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Debt Rattle March 31 2026

Mar 312026
 
 March 31, 2026  Posted by at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  60 Responses »


Damien Hirst Spiritual Day Blossom 2018


• Trump Presents a Strong Statement Toward Iran – Rubio Responds (CTH)
• Israel Has Launched America Into The Third World War (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Geopolitics of the Third World War (Alexander Dugin)
• Iran’s Victory Would Have a Silver Lining (Paul Craig Roberts)
• EU Parliament Told Continent Is ‘On Track For CIVIL WAR’ (MN)
• US Senators Seek To Sanction Hungary Over Obstructing Ukraine Aid (ZH)
• Whatever the Ruling on Birthright Citizenship… (Turley)
• Springtime for RINOs (James Howard Kunstler)
• The Great Illusion of NATO is Fading Fast (Trenin)
• Tom Homan Bulldozed Jake Tapper’s DHS Funding Narrative (Matt Margolis)
• This Trillion-Dollar Firm Wants Out of Mamdani’s NYC (Stephen Green)
• Scott Jennings Destroyed the ‘No Kings’ Rallies, CNN Wasn’t Happy (Margolis)

 


 

https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/2038285905627136090?s=20

 


 


Rubio’s good.

• Trump Presents a Strong Statement Toward Iran – Rubio Responds (CTH)

As Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears for an interview on Good Morning America, President Trump released the following statement:


“The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately “Open for Business,” we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched.” This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year “Reign of Terror.” Thank you for your attention to this matter.” ~ President DONALD J. TRUMP

Secretary Rubio responded in real time to questions about the objectives. Rubio impressively underlined the objectives in Iran, reemphasizing the core intent of the military operation to remove the capacity of Iran to pose a threat to the stable alliances that have formed in the region.

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“The UN, EU, US, Russia, China, India are yet to try to stop Israel’s multi-year genocide of the Palestinians.”

• Israel Has Launched America Into The Third World War (Paul Craig Roberts)

“The Third World War has been initiated by the United States in the context of preserving, strengthening, and ultimately consolidating the unipolar model of world order. All others are offered a choice: to become obedient vassals or to be treated as enemies. It is against these opponents of the unipolar world that Washington is waging the Third World War. At stake is sovereignty.”


I think a more correct explanation of Trump’s change of posture is the power of the Israel Lobby over the US government, media, universities, and entertainment and Netanyahu’s ability to use this power to put the US again at war for Greater Israel as the George W. Bush administration was used in “the war on terror,” which was the opening phase of destroying “seven countries in five years” called for by the Zionist neoconservatives. It is the extraordinary control that Israel has over the United States that accounts for Trump’s change in posture. Trump inherited the war with Russia in Ukraine. He could not end it because the combination of the Israel Lobby and the US military/security complex is too powerful for an American president.

I am surprised that a person as thoughtful as Dugin does not see Netanyahu’s role in realigning Trump. Especially so because in February the former Israeli prime minister, Bennett, addressed the American Conference of Jewish Organizations and declared: “Turkey is the next Iran.” These were marching orders to the Israel Lobby to begin the demonization of Turkey and setting Turkey up as the next “terrorist” country to be destroyed. Dugin is very much aware of the threat posed by Greater Israel, but in his article he does not say that it is the Israel Lobby that changed Trump from a multipolar position to a unipolar position, thereby bringing wider wars to the world.

As best as I can tell, most governments defer to Israel’s explanations and justifications. The UN, EU, US, Russia, China, India are yet to try to stop Israel’s multi-year genocide of the Palestinians. In the US, UK, and some EU countries it is becoming a hate crime and a criminal felony to criticize Israel. American students are expelled from US universities for criticizing Israel. Even Putin defers to Israel and abandoned Russia’s Syrian ally to Greater Israel. As for the current conflict in the Middle East, Hezbollah secretary-general Qassem is the only person to accurately describe the war with Iran in terms of “the US-Israeli project of ‘Greater Israel.’” https://paulcraigroberts.org/finally-an-arab-leader-who-understands/

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“Washington has now fully adopted the neoconservative position and behaves as if it alone possesses genuine sovereignty ..”

• Geopolitics of the Third World War (Alexander Dugin)

(Translated from the original Russian version on RIA Novosti).
Many analysts are now advancing the hypothesis that the Third World War has already begun and that we are in its first stage. Whether this is so or not will become clear in the near future, but for now let us assume the validity of this hypothesis and attempt to survey its geopolitical contours.The essence of the Third World War lies in a radical transformation of the entire architecture of world politics. The international institutions that exist today have long ceased to correspond to the real state of affairs. They are still organized according to the logic of the Westphalian system and the bipolar world. The Westphalian model is based on the recognition of the sovereignty of all states acknowledged at the international level. The United Nations is built on the same foundation.


However, in practice, over the past hundred years, the principle of sovereignty has turned into pure hypocrisy. In the 1930s, a system took shape in Europe in which only three forces were sovereign, and these were strictly ideological: 1. the bourgeois-capitalist West (Britain, the United States, France, and so on); 2. the communist USSR; 3. the Axis countries with a fascist ideology. This situation persisted even after the end of the Second World War, except that one of the ideological poles—the fascist one—disappeared. The other two—the capitalist and the socialist ones—grew stronger and expanded. Yet once again, no national state was sovereign in itself. Some were governed from Moscow, others from Washington. The Non-Aligned Movement wavered between the two poles.

he self-dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the USSR put an end to bipolarity, and from that moment only the United States remained as the bearer of sovereignty. The United Nations and the Westphalian model became a fig leaf for global hegemony. Thus emerged the unipolar world. Already in the 1990s, it became clear that international law would have to be revised—either in favor of a world government (the liberal “end of history” scenario of Francis Fukuyama) or in favor of direct Western hegemony (as envisioned by American neoconservatives). European countries followed the world-government scenario and, as a preparatory stage towards it, ceded their sovereignty to the European Union. Everyone else was subtly encouraged to prepare for the same.

However, in the early 2000s, a new tendency emerged: the will to restore sovereignty in Russia and China. Moscow and Beijing moved to make sovereignty not a fiction but a reality. Thus, multipolarity made itself known. From that point onward, it was proposed that sovereignty be vested in “civilization-states”—both those already formed (Russia, China, India) and potential ones (the Islamic world, Africa, Latin America). These, in turn, coalesced into BRICS.

As a result, the unipolar project came into direct confrontation with the multipolar one. Both globalists and neoconservatives opposed multipolarity. The potential for conflict was evident, while the old norms and rules inherited from previous geopolitical eras no longer functioned. Whether the Third World War has already begun or not is ultimately secondary; its geopolitical content is clear: it is a war between unipolarity and multipolarity over a new architecture of the world, over the distribution of sovereign centers of decision-making: either confined to the West alone or shared among rising civilization-states.

Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term in 2024 with an agenda that suggested he might accept multipolarity: rejection of interventions, criticism of globalists, direct conflict with liberals, sharp attacks on neoconservatives, a focus on domestic U.S. issues, and calls to return to traditional values—all of this gave reason to believe that Trump and his administration would align with multipolarity, while seeking to secure the most advantageous position for the United States within this new framework.

However, very soon the Trump administration began to move closer to the neoconservatives and to move away from its initial position. This was followed by support for the genocide in Gaza, continued provision of intelligence to Kiev, the seizure of Maduro, preparations for an invasion of Cuba, and finally a war against Iran, including the killing of the political leadership of the Islamic Republic. Washington has now fully adopted the neoconservative position and behaves as if it alone possesses genuine sovereignty in the world: without any reference to rules or international law, it asserts unilateral authority over the entire globe. It seeks to prove this in practice: through wars, invasions, abductions of heads of state, and the orchestration of regime-change operations.

The Third World War has been initiated by the United States in the context of preserving, strengthening, and ultimately consolidating the unipolar model of world order. All others are offered a choice: to become obedient vassals or to be treated as enemies. It is against these opponents of the unipolar world that Washington is waging the Third World War. At stake is sovereignty. Since there is as yet no single power capable of symmetrically opposing the United States, it is conducting military operations across several fronts simultaneously.

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“Israel wants to mobilize 15,000 working Israelis. Trump has sent 15,000 Marines and paratroopers. Iran has mobilized 1,000,000 troops. What does that tell you? ”

• Iran’s Victory Would Have a Silver Lining (Paul Craig Roberts)

Former Israeli Army officer says Israel’s military is “on the brink of collapse.” Israel’s capability, with US help, is assassinations and sneak attacks. Israel’s army is good at bombing civilians and shooting mothers and babies in the head. But when it comes to fighting, Israel is pitiful. Twice the vaunted IDF tried to occupy Southern Lebanon in order to steal the water resources there. And twice the Israeli army was totally defeated by a mere Hezbollah militia with no air force, tanks, or artillery. It might be about to happen for a third time.


The current war with Iran now expanded into Lebanon is disrupting Israeli life and bringing bombing home to them as Iranian missiles penetrate Israel and Washington’s air defenses without difficulty. More and more of Israel’s population is seeing the current war as an unnecessary “political war” and do not support it. If by “political,” Israelis mean the Zionist Greater Israel agenda, then the Israeli population’s support for the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel might not be very broad or deep and might be eroding. Possibly Israelis, as well as Muslims, are having the Zionist agenda imposed on them.

If this is the case, then the Israeli population’s support for the Israeli-American war on Iran may falter before the Iranian population’s support does. Already, the American public is heavily against Trump’s war against Iran. Unless the Trump-Netanyahu war criminals use their nukes, Iran is likely to win this war. The silver lining in an Iranian victory is the liberation of both America and the Israeli population from servitude to the crazed Zionist agenda of a Greater Israel from the Nile to Pakistan.

Americans should pray for an Iranian victory. Otherwise, their blood and money will continue to be used for Israel’s bloody purpose of Greater Israel. Israel wants to mobilize 15,000 working Israelis. Trump has sent 15,000 Marines and paratroopers. Iran has mobilized 1,000,000 troops. What does that tell you? If the dumbshit Netanyahu-Trump strike Iran with nukes, Iran will nuke Israel by destroying the nuclear plant at Dimona. Israel will no longer exist. Israel is tiny. lran is as large as Western Europe. An honest American has to ask himself how America became the vehicle for Israel’s wars for Greater Israel. Whatever happened to the requirement that the American government represents Americans’ interests, not those of some foreign country?

The 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by US VP Dick Cheney and the Zionists he positioned in the essential offices of the US government. The orchestrated “attack on America by Muslin terrorists” was the “New Pearl Harbor” that the American Zionist neoconservatives said was necessary to destroy seven Muslim countries in five years. It has taken longer than the five years that 4 Star General Wesley Clark said was the agenda shown to him by Pentagon generals. But America is now working for Israel on destroying Iran, after having disposed of Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Last month former Israeli prime minister Bennett came to America to address the American Organizations for Israel and gave them marching orders to begin demonizing Turkey as “the next Iran.”

Turkey has a leader who is just as stupid as America’s, as the UK’s, France’s, Germany’s, Russia’s, China’s, India’s. If Tayyip Erdogan understood the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel unfolding in front of his eyes, he would understand that he and his country are next and would have united with Iran to preserve Turkey’s sovereignty. But the fool thinks he can sit on the fence and ride both horses. In a world in which nuclear weapons and the ability to deploy deadly infections exist, and in which no objective, inquiring media exists, any fake news can rule.

There is nothing shameful about Iran fighting for its right to exist as a sovereign nation. But it is shameful for America to inflict harm on herself and others by fighting for Greater Israel.

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“Mass migration is shredding cultural homogeneity and paving the way for Balkanisation and violence..”

• EU Parliament Told Continent Is ‘On Track For CIVIL WAR’ (MN)

Europe’s ruling class has spent decades importing chaos under the banner of “diversity,” and now the bill is coming due in the most explosive way possible. A major conference held inside the European Parliament has heard stark warnings that the continent is barreling toward civil war as mass migration erodes trust, creates no-go zones, and fractures societies along ethnic lines. Professor David Betz of King’s College London cut straight to the point, telling the assembled lawmakers and experts: “Europe is on track for civil war”.


The event, titled Civil War: Europe at Risk?, was hosted by French populist-right leader Marion Maréchal and Sweden Democrats MEP Charlie Weimers. It also launched a new report documenting up to a thousand no-go zones across Europe based on public data including crime rates, sexual violence, youth gangs, unemployment, school performance, antisemitism, homophobia, mosque density, attacks on firefighters, and NGO presence. Maréchal opened the conference by reflecting that formerly peaceful and stable societies are “rapidly transforming before our eyes into societies of violence and mistrust”, stating that “the main basis of trust between citizens is cultural homogeneity”, which is now fast eroding.

She warned Europe is already under a great strain of “diffuse guerrilla activity”, which takes various forms, including “riots, looting, random attacks, anti-white racism, and terrorist attacks”. Weimers echoed the assessment, noting the impact of mass migration on cultural cohesion. The Swedish MEP reflected: “Western democracies that were once relatively homogenous societies have become deeply fragmented. Newcomers often share little in common with the indigenous population. More alarmingly, many have no intention of assimilating.” Both hosts said they were driven to hold the conference to find political answers and prevent “the horror of civil war”.

Betz, who has gained prominence for highlighting the collapse of social cohesion, described the trajectory in chilling detail. He warned of “a peasant revolt. A conservative uprising in which the ruled seek to punish their rulers for violating their obligations under the social contract, and for changing the rules of the game against their wishes. It will look something like Italy’s Years of Lead, the ‘dirty wars’ of Latin America, or maybe The Troubles of Northern Ireland, but on a larger scale.” He continued: “What is already a guarded society will become a radically more heavily fortified society as elites seek more protection with more walls, guards, and surveillance. It will be bloody… the Balkanisation of British life along ethnic lines [is underway].”

Betz further urged, “What I call assortative movement is already occurring, quite obviously in some places like Tower Hamlets in London, Sparkhill in Birmingham which are already ethnic enclaves, zones of negotiated policing with parallel legal systems, alternative economies, and… zones of endemic and large-scale out-group sexual predation… this ought to be more generally frightening.” “In government there are plenty of people who understand fully the gravity of the situation, although it is, career-wise, terminal to speak of it openly,” he added.

Betz also warned of the ultimate stakes for native populations. “Where does Balkanisation lead us? … it leads to the extinguishment of Britain in the sense of a coherent cultural entity dominated by people genuinely sharing the titular identity of ‘British’… it leads to large scale and widespread civil war…” “It is very possible that the Britons end up like the Canaanites or the Arcadians, a people of historic interest, their monuments visible here and there in some sort of ruination, of interest to archaeologists and historians,” Betz explained, adding “This would be a tragedy, but that is a very viable option in front of us, and in fact it is a possibility that is quite close.”

Weimers asked bluntly: “Where will Europe be in 50 years? Will there be a Europe in 50 years?” Betz further outlined how any future conflict might unfold, describing “the siege of urban areas but with a few 21st century twists. In many ways it will be reminiscent of the siege of Sarajevo, but much more dominated by paramilitary actors using system disruption tactics. Most importantly, infrastructure attack to degrade and destroy the life support systems of urban, non-native enclaves.” He continued, “The political object is very simple, it is to compel non-natives to leave.

The strategy is to create conditions of life in the cities so intolerable that leaving is preferable to staying… it’s not an implausible theory of victory because its central premise, the instability of the modern urban condition, at the best of times is something scholars of urban studies have been warning against for 50 years already.” Betz warned that “fuel systems are easy to attack, they are flammable if not explosive by definition, they are difficult to repair, and expensive to replace. In fact they are impossible to replace in civil war conditions where no insurance is available.” He continued, “Moreover, disruption of fuel has very rapid knock-on effects of everything else logistically, most importantly the food distribution system which is the traditional weapon of siegecraft.” The full conference is below:

Betz has continually warned of the deep social erosion he’s believes is cascading toward civil war in Britain and Eure. Retired British Army Colonel Richard Kemp has also warned that integration breakdowns have worsened over the past two decades, paving the way for inevitable conflict. Kemp outlined that there is “No government, the government now or any prospective government of the UK, has the guts to stop it” when it comes to the Islamification of Britain. The pattern is unmistakable. Globalist policies of open borders and elite denial have created parallel societies, eroded national identity, and left ordinary Europeans with no peaceful political outlet.

As Betz has noted, many in government already grasp the gravity but stay silent to protect their careers. As educational as this all is, Europe doesn’t need more conferences or reports. It needs leaders with the courage to end mass migration, restore cultural cohesion, and put their own people first — before the warnings stop being theoretical and the conflict becomes reality.

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“The ruling Fidesz party has made anti-Ukraine messages the central element of its election campaign and insisted on maintaining Russian oil imports.”

• US Senators Seek To Sanction Hungary Over Obstructing Ukraine Aid (ZH)

Because US Congress is perfectly functional, and all domestic issues have been resolved (one would very ironically think), the FT reports that a bipartisan pair of US senators are set to introduce legislation calling for sanctions to be imposed on senior Hungarian officials involved in obstructing aid to Ukraine. If passed, the Block Putin act would require President Trump to impose financial sanctions and visa bans on Hungarian government officials involved in the country’s purchases of Russian oil and gas, and who have sought to block support for Ukraine.


The introduction of the bill comes as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has held up a €90bn EU loan to Ukraine as he faces a tough re-election campaign ahead of parliamentary elections next month. Opinion polls indicated Orbán, who has served as prime minister since 2010, could lose power. The opposition Tisza party’s lead stood at 23% points on Wednesday, according to pollster Median. Pro-government polls show a slight lead for Orbán’s ruling Fidesz. Orbán, historically aligned with Vladimir Putin, has accused Kyiv of disrupting the flow of Moscow’s oil to Hungary by stalling repairs to the Druzhba pipeline, which transits Ukraine.

Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Thom Tillis, co-chairs of the Senate Nato observer group, are set to introduce the legislation this week. The pair have been outspoken about Europe’s continued dependence on Russian energy. Tillis said: “The United States and our allies must remain united in supporting Ukraine and in cutting off the revenue streams that fuel Putin’s war.”“This bill holds senior Hungarian officials accountable while giving Hungary a clear path to get back in line with its allies by ending its reliance on Russian energy and stopping its obstruction of support for Ukraine,” he added.

Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “It is beyond belief that vice-president Vance is reportedly planning on visiting Hungary to provide an electoral boost to a corrupt government that continues to help fund Russia’s war machine.” “If we want this war in Ukraine to end, the Trump administration needs to be consistent in holding our allies to the same standards; no one, especially Viktor Orbán, should get a free pass,” she said. While much of the continent has sought to wean itself off Russian oil and gas supplies since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Hungary and Slovakia have increased their dependence on Russian energy… and lucky for them, as now the “rest of the continent” is about to go dry as a result of the Iran war.

Complicating matters, Trump is very close to Orbán and has endorsed his re-election bid. Politico on Wednesday reported preparations were being made for US vice-president JD Vance to visit Hungary days ahead of the elections. Trump has criticized Europe for continuing to buy Russian energy and has urged the continent to take the lead in supporting Ukraine. “They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while they’re fighting Russia,” Trump said in his address to the UN General Assembly in September. The draft text of the bill, which has been seen by the FT, does not mention Orbán explicitly as a target of the sanctions. Therefore, it would fall to the Trump administration to determine which Hungarian officials have been involved in holding up aid to Ukraine and continuing the country’s dependency on Russian energy, a congressional aide said.

Orbán and his foreign minister Péter Szijjártó have long sought close ties with Russia, with Szijjártó meeting his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov more than 20 times since the start of the war in 2022. The ruling Fidesz party has made anti-Ukraine messages the central element of its election campaign and insisted on maintaining Russian oil imports. “If President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy wants to get his money from Brussels, he must open the Druzhba crude pipeline,” Orbán said in a video message to the Ukrainian president last week. “They tell us openly that they don’t want to allow cheap Russian oil through to Hungary, so the situation is very simple. No oil — no money.”

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Why does the American Bar Association.express an opinion?

• Whatever the Ruling on Birthright Citizenship… (Turley)

The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in the historic birthright citizenship case. It is a hearing that has been over 150 years in the making, since the ratification of the 14th Amendment. It is not just a long-debated question that has divided the nation, but it has divided many lawyers as well. For that reason, there was one brief that stood out before the court: the amicus brief of the American Bar Association. The ABA filed its “friend of the court” brief to argue that the matter is clear: Anyone who gives birth on our soil, even if here illegally or only briefly, may claim U.S. citizenship for their child.


Most nations on Earth, including many of our European allies, reject birthright citizenship, and many of us in this nation believe that it is a foolish policy. Yet, even as someone who opposes birthright citizenship, I have long believed and argued that there are good-faith arguments on both sides of this debate. The sponsors of this language clearly disagreed on the issue at the time of its enactment. Some stated at the time that the language did not allow for birthright citizenship.The debate comes down to six poorly chosen words: “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Those words were not in the original draft, but were inserted by an amendment. Thus, they were not superfluous or casual verbiage, but an intentional condition. They were placed in the middle of an otherwise clear statement that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States … are citizens of the United States.”

For more than a century, many have argued that the words reflect an intent to limit the amendment to citizens and legal residents who are subject fully to the jurisdiction of the United States. That brings us back to the bar association. Regardless of how one comes out in the fascinating historical and constitutional debate, this is a case one would expect the ABA to sit out. It clearly does not speak for all lawyers on the issue, yet, it filed a strident brief and laid out a parade of horribles about what would happen if the Supreme Court were to reject birthright citizenship.I found the brief to be one of the least compelling submissions to the court. But, once again, the media will portray the brief as speaking for American lawyers, even though the ABA represents less than two out of every ten attorneys.

I previously wrote a column on these pages on “the rise and fall of the American Bar Association,” exploring how the ABA has alienated many lawyers with its partisan advocacy. When it was founded on August 21, 1878, in Saratoga Springs, New York, the 75 lawyers present from 20 states (and the District of Columbia) wanted an organization to create a national system of standards for “the advancement of the science of jurisprudence, the promotion of the administration of justice.” It was created to focus on professional accreditation, education, and training. That changed in 1990, when advocates overrode earlier votes to remain neutral on the constitutional interpretations supporting the right to abortion.

The adoption of a pro-abortion position shocked many and fundamentally changed the culture at the ABA. (It is worth noting that the very arguments embraced by the bar association were later rejected by the Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision.)Since that time, the ABA has become fully captive to partisans who use the organization to support liberal and often Democratic Party positions. The result has been a steady decline in membership.Today, there are roughly 1.3 million lawyers in the U.S. Even if the ABA represented just half of that number, it would have 650,000 members. As recently as 2015, it still had 400,000. But more recently, membership has fallen to 227,000, or just 17 percent of the bar.

Despite complaints that the ABA has become a partisan organization, its leadership has doubled down with positions and programming that are echo chambers for the left. During Trump’s terms, the ABA has uniformly opposed him and his policies. The ABA brief in favor of birthright citizenship is signed by ABA President Michele Behnke. It simply declares the language and history clear and resolved. It then predicts a virtual meltdown of order and due process in this country if birthright citizenship is not upheld. The decline of the ABA to the point where it does not speak for most lawyers has followed a familiar model. The media also abandoned neutrality in covering such stories, with many journalism schools now teaching students that they are advocates for social justice.

Likewise, academia largely purged its departments of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians, as it increasingly prioritized advocacy over education. All three of these groups have one thing in common beyond their liberal ideological bias and advocacy: They are all increasingly unpopular. Higher education and the media have plummeted in public trust to record lows. Like the ABA, which can no longer claim to speak even for most lawyers, there is little indication that the loss of trust is causing the leadership to do any soul-searching. As memberships and revenues decline, the use of these institutions for advocacy remains personally beneficial. Behnke is leading an organization that is a shell of its former self, but she (like academics and journalists) is lionized for taking these positions.

Ironically, Behnke has a role in two of these areas, as a board member for the University of Wisconsin Law School and the University of Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association Board.Faced with an ABA doubling down on these controversial positions, various states are moving to do away with its historical role in bar memberships. The brief reaffirmed for many lawyers that the ABA is no longer a neutral and fair representative for all lawyers. It will continue to represent a dwindling faction of lawyers who look at the association as more of a stridently ideological than a strictly professional organization. That is why, whatever the outcome in Trump v. Barbara, the American Bar Association is likely to be the loser.

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“This sort of derangement is a novel psychopathology in the human species. . . a synthesis of low-IQ feminized brain scramble & neurotic lunacy.” JD Haltigan on X

• Springtime for RINOs (James Howard Kunstler)

Went to the No Kings assemblies in my town and the next nearby town on Saturday. Mental illness as far as the eye could see. Old folks, too, as far as the eye could see, predominately of the female persuasion: the devouring grandmothers. The Democratic Party has marshalled mental illness as its premier campaign strategy, and lately it is winning bigly around the country as mental illness becomes the go-to cope option for the ragged remnants of Boomerdom.


They believe things that are patently insane, for instance, the latest proposal by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) that illegal immigrants deserve reparations on account of being “traumatized” by U.S. immigration enforcement actions. If it feels like the Democratic Party is at war with our country you are not hallucinating. It is every bit as much a jihad as the Death to America crowd in Iran has explicitly pushed since 1979.

The president gets no help whatsoever from his own party, as you see in the disgraceful hijinks around the urgent issue of election reform. You know exactly how the election playbook was written: let x-million foreigners into the country illegally, give them (illegally) social security numbers, driver’s licenses, automatic voter registrations, addresses, mail-in ballots. . . and voila! They don’t even have to mail-in their own mail-in ballots. Lawfare ninja Marc Elias will arrange ballot pick-up service. And the cherry on top is that the census must count all the illegal aliens to add new congressional districts for extra seats in Congress.

So, in the face of that, Republican Majority Leader John Thune could not muster enough votes to save the SAVE Act. Or so he said. Looks more like lack a’wanna. Eerie lack a’wanna. On their tours of cable news, the hapless Republican senators, when asked, would not name their colleagues leaning against the SAVE Act. But you know who they are. Mitch McConnell, Murkowski, Tillis, Collins, Capito.

Leader Thune could not even manage to get Homeland Security funded with the prospect of Iranian sleeper cells awakening around the country. He just threw in the towel at three o’clock in the morning on Friday, and sent the whole crew home to meet the Easter Bunny. Chuck Schumer did an end-zone dance. The brokenness of our politics could not be more in your face. As things shape up this grueling springtime, Mr. Trump might have to go Abe Lincoln on these folks. That is, declare some sort of national emergency to save the election and the country.

Of course, the nation is more than a little distracted just now with doings in Iran. The No Kings folk are unabashedly rooting for everything to go wrong there, and not a few conservatives in the public arena are straining to conjure an Iranian victory in their black-pilled deliriums. Many claim they “have no idea” what we are doing there — can it be that hard? — or else they are rabidly exercised over our alliance with Israel in the operation. You know how that goes. Cue Tucker. He’ll explain.

The truth is we are pounding these savage Shia clerics and their Revolutionary Guard myrmidons to the garden of eternal bliss where the seventy-two virgins wait. Whatever remains of Iran’s legit government is bargaining under cover for an off-ramp now. Pakistan mediates. The parties sit in different rooms and pass notes through the mediators in a third room. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi pretends that he will not negotiate with Mr. Trump’s envoys, Witkoff and Kushner, both Jews, the horror! But that’s sheer fakery.

To avoid humiliation in the process, Iran is still lobbing missiles and drones around the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Israel, and they will probably keep doing that until the very moment of capitulation. Anyway, in less than a week, Mr. Trump turns the lights off all over Iran, and then they are back in the twelfth century. . . no command communication, no juice for anything, no money, no food, no water, no nothing . . . and a population getting dangerously desperate to make it all go away. . . to return to some dim memory of what normal life once was in an Iran not ruled by psychotic death cultists.

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“America steps back, and the Alliance starts to wobble ..”

• The Great Illusion of NATO is Fading Fast (Trenin)

One of the more idealistic ambitions of the last Soviet leadership was the simultaneous dissolution of both Cold War blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Only half of that vision came to pass. The Warsaw Pact disappeared in the spring of 1991. NATO didn’t. Instead, it endured and expanded. Over the following decades, the alliance not only survived but grew from 16 to 32 members. It took part in military campaigns in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya, and steadily extended its reach. After the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, back in 2022, NATO expanded further, incorporating Finland and Sweden, while consolidating itself more firmly on an anti-Russian footing than at any time since the Cold War.


For the first time in its history, Russia found itself facing a unified military alliance stretching across Europe and North America. The idea of a “collective West” opposing Moscow ceased to be rhetorical and became a strategic reality. Yet by the mid-2020s, cracks had begun to appear. The return of Donald Trump to the White House marked a shift not in America’s commitment to NATO, but in how that commitment was defined. Trump has abandoned the familiar model of the US as a paternal, often indulgent leader of the alliance. In its place, he presented America as a demanding hegemon, insisting that its allies bear a far greater share of the burden.

Initially, European capitals reacted with unease. For decades, they had relied on Washington to shoulder the lion’s share of NATO’s costs. Yet they have adjusted. Military spending targets rose, even toward Trump’s proposed 5% of GDP. But the real shift went deeper than budgets. Under Trump, Washington’s strategic focus moved decisively away from Europe and toward China. While previous administrations had sought to integrate Beijing into global governance structures, Trump pursued confrontation, both economic and geopolitical. In his second term, containing China has become the central pillar of US foreign policy.

This inevitably required a redistribution of resources. The latest US National Defense Strategy made the logic explicit: Western Europe, with its combined economic and demographic weight, was capable of managing the Russian challenge on its own. America would remain within NATO, but its role would change. It would step back from the front line and expect Europeans to step forward. This recalibration was most visible in Ukraine. Trump, wary of escalation and unconvinced of Ukraine’s strategic value, reduced US involvement without ending support altogether. He shifted the financial and military burden increasingly onto Europe and began engaging Moscow directly, often without consulting European allies.

For Western European elites, this was deeply unsettling. They had invested heavily, politically and economically, in the Ukraine conflict. For some, it had even become a tool for consolidating the European Union and driving militarization as a means of economic stimulus. Then came a further shock. Trump’s remarks on Greenland and Canada in which he questioned the sovereignty of longstanding NATO members struck at the alliance’s core assumptions. Whether or not such ambitions were realistic was beside the point. What mattered was that the leader of NATO had publicly cast doubt on the territorial integrity of its own allies. This was unprecedented.

Taken together, these developments called into question NATO’s foundational principle: collective defense. For decades, Article 5 had been treated as an ironclad guarantee, underpinned by American nuclear power. Yet in reality, that guarantee had always contained ambiguity. When the treaty was ratified, the US Senate ensured that Washington wouldn’t be automatically committed to war.

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“.. if you want ICE to take the mask off, the threat level has to decrease. It’s up 8000 percent increase in threats against ICE officers..”

• Tom Homan Bulldozed Jake Tapper’s DHS Funding Narrative (Matt Margolis)

Border Czar Tom Homan hit the Sunday shows this weekend, and the liberal networks didn’t know what hit them. Over at CNN, he spent the segment repeatedly bulldozing Jake Tapper, and it was awesome. Homan wasn’t there to take any crap, and he repeatedly hammered the same indisputable point to Tapper: fund the Department of Homeland Security, and the problems go away.


For example, Tapper asked why, if the administration had the power to move money around to pay TSA agents without Congress, it took 41 days to act. This is a point many Democrats have been making lately, and Homan crushed it. He responded by broadening the issue beyond TSA, and that TSA pay does not address the larger DHS funding problem. “You’ve got the Coast Guard. You’ve got CISA. You’ve got the men and women of Secret Service. You’ve got a lot of people working at the Department of Homeland Security that isn’t getting paid,” he said. He argued the entire department should be funded because the country is facing a “heightened threat posture.”


The most effective part of Homan’s response was how he turned Tapper’s question back on Congress. He said he did not pretend to be an appropriations expert, but he was clear about the political bottom line. “I’m just glad that President Trump is able to pay the TSA agents. At least that’s a start,” Homan said. “But, again, there’s a lot more, many more, thousands more, tens of thousands more DHS employees who are not being paid that need to be paid.”

Tapper then tried (and failed) to hit Homan on the ICE deployment to airports, asking whether the agents would leave once TSA workers were paid. Homan refused to give him the answer he seemed to want. “We will see,” he said. He explained that the deployment depends on how many TSA workers return, how many have quit, and what each airport needs. He said he was working with TSA and ICE leadership to figure that out, while praising ICE for “plugging those holes” and helping keep airports secure.

When Tapper cited the TSA union’s criticism that ICE replacements were like “a teaspoon of cough syrup” for a patient with pneumonia, Homan fired back that the wait times had already gone down. He said he had seen improvements in Houston and that additional agents were being sent to Baltimore. “Every place we send ICE officers, the lines have decreased,” he said. “They need to decrease more.” Homan also pushed back hard on the idea that ICE was overstepping its role at airports. He said ICE officers were checking IDs and covering exits so TSA screeners could focus on the machines. “We’re doing the job TSA is asking us to do, so their officers can get back to main screening,” he said.

Tapper then moved to the DHS deal and asked why President Donald Trump would oppose a deal that Senate Republicans said was good. Homan did not budge. He said Trump wanted the entire DHS funded and open, and he accused Democrats of trying to change ICE tactics and force the agency to arrest fewer people. “They’re holding the department hostage because they don’t like what ICE is doing,” Homan said. “If they don’t like what ICE is doing, then change the law. That’s your job.” When Tapper brought up warrant changes, mask use, alleged mistaken detentions, and broader criticism of ICE, Homan insisted that the laws had not changed.

“Let’s talk about the masks. You don’t see ICE wearing masks inside the airports because they’re not on the street arresting criminals. You have got the agitators who cross the line and threaten ICE agents,” he said. “The same people in the Democratic Congress that want ICE to take off the mask are the same people who say ICE is going to shoot people inside airports. I mean, they can’t have it both ways. So, if you want ICE to take the mask off, the threat level has to decrease. It’s up 8000 percent increase in threats against ICE officers, and that’s because of a lot of the rhetoric coming from the Hill. Stop calling ICE Nazis and racists. Stop saying they’re going to shoot people inside airports. That’s going to drive the threat level down, and we can talk about masks.”

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Apollo Global Management manages a meager $900 billion in assets…

• This Trillion-Dollar Firm Wants Out of Mamdani’s NYC (Stephen Green)

As New York City’s filthy commie mayor struggles to fill a $5.4 billion budget gap with a massive soak-the-rich-then-soak-them-some-more tax hike, trillion-dollar asset management fund Apollo Global Management says it will open a secondary headquarters in Florida or Texas. “Apollo expects most of its future hiring to be in the second hub rather than Manhattan,” according to the New York Post, surprising literally no one.] “The reality is that you can’t propose budget after budget that vilifies employees and then be surprised when they decide to go somewhere else,” Partnership for New York City CEO Steve Fulop told the paper.


“New York City can’t tax people in sane states,” Your Friendly Neighborhood VodkaPundit sagely added while adding an extra dash of schadenfreude to his Bloody Mary. You know what happens after a huge firm like Apollo builds a second headquarters in a low-tax, liberty-loving state like Florida or Texas, right? Sooner or later, they shrink operations at the old HQ before finally boarding the windows and padlocking the doors. “TAX THIS!” to put it in language New Yorkers understand and enjoy. Before we get deeper into this, I’d like to apologize for the completely over-the-top hyperbole in the lead and in the headline. As it turns out, Apollo Global Management is nothing like a “trillion-dollar firm.” In fact, Apollo manages a meager $900 billion in assets, which is practically nothing, and certainly not even close enough to a trillion dollars for Mamdani and his commie cronies to ever miss it.

On the other hand, $900 billion here, $900 billion there, and pretty soon you’re pining for the days of $5.4 billion deficits. So about that deficit. NYC has an annual budget of about $127 billion, and chronic deficits of $4-6 billion. But that’s nothing for the city’s “Democratic Socialist” mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who wants to throw additional billions of Other People’s Money at public education (already some of the most expensive in the world, and with terrible results), legal services for illegals fighting deportation, city-run grocery stores, Homeless Inc., free buses, and more. NYC lavishes its 8.5 million people (and shrinking) with $127 billion in spending, not including whatever Albany contributes with state spending. That’s just shy of $15,000 per person in city spending alone, but I wonder if you’ll ever meet a New Yorker who feels like they get anything close to $15,000 in services.

