British citizenship.

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Developing story with some seemingly contradictory “facts”.

Guardian: 800 protesters “trapped”. “Teargas stops protesters escaping despite president of Polytechnic University assuring them of safe passage.”

Hong Kong Police Storm Into University After Violent Standoff (ZH)

Update 3: As the AP reports, local police charged demonstrators at Hong Kong Polytechnic University early Monday in a bid to end a lengthy standoff with protesters who had occupied the campus for a week, even though the local police later denied they had, in fact, raided the campus. As the WSJ adds, pro-democracy activists who had spent the night at barricades outside retreated inside the university, while those already inside campus buildings hurled Molotov cocktails and bricks at elite and riot police, who stormed the campus through the main entrance.

“Several protesters had been perched on higher floors and used a large slingshot to launch Molotov cocktails. The entryway and areas around the university’s perimeter were quickly engulfed in flames. One protester shown on live-streamed video from the site fired an arrow at the officers. Police appeared to arrest a small number of demonstrators as they advanced, but it was unclear how many students remained inside.”

Update 2: Sky News in a breaking report says officers have been given the ‘green light’ to use lethal force if needed against ‘rioters’ deploying lethal weapons at student protester-occupied Polytechnic University. According to the report: “Hong Kong protestors have fired arrows and hurled petrol bombs at police, as they seek to keep control of a barricaded university. Warning they were authorized to use “lethal force”, officers threatened to use live bullets if rioters continued. The territory continues to suffer some of its worst unrest in six months of demonstrations.” Throughout the weekend and into Monday the campus is resembling a war zone. And as protester tactics escalate, including shooting at police with bows and arrows, and launching petrol bombs via sling shots off buildings, HK police gloves are now coming off.

The battle over student protester-occupied Polytechnic University grew more violent over the weekend and grabbed headlines Sunday after a police officer was wounded by an arrow and a riot control vehicle attempting to disperse what HK authorities have labelled ‘rioters’ was set aflame by dozens of Molotov cocktails. Chinese state media has now labeled the student protesters “terrorists” and has urged police to deploy live fire given the students themselves are in possession of deadly weapons.

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Deval Patrick is candidate no. 28.

Another Chapter in the Democrats’ 2020 Clown Car Disaster (Taibbi)

People like Bloomberg and Patrick seem to believe in the existence of a massive electoral “middle” that wants 15-point plans and meritocratic slogans instead of action. As befits brilliant political strategists, they also seem hyper-concerned about the feelings of the country’s least numerous demographic, the extremely rich. A consistent theme is fear (often described in papers like the Times as “concern”) that the rhetoric of Warren and Sanders might unduly upset wealthy folk. “I don’t think that wealth is the problem. I think greed is the problem,” Patrick told CBS This Morning. He added that “taxes should go up on the most prosperous and the most fortunate,” but “not as a penalty.”


What does that mean? Should we impose higher taxes on the rich but include a note from the IRS saying, “It’s not because we don’t love you”? Along with an alarmingly high number of press figures, politicians like Patrick seem to be trapped in an “electability” concept that hasn’t made sense since the Reagan-Bush years. Outside of a few spots on the Upper East Side and in Georgetown and L.A., the “center” has been gone a long time. From Donald Trump to Sanders to Warren, the politicians attracting the biggest and most enthusiastic responses in recent years have run on furious, throw-the-bums-out themes, for the logical reason that bums by now clearly need throwing out.

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He said this last month. Schiff didn’t exactly quote him on it. Help me here: who was the guy Schiff told to reconsider his statement weeks ago? Anyone remember?

Morrison Told Schiff Panel: Nothing Improper During Trump-Zelensky Call (ZH)

A former top national security adviser to President Trump told a secret impeachment panel that he believed nothing improper occurred during a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky, according to a transcript released over the weekend. NSC official Tim Morrison, who was on that phone call, expressed this narrative-killing opinion to the Democratic-led House Intelligence Committee last month – which would have undermined recent public testimony by several US officials who said that President Trump abused his office when he asked Zelensky to investigate former VP Joe Biden and matters related to the 2016 US election. That said, Morrison also testified that US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, was involved in an effort to encourage Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden – though he could not say whether Trump was involved in those efforts.

“I’m still not completely certain that this was coming from the President,” Morrison testified to House Democrats. “I’m only getting this from Ambassador Sondland.” During a closed-door deposition as part of the House impeachment inquiry, Morrison was asked, “In your view, there was nothing improper that occurred during the call?” “Correct,” he answered as he was testifying under oath.” -Epoch Times. Morrison replaced former NSC official Fiona Hill, who resigned from her position on July 19, days before the infamous Trump-Zelensky call. He says that the word “Burisma” never came up during that call, referring to the Ukrainian natural gas company which employed Hunter Biden on its board [..]

Trump asked Zelensky to investigate this, as well as allegations that Ukraine was involved with the hacked DNC server as well as the only firm allowed to look at it, Crowdstrike. Morrison also testified that the Trump administration withheld foreign aid from Ukraine due to Trump’s general skepticism toward foreign aid, and a “concern that Ukrainians were not paying their fair share, as well as concerns [that] our aid would be misused because of the view that Ukraine has a significant corruption problem.”

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I’m getting the impression this is Pelosi’s PR team speaking. That switch to “bribery” gave it away. Is “resignation” another term they checked with a focus group?!

In Trump-Nixon Impeachment Comparison, Pelosi Raises Specter Of Resignation (R.)

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is amplifying her unfavorable comparison of President Donald Trump to fellow Republican Richard Nixon, saying that disgraced president at least cared enough about the country to leave office before his impeachment. The top Democrat in Congress told reporters last week that Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate one of his potential opponents in the 2020 election “makes what Nixon did look almost small.” In a CBS interview broadcast on Sunday, she alluded to Nixon’s resignation after the Watergate scandal involving a break-in at Democratic Party headquarters and the subsequent cover-up.


“I mean, what the president did was so much worse than even what Richard Nixon did, that at some point Richard Nixon cared about the country enough to recognize that this could not continue,” Pelosi said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” [..] Pelosi for months resisted calls from her more liberal Democratic lawmakers to initiate impeachment proceedings, but said Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy compelled her to open the inquiry against the president.

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They’re starting to intimidate witnesses.

Pelosi: Trump’s Conduct Is ‘So Much Worse’ Than Nixon’s (NBC)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Sunday that President Donald Trump’s conduct is “so much worse” than that of former President Richard Nixon, adding that Trump is insecure about being an “imposter.” Pelosi spoke with CBS’s “Face the Nation” days after House impeachment investigators conducted their first public hearings. Three more days of public hearings are scheduled for this week. “I will make sure he does not intimidate the whistleblower,” Pelosi said of the CIA employee whose complaint about Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine led to the impeachment inquiry. “The president can come before the committee and speak all the truth that he wants … He has every opportunity to make his case.”

“But it’s really a sad thing,” Pelosi continued. “What the president did was so much worse than even what Richard Nixon did. At some point, Richard Nixon cared about the country enough to recognize that this could not continue.” Since the House launched its impeachment inquiry in September, multiple Trump administration officials have alleged that Trump tied U.S. aid to Ukraine to an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Republicans have defended the president by pointing out that the aid was eventually released and Ukraine never announced an investigation into the Bidens. But Pelosi and other Democrats have said that, by conditioning aid on the investigations, Trump was attempting to commit bribery.

“The whistle was blown, the whistle was blown, and that was blown long before we heard about it,” Pelosi said. “Don’t forget that in-between all of that came the inspector general. An inspector general appointed by President Trump. And the inspector general said this was of urgent concern. That is what intervened.” Speaking with “Fox News Sunday,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said Republicans have offered up “a whole bunch of defenses that don’t make sense.” “Lots of crimes can be committed … by the boss hinting and giving direction,” Himes said. “Corrupt people don’t always say, ‘Hey, here’s the signed contract.’ What has already developed from second-hand witnesses is that this aid was withheld as a condition.”