The city’s budget is slightly more than the entire state of Florida ($117.4 billion) spends on the state’s 23.5 million people (and growing). Florida’s budget includes $16.75 billion in reserves and $250 million for debt reduction. But let’s look at Miami, Florida’s largest city, where the local government spends just $3,600 per denizen — or roughly a quarter of NYC’s largess. Yet the Post notes that Mamdani views his city’s deficit as “a crisis that can only be fixed with more taxes to build revenue.”

“Florida has already lured heavyweights like Citadel and Elliott Management,” the Post reminds readers, while “Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are hunkering down in Texas.” Wealthy individuals and trillion-dollar firms (sorry, I did it again!) like Apollo either have left New York or are eyeing the exits. And Mamdani is just getting started.

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“If he were a king, Senate Democrats would be powerless because if Trump were a king, or acting like one, he’d just be able to do it.”

• Scott Jennings Destroyed the ‘No Kings’ Rallies, CNN Wasn’t Happy (Margolis)

The “No Kings” rallies over the weekend were such a joke, and CNN’s Scott Jennings totally exposed them for what they really are on Sunday’s State of the Union. What happened was that CNN political commentator Ashley Allison argued that the weekend’s protests represented a growing resistance movement — one that had been slow to materialize after the 2024 election but was now picking up steam. She pointed to the crowds, the celebrity appearances, Bruce Springsteen and Jane Fonda lending their star power to the cause. “When you have millions of people peacefully go out, rock stars, Bruce Springsteen, Jane Fonda, all these folks coming out and saying, we don’t like it either, we’re not in isolation, it shows a unifying force that could be powerful,” she said. Snooze…


Anyway, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) was even more enthusiastic, boasting about how he attended six rallies over the weekend like it was a badge of honor or something. That’s when Jennings pounced.”That’s a lot of free speech for a country with a king,” he said. Subramanyam tried to brush it off, inviting Jennings to join them next time and offering to get him a T-shirt. But Jennings didn’t let up.”That’s a lot of free speech for a country with a king,” he said again.There’s a reason that Subramanyam tried to ignore that statement.

The entire premise of the “No Kings” movement — that America is somehow living under a monarchy — looks stupid when thousands of people can freely march through major cities with zero consequence on a random Saturday. I would also add that Trump really wants the SAVE America to pass, but Democrats are blocking it in the Senate. If he were a king, Senate Democrats would be powerless because if Trump were a king, or acting like one, he’d just be able to do it. Nevertheless, Subramanyam ignored Jennings and pressed on, saying the rallies showed genuine grassroots energy and that he’d even met a Republican attendee who said the Iran situation would keep him from ever voting Republican again — which I guarantee never happened.

But I digress. The next great moment came when Jennings exposed what the No Kings rallies were really about. “These No Kings rallies actually look pretty representative to me of the Democratic coalition,” he said. “I saw people flying the hammer and sickle in New York City. I saw Hezbollah flags. I saw Hamas flags. I saw Palestinian flags. I saw trans signs. I see weirdo liberal boomers out there. This is pretty representative of the Democratic coalition. And that’s who funds it as well, by the way.” Allison pushed back immediately, insisting that the fringe elements Jennings mentioned didn’t represent what the movement stood for. But Jennings wasn’t buying the “that’s not who we are” defense.”You like hammer and sickle? You like hammer and sickle flags?” he shot back as the table erupted. “They had a bunch of them. They come from somewhere,” he added. They sure did, no matter how uncomfortable that makes the left.

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https://twitter.com/NatCy891/status/2038711644625293539?s=20 https://twitter.com/CRRJA5/status/2038097858428080577?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 29 2026

Mar 292026
 
 March 29, 2026  Posted by at 10:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  28 Responses »


Piet Mondriaan Mill 1905


• US Suffers Heavy Casualties In Iranian Strike On Saudi Base As Houthis Enter War (ZH)
• Medvedev; Iran Will Be Another “Vietnam” (ZH)
• Who Stabbed Whom in the Back — Bibi Netanyahu or JD Vance? (Scott Pinsker)
• Trump Signs Memo Directing DHS To Pay TSA Agents; First Paychecks Monday (ZH)
• Trump Quietly Delivered a Major Victory Over Real Tyrants (Sarah Anderson)
• With Friends Like These, Who Needs ‘Pocahontas’? (Tim O’Brien)
• Maersk Slaps Emergency Fuel Surcharge As War Upends Marine Supply Chains (ZH)
• Finland Convicts Politician for Speaking Out Against Homosexuality (Turley)
• Apple FORCES iPhone Users To Prove Age With ID (MN)
• Battle for Hungary: The Ukraine Connection (RT)
• EU Moves Toward Creating Overseas ‘Return Hubs’ For Migrants (RT)
• Ukraine Government Schemed To Funnel War Aid To Biden Campaign (ZH)

 

 

https://twitter.com/zoltanspox/status/2037616304341782915?s=20 https://twitter.com/iam_smx/status/2037585014548791743?s=20

 

 


Houthis vs Saudis? They’re not friends? Hard to keep track at times.

• US Suffers Heavy Casualties In Iranian Strike On Saudi Base As Houthis Enter War (ZH)

The Houthis have finally entered the war, greatly raising the stakes on what’s becoming a multi-front engagement, given Israel and Hezbollah have already been locked in a ground war in Lebanon. Overnight saw the Houthis send a barrage of missiles on Israel, which is the first such strike since the US began its Operation Epic Fury. Military spokesman for the Houthis, Brigadier-General Yahya Saree, announced the attack on Saturday on the group’s Al Masirah satellite television, Al Jazeera has confirmed. Strikes “will continue until the declared objectives are achieved… and until the aggression against all fronts of the resistance ceases,” Saree said, confirming the Iran-aligned Yemeni group’s entry into the war on Tehran’s side.


The Israeli side confirmed the assault out of Yemen, saying that it intercepted one missile. This spells more bad news for global shipping through the other important regional energy and goods transit waterway, the Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea. It will also make it even harder for Washington to try and wind down the conflict amid efforts to find an acceptable offramp. Interestingly, the Houthis are justifying their actions not just based on the US-Israel attack on Iran, but on assaults on populations in the broader region. The group said the attack with a barrage of missiles came after continued targeting of infrastructure in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories, adding that their operations would continue until the “aggression” on all fronts ends.

Now Israelis will face aerial threats from Iranians, Hezbollah, Houthis, and Iraqi Shia paramilitaries…

“The injured troops were inside a building on the base that was struck in the attack, the officials said,” the report continues. “The attack also damaged multiple U.S. refueling aircraft. At least one missile struck the base, as well as several unmanned aerial vehicles, according to two of the officials.” This marks the second significant strike on the same base. The aircraft hit was a KC-135 air refueling aircraft, which reportedly caught fire. The mass casualty incident has raised ongoing questions of troop exposure and Pentagon preparedness for Iran’s response:

Iran’s missile war has continued expanding deeper into the Gulf, with the casualty count climbing in Abu Dhabi after an early Saturday strike. The Abu Dhabi Media Office confirms casualties (injuries, but no fatalities reported) have risen to six after a Saturday morning ballistic missile attack. Elsewhere, in Bahrain, home to the United States Fifth Fleet, authorities reported air defenses have engaged almost nonstop over the past 24 hours, responding to 20 missiles and 23 drones. Post raises question over future of Iran’s nuclear program, with one Iranian proclaiming “The war will boost Iranian science and technology.”

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No ground troops.

• Medvedev; Iran Will Be Another “Vietnam” (ZH)

Earlier this week President Putin weighed in on America’s Iran operations, and as we detailed his comments were predictably a bit guarded. He had compared the war and the Hormuz Strait closure – and subsequent impact on global energy – to the massive widescale impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. But fundamentally he highlighted the “unpredictable” nature of the conflict in terms of where it’s headed, as Washington appears to be searching for an offramp on its terms.


On Friday Dmitry Medvedev weighed in, and as expected the former Russian president and current Deputy Chairman of the Security Council was much less guarded in his assessment. He warned at a moment thousands of US Marines and Airborne troop are en route to the Middle East that if the US enters a ground war in Iran it will be another “Vietnam”. American boots on the ground so far from US shores “threatens roughly the same consequences as what happened in Vietnam,” Medvedev said as quotes in NBC and others. “When Washington intervened in a foreign country, located a thousand miles away, and for ten years was unable to find a dignified way out of this conflict,” he told the state-run RIA news agency. He added that a potential ground operation in Iran would have “fatal consequences” for the broader region and for all involved in the war.

Size comparison: Vietnam overlaying Iran


The White House has been insistent that Trump’s Iran “excursion” is not a quagmire. It has especially been Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth who has repeatedly denied that this conflict can be comparable to the start of ‘forever wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. But clearly the US doesn’t have good track record when its forces must endure extended asymmetric warfare and insurgency conditions. Yet that’s exactly where things will likely head if the White House introduces ground forces.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has actually seized on this historic theme as well, earlier writing on X: “Americans haven’t forgotten how (in 1967), even as hundreds of U.S. soldiers were dying in Vietnam, and the outcome was already clear, General William Westmoreland was flown home to reassure everyone that the war was going well – that the U.S. was ‘winning’.” “The media haven’t forgotten either; those briefings full of fantasy from the frontlines became infamous as the ‘Five O’Clock Follies’,” he said. The “same script, different stage” is now unfolding, Araghchi insisted, adding: “Hegseth steps up, and the message is still detached from reality.”

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“Why was this leaked? Who benefits? And who had the power to leak it?”

• Who Stabbed Whom in the Back — Bibi Netanyahu or JD Vance? (Scott Pinsker)

The film was about as faithful to the subject matter as its namesake was to Jacqueline, but some of JFK’s scenes were riveting Donald Sutherland (a.k.a. “Mr. X”): “Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?”Let’s hijack Sutherland’s advice for the latest mystery that has D.C. tongues wagging: Yesterday, someone leaked a private conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Vice President JD Vance.And because America and Israel are allies in a hot, active war, this breach is especially egregious. If America and Israel cannot communicate openly, candidly, and freely, logistical cooperation breaks down. Confusion sets in. The risk of friendly fire grows.


This means that more Americans will die. But the leak appears to be legitimate: The Daily Mail was among the first to break the story, which Axios also confirmed. The Daily Mail: JD Vance in Tense Call With Benjamin Netanyahu as He Rips Israel’s PM for Selling ‘Easy’ Iran War to Trump JD Vance confronted Benjamin Netanyahu in a tense phone call, accusing the Israeli leader of being overly optimistic about the chances of regime change in Iran. The Vice President told the Israeli leader on Monday that many of his predictions about the war which he had sold to Donald Trump had not materialized. Despite the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hardline factions have tightened their grip on power and the regime remains firmly in control.

Axios added more insight: “Why it matters: Vance has already had multiple calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, met Gulf allies about the war and been involved in indirect communications with the Iranians. He’s expected to be the top U.S. negotiator in potential peace talks. Vance was highly skeptical of Israel’s rosy prewar assessment of how the war would unfold, and currently expects the war to continue for another few weeks, according to U.S. and Israeli sources.” […] Behind the scenes: White House officials started suspecting that some in the Israeli government were trying to smear Vance after a difficult phone call on Monday between Netanyahu and Vance.

In the call, Vance mentioned that several of Netanyahu’s predictions about the war had proved far too optimistic, particularly when it came to the prospects of a popular uprising to topple the regime, according to an Israeli source and a U.S. source. “Before the war, Bibi really sold it to the president as being easy, as regime change being a lot likelier than it was. And the VP was clear-eyed about some of those statements,” the U.S. source said. The day after that call, a right-wing Israeli newspaper owned by GOP mega-donor Miriam Adelson reported that Vance had yelled at Netanyahu over the issue of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Multiple U.S. and Israeli sources said the story was erroneous, and Vance advisers suspected it was leaked by the Israeli side. An Israeli official denied Netanyahu planted the story, and said his office had actually denied it when approached by reporters at multiple outlets. To paraphrase Sutherland’s three questions: Why was this leaked? Who benefits? And who had the power to leak it? For some Internet sleuths, the trail of leaks seems to point to “someone” within Tucker Carlson’s orbit — with the Daily Mail journalist who helped break the story, Phillip Nieto, the biggest red flag.

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About time.

• Trump Signs Memo Directing DHS To Pay TSA Agents; First Paychecks Monday (ZH)

President Trump wrote in a presidential memorandum on Friday afternoon that the Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, should use “funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations” to pay TSA agents until regular funding is restored.”If Democrats in Congress will not act to honor the service of our TSA officers, who are now performing their critical public safety responsibilities without knowing whether they will be able to buy food for their families or pay their rent, then my Administration will take action,” President Trump wrote in the memo.


“Accordingly, I hereby direct the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown, consistent with applicable law, including 31 U.S.C. 1301(a),” he continued. The president noted, “Once regular funding for TSA has been restored, every effort should be made, as authorized by law, to adjust applicable funding accounts within DHS to ensure the continuation of DHS operations and activities consistent with planned expenditures prior to the lapse.”

Reuters is reporting that 50,000 TSA agents could be paid as early as Monday. Fox News’ Bill Melugin reports: BREAKING: President Trump tells colleague @JacquiHeinrich in a call that the Senate bill that passed in the overnight hours to fund all of DHS except CBP & ICE “wasn’t appropriate.” “Well, it wasn’t good. It wasn’t appropriate,” Trump told Jacqui. “Now what they should do is they should terminate the filibuster, Jacqui, and just vote, but you have three or four Republicans in there that are not doing the right thing. You can’t have a bill that’s not going to fund – in my opinion, you can’t have a bill that’s not going to fund ICE. You can’t have a bill that’s not going to fund any form of law enforcement, of which ICE is a big form, and so is Border Patrol.”

Also this.

After meeting with the Freedom Caucus, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has agreed to advance a 60-day continuing resolution (CR) to the House Floor, which would fund all of DHS – including ICE and CBP – in lieu of the narrower Senate-passed bill. This decision will extend the partial shutdown of DHS, which has already lasted more than five weeks, and force the Senate to return and vote on the revised House measure.

The shift reflects intense pressure from hardline conservatives who threatened to sink the Senate bill without major changes. The Freedom Caucus is demanding the inclusion of voter ID requirements, additional border patrol funding, and resources for child sex trafficking investigations within ICE. While Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris argued the delay would not affect airport operations and that the Senate could quickly approve the bill next week, Democrats have repeatedly opposed short-term clean extensions – and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has already declared the 60-day CR “dead on arrival” in the Senate, stating Democrats will not give what he called a “blank check to Trump’s lawless and deadly immigration militia without reforms.”

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María Corina Machado.

• Trump Quietly Delivered a Major Victory Over Real Tyrants (Sarah Anderson)

I thought about getting up early on this Saturday to go check out and take some pictures at my local “No Kings” rally or march or whatever they call it, but I never quite made it. It seemed like there were much better things to do… like stay in bed a little longer because the cold returned overnight here in Georgia, or go outside and check on my garden — my potatoes are sprouting! When I finally got into the car and left the house, I was so distracted by the dogwoods and azaleas blooming in my neighborhood that I almost forgot where I was going, and by the time I got into town, the traffic was so bad that I gave up and just picked up some lunch for my dad and me instead and came back home.


That’s how little I care about a bunch of delusional leftists, who apparently need attention and/or can’t handle the fact that they lost an election. At this point, the best thing to do is probably ignore them anyway, but we all know the MSM will play it up for their propaganda. Meanwhile, thanks to Donald Trump, real tyranny is losing steam in the other parts of the world where it truly exists, including something huge that happened in Venezuela on Saturday that probably won’t even get an MSM mention at all.

In 2024, future Nobel Peace Prize winner and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s Vente Venezuela party had to shut down its Caracas headquarters. Why? Apparently, Nicolás Maduro and his thugs didn’t get the “no kings” message. To recap, Machado would have likely become Venezuela’s next president in 2024, but Maduro banned her from running. She threw her support behind Edmundo González and managed to convince most of her voters to do the same, but Maduro stole the elections anyway. He received very little of the real vote, or at least, what was counted, and that’s despite the intimidation tactics the regime used against voters. When the fed-up people took to the streets to protest afterward, the regime began threatening, arresting, and torturing them.

That led to opposition leaders fleeing the country, as González did, or going into hiding, as Machado did, and the regime robbed and vandalized their offices, harassed their staff, and made it impossible for them to exist. Vente Venezuela shut its physical doors shortly after, though it continued to exist online, in other countries, and in the hearts and minds of its supporters. But thanks to Donald Trump, that fear of merely existing is gone. On Saturday, a huge crowd gathered as Vente Venezuela opened its office in Caracas for the first time in well over a year and a half.

Machado posted a video online with the caption, “Long live Venezuela! This is how our national headquarters stands, ready to open its doors once again to all Venezuelans.” She also posted this video with the message, “COME BACK HOME!! I’m there, with each one of you. Let’s go for FULL DEMOCRACY AND FULL FREEDOM.” Machado herself has promised that she will return to Venezuela in the weeks to come. Right now, it’s probably still not safe — various influential members of the regime are still looking for ways to persecute and prosecute her.

Despite that, everything I’m reading and hearing from inside the country tells me that Machado’s Vente Venezuela movement is picking up steam, and she’s more popular than she has ever been, which is hard to top. It’s highly likely that in the past, people were afraid to support her because they didn’t want to be punished by Maduro and his thugs. As a matter of fact, polls show that she’s the most popular politician in Venezuela right now — a month or two ago, she was number three behind Trump and Marco Rubio. That’s important because even with the United States holding its hand, the only way a transition away from the regime will truly work long-term in Venezuela is if the people step up and make it happen.

Anyway, this is an extremely momentous and symbolic occasion that couldn’t have happened without Trump’s help. Three months ago, before we captured Maduro, it was unthinkable. Now, our president has done something no one before him would do — opened up a path for the people of Venezuela to have real democracy and freedom, something many of them have never experienced in their lifetimes. I even noted a few people waving U.S. flags at the gathering. The fact that it happened on a day when the spoiled leftists in the United States are out protesting him for being some kind of tyrant is truly peak stupidity. These folks would be better off staying inside and reading a history book.

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The name is hers for life.