Even more Trump administration officials are set to testify publicly in the impeachment probe this week, including E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who Himes said is a first-hand witness to Trump’s conduct, having been tasked with carrying out his wishes. While Sondland’s initial October testimony largely absolved him from any wrongdoing, he submitted additional testimony in November acknowledge that he did deliver a quid pro quo message to Ukraine. Acknowledging that Sondland’s credibility is in question, Himes said it “was not lost on Ambassador Sondland what happened to” Trump associates Roger Stone and Michael Cohen “for lying to Congress.” “My guess is Gordon Sondland is going to do his level best to tell the truth because otherwise, he may have a very unpleasant legal future in front of him,” Himes, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said.

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Nice find by Tyler, an article by Sylvain Laforest. Not saying I agree with it, but he tickles some pre-conceived “virtues”. Anyone who calls Trump the ultimate anti-narcissist knows he’s in for tons of derision. Laforest is okay with that.

“Donald simply doesn’t care if you like him or not, which makes him the ultimate anti-narcissist, by its psychological definition.”

About Trump (Sylvain Laforest )

Let’s make one thing clear: to the establishment, Trump isn’t mentally challenged, but he’s definitely seen as a possible nemesis of their world. Ever since he moved in the White House, Trump has been depicted as a narcissist, a racist, a sexist and a climate-skeptic, loaded with shady past stories and mental issues. Even though an approximate 60% of the American people don’t trust medias anymore, many have bought the story that Trump might be slightly crazy or unfit to rule, and the statistic climbs even higher when you get out of the USA. Of course, Donald isn’t doing anything special to change the deeply negative perception that so many journalists and people alike have about him.

He’s openly outrageous and provocative on Twitter, he sounds impulsive and dumb most of the time, acts irrationally, lies on a daily basis, and throws out sanctions and threats as if they were candy canes out of an elf’s side bag in a mall in December. Right away, we can destroy one persistent media myth: the image Trump is projecting is self-destructive and it’s the exact opposite of how pathological narcissists act, since they thrive to be loved and admired by everyone. Donald simply doesn’t care if you like him or not, which makes him the ultimate anti-narcissist, by its psychological definition. And that’s not even up for opinion, it’s a quite simple and undeniable fact.

His general plan exhales from one of his favorite motto: «We will give power back to the people», because the United States and its imperialist web woven over the world have been in the hands of a few globalist bankers, military industrials and multinationals for more than a century. To achieve his plan, he has to end wars abroad, bring back the kids, dismantle the NATO and CIA, get control over the Federal Reserve, cut every link with foreign allies, abolish the Swift financial system, demolish the propaganda power of the medias, drain the swamp of the deep state that’s running the spying agencies and disable the shadow government that’s lurking in the Council on foreign relations and Trilateral Commission’s offices. In short, he has to destroy the New World Order and its globalist ideology. The task is huge and dangerous to say the least. Thankfully, he’s not alone.

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John Rubino is one of the first, and most loyal, fans of the Automatic Earth. Seeing this video makes me think I should really start talking more about finance again. If only because after all, that’s where we come from. But having watched how the Fed et al have distorted and erased what are still called markets, I started to look elsewhere -as well- for what was interesting.

Fed Fears Next Crash Fatal – John Rubino (USAW)

Rubino explains, “Every sector of the U.S. economy is so over indebted I don’t see how we go on much longer. The Fed is desperately trying to prolong this thing. We are running trillion dollar deficits now, and what that is for is to keep the system from falling apart. We are 11 years into an expansion, a record. This is the longest bull market in history, and this is the longest economic expansion in history. . . . These guys don’t know exactly what’s going to happen in the next recession, but they are afraid that the system is so highly leveraged that even a garden variety three quarters of a percent of negative growth and a garden variety of 20% drop in stock prices might be fatal. The system might not be able to handle that because it would cause so much damage and there are so many different places that can blow up that the system would spin out of control. We would get 2008-2009 again but on steroids because the numbers are so much bigger this time around. So, they want to avoid that at all costs.”


Rubino points out, “Fear is the enemy in a fiat currency system. Everything is based on our assumption that the guys in charge know what they are doing and that the confidence in them is good. You take that away, and they let us see them sweat, and it’s over. There is no real bottom for the dollar, euro or the yen. Their intrinsic value is zero. When the economic players out there in the global financial system realize that the central banks of the world are out of ammo, and nothing these guys do is going to fix our problem, then all hell breaks loose. . . . What worries me about today’s world is that everything falls apart all at once, and there is no way to fix what went wrong. . . .We have a lot of examples of governments doing crazy things when everything falls apart.”