• With Friends Like These, Who Needs ‘Pocahontas’? (Tim O’Brien)

One of President Donald Trump’s best nicknames bestowed on one of his biggest critics came when he dubbed Sen. Liz Warren (D-Mass.) “Pocahontas.” That was a reference to the fact that in 1986, she identified as “American Indian” on her application for the Texas state bar. When her cover was blown later, she was unflappable in her tone-deaf attacks on conservatives in general and Trump in particular. It would seem that from the minute she wakes up until she lies down at the end of the day in her lair, she just attacks and tries to sabotage any conservative or conservative idea that crosses her path.


But she has nothing on the willful, do-nothing Republicans in the U.S. Senate. They have waged a procedural war on the Trump administration in order to block the president’s ability to make recess appointments. To achieve this, technically, they don’t go on recess. Here’s how that works. The Senate, which is controlled by Republicans at the moment, is allowed to hold brief sessions every few days. These are called “pro forma” sessions, which technically mean the Senate is not in recess. Every pro forma session counts as Senate being in session. This prevents Trump from making recess appointments.

This has worked against Trump. Republicans have successfully prevented (undermined?) a Republican president who’s just trying to fill certain judicial and other critical positions in government. Republicans have also done the same to Barack Obama. According to the Wilson Center, “When Republicans retook the House in 2011, Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, in consultation with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, turned the tables by forcing the Senate (and, by default, the House) to hold pro forma sessions during two recesses to block President Barack Obama from making any recess appointments.”

If you’re wondering why Republicans would do that to a Republican administration, the answers won’t surprise you. It’s not about finding and appointing the best possible candidates so as to “Make America Great Again.” Rather, it’s about power, control, and something that might make you sick to your stomach. It’s about Republicans in the Senate, not liking conservatism, knowingly and actively working against the Trump administration to assure it achieves nothing or close to nothing in the Senate. The Senate sees Trump’s legal and ethical efforts to bring conservatives into the government as an attempt to undermine its power.

Trump poses a threat to the Senate’s power, and that will not be tolerated. So, this do-nothing gaggle of Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) join with the Democrats to block Trump’s progress on appointments. The vast majority of senators, including most Republicans have hopped planes and skedaddled out of Washington for places unknown for yet another recess. But a few have stayed back to conduct pro forma sessions to keep the lights on in the Senate, which technically is not in recess. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) acknowledged as much and tried to bring some clarity on what the House is trying to do about all of this, specifically on paying DHS and TSA. Still, this does not address the way Senate Republicans have used pro forma to slow Trump’s other progress.

At the moment, when we talk about the midterm elections, conservatives have focused on the effort to keep majorities in the House and the Senate, but “Senate Republicans” aren’t even hiding the fact that when elected they will undermine the conservative agenda. This is a serious problem, and it needs to be addressed soon. Trump only has a little less than three years left in his term. Things have to happen now, and the biggest obstacles we face are Republican swamp creatures in Washington.

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Not aa little bit.

• Maersk Slaps Emergency Fuel Surcharge As War Upends Marine Supply Chains (ZH)

The war in the Middle East has upended shipping fuel markets with prices of marine fuels skyrocketing and regions running low on supply, pushing some traders to forgo cargo and ship additional fuel volumes to key bunkering ports outside the Middle East. The price of fuel oil has surged this month as the stalled tanker traffic at the Strait of Hormuz is tightening supplies of the fuel in Asia, the key bunkering hub for fuel oil used in ships. The Middle East is a major global supplier of fuel oil, especially of high-sulfur fuel oil (HSFO). But the Iran war has all but halted traffic via the Strait of Hormuz, stranding supplies for Asia and its key bunkering hub of Singapore.


Yet, stocks in Singapore have increased this month as shipping owners and operators have refrained from buying the too expensive fuel. These, however, could soon start to deplete, fast, because vessels are becoming desperate to refuel, according to a Financial Times analysis. One trader told the publication that their firm had to forgo cargo in order to deliver additional fuel volumes between major ports, mostly between the United States and Singapore. With the Middle East’s key bunkering port of Fujairah mostly offline by the end of March due to Iranian attacks earlier this month, the marine fuel market is in chaos.Shipping giant Maersk warned in its latest Middle East advisory this week that “To preserve network stability, we have undertaken significant redistribution of fuels to offset shortages in the Middle East, and are securing alternative sources from different locations, suppliers, and at increased premiums.”

Maersk also introduced as of March 25 an Emergency Bunker Surcharge (EBS), “in response to notable fluctuations in fuel supply and the additional costs of distribution.”Maersk’s chief commercial officer Karsten Kildahl said earlier this month that “There is currently sufficient fuel globally, but it is unevenly distributed. As a result, we are making changes to our fuel supply chain and begin moving fuel to ensure our vessels can continue to bunker where needed – and protect the flow of trade.”

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Does freedom mean being openly gay or does it mean beingableto say you don’t like it?p>

• Finland Convicts Politician for Speaking Out Against Homosexuality (Turley)

I previously wrote about Finland’s prosecution of Christian Democrat MP Päivi Räsänen for raising objections to homosexuality. She has now been convicted with a decision this week from the Finnish Supreme Court. Free speech is now in a free fall in Finland. Räsänen is a Christian Democratic member of parliament and former Minister of the Interior. Räsänen is also a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and is married to a pastor. She was critical of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland for its support of the Helsinki LGBT Pride events in June. She spoke out against the involvement while highlighting a quote from Romans 1:24-27 , which reads:


24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

In the United States, this would of course be entirely protected as the exercise of religious freedom and free speech. However, the former Interior Minister was accused of “hate speech” against LGBT+ people over a 2004 publication, a 2018 radio appearance, and a 2019 social media post that included a Bible verse. While she was acquitted by the District Court of Helsinki and the Court of Appeal, the case was eventually brought to the Finnish Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has now voted 3-2 to convict her for being “derogatory towards homosexuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.”

In a statement, the Court declared that “Räsänen’s statements were in this way derogatory towards homosexuals as a group on the basis of their sexual orientation. However, certain other passages referred to in the charge were not held to be derogatory.” The Court imposed fines on Räsänen and the manager of Luther Foundation Finland. Notably, the other person named in the filing is bishop Juhana Pohjola, who published the pamphlet. Pohjola reportedly leads the 2,749-member church, as well as being the chairman of the International Lutheran Council. It also ordered both to take down the “unlawful passages” in the publication.

The Court did uphold Räsänen’s acquittal on a charge stemming from a 2019 social media post in which she posted a picture of Romans 1:24–27. Räsänen stated that she may appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, stressing: “Freedom of speech is needed precisely when we disagree on things. I hope that despite this decision, constructive discussions can be held, even on difficult issues, under the protection of freedom of speech and religion.” In Rage and the Republic, I have a chapter on “Why Big Fierce Rights Are Rare” that specifically discusses the collapses of free speech and other rights in Europe. This case is just another example of how our European allies are abandoning core Western principles from free speech to free exercise.

Given the sweeping economic changes unfolding in this century, those rights will be even more important in the years to come. In countries like Finland, the population will enter these uncertain times with even more uncertain rights.

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“Freedom is not preserved by surrendering control to “safety” pretexts. It is defended by rejecting the machinery of permanent oversight before it locks in place for good.”

• Apple FORCES iPhone Users To Prove Age With ID (MN)

UK iPhone and iPad owners updating to the latest iOS 26.4 are now confronted with a stark choice: verify you are an adult by providing a credit card or scanning your ID, or accept automatic web content filters that restrict access. The message users see states clearly: “UK law requires you to confirm you are an adult to change content restrictions.” Those who do not confirm their age – or are found to be underage – have web content filters turned on automatically.

https://twitter.com/BigBrotherWatch/status/2036863773202432300


The government appointed communications watchdog Ofcom welcomed the development, calling it “a real win for children and families” and noting the UK would be “one of the first countries in the world to receive such restrictions on their devices.” Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, hit back hard. In the organisation’s statement she said Apple had put a “chokehold on Britons’ freedom to search the internet, access information and use apps unless they provide sensitive ID documents.”

She continued: “This means 35 million Brits who have paid hundreds or even thousands of pounds for Apple tech suddenly now have a child’s device unless they comply with invasive demands for personal information that go far beyond what UK law requires.” “Apple has crossed the Rubicon with this software update which is more like ransomware, holding customers hostage to ID demands that are invasive, exclusionary and unnecessary,” Carlo added. She further urged, “Children’s online safety is vital but requires better parental controls and thoughtful tech responsibility – not sweeping, draconian, shock demands by foreign companies for all of our IDs and credit cards.”

This is digital ID enforcement by the back door. The same government apparatus that has already advanced newborn baby digital IDs, mandatory digital ID schemes and biometric tracking is now outsourcing age verification to tech giants at the device level – creating the perfect infrastructure for ongoing surveillance and control. We have previously outlined that broader Orwellian mandatory digital ID and biometric push by the British government, which has claimed that the mandatory ID, based on the UK One Login system, will help to stop “illegal” immigrants from crossing the channel by denying them access to work.

This also ties into the WHO-Gates blueprint for global digital ID, AI-driven surveillance and lifelong vaccine tracking:

Critics see this as the gradual normalisation of universal age verification. Once demanding ID to use your own phone becomes routine, expanding that system to every platform and service is a small step. Beyond blocking illegal or sexually explicit material, the deeper question remains: why should the State have the authority to decide what our kids can and can’t access? In a free society, that responsibility belongs to parents – not to bureaucrats in Westminster or executives in Cupertino acting as their enforcers. While ministers lecture about protecting children online, the same system is busy shaping young minds through official channels.

The Green Party has pushed to teach children a “moral obligation” to accept mass immigration: Government guidance urges schools to report “anti-Muslim hostility” in an Orwellian snitch culture: Counter-terror police ran adverts warning teenagers that sharing “funny content” could amount to terrorism: A government-funded video game literally labels kids as potential terrorists for questioning mass migration:The pattern is clear. Restrict open access to the internet while pumping state-approved ideology into schools. Challenge the narrative and you risk being flagged. Want unfiltered information for your children? First hand over your documents. Britain is rapidly sliding toward a surveillance society where every search, every post and every opinion can be monitored, filtered and scored.

Freedom is not preserved by surrendering control to “safety” pretexts. It is defended by rejecting the machinery of permanent oversight before it locks in place for good.

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The EU uses Ukraine too.

• Battle for Hungary: The Ukraine Connection (RT)

Behind Vladimir Zelensky’s public feud with Viktor Orban, the arrest of two suspected spies in Budapest adds to claims that the Ukrainian leader is waging a shadow campaign to take out the Hungarian prime minister. On July 8, 2025, agents of Hungary’s National Bureau of Investigation (NNI) and National Security Service (NBSZ) raided two properties: a suburban home in a small town near Budapest, and a houseboat, packed with servers, hard drives, phones and covert recording equipment, moored on the city’s Danube waterfront.

The men targeted in the raids – a 19-year-old in the suburbs and a 38-year-old British/Hungarian dual citizen in Budapest – were IT specialists working for opposition leader Peter Magyar’s Tisza party. Between both locations, the raids yielded enough hard drives, USB drives, and computers that backing up all the data took over a month. The operation didn’t make any headlines until this week, when two separate versions of events began to emerge.

Did Orban target his opponents?
According to a report by the pro-opposition outlet Direkt36, the government agents claimed that they were searching for child pornography, but came up empty handed. Instead, they seized files suggesting that both men were in contact with an unidentified handler codenamed ‘Henry’, who was instructing them to steal documents from Tisza’s servers and conduct cyberattacks against the party. In this version of events, the NBSZ and Constitutional Protection Office (AH) steered the NIN’s investigation away from ‘Henry’, holding only in-person briefings on the matter and “persuad[ing] police leadership not to pursue the investigation in this direction.” vTo the reporters at Direkt36, one of whom is currently being investigated for possible espionage, this intervention strongly hinted that the child pornography warrants were a ruse, and ‘Henry’ was a creation of the Hungarian secret services, who were running a “covert operation to bring down the [Tisza] party.” The report does not explain why the secret services would raid their own operatives. Nevertheless, Magyar himself declared that the story “recalls the darkest days of communism and is even more serious than the Watergate scandal.” The supposed plot against Tisza “crosses every line” and “amounts to an attempted coup against Hungary,” he added.

Or was Tisza’s IT team working with Ukraine?
In an intelligence briefing declassified on Tuesday, Hungary’s National Security Committee filled in the details that Direkt36 allegedly left out. The 19-year-old suspect had been under surveillance since 2022, two years before the emergence of Tisza, the briefing states. The suspect, identified as ‘HD’, allegedly made contact with an Estonian citizen in 2022, who sent him to Kiev the following year to train with the IT Army of Ukraine, a cyberwarfare group run by the Ukrainian government. HD is alleged to have carried out “several operations in the interests of Ukraine,” visited the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest on multiple occasions, and in May 2025, two months before the raid, also visited the embassy of an EU member state in to obtain “secret service tools.” The teenager was questioned twice by counterintelligence officers over these activities.

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Merkel did her damage though.

• EU Moves Toward Creating Overseas ‘Return Hubs’ For Migrants (RT)

European lawmakers have endorsed the opening of talks with the EU Council on a controversial legal framework to establish block-wide mechanisms to expel illegal migrants, including the creation of ‘return hubs’ in third countries. The idea to create de facto detention facilities outside of the EU’s borders to hold migrants deemed to have no right to stay has been opposed by rights groups and pro-migration political parties. Under the proposed Return Regulation, which is still in the early stages of the legislative process, people marked for deportation in the EU will be sent to overseas return hubs rather than staying within the bloc as they await expulsion. Critics say the scheme is intended to disappear irregular migrants and failed asylum seekers into a “legal black hole.”


The proposed reform went to a plenary vote on Thursday after three left-wing parties, the S&D, the Greens/EFA, and the Left, each filed requests for it. The groups sought to challenge a decision by the Civil Liberties Committee earlier this month, when it approved the proposed legislation to enter into interinstitutional negotiations.mThe attempt flopped, with 389 MEPs voting in favor of proceeding to the next stage of the legislative process with the proposal, 206 voting against, and 32 abstaining. The outcome of the vote has been strongly condemned by multiple human rights groups that accused right-wing and anti-migration parties of pushing through a purportedly poorly thought-out initiative. Amnesty International’s European Institutions director, Eve Geddie, said the proposed reform has not received “adequate scrutiny or meaningful human rights assessments.”

“This marks a growing trend towards increasingly harmful, exclusionary, and draconian policies on migration, with worrying repercussions for due process and evidence-based policymaking. Far from reducing irregularity, these proposals risk trapping more people in precarious situations,” she said in a statement. The Return Regulation was proposed in March last year, meant to replace the 2008 Return Directive, which prioritized the “voluntary return” of illegal migrants and failed asylum seekers. In December 2025, 19 EU member states urged the European Commission to help fund return hubs outside the bloc, describing them as “innovative solutions” to address the migrant influx, which has plagued the bloc for over a decade.

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One more try. No attention from anyone here so far.

“Congress had made available $188 billion in Ukraine-related spending, with $164 billion flowing from just five pieces of legislation.”

• Ukraine Government Schemed To Funnel War Aid To Biden Campaign (ZH)

According to a newly declassified intelligence report, U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted communications from Ukrainian government officials back in 2022 discussing a scheme to siphon off hundreds of millions in American taxpayer dollars. The funds, earmarked for clean energy projects in the war-torn country, were allegedly redirected to the United States to benefit Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The report, obtained by Just the News, summarizes raw intercepts gathered by U.S. spy agencies in late 2022. Officials familiar with the material say the communications are not believed to be tied to Russian disinformation efforts.


The declassified summary is very specific. “The Ukrainian Government and unspecified U.S. Government personnel, through USAID in Kyiv, reportedly developed a plan that would provide hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars to fund an infrastructure project for Ukraine that would be used as a cover to send approximately 90% of funds allocated to the DNC to fund Joe Biden’s reelection campaign,” the document states.

The mechanics described are textbook money-laundering architecture. “The plan included details of how subcontractors would be funded through U.S. companies so that how the funds were spent and allocated would be difficult to track,” the report explains. Two American subcontractors were named in the raw intercepts as conduits for funneling money toward Democratic coffers, though their identities remain redacted in the declassified version.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Ukraine became by far the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid after Russia’s invasion in February 2022 — the first time a European nation held that distinction since the Marshall Plan. As of December 31, 2025, Congress had made available $188 billion in Ukraine-related spending, with $164 billion flowing from just five pieces of legislation. The last of those bills passed in April 2024 — while Biden was actively campaigning for a second term.

What makes the alleged scheme particularly audacious is the built-in exit strategy. “They were confident the project would be funded initially, even though at some time in the future the project would be disapproved as unnecessary. At this time, the money would already be allocated and impossible to return or use for a different purpose,” the report added. In other words, the design assumed the fraud would eventually be discovered – and didn’t care. By then, the money would be gone and untraceable.

The cover-to-transfer pipeline was engineered for maximum opacity. “Additionally, contracts would be executed that would be difficult to verify. In this manner, most of the U.S. funding would be diverted to Joe Biden’s election campaign without the ability to track where exactly the funds came from,” the report read.Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently learned of the intercepts and directed USAID officials to search agency records for evidence that the plot was actually carried out and to evaluate whether a criminal referral to the FBI is warranted. Perhaps the most disturbing find so far is that there is no substantive evidence that anyone during the Biden years made a serious effort to investigate what U.S. intelligence had intercepted.

Officials reviewing the files noted a lack of investigative curiosity about allegations of foreign election interference. Since President Trump took office, no new legislation authorizing additional spending for Ukraine has passed Congress. But now we need to find out how much of the funds for Ukraine were diverted to Biden’s campaign or the DNC, and whether the lack of an investigation reflects willful negligence, deliberate burial, or a conspiracy.