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Harbin’s biggest problem: it trades on Hong Kong’s stock exchange. You know, HK dollars.

China Quietly Bails Out Another Bank (ZH)

Harbin Bank, which is one of the biggest banks in China’s northeast with 622 billion yuan in assets as of June 30, 2019, and trades on Hong Kong’s stock exchange, becomes the fifth bank – after Baoshang Bank , Bank of Jinzhou, Heng Feng Bank, and Henan Yichuan Rural Commercial Bank – to be bailed out by the state, and will be 48%-controlled by two government entities after six private shareholders shed their stakes, according to a bank statement issued late on Friday. Total consideration for the shares involved came to almost 15 billion yuan, or around $2.1 billion, the bank said, though it described the transactions as transfers rather than stock sales, which is to be expected if the bank was being bailed out instead of actually selling a viable stake.

As has been the customary case, the bank didn’t provide any reason for the transactions in the statement, and Chinese bank regulators made no comment on the action. And, as was the case with at least one previous bank “rescue”, Harbin Bank was connected to a former oligarch who disappeared not that long ago amid allegations of massive fraud. Indeed, as the WSJ reports, the bank is among a handful of financial businesses in China linked to once-powerful tycoon named Xiao Jianhua who in early 2017 disappeared amid a wave of prosecutions of big private investors. Businesses owned by some of those people, including Wu Xiaohui’s Anbang Insurance Group Co., have also since become government-owned.

[..] So why did Harbin Bank fail? In its financial report for H1 2019, Harbin Bank cited deteriorating asset quality – read surging bad loans – as well as intensified competition for deposits and higher borrowing costs in money markets as China’s economy slows. Yet, paradoxically, the near-insolvent lender also said it recorded a profit of 2.18 billion yuan, or about $311.1 million, though that was off about 16% because of, drumroll, more-aggressive write-offs of bad debts. Which goes to show that corporate earnings reports in China are as “credible” as all other Chinese economic “data.”

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He said it straight-faced, I’m sure.

Airbus Exec: Boeing’s 737 MAX Grounding Benefits No One (CNBC)

Airbus Chief Commercial Officer Christian Scherer forcefully rejected the notion that his company is benefiting from the grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max fleet while speaking to CNBC during the Dubai Air Show. “I really need to correct that cultural belief. This does not benefit anyone in this industry, the least of which would be Airbus,” Scherer told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble on Sunday. “It’s a tragedy, it is an issue for Boeing to resolve, but it is not good for competitors to see problems on any one particular airplane type.” The 737 Max [..] grounding has forced airlines to cancel thousands of flights, driven up costs and dented airlines’ profits. To make up for the expected loss in services, Boeing in the second quarter took a $4.9 billion after-tax charge to compensate airlines but final amounts are unknown because regulators haven’t yet lifted the grounding.


Boeing and Airbus, often described as holding a duopoly over the large commercial airline industry since the 1990s, each own approximately half of that market. Orders for each company’s airliners, however, are expected to be smaller this year as the industry faces headwinds including a slowing global economy, climate change and safety concerns. Airbus, Europe’s largest aerospace group, cut its delivery expectations for 2019 as it grapples with manufacturing delays at its recently expanded plant in Hamburg, Germany. It now plans to deliver “around 860” planes this year, down from an original target of between 880 and 890. It recorded an adjusted operating income of 1.6 billion euros ($1.78 billion) for the third quarter of 2019.

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Andrew said in the Saturday interview that he didn’t party, didn’t show personal displays of affection, couldn’t sweat and only went out wearing a suit and tie. Well, now he’s got the Daily Mail on his trail. They have a lot of pictures of him doing exactly that.