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https://twitter.com/VividProwess/status/2037431929944109482?s=20 https://twitter.com/Skint_Eastwood1/status/2037658435332775962?s=20 https://twitter.com/ScaryEurope/status/2037761017740931519?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle January 26 2025

Jan 262025
 
 January 26, 2025  Posted by at 11:16 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  57 Responses »


Leonardo da Vinci First anatomical studies c1515

 

• China’s DeepSeek Bombshell Rocks Trump’s $500B AI Boondoggle (Mike Whitney)
• Stargate: Gateway to US AI Dominance or Dystopian Cyberpunk Nightmare? (Sp.)
• America Could Soon Become ‘A Bigger Country’ – Trump (RT)
• EU Military Chief Wants Troops In Greenland (RT)
• Trump Wants Ukraine ‘Off His Table’ – Bolton (RT)
• Kiev Seeking To Boost Enlistment Of Under-25’s – Zelensky Aide (RT)
• Most Ukrainians Believe Corruption On The Rise (RT)
• US Halts Programs For Migrants, Including Ukrainians – NYT (RT)
• Trump’s Hypersonic Theft Allegations Are Flat-Out False (Sp.)
• Hegseth Confirmed As Defense Secretary, VP Vance Casts Tie-Breaking Vote (ZH)
• Kristi Noem Confirmed As Homeland Security Secretary (ZH)
• Comer: Trump DOJ Could Subpoena Biden’s Bank Records (JTN)
• Merkel’s Party Allies With AfD On Migration (RT)
• ‘Future of Europe’ Hangs On German Snap Elections – Musk (RT)
• Gazprom Forced To Hike Prices On Russians In The Middle Of Winter (RMX)
• Euroclear Warns Against Seizing Russian Assets (RT)
• Soros’ Soft Power Empire is More Vulnerable Than Ever With Trump Back (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Superman
https://twitter.com/i/status/1882892743380549731
WNC


https://twitter.com/i/status/1882852182552465820

Milei

Kelly

Fauci
https://twitter.com/i/status/1883079864846274776

Sachs

 

 

 

 

Trump announces a $500 billion AI project, Stargate, which curiously doesn’t involve Elon Musk. Just hours earlier, China had announced its own project, DeepSeek. The difference? DeepSeek is free, open source, and better. Take it from there. I think that Larry Ellison et al know they’ve been beaten, but with $500 billion on the line, they won’t tell you. After all, who in America is ready to say we got beaten by China?

• China’s DeepSeek Bombshell Rocks Trump’s $500B AI Boondoggle (Mike Whitney)

The future of humanity is being decided as we speak. And it is not being decided on a battlefield in Eastern Europe, or the Middle East or the Taiwan Strait, but in the data centers and research facilities where technology experts create “the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of Artificial Intelligence.” This is a full-blown, scorched-earth free-for-all that has already racked up a number of casualties though you wouldn’t know it from reading the headlines which typically ignore recent ‘cataclysmic’ developments. But when President Trump announced the launching of a $500 billion AI infrastructure project (Stargate) on Tuesday just hours after China had released its DeepSeek R1—which “outperforms its rivals in advanced coding, math, and general knowledge capabilities”—it became painfully obvious that the battle for the future ‘is on’ in a big way.

And this is not a battle that either side can afford to lose. Here’s how technology expert Adam Button summed it up: “Imagine we’re back in 2017 and the iPhone X was just released. It was selling $999 and Apple was crushing sales and building a wide moat around its ecosystem. Now imagine, just days later, another company introduced a phone and platform that was equal in every way if not better and the price was just $30. That’s what unfolded in the AI space today. China’s DeepSeek released an opensource model that works on par with OpenAI’s latest models but costs a tiny fraction to operate. Moreover, you can even download it and run it free (or the cost of your electricity) for yourself.

The product is a huge leap in terms of scaling and efficiency and may upend expectations of how much power and compute will be needed to manage the AI revolution. It also comes just hours before Trump is expected to unveil a $100 billion investment in US datacenters. The model shows there are different ways to train foundational AI models that offer up the same results with much less cost. It also opens up far more applications for AI that would have been too expensive to run previously, which should broaden the applications in the real economy. China’s DeepSeek may have just upended the economics of AI” (Forex Live).

Imagine the panic that is spreading across western tech capitals right now. AI was supposed to be the fast-track to absolute societal control and oligarchic rule into the next millennia, but now those pesky Chinese have overturned the applecart leaving western elites with a problem they might not be able to fix. They expected that their microchip sanctions would sabotage China’s AI efforts for at least a decade-or-so but, instead, China has come roaring back with a system that has left the tech giants gasping for air. Of course, China’s eye-popping strides in technological development are nothing new as editor Ron Unz pointed out in a recent article where he noted that “between 2003 and 2007, the US led in 60 of the 64 technologies.” Whereas, as of 2022, “China led in 52 of the 64 technologies.” That’s not a competition; that’s a beat-down in a parking lot. Here’s Unz:

China now leads the world in many of the most important future technologies. The success of its commercial companies in telecommunications (Huawei, Zongxin), EV (BYD, Geely, Great Wall, etc.), battery (CATL, BYD) and Photovoltaics (Tongwei Solar, JA, Aiko, etc.) are directly built on such R&D prowess. Similarly, the Chinese military’s modernization is built on the massive technological development of the country’s scientific community and its industrial base…. With its lead in science and technology research, China is positioned to outcompete the US in both economic and military arenas in the coming years…” American Pravda: China vs. America, Ron Unz, Unz Review. None of this should come as a surprise, although the timing of DeepSeek’s release (preempting Trump’s Stargate announcement) shows that the Chinese don’t mind throwing a wrench in Washington’s global strategy if it serves their regional interests, which it undoubtedly does. Here’s a bit more background from an article by Benj Edwards at Ars Technica:

“On Monday, Chinese AI lab DeepSeek released its new R1 model family under an open MIT license, with its largest version containing 671 billion parameters. The company claims the model performs at levels comparable to OpenAI’s o1 simulated reasoning (SR) model on several math and coding benchmarks…. The releases immediately caught the attention of the AI community because most existing open-weights models—have lagged behind proprietary models like OpenAI’s o1 in so-called reasoning benchmarks. … The R1 model works differently from typical large language models ….They attempt to simulate a human-like chain of thought as the model works through a solution to the query. This class of what one might call “simulated reasoning” models, or SR models for short, emerged when OpenAI debuted its o1 model family in September 2024. …

DeepSeek reports that R1 outperformed OpenAI’s o1 on several benchmarks and tests, including AIME (a mathematical reasoning test), MATH-500 (a collection of word problems), and SWE-bench Verified (a programming assessment tool)…. TechCrunch reports that three Chinese labs—DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI’s Kimi—have now released models they say match OpenAI’s o1’s capabilities, with DeepSeek first previewing R1 in November. Cutting-edge Chinese “reasoning” model rivals OpenAI o1—and it’s free to download..” Ars Technica. This is a very big deal. The United States intends to dominate the world in this critical technology and yet the upstart Chinese have not only produced a system that is every bit as good as America’s best, but have made it more affordable, more accessible and more transparent. What’s not to like?

[..] OpenAI is a privately held company that has open sourced some of its technology, but it has not open sourced most of its technology…. In contrast, DeepSeek AI R1 is open source which means its code is publicly accessible—anyone can see, modify, and distribute the code as they see fit. Open source software is developed in a decentralized and collaborative way, relying on peer review and community production.) Here’s more from political analyst Arnaud Bertrand in a post on X: “Most people probably don’t realize how bad the news (about) China’s Deepseek is for OpenAI. They’ve come up with a model that matches and even exceeds OpenAI’s latest model o1 on various benchmarks, and they’re charging just 3% of the price. It’s essentially as if someone had released a mobile on par with the iPhone but was selling it for $30 instead of $1000. It’s this dramatic.

What’s more, they’re releasing it open-source so you even have the option – which OpenAI doesn’t offer – of not using their API at all and running the model for “free” yourself. If you’re an OpenAI customer today you’re obviously going to start asking yourself some questions, like “wait, why exactly should I be paying 30X more?”. This is pretty transformational stuff, it fundamentally challenges the economics of the market…. So basically, it looks like the game has changed. All thanks to a Chinese company that just demonstrated how U.S. tech restrictions can backfire spectacularly – by forcing them to build more efficient solutions that they’re now sharing with the world at 3% of OpenAI’s prices. As the saying goes, sometimes pressure creates diamonds.” @RnaudBertrand.

Get the picture? Everything the US has done to stymie China’s development—including economic sanctions, chips embargoes, military provocations, political meddling, even arresting a Huawei executive (truly pathetic)—has blown up in their faces. China’s well-educated, highly motivated, technologically adept workforce have produced a model of AI that equals or exceeds the best the West has to offer at a fraction of the cost and with open sourcing that allows users to modify, and distribute the code as they see fit. So, which version of AI sounds like a genuine benefit to humankind and which sounds like another scheme for transforming the world into a dystopian police-state controlled by aspiring tyrants and psychopathic control freaks? Here’s more from Bertrand on ‘why China is making AI available so cheap:

“….it speaks to a different philosophy/vision on AI: ironically named “OpenAI” is basically about trying to establish a monopoly by establishing a moat with massive amounts of GPU and money. Deepseek is clearly betting on a future where AI becomes a commodity, widely available and affordable to everyone. By pricing so aggressively and releasing their code open-source, they’re not just competing with OpenAI but basically declaring that AI should be like electricity or internet connectivity – a basic utility that powers innovation rather than a premium service controlled by a few players. And in that world, it’s a heck of a lot better to be the first mover who helped make it happen than the legacy player who tried to stop it.” @RnaudBertrand.

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“Altman and Ellison’s involvement are major warning signs..” “Microsoft’s involvement in the project is also troubling..”

• Stargate: Gateway to US AI Dominance or Dystopian Cyberpunk Nightmare? (Sp.)

The US’ new $500 billion tech initiative promises to “revolutionize” AI, “cement” America as the undisputed leader in advanced computing, and create 100,000 jobs. But it comes with grave risks for humanity. Here’s why. The Stargate Project is a privately financed plan to build 500,000-sq-ft AI data centers (10 under construction, 10 more to come), and grow from there, pending support from Donald Trump on the regulatory front. Its leading tech and financial players include Sam Altman’s OpenAI, Larry Ellison’s Oracle, Japan’s SoftBank, and Emirati sovereign wealth fund MGX. ARM, Nvidia, and Microsoft are also involved.Further details are sketchy, aside from an FT report revealing that the project will serve OpenAI’s interests exclusively, and OpenAI’s statement on looking forward to the creation of artificial general intelligence – the Holy Grail of human-like cognitive capabilities in machines.

Altman and Ellison’s involvement are major warning signs. Altman is on the record as a proponent of a transhumanist “merge” of human beings and machines. In 2017, he predicted that “the singularity” would take place between 2025-2075, and that superhuman AI, genetic enhancement and brain-machine interfaces were an inevitability. “More important than that, unless we destroy ourselves first, superhuman AI is going to happen, genetic enhancement is going to happen, and brain-machine interfaces are going to happen. It is a failure of human imagination and human arrogance to assume that we will never build things smarter than ourselves,” he wrote at the time. He’s is also an advocate of “AI agents” acting on human beings’ behalf online via the controversial World ID concept.

As for Ellison, the 80-year-old tech billionaire’s controversial views are well-known. Last year, he touted omnipresent AI cameras keeping citizens “on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on” as a good thing, and has been a proponent of national and digital IDs since 9/11. “We’re going to have supervision,” he said last September, assuring this would apply to authorities like police officers as well (feigning ignorance of the probability of a Robocop-style 4th directive preventing machines from arresting owners engaged in criminal behavior). Ellison is also an advocate of AI-driven mRNA cancer vaccines, announcing at Stargate’s rollout this week that artificial intelligence could help identify cancer via blood testing followed by gene therapy.

Microsoft’s involvement in the project is also troubling, with the company already planning to commit $80 billion for its own separate AI data centers to train and deploy cloud-based AI worldwide. A 2024 report by Business Insider revealed that real-life supervillain Bill Gates remains heavily involved in Microsoft’s AI strategies, from its decision to help OpenAI grow to support for Altman’s AI Agent idea. However, there’s a hitch in Altman’s development plans, with FT’s revelations that Stargate is an OpenAI investment vehicle disguised as a national project, combined with Altman’s very public feud with fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk following the initiative’s announcement, signaling trouble. According to Musk, SoftBank has actually secured less than $10 billion for Stargate so far. Altman assures that’s not the case, and accuses Musk of letting private interests get in the way of “what is great for the country.”

Musk, who has integrated narrow AI across his business empire, from Tesla’s autopilot to the AI chatbot Grok, has a long-outstanding grudge against Altman (including a 2024 lawsuit accusing OpenAI of violating its mission statement by putting profits over humanity). He’s also expressed fears of a 10-20% chance of AI wiping out humanity (although AI safety researcher Roman Yampolskiy says it’s more like 99.999999%). Naysayers of projects like Stargate argue that without regulation and left in the hands of corporations and the military-industrial complex, powerful AI systems will quickly become a tool for round-the-clock surveillance, signing off on military war crimes, and the implementation of social credit score systems long feared by sci-fi.

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Generating headlines is his second nature.

• America Could Soon Become ‘A Bigger Country’ – Trump (RT)

The US could acquire new territories in the near future, President Donald Trump has told a crowd of supporters. In recent weeks, Trump has expressed ambitions to expand US territory and showed interest in annexing Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal. “We might be an enlarged country pretty soon,” Trump said in a speech in Las Vegas on Saturday. “For years, for decades, we were the same size to the square foot… probably got smaller, actually,” he said, adding that this could change “soon.” In a recent phone conversation with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Trump was “very firm” in pushing for Denmark to relinquish control of Greenland, leaving the Danes “utterly freaked out,” the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing European officials briefed on the matter.

Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, was granted home rule in 1979. The Arctic island is home to around 60,000 people and hosts the US Pituffik base. Greenland’s pro-independence leaders and Danish officials have been firm in rejecting Trump’s offer to buy Greenland. While Frederiksen has reportedly offered to expand US military presence on the island and deepen cooperation on mineral exploitation, Trump was aggressive and confrontational during the phone call, according to the FT.Trump initially floated the idea of purchasing Greenland during his first term in office in 2019, but was met with rejection from both Danish and Greenlandic officials. Last month, he said, “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for US national security.

In addition to Greenland, Trump has mentioned regaining ownership of the Panama Canal, which was under US management until 1999. He cited concerns about China’s growing influence over the vital trade route. Panamanian President Jose Mulino has promised to resist a potential takeover and denied that the vital waterway has been under foreign control. Trump has repeatedly argued that Canada should become the 51st state of the United States, promising tax breaks and other benefits to Canadian citizens if the move were to happen. He has accused Canada of being a bad trade partner and threatened to impose harsh tariffs on Canadian goods. In early January, Trump refused to rule out the use of military force against Greenland and Panama, saying the US needs both for “economic security.” Trump added that he would only use “economic force” against Canada.

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Greenland is not even part of the EU. Which, by the way, doesn’t have a military, but it does have a military chief. With very original ideas.

• EU Military Chief Wants Troops In Greenland (RT)

The European Union should deploy military forces in Greenland, the chairman of the EU Military Committee (EUMC), Gen. Robert Brieger, said in an interview published Saturday. He cited Greenland’s geopolitical importance and “tensions” with Russia and China as the reason for his suggestion. It comes as US President Donald Trump has been laying claim to the island. ”It would make perfect sense not only to station US forces in Greenland, as has been the case to date, but also to consider stationing EU soldiers there in the future,” Brieger told Die Welt, referring to a major US military base that has been there since the early 1940s. Such a deployment would “send a strong signal and could contribute to stability in the region,” believes the former Austrian chief of staff, who currently leads a body that includes the chiefs of staff of EU member states.

Brieger said that although the autonomous Danish territory is not legally a part of the bloc, “the Europeans – just like the USA – have interests in Greenland.” The general cited rich deposits of raw materials on the island and its proximity to international trade routes, calling it an area of “great importance from a geopolitical point of view.” He also described the territory as “highly relevant from a security policy perspective.” Referring to US claims on the island, Brieger said that he expected Washington to respect the territorial integrity of other nations and the UN Charter. Instead, the general drew attention to potential “tension with Russia and possibly China” in the area if the polar ice caps continue to melt due to climate change.

Greenland has been grabbing headlines recently as Trump has repeatedly claimed that ownership of Denmark’s mineral-rich Arctic island is necessary for US national security. Earlier this month, he refused to rule out a military solution. Brussels responded to Trump’s comments by describing a potential US attack as a “highly theoretical issue.” Trump’s desire to acquire the island has reportedly sparked concern in Copenhagen. On Friday, Financial Times reported that the US president’s aggressive way of pushing the idea in a phone call with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen earlier this month triggered panic in the Nordic nation’s capital. The paper’s sources described the 45-minute-long conversation as “horrendous” and compared it to “a cold shower.”

Frederiksen reportedly reiterated Denmark’s stance that the island is not for sale. Earlier this week, a Danish politician, Anders Vistisen, took the floor of the EU parliament in Strasbourg and told Trump to “f**k off,” voicing his opposition to the idea of the US acquiring Greenland. Some Republicans in Congress have at least entertained the idea. GOP Congressman Andy Ogles introduced a bill to allow Trump to acquire Greenland, saying the US should be the “dominant predator.” He dubbed the bill ‘Make Greenland Great Again’. Carla Sands, Trump’s former ambassador to Denmark, has also publicly backed the proposal, arguing that Denmark cannot adequately defend the island and suggesting that US control would be a “common-sense solution.”

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One step short of calling it treason:

“I think Putin and the Kremlin would be very happy with the deal where they keep the territory in Ukraine; there is a ceasefire; NATO does not accept Ukraine as a member..”

“Putin “sees Trump as an easy mark, somebody who is susceptible to flattery..”

• Trump Wants Ukraine ‘Off His Table’ – Bolton (RT)

US President Donald Trump does not want the Ukraine conflict complicating his agenda and may well end up offering Vladimir Putin a peace deal that would make the Russian leader “very happy,” former US national security adviser John Bolton has claimed in an interview with Afshin Rattansi’s show ‘Going Underground’. Bolton worked for Trump during his first term, but ended up being fired in September 2019 after only 18 months on the job. The US president later described the Republican as a “nutjob” and called his appointment one of his “biggest mistakes.” One of the first things Trump did after his inauguration on Monday was terminate his former adviser’s security detail provided due to alleged threats from Iran.

The new administration in the White House is “bad news” for Kiev, Bolton told Rattansi on Saturday, pointing out that Trump recently “threatened Ukraine with a cutoff of military assistance” if it refuses to talk peace with Russia. The US president and his team “want a negotiation because as with everything with Trump the world is just a long line of deals. He wants a deal to take this word ‘Ukraine’ off his table. He views it as [former US President Joe] Biden’s war… He wants it over with. He does not want it complicating his agenda,” he said. The possible terms for settling the Ukraine conflict voiced by Vice President J.D. Vance during the campaign look like “a peace plan that could be written in the Kremlin,” the former national security adviser argued.