Pictures of Prince Andrew Partying and Sweating (DM)

Prince Andrew is facing an extraordinary backlash over his interview, which Prince Charles’ former PR chief Dickie Arbiter described as: ‘Not so much a car crash but an articulated lorry crash’. Mr Arbiter said he must ‘take a break’ from royal duties, adding: ‘What charity wants a VIP guest with this hanging over him?’ Viewers described watching Andrew’s grilling from behind the sofa and through their fingers as he denied having sex with Virginia Roberts because he was in Pizza Express in Woking and suggested that the world-famous picture of them together could be faked. Miss Roberts’ evidence that he sweated ‘profusely’ during sex were explained away by claiming a rush of adrenaline while being shot at during the Falklands conflict in 1982 made it impossible for him.

A royal source claimed last night he has told his mother the Queen that his appearance on the BBC Two Newsnight special was largely a ‘great success’ – but a friend told the Mail he ‘regretted’ not expressing sympathy for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims in his disastrous TV interview. Today former royal protection officer said it went so badly for Prince Andrew it should spark a police investigation. In another infamous set of pictures taken on the French Riviera in July 2007, the Prince looks wild-eyed as he parties with American socialite Chris Von Aspen. The blonde interior designer can be seen licking Andrew as the pair cavorted together.

More clips from 2008 show him wandering around a party thrown by wine tycoon Claude Ott, heading to the dance floor with two women as techno music plays out. The Prince appears to look worse for wear as he enjoys the party, hair dishevelled and shirt untucked.

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Graeber is always an interesting read. But not one I can do justice in this format, if only because of the length of the essay.

Against Economics (David Graeber)

There is a growing feeling, among those who have the responsibility of managing large economies, that the discipline of economics is no longer fit for purpose. It is beginning to look like a science designed to solve problems that no longer exist. A good example is the obsession with inflation. Economists still teach their students that the primary economic role of government—many would insist, its only really proper economic role—is to guarantee price stability. We must be constantly vigilant over the dangers of inflation. For governments to simply print money is therefore inherently sinful. If, however, inflation is kept at bay through the coordinated action of government and central bankers, the market should find its “natural rate of unemployment,” and investors, taking advantage of clear price signals, should be able to ensure healthy growth.


These assumptions came with the monetarism of the 1980s, the idea that government should restrict itself to managing the money supply, and by the 1990s had come to be accepted as such elementary common sense that pretty much all political debate had to set out from a ritual acknowledgment of the perils of government spending. This continues to be the case, despite the fact that, since the 2008 recession, central banks have been printing money frantically in an attempt to create inflation and compel the rich to do something useful with their money, and have been largely unsuccessful in both endeavors. We now live in a different economic universe than we did before the crash. Falling unemployment no longer drives up wages. Printing money does not cause inflation. Yet the language of public debate, and the wisdom conveyed in economic textbooks, remain almost entirely unchanged.

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Sep 082019
 
 September 8, 2019  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  9 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Horses and person 1939

 

 

To everyone used to receiving Automatic Earth posts in their email, I’m sorry but since yesterday they’re suddenly bouncing again en masse. This makes me very tired by now, but I’ll look for a solution. I suspect there may be a connection between this and Google accusing me of violating their rules, without telling me what rules I’m supposed to have violated.

 

 

Boris Johnson Will Challenge Law Stopping No-Deal Exit In Court (Ind.)
UK Minister Amber Rudd Resigns, Says Unclear Who Is Running Country (Ind.)
Churchill’s Grandson Blasts ‘Unreliable’ Boris And ‘Fraud’ Rees-Mogg (Mirror)
How Bad Is Boris Johnson? We Can’t Even Find The Words (G&M)
Trump Abruptly Cancels Afghan Peace Deal, Camp David Meeting With Taliban (BBC)
Ukraine And Russia Exchange Prisoners In Landmark Deal (BBC)
China’s August Exports Unexpectedly Shrink, Imports Remain Weak (R.)
China: A Paper Tiger In A Fragile Economy (LN)
Robert Mueller Helped Saudi Arabia Cover Up Its Role In 9/11 Attacks (NYP)
On the Road to Interview Lula, Into a Brazilian Black Hole (Pepe Escobar)

 

 

I’ll keep saying they should have gone to the courts much sooner. But it’s unclear what the courts can do.

Boris Johnson Will Challenge Law Stopping No-Deal Exit In Court (Ind.)