“I think Putin and the Kremlin would be very happy with the deal where they keep the territory in Ukraine; there is a ceasefire; NATO does not accept Ukraine as a member,” he said. According to Bolton, Putin “sees Trump as an easy mark, somebody who is susceptible to flattery” and will try to take advantage of the US president’s conviction that “US relations with foreign countries depend on his personal relationship with the head of state.” Putin said on Friday that Russia and the US could still find “many points of contact” when it comes to the most pressing issues, including the Ukraine conflict. The Russian leader described Trump as “trustworthy,” recalling their “pragmatic” and “business-like” relationship during his first tenure in the White House. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the same day that Putin is ready to talk to Trump and that Moscow is awaiting signals from the new administration in Washington.

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Killed the grown-ups; now go for the kids.

• Kiev Seeking To Boost Enlistment Of Under-25’s – Zelensky Aide (RT)

The office of the Ukrainian president will propose amendments in the coming days that offer incentives for males between the age of 18 and 25 to sign voluntary contracts with the armed forces, an adviser to the office’s military department, Nikolay Schur, has told local media. Men in that age range are currently not subject to mandatory mobilization under Ukrainian law. The prospect of further tightening of draft laws has become a source of significant controversy in Ukrainian society. According to the adviser, “a whole range of amendments” to existing legislation and presidential decrees have been prepared by a working group that includes representatives of the Defense Ministry, General Staff and public organizations. “Technical details are being agreed upon at the moment and some things may still change,” he said. The amendments are expected to be presented to the public “in the coming days,” Schur added.

Last spring, faced with manpower shortages, mounting losses, and military setbacks, Ukraine lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 and significantly tightened mobilization rules. Since then, numerous videos have appeared on social media showing Ukrainian conscription officers chasing potential recruits in the streets, brawling with them and subjecting them to abuse. Reports of the mobilization growing increasingly violent and lawless have appeared not only in the local media but also in the West. The previous US administration of President Joe Biden had reportedly been pressuring Ukraine to reduce the mobilization age to 18. Kiev resisted those attempts, with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky claiming in an interview with Bloomberg earlier this week that what the Ukrainian military needs is not more men, but more weapons from its Western backers for the troops that it already has.

New US President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed a willingness to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Many Western officials, including Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham, have been actively pushing for Ukraine to lower the draft age, arguing that the country is fighting for its survival and needs more people at the front. Putin and other Russian officials have on numerous occasions blamed the US and its allies of willing to “fight Russia until the last Ukrainian” in their attempts to inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow.

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As if it can get any worse..

• Most Ukrainians Believe Corruption On The Rise (RT)

Most Ukrainians think that corruption has worsened over the past year, with an overwhelming majority seeing it as one of the top problems in the country, a new survey indicates. According to a study published by Ukraine’s National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption on Friday, 69.1% of respondents believe that corruption has increased, compared to 61.2% in 2023. Among business representatives, 57% also reported a rise in corruption in 2024, up from 46.3% the year before. The nationwide survey found that 79.9% of citizens and 76% of businesses consider corruption the second most serious problem in Ukraine, behind only the conflict with Russia (92.3% of respondents).

Over the years, Ukraine has developed a reputation for endemic corruption, and the problem has only worsened since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in 2022, as the defense sector has been rocked by numerous scandals involving military procurement. In one of the most recent controversies, the army’s chief psychiatrist, Oleg Druz, was arrested on charges of “illegal enrichment” related to earnings of more than $1 million. Kiev’s Western backers have repeatedly expressed concern about graft, with the EU labeling corruption a major stumbling block in Ukraine’s aspirations to join the bloc. In January 2024, the US Department of Defense Office of Inspector General released a report revealing that the Pentagon was unable to fully track over $1 billion worth of weapons aid to Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin weighed in on the issue earlier this week, suggesting that Kiev “happily receives hundreds of billions from its sponsors” only to “gobble up these billions with great pleasure.”

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America first.

• US Halts Programs For Migrants, Including Ukrainians – NYT (RT)

US officials have paused several immigration programs, including those allowing Ukrainians to temporarily settle in the country, as part of President Donald Trump’s border security crackdown, the New York Times reported on Friday. A directive issued by a senior US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) official on Thursday has halted “final decisions” on applications for the programs while they undergo review, according to the report.The directive reportedly covers humanitarian parole programs introduced during the Biden administration which allowed approved migrants to stay in the US for up to two years, obtain work permits, and avoid deportation. The programs affected include Uniting for Ukraine, an initiative that has allowed more than 150,000 Ukrainians to enter the US with financial sponsorship as of September 2023, according to government data.

Other suspended initiatives include humanitarian parole programs for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, which have collectively admitted over 500,000 migrants since late 2022.The directive also impacts family reunification programs and an initiative for Central American minors with family members in the US. A USCIS spokesperson confirmed the directive’s existence to the New York Times but declined to provide further comment on its details.The halt follows an executive order signed by Trump on Monday directing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “terminate all categorical parole programs that are contrary to the policies of the US” and to review remaining cases for compliance with US law. Acting DHS Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued additional directives the same day to end broad applications of humanitarian parole and revert to case-by-case assessments.

“This action will return the humanitarian parole program to its original purpose of looking at migrants on a case-by-case basis… Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a DHS spokesperson explained.Trump has consistently pledged to take swift action on illegal immigration. After his inauguration on Monday, the president signed a series of executive orders aimed at strengthening border security, including declaring a national emergency at the US-Mexico border and ending automatic birthright citizenship for children born to parents who are not lawful permanent US residents.

Also on Monday, Trump has ordered a full review of all US foreign assistance, including that designated for Ukraine. Following the order, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio froze nearly all grants to Ukraine for 90 days, from development assistance to military aid, according to media reports. Trump has repeatedly criticized US foreign assistance to countries including Ukraine during his reelection campaign, promising to ease the burden it puts on the American taxpayer upon his return to office.

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Yes, they make little sense. The US had it first but did nothing with it?

Key: “resistance of materials-related work..” aka coating.

• Trump’s Hypersonic Theft Allegations Are Flat-Out False (Sp.)

President Trump claimed that Russia stole the design for hypersonic missiles during the Obama administration, stating in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that “some bad person gave them the design,” while also boasting that the US would have even better super hypersonic missiles. Yury Knutov, military expert and historian of the Air Defense Forces, refuted Trump’s claim, explaining to Sputnik that: First, there’s no need for Russia to steal US technology since it showcased the first hypersonic device back in 1991. “The Soviet Union always outpaced the US in terms of resistance of materials-related work [vital for hypersonic missiles]. While the US focused on electronics and microchips,” Knutov told Sputnik. This led to the creation of the first-ever hypersonic laboratory, Kholod (lit. Frost).

A model of the S-200 missile fitted with a Kholod was bought by the Americans in the 1990s, who thoroughly studied the relevant documentation. Russia now has hypersonic missiles in three domains: air-based Kinzhal, sea-based Zircon, and land-based Oreshnik missiles. “Something no other country in the world has. This is why we outstrip the US in this regard.” “The country that was the first to launch a hypersonic vehicle cannot steal anything from the US, which only last year successfully tested a hypersonic missile.” “As for Trump’s claims, he was either misled or made up a story to compensate for the failures of the US military-industrial complex. On the other hand, Trump apparently needs an argument in Congress to increase funding for the US hypersonic weapons program,” Knutov concluded.

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“This marks only the second time in U.S. history that a vice president’s vote was required to confirm a Cabinet official.”

• Hegseth Confirmed As Defense Secretary, VP Vance Casts Tie-Breaking Vote (ZH)

Vice President J.D. Vance cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate on Friday night to confirm Pete Hegseth as President Trump’s Secretary of Defense. This marks only the second time in U.S. history that a vice president’s vote was required to confirm a Cabinet official. VP Vance cast the 51-50 tie-breaking vote to confirm Hegseth late Friday night after three Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), and Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), joined Democrats and independents in opposing the Princeton- and Harvard-educated former combat veteran and former Fox News host. “I thought I was done voting in the Senate,” the vice president wrote on X. On Truth Social, President Trump congratulated Hegseth shortly after his confirmation: “Congratulations to Pete Hegseth. He will make a great Secretary of Defense!”

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Hegseth’s nomination and attempts by the Deep State to derail it. Why the pushback? Hegseth has expressed an urgent need to restore lethality to a military he described as “woke” due to toxic diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. He has pledged to reinstate meritocracy in the armed forces, arguing that Marxist-inspired DEI initiatives are undermining national security. He has recently criticized woke senior Pentagon leaders and the Deep State on the Shawn Ryan Show: “First of all, you got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI woke s*** has got to go.”

Hegseth’s confirmation paves the way for his planned elimination of Marxist-inspired DEI initiatives in the military. This is all part of a broader strategy by Trump. The great purge has begun. There is no need for Marxist DEI leadership to undermine the nation at a time when the world has dangerously crept closer and closer to the next major conflict. Russia and China aren’t undermining their militaries with wokeism. Next week, senators will face Trump’s other Cabinet nominations, including Kash Patel for FBI head, Tulsi Gabbard for Office of National Intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services.

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“The homeland security secretary oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services.”

• Kristi Noem Confirmed As Homeland Security Secretary (ZH)

The Senate on Saturday confirmed Kristi Noem as President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, meaning that the South Dakota governor will be in charge of a massive agency established after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and has since had a long record of civil liberties and civil rights abuses. Noem was confirmed by a final vote of 59-34. Of note, the Trump ally who is in her second term as governor received support from several Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee when it voted 13-2 to advance her nomination earlier in the week. Republicans have also expressed confidence in Noem’s ability to lead border security and immigration enforcement, AP reports.

Meanwhile back at the swamp: “Fixing this crisis and restoring respect for the rule of law is one of President Trump and Republicans’ top priorities,” sid Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) on Friday. “And it’s going to require a decisive and committed leader at the Department of Homeland Security. I believe Kristi has everything it takes to undertake this task.” Democrats’ primary opposition to Noem revolved around how to handle border enforcement and immigration under Trump – with figures like Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) vowing to vote against Noem, suggesting instead “bipartisan solutions to fix the mess at our border” vs Noem, who he said “seems headed in the wrong direction.” The homeland security secretary oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Beyond those agencies, the department is also responsible for securing airline transportation, protecting dignitaries, responding to natural disasters and more. Trump is planning major changes to how the department functions, including involving the military in immigration enforcement and reshaping the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Those plans could immediately put Noem in the spotlight after the new president visited recent disaster sites in North Carolina and California on Friday. -AP. Noem was repeatedly asked by Senators during her confirmation hearing whether she would administer disaster aid to states even if Trump asked her not to, to which she replied that she would “deliver the programs according to the law and that it will be done with no political bias.” Noem was notably a state House Rep. for eight years before becoming governor in 2019.

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“We got everyone’s bank records except Joe Biden. We never could get Joe Biden’s bank records..”

• Comer: Trump DOJ Could Subpoena Biden’s Bank Records (JTN)

House Oversight Chairman James Comer, who led the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, said he has been in contact with the incoming Trump Justice Department about his probe’s findings and suggested the new attorney general could subpoena bank records withheld from his committee. “I’m in communication with Pam Bondi’s team. If the Trump Justice Department wants to move forward on this, I want to move forward on this. But I’m waiting for direction from them, because we fought against the tide with the Merrick Garland Department of Justice. I don’t know how much appetite Donald Trump has or Pam Bondi has to go after Joe Biden,” Comer told the Just the News, No Noise TV show on Thursday. “But look the investigations there, Joe Biden lied. We got everyone’s bank records except Joe Biden. We never could get Joe Biden’s bank records,” he also said.

Comer’s impeachment probe concluded last year and found that Biden engaged in impeachable conduct by helping to enrich his family with millions of dollars in business schemes that traded on his name and then defrauded voters by lying to cover up the scandal. As part of the investigation Comer uncovered multiple payments to Joe Biden from his family members on several occasions which were labeled as loan repayments. Comer says reviewing Biden’s bank records would show whether they were legitimate loans. “I think it would be interesting for someone in the Bondi Department of Justice to look at Joe Biden’s bank records to see if, in fact, he ever loaned his brother money, because the money we found from Joe the quarter of a million dollars, as you know, John, he tried to say, was a loan repayment, but he never proved that he ever made the initial loan,” he continued.

Comer argued that the evidence collected by his team is enough to justify a subpoena for the records. “My investigation is detailed in the book, All the President’s Money, and in our final oversight committee report, they have the basis to be able to receive a positive subpoena to obtain this bank information from Joe Biden,” Comer said. “Look, he admitted to the American people when he pardoned his entire family preemptively, that’s right, that this was a Biden crime family.”

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”The firewall has fallen!” Weidel wrote on X on Friday. “The CDU and CSU have accepted my offer to vote together with the AfD..”

• Merkel’s Party Allies With AfD On Migration (RT)

Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has said that it will implement strict immigration laws even if it has to enlist the support of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) to pass them. The move marks the first time a mainstream German party has agreed to work with the AfD and stands in stark contrast with the policy of former CDU leader and Chancellor Angela Merkel known for her lenient approach to migration.In a letter to party members seen by Politico on Friday, CDU leadership said that its lawmakers would introduce harsh immigration restrictions even “if only the AfD supports our proposals.” “We will introduce motions in the German Bundestag [Parliament] that are exclusively in line with our convictions,” CDU leader Friedrich Merz told German news agency DPA later on Friday. “And we will introduce them regardless of who agrees with them.”

Since the AfD’s founding in 2013, the country’s mainstream parties have maintained a ‘firewall’ around the right-wingers, refusing to enter coalition talks with them and declining to introduce legislation that could only pass with their support. However, German attitudes to immigration have hardened since Merkel opened Germany’s borders to more than a million migrants in 2015, and the AfD is now the country’s second-most-popular party. Ahead of a general election next month, the AfD is polling at 20%, behind the CDU at 30% but ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SDP) at 17%, according to Politico.

Merz is expected to assume the chancellorship after the election. A recent survey found that Immigration is the top concern among voters. After an Afghan man allegedly stabbed a two-year-old child to death at a Bavarian school earlier this week, AfD leader Alice Weidel wrote to Merz offering to back any immigration restrictions proposed by his party.”The firewall has fallen!” Weidel wrote on X on Friday. “The CDU and CSU have accepted my offer to vote together with the AfD in the Bundestag on the crucial issue of migration. This is good news for our country!” she added, referring to the CDU’s Bavarian sister party.

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“I think it could decide the entire fate of Europe, maybe the fate of the world.”

• ‘Future of Europe’ Hangs On German Snap Elections – Musk (RT)

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressed his “full support” for the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) at a campaign rally held by the party in the city of Halle on Saturday. The US-based billionaire called on party backers to “go all out” to convince Germans to vote for AfD, arguing that the upcoming snap parliamentary elections could be key for the future not only of Germany but of the world. The tech entrepreneur addressed the crowd that gathered for the event in Halle via video link. The party chose the central German city for its opening election campaign rally, which was attended by party co-leaders Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, who is also the AfD candidate for chancellor. Some 4,500 people joined the event, according to AP. “This election is extremely important. I do not say it lightly when I think the future of civilization could hang on this election,” Musk told the cheering crowd.

“I think it could decide the entire fate of Europe, maybe the fate of the world.” The businessman has said he was convinced that people in Germany wanted “something different” from what they have had over the past decade. Voting for the AfD was the only way to bring about this much-desired change, he stated, calling on party supporters to do everything possible to convince their “friends and family” to join them, one person at a time. Musk also praised the policies proposed by the AfD as the “common sense” ones and compared them to the approach advocated by US President Donald Trump. The businessman emerged as Trump’s close advisor during the latter’s election campaign last year. “You have my full support,” he told the rally, adding that the AfD seeks to get “government out of people’s ways” and give “people back personal freedom” and protect them from “dangers.”

Musk AfD
https://twitter.com/i/status/1883201886880481453

The right-wing party has long been known for its harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric, with many German media outlets referring to it as far-right. Until recently, all other major German political parties refused to cooperate with AfD. Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), however, recently said that he would be willing to accept AfD support for his own party’s immigration policy proposals, even if it would be the only other political group to back them. Musk has been active in his support for AfD over the past months. In December, he called it the only party capable of “saving Germany” and praised its anti-immigration stance while calling German Chancellor Olaf Scholz an “incompetent fool.”

Earlier in January, the businessman also hosted a livestream with Weidel on his social media platform X, reiterating that “only AfD can save Germany.” The livestream was closely monitored by some 150 EU officials and technical specialists as Brussels suspected it could give the right-wing party an “unfair advantage” ahead of the February 23 vote. Musk’s activities have provoked unease in Berlin. Scholz had previously accused the SpaceX and Tesla CEO of seeking attention online and urged people to not “feed the troll.” Later, he also called him a “threat” to democracy and stated that although people in Germany and Europe enjoy freedom of speech, it cannot be used to support “extreme-right positions.” On Saturday, Musk accused the German government of “suppressing [free] speech very aggressively” and said that “true democracy” is impossible under such circumstances.

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Not everything runs smooth.

• Gazprom Forced To Hike Prices On Russians In The Middle Of Winter (RMX)

Facing losses, huge debts, and layoffs, Gazprom is now turning to Russian citizens to help it out of its financial woes, writes “Rzeczpospolita.” Gazprom’s management is reportedly demanding that the Kremlin raise gas prices threefold on the domestic market. Alexey Sakharov, head of Gazprom’s strategic department, spoke about the company’s difficult situation: “The current level of regulated wholesale gas prices in Russia does not ensure the creation of financial resources in sufficient quantities to make the necessary capital investments in the maintenance and development of gas infrastructure in the interests of Russian customers. And this cannot but affect the reliability of gas supplies in the long term,” he warned during a meeting of the Council of Experts in the State Duma.

Sakharov argued that the price of gas for Russians must rise to a level that will allow Gazprom to provide gas to all regions and implement investment projects. The company will also have to triple the tariffs for gas transmission for independent producers. In May 2024, Remix reported that Gazprom had reported its first loss in 20 years and was running a $7 billion deficit. Earlier in January, the oil giant announced that it would have to lay off more than 1,500 employees from its headquarters in St. Petersburg. “Gazprom is currently generating losses. The rate frozen since 2015 is 62.5 rubles per thousand cubic meters per 100 km, and the company’s expenses amount to 109 rubles. The price that Gazprom needs and demands from the Kremlin is 170 rubles,” the portal quotes Sakharov as saying.