Boris Johnson will go to court to challenge the order from parliament to delay Brexit, the foreign secretary has revealed. Dominic Raab insisted the government would not break the law – after MPs passed legislation requiring him to seek an Article 50 extension – but said it would not comply either. Vowing to “test to the limit” what the new law demands, Mr Raab said: “We will look very carefully, legally at what it requires and what it doesn’t require.” And, pointing to the failed legal actions to stop parliament being suspended, he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge programme: “We had two legal challenges last week and we won both of those.”


The comments suggest the controversy is heading for the Supreme Court in late October, with Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s key aide, believed to be convinced there is a legal way out. Mr Raab also dismissed a warning by a former director of public prosecutions that the prime minister is heading for jail if he flouts the law as “ridiculous”. Shami Chakrabarti, Labour’s shadow attorney general, condemned the comments, saying: “Is that what we say to our kids? Is that what we say to vulnerable kids? It’s irresponsible and elitist.”

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Boris has claimed progress in talks with the EU, but the EU has said there’s no such thing.

UK Minister Amber Rudd Resigns, Says Unclear Who Is Running Country (Ind.)

Amber Rudd has claimed it is unclear who is running the country following her shock resignation from the government. The former work and pensions secretary said she did not think the cabinet was having “proper discussions about policy”. When asked who was running the country, if not the cabinet, she told The Andrew Marr Show: “If I knew that I would have perhaps had further conversations with the prime minister or them.” Ms Rudd, who announced her resignation from the cabinet on Saturday, said she quit because she had not seen enough evidence of planning for a no-deal Brexit.


She claimed she was shown a “one-page summary” when she asked for evidence of the government’s work in negotiating a deal with the European Union. “It’s 80 to 90 per cent of government time going into preparing for no deal,” she said. “It’s disproportionate.” She added: “There is no evidence of the deal. There is no formal negotiation taking place. “I think we should be doing so much more to get the deal.”

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Outspoken.

Churchill’s Grandson Blasts ‘Unreliable’ Boris And ‘Fraud’ Rees-Mogg (Mirror)

Sacked Tory rebel MP Sir Nicholas Soames says Boris Johnson is “nothing like” his grandfather Sir Winston Churchill – and called Jacob Rees-Mogg an “absolute fraud”. Sir Nicholas, 71, tore into the Prime Minister and his right-hand man in a scathing interview as “unreliable” Mr Johnson’s Brexit strategy lay in tatters. The MP for 37 years said of the PM: “Boris Johnson is nothing like Winston Churchill. “I don’t think anyone has called Boris a diplomat or statesman.


“We all know the pluses and minuses, everyone he has worked for says the same thing: he writes beautifully [but he’s] deeply unreliable.” And of Mr Rees-Mogg, he was even more unforgiving, telling the Times: “He is in serious danger of believing his own shtick. “He is an absolute fraud, he is a living example of what a moderately cut double-breasted suit and a decent tie can do with an ultra-posh voice and a bit of ginger stuck up his arse.” Sir Nicholas blasted Mr Rees-Mogg after the Leader of the House was pictured slouching on the front bench like a sunbed as the Prime Minister suffered one of several humiliating defeats this week.

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View from Canada. Whose head of state still is Elizabeth. “British politics today is what results from the collision of an unstoppable force, an immovable object and a clown car.

How Bad Is Boris Johnson? We Can’t Even Find The Words (Globe & Mail)

We begin this editorial with an apology to you, our faithful readers. In March, we described the Brexit situation, then careening through its third year and nowhere close to resolution, as an “omnishambles.” An omnishambles is a state of utter chaos, total disorder and perfect mismanagement – which brings us to our apology. If you’ve been paying any attention to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, you know that, in declaring United Kingdom politics to have reached peak shambolic six months ago, we spoke too soon. Oh, did we ever. Because if the Conservative government was making an omnishambles of Brexit back in the spring – a happy era now remembered as a halcyon age of a merely half-hearted appetite for national self-destruction – then what words can adequately describe the scale of Mr. Johnson’s achievements?