Gas in Russia used to be cheap, but everything changed after the invasion of Ukraine. “Since the beginning of the war, the Russian government has carried out a record indexation of gas tariffs for citizens in over 10 years. Last year, gas prices increased by 11.2 percent, in 2022 — by 3 percent in the summer and 8.5 percent in December. A new increase of 10.2 percent is planned from July 1, 2025, (the cumulative increase in gas prices will be 37 percent since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine),” they state. Back in December, Putin admitted that Russia’s economic growth measured in GDP in 2025 will be half of what it was in 2024, growing less than 4 percent this year, and, according to the Kremlin’s official estimates, it will slow down to 2-2.5 percent in 2026. The Russian president said the task for the authorities next year will be to “stabilize inflation,” which is soaring despite the efforts of the Russian central bank, which raised the interest rate to the highest level in 20 years.

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They warn all the time.

• Euroclear Warns Against Seizing Russian Assets (RT)

Outright confiscation of the Russian assets currently frozen by the West as part of Ukraine-related sanctions could lead to unintended consequences for the EU, Euroclear CEO Valerie Urbain warned on Friday in an interview with Bloomberg. The Belgian-based depository holds around $213 billion (€197 billion) of nearly $300 billion of Russian central bank assets that were frozen by the US and EU shortly after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. “There could always be also countermeasures from Russia which could further destabilize the financial markets,” Urbain told the news agency on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The Euroclear CEO said the frozen funds could be used as leverage in potential peace talks between Moscow and Kiev, while noting that some officials are interested in pushing ahead with confiscation. Urbain stressed the importance of transferring not only the funds, but the liabilities as well, in the event of expropriation by EU members, explaining that the clearinghouse should be protected from potential claims by Russia. In December, the CEO cautioned that tapping either the Russian assets or the proceeds generated by them, which has been debated by EU and G7 officials for nearly three years, could jeopardize the euro’s role as a global reserve currency and the broader stability of EU finances.

Kiev has been urging its Western backers to seize Russia’s sovereign assets in order to fund Ukraine’s military and reconstruction efforts. While the administration of former US President Joe Biden supported the proposal, some EU allies ruled out the move, citing the potential impact on the financial system and the euro’s reputation. In July, the European Commission said it was ready to transfer the first tranche of €1.55 billion generated from the Bank of Russia’s frozen assets to Ukraine. Moscow has condemned the asset freeze as “theft,” arguing that accessing the funds would be illegal and set a troubling precedent. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned that the Russian government will pursue legal action against those involved in the seizure.

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“But the people of America…are sick of this globalist, elitist, unregulated, Davos and Bilderberg operation where multibillionaires gather in secret and design ways to restrict liberty and impoverish private sector workers..”

• Soros’ Soft Power Empire is More Vulnerable Than Ever With Trump Back (Sp.)

Open Society Foundations chairman Alex Soros has put a brave face on the losses facing by his father’s neoliberal philanthropic empire now that Joe Biden is gone and MAGA has turned to Washington with a vengeance.
“My father was more about how you get closed societies to become open, and my task within the foundation is how do you renew open societies from within?” Soros Jr. told FT in an interview this week, hinting at the OSF’s plans for work in the United States in the coming four years. A second Trump term carries substantial risks to the Soros family and ‘philanthropic’ fortunes. With the Democrats’ exit from the White House and loss of both houses of Congress, Soros will have fewer means to influence domestic policy on issues ranging from identity politics to courts, education and online censorship.

Trump’s reelection and the failure of the Soros-backed campaign to lock him up is a major reputational blow to the Open Society Foundations, which reoriented its global focus onto US politics in 2023 but still lost. Setbacks in the US could reverberate in Europe, toppling, undermining or crippling Soros-allied politicians. Hungary’s Viktor Orban said last week that Soros “lost the battle for America,” and his supporters must now be “squeezed out of Brussels” as well. Alex Soros also dropped hints about the seriousness of the threat posed by tech billionaire Elon Musk to his family’s fortunes. “I was open for a meeting [with Musk, ed.], I made an overture through somebody that knows him and he didn’t respond. I think he’s much more interested in trolling than meeting,” the OSF chairman said in his FT interview, referring to Musk’s references to Soros senior as a Magneto-style supervillain to Soros senior as a Magneto-style supervillain and as a “brilliant guy” who “fundamentally hates humanity.”

Musk opposes key policies pushed by Soros, from lawfare-minded DAs to censorship, and has accused him of seeking to “destroy Western civilization.” Since Trump’s comeback, Musk has also jumped into European politics to back populist figures abhorred by Soros, from AfD in Germany to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in Britain. “I think there are some important contrasts to draw between Musk and Soros. Soros is a financier,” veteran political commentator and former hedge fund manager Charles Ortel told Sputnik. “He has, in theory, a great track record managing his and other people’s money. But on the charity front, it’s difficult for me to find a lot of good works, and it’s easy to find a lot of diabolical activities,” Ortel said, citing Soros’ links with the Clinton Foundation, for example.

That’s a contrast with ‘pauper to prince’ Musk, whose career has involved actually “developing novel products and services and bringing them to market efficiently,” Ortel said. The tech billionaire’s philanthropic activities have been “quiet, which is the way it’s supposed to be done.” “No doubt the Deep State will resist [Musk and Trump]. But the people of America…are sick of this globalist, elitist, unregulated, Davos and Bilderberg operation where multibillionaires gather in secret and design ways to restrict liberty and impoverish private sector workers. This is a structure that must change, and I believe that Musk will be a powerful ally” to Trump, the observer believes.

“Soros is only one example of, I believe, a bad actor who is abusing non-profits that actually are not regulated carefully enough anywhere, and especially in the United States. So he and people like Bill Gates and the Clinton Foundation and the Obama Foundation and many other dynastic political families set up these ‘organizations’ that are not independent or not tightly controlled. They’re supposed to be nonpartisan under American law, the 501C3 entities, in fact, they’re not,” Ortel stressed.

“Folks like Soros use foundations…as false fronts to pay off people that are important inside the country. Nobody really knows how much money is actually sent from these charities to the to the recipients because they’re never audited. Nobody knows how many kickbacks end up in politicians pockets, not just around the world, but inside the United States,” he added. Ultimately, Ortel hopes the Trump administration will “use the power they now have merely to enforce existing laws and regulations to stop charity fraud. People talking about price gouging in the private sector – charity fraud and abuse of government money I think is a much more serious problem inside my country and around the world.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ivermectin

 

 

Dachs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1883085313230438807

 

 

Wombat

 

 

Trouble
https://twitter.com/i/status/1883005618514010336

 

 

Sound waves

 

 

Guilty

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 14 2024

Dec 142024
 
 December 14, 2024  Posted by at 10:27 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  39 Responses »


René Magritte The menaced assassin 1927

 

• Trump Wants ‘Day One’ Ukraine Ceasefire – NBC (RT)
• Christmas Ceasefire Still Possible – Orban (RT)
• Trump’s Ukraine Envoy Pick Predicts End Of Conflict Within Months (RT)
• Ukraine Vows ‘Zero Gas Transit’ To EU (RT)
• Kremlin Reacts To Trump’s Stance On Long-Range Strikes Into Russia
• Clintons Open to Preemptive Pardon as Deep State May Abandon Them (Sp.)
• Modified Limited Hang-out (Kunstler)
• Mounting Boeing Delays Suggest Trump Won’t Fly In New Air Force One (ZH)
• Texas Lt Gov Patrick Wants To Buy Construction Materials Auctioned By DHS (JTN)
• Turley Raises Concerns Over DOJ Hiding FBI Informants At Jan. 6 (HUSA)
• NYC Mayor Eric Adams Stuns Lefty Reporters By Going Full MAGA (MN)
• Jeff Bezos’ Amazon To Donate $1 Million To Trump (RT)
• JD Vance Honors New York ‘Subway Vigilante’ (RT)
• United Kingdom Upholds Ban on Puberty-Blocking Drugs for Minors (Turley)
• Musk’s Charity Sent Most Money To His Own Entities – Bloomberg (RT)
• Elon Musk: “Starbase Is Going To Be A City” In Texas (ZH)

 

 

 

 

Rogan 5050
https://twitter.com/i/status/1867335814134608151

Kash

Don Jr
https://twitter.com/i/status/1867404091846275578

Vance

Elon

Pardon

 

 

 

 

The shooting stops on Jan 20 at the very latest, validating Trump’s promise. By then, peace negotiations will already have started.

• Trump Wants ‘Day One’ Ukraine Ceasefire – NBC (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump’s team has been working hard to broker a truce between Ukraine and Russia that could pave the way to peace talks, NBC reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Trump has repeatedly slammed the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict and claimed that it would have happened at all with him in charge at the White House. He campaigned on stopping the conflict even before inauguration, though that has proven to be a tall order. “Trump is really serious about wanting to get to a ceasefire on day one,” a source told NBC News. According to the outlet, Trump’s national security team has already held talks with the outgoing White House and the Kiev leadership.

Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg met with Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff Andrey Yermak last week. Meanwhile, outgoing President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan has been in touch with his prospective successor Mike Waltz to share “relevant information,” according to NBC. However, they reportedly have not explored strategies for a ceasefire or ending the conflict. The discussions are meant to ensure Trump is not surprised by any of Biden’s actions before the January 20 inauguration, according to an unnamed senior administration official.

“The goal is for the world to understand there is a desire for the time of transition to be seen as a strong America, working for peace and stability around the world, until President-elect Trump is sworn in,” transition spokesman Brian Hughes has said. Trump’s aides “hold a range of views” on Ukraine and have not yet presented “a conceptual or specific peace plan” to Kiev, NBC reported, citing former US officials in touch with the Ukrainians and two sources in Kiev. These sources described the Trump team’s contacts with Zelensky and his aides as “constructive” and “positive.”

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“Orban intimates Russia agreed to Christmas ceasefire proposal..”

• Christmas Ceasefire Still Possible – Orban (RT)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that there is still time to consider his proposal for a Christmas ceasefire and a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine. Speaking about the offer he made to Moscow and Kiev earlier this week in an interview with Kossuth Radio on Friday, Orban said “one side accepted it, the other rejected it.” Judging by comments coming from Ukraine, it is Kiev that is currently reluctant to support Budapest’s initiative. ”But there are still a few days until Christmas [December 25], and this may change,” he stressed. The Hungarian proposal is aimed at making sure that “no one should die, at least, on Christmas. If the parties can come to an agreement, there could be a ceasefire on Christmas – as was the case in the First World War,” the prime minister explained. “And if a large prisoner exchange could be agreed, then hundreds… of families could be made happy,” he added.

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Orban had made such an offer to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their phone conversation on the previous day. Peskov did not say if Russia went along with the idea of having a truce during the holiday, but stressed that, in the hours following their phone call, Moscow provided a paper to the Hungarian embassy with its suggestions about how the prisoner exchange should happen. On Wednesday, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky belittled Orban’s diplomatic activities, claiming that the Hungarian leader was only trying to “boost personal image at the expense of unity” in the EU in terms of supporting Kiev. “There can be no discussions about the war that Russia wages against Ukraine without Ukraine,” he wrote on X. Shortly after that, an aide to Zelensky, Dmitry Litvin, denied that any contacts between Kiev and Budapest on a proposed Christmas ceasefire and prisoner swap took place at all.

According to Peskov, unlike Ukraine, Russia “fully supports Orban’s efforts aimed at finding a peaceful settlement and resolving humanitarian issues related to the exchange of prisoners.” “Russia has never refused peace talks and has repeatedly stated its readiness to resume them on the basis of the Istanbul agreements of 2022. We proceed from the assumption that consultations on establishing peace will continue,” the Kremlin spokesman said. Earlier this year, Vladimir Putin said that, during the talks in Türkiye’s largest city, Ukraine was willing to declare military neutrality, to limit its armed forces, and vow not to discriminate against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading powers in offering security guarantees to Kiev.

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“..the Ukraine conflict will be solved “within the next few months” because Trump is “the only person” who can and will do it.”

• Trump’s Ukraine Envoy Pick Predicts End Of Conflict Within Months (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump could solve the conflict between Moscow and Kiev “within the next few months,” retired US Army General Keith Kellogg, slated to become a special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, has suggested. Speaking to Fox News on Friday, Kellogg did not rule out the idea that Trump could potentially invite both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to his presidential inauguration. “President Trump plays three-level chess, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he did something like that. Could he do it? Of course, he could do it. He could make such a bold move,” Kellogg said, adding that he really believes the Ukraine conflict will be solved “within the next few months” because Trump is “the only person” who can and will do it.

Nothing should be put “beyond the realm of possible” at the moment, Kellogg said, adding that “he wouldn’t be surprised” by any unexpected moves made by the next US president. During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly pledged to end the conflict between Moscow and Kiev literally overnight, yet he has never provided any precise details on how exactly he plans to achieve such a result. Earlier this week, he said that resolving the Ukrainian crisis and the hostility in the Middle East were among his “big priorities.” He suggested, however, that achieving the latter was “less difficult” than the former.

Moscow has previously expressed skepticism about Trump’s repeated pledges to somehow settle the Ukrainian conflict, dismissing his promises as campaign talk. Shortly after he secured the election win, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the promises of resolving the conflict overnight were clearly “an exaggeration of sorts.” “If the new [US] administration seeks peace rather than a continuation of the conflict, it will be better than the previous one,” Peskov said at the time.

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“The bloc’s policies will result in further deindustrialization, increased volatility on the gas market, and may lead to a new gas price shock and supply disruptions..”

• Ukraine Vows ‘Zero Gas Transit’ To EU (RT)

Ukraine will stop the flow of Russian natural gas via its transit network on January 1, Energy Minister German Galushchenko has confirmed. A key gas transit agreement between Moscow and Kiev is due to expire on December 31, and the Ukrainian leadership has repeatedly warned that it has no plans to extend it. Several EU countries continue to rely on Russian gas, despite the sharp drop in supplies due to sanctions on Moscow and a push by Brussels to sever energy ties with Russia. Ukraine has made preparations to shut off the gas, Galushchenko told the German-Ukrainian Business Forum in Berlin on Wednesday. “Our position is completely open. We are preparing for zero transit from January 1. And we have been [preparing] for a long time. This year alone we conducted several stress tests for our gas system to see how it will function with zero transit,” Galushchenko said, as quoted by the Ukrinform news agency.

The transit agreement between Ukraine’s state energy firm Naftogaz and Russia’s energy giant Gazprom was signed in 2019. Naftogaz praised the deal at the time as ensuring security on the domestic gas market. It also revealed that Gazprom had paid nearly $3 billion for the transit service, thus ensuring that the Ukrainian system would operate without a loss over the following five years. Ukraine’s transit network is connected to the pipeline systems of Moldova, Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. The EU still receives around 5% of its gas from Russia via Ukraine, according to the latest data. The Naftogaz transit system and the European arm of TurkStream are the only two remaining conduits for piped Russian gas to reach central and southern Europe.

The TurkStream gas pipeline runs from Russia to Türkiye via the Black Sea, and then continues to the border with EU member Greece. Russia has said it is ready to continue deliveries beyond 2024. Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller warned in October that the EU would be committing “energy suicide” by shunning Russian gas. The bloc’s policies will result in further deindustrialization, increased volatility on the gas market, and may lead to a new gas price shock and supply disruptions, Miller predicted. Similar concerns have been voiced by Hungary and Slovakia, the two EU nations most reliant on Russian gas. Budapest continues to receive more than a half of the gas it consumes from Russia under a 15-year contract signed with Gazprom in 2021. An increased reliance on TurkStream and replacing Russian gas with supplies from Azerbaijan for transit to the EU through Ukraine have been named as possible solutions.

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Peskov: “It is obvious that Trump understands what exactly is escalating the situation around the conflict..”

• Kremlin Reacts To Trump’s Stance On Long-Range Strikes Into Russia

US President-elect Donald Trump’s statement regarding Ukraine’s use of Western long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia is completely in line with Moscow’s stance on the matter, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. Peskov was commenting on Trump’s sharp criticism this week of President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Kiev to conduct long-range strikes on Russian territory with US-supplied missiles. “The statement itself completely coincides with our position,” Peskov told reporters. “In this case we have the same vision of the reasons for the escalation.” He added that Trump’s thinking on the matter “appeals” to Russia. “It is obvious that Trump understands what exactly is escalating the situation around the conflict,” he said.

At the same time, the Russian presidential spokesman warned against “jumping ahead of ourselves” and predicting the actions of the incoming US administration. “Let’s wait until the moment when the president-elect takes his post in the Oval Office,” he advised. In an interview with Time magazine, which named him the 2024 Person of the Year, Trump stated that he disagrees “very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia,” asking rhetorically: “Why are we doing that?” Trump said that missile strikes deep into Russia’s internationally recognized territory are “just escalating this war and making it worse,” and described such attacks as a “very big mistake.” The US president-elect’s comments came a day after the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukrainian forces had launched six US-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles towards an airfield in Rostov Region.

In response to Kiev’s attacks, Moscow hit a number of Ukraine’s key energy facilities overnight into Friday.Russia has repeatedly warned that long-range strikes using foreign-made weapons would escalate the conflict and be seen as NATO’s direct participation in the hostilities. In late November, Moscow used its new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile system for the first time, striking the Yuzhmash military plant in the Ukrainian city of Dnepr. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at the time that if Ukraine’s attacks deep inside Russia continue, Moscow reserves the right “to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities.

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“Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden have outlived their usefulness to rich globalists..”

• Clintons Open to Preemptive Pardon as Deep State May Abandon Them (Sp.)

Former President Bill Clinton has indicated he is open to discussing a “pre-emptive pardon” for his wife, Hillary Clinton, with outgoing head of state Joe Biden, while maintaining that she has done nothing wrong. This development was anticipated, according to Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel, who tells Sputnik that Bill Clinton is also likely to seek a pardon for himself and his daughter. Ortel adds that the proposed pardon could cover a period starting much earlier than Hillary’s 2016 email scandal, which Bill Clinton mentioned on “The View” talk show. The alleged fraud and pay-to-play activities involving the Clinton Foundation were significant issues, according to Ortel, who has been investigating the charity for many years.