Megashambles? Summa cum laude shambles? Tyrannosaurus shambles? The-Chernobyl-reactor-just-exploded-and-the-dosimeter-reads-15,000-roentgen shambles? Mr. Johnson is the author of 11 books, some admittedly banged out in the careless haste that is his style. But this week, without breaking a sweat, the PM penned the Odyssey and the Iliad of shambles. He faced his first votes in Parliament and lost them; lost his minority government’s governing majority; sacked 21 of his own MPs, including his party’s longest-serving member and Winston Churchill’s grandson; provoked his own brother into resigning from cabinet, citing a conflict between “family loyalty and the national interest”; and lost control of the House of Commons while remaining so offside the chamber’s confidence that it will not yet allow him to resolve the matter by calling an election.

Mr. Johnson did all that, and more, in the space of two days. What will tomorrow bring? British politics today is what results from the collision of an unstoppable force, an immovable object and a clown car.

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Leaving should still be the priority.

Trump Abruptly Cancels Afghan Peace Deal, Camp David Meeting With Taliban (BBC)

US President Donald Trump says he has called off peace negotiations with the Taliban that sought to end America’s 18-year war in Afghanistan. Mr Trump tweeted he had been set to meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and senior Taliban leaders on Sunday. But he cancelled the secret meeting at his Camp David retreat after the militants admitted they were behind a recent attack that killed a US soldier. The US invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban in 2001. The militants had provided a safe haven for the al-Qaeda network to plan the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US. A source from the Taliban’s political office in Doha told the BBC that the group was set to hold an “urgent internal meeting” to discuss Mr Trump’s decision.


A meeting with the Taliban at Camp David, just ahead of the 18th anniversary of 9/11, would have been an extraordinary diplomatic move by the US president. The top US negotiator had announced a peace deal “in principle” on Monday. It was the result of nine rounds of talks between the US and Taliban representatives, held in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar. Mr Trump’s tweets on Saturday evening appeared to put an end to nearly a year of painstaking negotiations which had excluded the Afghan government in Kabul, dismissed by the Taliban as American puppets. “Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, [the Taliban] admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers,” the president tweeted.

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I like.

Ukraine And Russia Exchange Prisoners In Landmark Deal (BBC)

Russia and Ukraine have completed a long-awaited exchange of prisoners. Those freed include 24 Ukrainian sailors and – controversially – a “person of interest” over the downing of flight MH17 which killed 298 people. The swap is hoped to ease tensions between the two neighbours. Greeting the Ukrainians at the airport, President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “We have to do all the steps to finish this horrible war.” Russia said it was glad its citizens had returned home. Relations between the two countries deteriorated dramatically in 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Russian-backed rebels began an insurgency in two regions of eastern Ukraine.

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The trade war can only be part of it.

China’s August Exports Unexpectedly Shrink, Imports Remain Weak (R.)

China’s exports unexpectedly fell in August while imports shrank for a fourth month, pointing to further weakness in the world’s second-largest economy and underlining a pressing need for more stimulus as the Sino-U.S. trade war escalates. Beijing is widely expected to announce more support measures in coming weeks to avert the risk of a sharper economic slowdown as the United States ratchets up trade pressure, including the first cuts in some key lending rates in four years. On Friday, the central bank cut banks’ reserve requirements for the seventh time since early 2018 to free up more funds for lending, days after a cabinet meeting signaled that more policy loosening may be imminent.


August exports fell 1% from a year earlier, the biggest fall since June, when it fell 1.3%, customs data showed on Sunday. Analysts had expected a 2.0% rise in a Reuters poll after July’s 3.3% gain. That’s despite analyst expectations that looming tariffs may have prompted some Chinese exporters to bring forward or “front-load” U.S.-bound shipments into August, a trend seen earlier in the trade dispute. Many analysts expect export growth to slow further in coming months, as evidenced by worsening export orders in both official and private factory surveys. More U.S. tariff measures will take effect on Oct. 1 and Dec. 15. Sunday’s data also showed China’s imports shrank for the fourth consecutive month since April. Imports dropped 5.6% on-year in August, slightly less than an expected 6.0% fall and unchanged from July’s 5.6% decline.

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Pon Zi.

China: A Paper Tiger In A Fragile Economy (LN)

We typically imagine the Chinese entrepreneur crunching numbers, working around the clock to boost the economy, and repeating Communist propaganda about the West being the supreme devil. But we might have it wrong. Considering that the major source of funding for tens of thousands of companies in China originates from the central bank’s printing press, the reality could be businessmen and employees getting plastered on baijiuand beating each other to death with Pokémon cards during office hours. Think of it as the Eastern version of The Wolf of Wall Street.

[..] Even prior to the trade war, the Chinese government had employed a series of measures to reverse the slump. Thanks to the dispute with the Americans, Beijing’s growth prospects are bearish, projected to fall to a 30-year low of 6.2% in the second quarter of 2019. Because of this, analysts anticipate the PBOC will impose another 50-basis-point RRR decrease. In addition, observers prognosticate that the central bank could cut at least one of its key policy interest rates later this month. This would be the first time since 2015. The routine intervention and stimulus have ostensibly metastasized the economy into an addict, reliant on its next fix. So, can the Chinese economy survive without the state?

In the last five years, China’s M2 money supply – a measurement of the money supply that includes cash, checking deposits, and liquid assets – has ballooned 120%. Since the country is being paralyzed by the trade spat and other negative trends that threaten its foundation, China is not showing any signs that it is ready to hit the pause button on money-printing. In fact, judging by previous remarks by PBOC heads, Beijing might rev it up even more, especially if the downturn intensifies. But can China print to infinity? It may have to because seemingly every area of the economy counts on being propped up by the Communists through cash injections, stimulus projects, and bailouts.

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“He was the master when it came to covering up the kingdom’s role in 9/11..”

Robert Mueller Helped Saudi Arabia Cover Up Its Role In 9/11 Attacks (NYP)

After a lengthy investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller charged Russia made “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election” and said the incursion “deserves the attention of every American.” But former FBI investigators say their old boss didn’t feel the same concern when they uncovered multiple, systemic efforts by the Saudi government to assist the hijackers in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks — a far more consequential, to say nothing of deadly, foreign influence operation on America. As the head of the FBI at the time, they say Mueller was not nearly as interested in investigating that espionage conspiracy, which also involved foreign intelligence officers. Far from it, the record shows he covered up evidence pointing back to the Saudi Embassy and Riyadh — and may have even misled Congress about what he knew.


9/11 victims agree. “He was the master when it came to covering up the kingdom’s role in 9/11,” said survivor Sharon Premoli, who was pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center 18 years ago. “In October of 2001, Mueller shut down the government’s investigation after only three weeks, and then took part in the Bush [administration’s] campaign to block, obfuscate and generally stop anything about Saudi Arabia from being released,” added Premoli, now a plaintiff in the 9/11 lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. In fact, Mueller threw up roadblocks in the path of his own investigators working the 9/11 case, while making it easier for Saudi suspects to escape questioning, multiple case agents told me. Then he deep-sixed what evidence his agents did manage to uncover, according to the 9/11 lawsuit against the Saudis.

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Pepe with Lula and Dilma Rousseff, astonished at the changes in the country.

On the Road to Interview Lula, Into a Brazilian Black Hole (Pepe Escobar)

We were just beginning to hit cruising speed in our wide-ranging, 2 hour and 10 minute world exclusive interview with former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva in his prison at the Federal Police building in Curitiba, in southern Brazil. And then it hit us hard when he told us: “The US was very much afraid when I discussed a new currency and Obama called me, telling me, ‘Are you trying to create a new currency, a new euro?’ I said, ‘No, I’m just trying to get rid of the U.S. dollar. I’m just trying not to be dependent.’”


It was the foundation stone of what would build into a complex, rolling Hybrid War coup, from NSA spying on the Brazilian government and leading national companies, to the Car Wash corruption investigation (now demolished as a monster racket) to the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, the imprisonment of Lula, and the emergence of the Purveyor of Chaos, Jair Bolsonaro. My journey started in Cambodia. I had spent hours wandering around Beng Mealea, the jungle squeezing the stony repose of the Angkorian ruins, meditating on the rise and fall of empires. The message popped up on my phone in the dead of night: the request for an interview with Lula, placed five months ago, had been approved. How soon could I get to Sao Paulo?

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