“As in the case of the first Biden family pardon, my view is that a federal pardon for the Clinton family will have to go back, perhaps, to 1992 and continue so long as ‘The Clinton Foundation’ and its affiliates may operate,” Ortel suggests. Earlier, Biden provided his son with an unusual blanket pardon covering all possible crimes between 2014 and 2024. The Clintons “have been insiders in a rigged political system at the federal level” since Bill’s first presidential campaign in 1992, Ortel claims. However, even a federal pre-emptive pardon from Biden “is likely to leave Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton vulnerable to state and foreign prosecutions, along with others,” the analyst believes. Bill Clinton’s readiness to discuss a pre-emptive pardon with President Joe Biden is likely influenced by FBI Director Christopher Wray’s decision to step down and Donald Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel, according to Ortel.

Ortel suggests that Wray is part of the same cabal as former FBI Director James Comey, who allowed Hillary Clinton to escape consequences for her 2016 email scandal. In contrast, Patel has never been part of the D.C. “swamp” and played a key role in debunking the Trump-Russia collusion allegations, which, based on then-CIA Director John Brennan’s declassified memo, may have been fabricated by Hillary Clinton to divert attention from her email scandal. According to Ortel, the Department of Justice (DoJ), FBI, and IRS have long covered up the Clintons’ apparent felonies, despite many being evident. “When the FBI finally spoke with me in December 2018, they focused on my connections with Peter Smith, Jerry Corsi, and Roger Stone, claiming they lacked the scope to investigate why so many in the Obama and Bush administrations might be interested in covering up Clinton Foundation crimes,” Ortel says.

If Patel takes charge of the FBI, he is expected to overhaul the bureau and could investigate the Clintons earnestly, according to Ortel. Reports indicate that Hillary Clinton is on Patel’s “government gangsters” list. The globalist elites and much-discussed US “deep state” may no longer shield the Clintons, as they have outlived their usefulness, Ortel says. “Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden have outlived their usefulness to rich globalists,” Ortel states. The election defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris, along with the inability of the Clintons, Obamas, and Bidens to produce a more vibrant and popular presidential candidate, apparently exposed their political bankruptcy.

As a result, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who has long been considered an ally of the Democrats, dismissed the party’s gloom-and-doom warnings and openly signaled in October that a Donald Trump victory would be acceptable for Wall Street. “Should the Trump administration prioritize prosecuting charity crimes, starting with wealthy donors like Bill Gates and George Soros and wealthy ‘educational public charities,’ whistleblowers and the incoming administration could make America proud by [taking down] the Clinton family and many other charity grifters who, even today, seem arrogantly unrepentant and unbowed,” Ortel concludes.

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“.. a barrage of prosecutions against Mr. Trump himself, guaranteed to prevent him from ever running again, to bankrupt him, and to stuff him into prison for the rest of his natural life.”

• Modified Limited Hang-out (Kunstler)

For eight years — including the four when Mr. Trump as president — the FBI and DOJ worked tirelessly to run him out of office and make sure he could never return. The effort was prodigious and, astoundingly, it failed. It was launched initially to conceal the crimes of Bill and Hillary Clinton, especially their moneygrubbing in Russia around the Skolkovo project — Russia’s Silicon Valley — and the Uranium One scandal — which involved the sale of US nuclear assets to Russia’s state-owned Rosatom company. The Clinton’s problems became especially acute in the summer of 2016 when Hillary’s private (outside government) email server came to light with its thousands of potentially incriminating memos. Looked like trouble. The cure for that was to accuse candidate Trump of conniving with Russia, a sort of political homeopathy.

It began as a mere Hillary campaign prank — the Steele Dossier — but CIA Director John Brennan and Barack Obama dumped it in FBI Director James Comey’s lap, and asked him to run with it. Mr. Comey stupidly complied, and before long he marshaled the executive officers of the FBI into the massive hoax that became RussiaGate. The Mueller Investigation was intended to convert all that into a prosecutable Trump crime while covering up the FBI’s own crimes, but it proved a fiasco when the Mueller report issued in March, 2019, came up empty — to the horror of the Trump-deranged public. Inspector General Horowitz’s report on these FBI shenanigans came out in December of that year, finding little amiss besides some “errors” in FISA applications and FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith’s forgery of an email as to whether one Carter Page was ever a CIA asset. The big news media let it all slide.

Mr. Trump somehow survived, to the blob’s horror, and prepared to run for re-election. The 2020 election was a fantastic trip laid on the American public. Covid-19 allowed for drastic changes in voting rules. The Democratic Party managed in plain sight to maneuver the obviously senile Joe Biden to head their ticket, and an array of very conspicuous late-night frauds got him elected. On Jan 6, 2021, Republican legislators were poised to contest the results out of several swing states where the frauds occurred in the requisite Congressional certification ceremony. The law plainly allowed for such challenges. It could not be allowed to happen. Hence: the operations to interrupt the proceedings. The primary device would be the pipe bombs planted at the nearby DNC and RNC headquarters — terrorists on-the-loose!

The backup plan was to turn the large protest group gathered around the Capitol into a mob that would somehow provoke an evacuation of the building. Between the FBI’s assets (“confidential human sources”) planted in the crowd, plus the Capitol police firing rubber bullets and “flash-bangs” into them, and mysterious figures ushering-in protesters through unlocked security doors, the breach of the Capitol was accomplished and the lawmakers fled the building. Nancy Pelosi arranged for the national guard to not be called onto the scene to fortify the understaffed Capitol Police. She was thrilled at how well it worked (captured on film). And the pipe bomb caper was swept under the rug, despite a ton of evidence that indicated the person-of-interest on the scene was a federal contractor, his movements recorded in cell-phone records and closed-circuit cameras.

When the lawmakers returned late that night in a great fugue of histrionic consternation, the majority decided to dispense with those challenges to the vote in swing states. “Joe Biden” became president and the DOJ under new Attorney General Merrick Garland commenced a raft of vicious prosecutions against anyone and everyone present at the Capitol on Jan 6. The next step was to mount a barrage of prosecutions against Mr. Trump himself, guaranteed to prevent him from ever running again, to bankrupt him, and to stuff him into prison for the rest of his natural life.

Read more …

Should Elon start building planes?

• Mounting Boeing Delays Suggest Trump Won’t Fly In New Air Force One (ZH)

Aerospace giant Boeing warned earlier this year that supply chain snarls, persistent inflation, and workforce challenges have impacted the construction timeline of two new Air Force One presidential aircraft. A new report from the Wall Street Journal suggests that continued delays indicate President-elect Donald Trump will not get to fly in the new Boeing 747s during his second term, with the latest projections targeting 2029 or later. Trump is frustrated with the delays. Here’s more from WSJ: “Frustrated with the delays, Trump raised the project with Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg when the two men spoke by phone in November. As he prepares to return to the White House, Trump has repeatedly asked advisers about the status of Boeing’s work. Boeing used to be a great American company, he has told aides, according to people briefed on the discussions. What happened to them? Trump has asked.”

In 2018, during President-elect Trump’s first term, Boeing received a $3.9 billion contract to build two new 747-8 aircraft for use as Air Force One. The aircraft were supposed to be delivered by the end of this year. Ted Colbert, head of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, spoke with Fox Bussiness in July, revealing that supply chain, inflation, workforce, and other challenges in building the airplanes pushed out delivery timelines. “Our team is fighting through a very, very challenging program – two very complex airplanes,” Colbert said at the time, adding, “We’ve done a ton of investment in our workforce and training, efficiency, work on the factory floor.” In 2023, the Biden administration decided to reverse Trump’s decision to switch to a red, white, and blue scheme, from the current white with two shades of blue, a design that dates back to the Kennedy administration. “The delay is startling given that Boeing isn’t building the planes from scratch,” WSJ noted.

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“.. will bid on all of that wall and we will buy it in Texas and we will give it to Donald Trump.” “I got a billion dollars in my pocket to do it..”

• Texas Lt Gov Patrick Wants To Buy Construction Materials Auctioned By DHS (JTN)

Texas GOP Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says he want to buy border-construction material being auctioned by the Department of Homeland and give it to President-elect Donald Trump. “Joe Biden is now hauling off the border wall that’s been lying down for years and he wants to auction it off starting at five dollars a piece,” Patrick told Fox News opinion-show host Laura Ingraham on Thursday. “Message to the White House right now: I will bid on all of that wall and we will buy it in Texas and we will give it to Donald Trump.”

Patrick also said he has the authority to spend Texas tax dollars that way. “I got a billion dollars in my pocket to do it,” he said. “I write the budget with [state] Sen. Joan Huffman. We have the money.” Border security was a top campaign issue for Trump this year, as it was when he first won the presidency in 2016. In Trump’s next term, he is expected to ramp up border security and perhaps conduct mass deportations and end birthright citizenship.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1867412563656683730

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“We’ve had cases in the past where the defense has argued that sources and agents have been extremely active in pushing people towards criminal conduct..”

• Turley Raises Concerns Over DOJ Hiding FBI Informants At Jan. 6 (HUSA)

Renowned legal scholar and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley sounded the alarm about the DOJ’s failure to disclose to Jan. 6 defendants that FBI informants were present in the U.S. Capitol that day in 2021, as detailed in a DOJ Inspector General report. In a Thursday interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum, Turley said the report raised “more questions than answers” about the FBI’s rumored role in inciting violence at the Capitol. The law professor specifically such information would have been critical to defendants of the Jan. 6 protests who fell victim to the Biden DOJ’s aggressive prosecutions. “In some ways, it raises more questions than answers. It does support Wray’s testimony that there were no undercover agents in the crowd,” Turley said, referring to FBI Director Christopher Wray. “I think that for others, there is going to be a lot of concern as to what the sources were doing there,” he said, as reported first by the Daily Caller.

DOJ Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz revealed that at least 26 FBI confidential human sources (CHSs) were present among the crowd protesting the contentious 2020 presidential election results. “Our review determined that none of these FBI CHSs was authorized by the FBI to enter the Capitol or a restricted area or to otherwise break the law on January 6, nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6,” Horowitz found. Of the 26 agents, only three were summoned to the U.S. Capitol that day, Turley noted, before highlighting that FBI informants had previously been accused of inciting crimes. “We’ve had cases in the past where the defense has argued that sources and agents have been extremely active in pushing people towards criminal conduct,” Turley said. “We saw those allegations raised in the Michigan case involving the governor there.”

The FBI’s potential role in inciting violence was highlighted in the “kidnapping” plot of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Two men indicted in the alleged plot were acquitted by a jury, while two others faced hung juries. The latter two were convicted in a retrial. Turley argued that Jan. 6 defense attorneys would have used the FBI informants’ presence during the protests if they had known about it. “I think that some defense attorneys may raise the question as [to] why they weren’t told, if they weren’t told about the confidential sources that might have been involved tangentially with their own cases, because usually defense counsel says we want to know what asset, what personnel the government had there. So there is going to be questions of that kind, that arise,” Turley said.

Read more …

“I’m going to answer a few questions and then I am leaving because it’s not going to matter what I respond to anyway, you have your preconceived thoughts already.”

• NYC Mayor Eric Adams Stuns Lefty Reporters By Going Full MAGA (MN)

New York City mayor Eric Adams continued his recent pivot away from the Democratic Party and toward the incoming administration by declaring in a press conference that he will not provide any sanctuary for criminal illegal aliens. Adams met with President Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan Thursday and made remarks afterwards to the press that stunned reporters into silence. “We’re not going to be a safe haven for those who commit repeated violent crimes against innocent migrants, immigrants and long-standing New Yorkers,” Adams said after the meeting.

He continued, “From what I heard from the incoming head of ICE is that we have the same desire to go after those who are committing violent acts, repeated violent acts among innocent New Yorkers and among migration asylum seekers.” “That’s what I heard from him. And I was pleased to hear that, because we share the same desire,” Adams urged. “I’ve said this before, and I’m surprised the way everyone is attempting to state this is a ‘new coming of Eric Adams…[New York City] can’t be a safe haven for violent individuals,” the mayor said. Adams also referred to the hundreds of thousands of missing children who have been trafficked over the border.

“We have 500,000 children who had sponsors in this country that we can’t find. We can’t find them. We can’t find them. We don’t know if they’re doing child labor. We don’t know if they’re doing sex crimes. We don’t know if they’re being exploited – 500,000 children. There’s a level of hypocrisy…” Adams said. Adams then slammed the media, stating “I’m going to answer a few questions and then I am leaving because it’s not going to matter what I respond to anyway, you have your preconceived thoughts already.” Last week, Adams vowed to work with Trump on mass deportations, outlining that he doesn’t care if he gets ‘cancelled’ by leftists for it.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1867318869960143185

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How original.

• Jeff Bezos’ Amazon To Donate $1 Million To Trump (RT)

The US online giant Amazon has confirmed it will donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund and stream the ceremony as well, in what has been widely interpreted as a peace offering by CEO Jeff Bezos. The Washington Post, owned by Bezos since 2013, has been one of Trump’s most vocal critics since his first term in the White House. “Bezos is donating through Amazon,” a source told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. The company has since confirmed this in a statement to CNN. In addition to the direct donation to the inaugural fund, Amazon’s Prime Video will stream Trump’s inauguration as an in-kind contribution valued at another $1 million. Bezos is also supposed to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida next week.

Bezos’ net worth has been estimated at almost $250 billion, so the amount of the donations is largely symbolic. The tech mogul began shifting away from overt support to the Democrats earlier this year, praising Trump’s “tremendous grace and courage under literal fire” after the July 13 assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. He then vetoed the Post’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in October, causing no small consternation among staff and subscribers. Earlier this week, the Journal reported that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg would also contribute $1 million to the Trump inaugural fund. Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago last month and had dinner with the president-elect. Both gestures were seen as an attempt to atone for donating over $400 million to Democrats and to various institutions in majority-Democrat areas, and later banning the sitting president from Facebook and Instagram after the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

Donations to an inaugural committee are not subject to any contribution amount limitations, but need to be reported to the Federal Elections Commission as such. Earlier this month, at an event hosted by the New York Times, Bezos said he would try to talk Trump out of the idea that the legacy media is “the enemy of the people.” “What I’ve seen so far is that he is calmer than he was the first time and more confident, more settled,” Bezos said, suggesting that Trump might be amenable to persuasion. Meanwhile, SpaceX owner Elon Musk has emerged as one of Trump’s closest allies, first by buying Twitter in 2022 and ending most censorship on that platform, and later by openly endorsing Trump and donating an estimated $200 million to his re-election bid.

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What are the odds that Alvin Bragg will still have a job in the new year?

• JD Vance Honors New York ‘Subway Vigilante’ (RT)

US Vice President-elect J.D. Vance has invited Daniel Penny to be his personal guest at the upcoming Army-Navy football game in Washington, just days after a Manhattan jury cleared the former Marine of racially motivated murder charges. New York prosecutors had charged Penny, like Vance a former US Marine, with homicide over a May 2023 incident that ended in the death of Jordan Neely, a mentally ill black homeless man. Neely had entered a subway car shouting that “someone is going to die today,” before Penny and two of his friends subdued him. “Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone. I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun. I appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage,” Vance posted on X on Friday.

Earlier reports quoted anonymous sources saying that Vance had invited Penny to the presidential suite at the Washington, DC stadium, where President-elect Donald Trump is also expected to attend. The Army-Navy Game is played by West Point cadets and Annapolis midshipmen and is one of the most enduring rivalries in US college football. Following the handing down of the verdict on Monday Vance declared on X that it was “a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.” Penny himself denied being a vigilante or having any racial animus towards Neely, arguing he was only trying to defend the other subway passengers amid a spate of violent attacks on the network around that time. He did not take the witness stand during the trial.

Charges against Penny became a hot-button issue in the US, with Republicans such as Trump and Vance accusing the Democrats ruling New York of wanting to criminalize the defense of self and others, while Democrats tried to present the incident as driven by racism and bigotry. During the trial, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office repeatedly referred to Penny only as “the white man” and claimed he had “choked” Neely, setting up comparisons to the 2020 death of George Floyd that triggered a wave of race riots across the US. Bragg also prosecuted Trump on questionable grounds for alleged “hush money” payments, securing a conviction that is currently in legal limbo due to the outcome of November’s presidential election and Supreme Court rulings about executive immunity.

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This we need to stop. Woke destroys lives.

• United Kingdom Upholds Ban on Puberty-Blocking Drugs for Minors (Turley)

In the aftermath of the contentious Supreme Court arguments in United States v. Skrmetti over state bans on puberty blockers and gender-altering surgeries, the United Kingdom reaffirmed that it finds the risks far outweigh the benefits of such treatments for minors under the currently available scientific evidence. The move by the liberal Labour Party stands in sharp contrast with the portrayal of the Biden Administration and the treatment of the subject by the liberal justices. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was widely criticized for analogizing puberty-blocking drugs to taking aspirin. It appears that doctors in the UK are not ready to tell minors to just “take two puberty blockers and call me in the morning.”

UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting said last week, “Children’s health care must always be evidence-led. The independent expert Commission on Human Medicines found that the current prescribing and care pathway for gender dysphoria and incongruence presents an unacceptable safety risk for children and young people.” The decision follows the release of the Cass Review, which was raised by the conservative justices as contradicting the factual representations of the Biden Administration, even leading Justice Samuel Alito to suggest that Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and the government might not have fulfilled their duty of candor to the tribunal. He noted that the Cass study found scant evidence that the benefits of transgender treatment are greater than the risks. He then delivered the haymaker: “I wonder if you would like to stand by the statement in your position or if you think it would now be appropriate to modify that and withdraw your statement.”

Streeting cited significant doubts about the benefits of puberty blockers while noting the “significant risks” to children. The government will allow puberty blockers to be administered to children in clinical trials. It is not clear if the Supreme Court will take “judicial notice” of the new decision, but it can. In fairness to Sotomayor, she was trying to argue that all treatments have risks in making her aspirin analogy. Yet, the comment was taken as trivializing the alleged harm and trauma raised by many in this debate. These studies clearly show greater risks than those associated with aspirin. However, what the Biden Administration was arguing (and the liberal justices were seemingly supporting) is that states would be barred by the Court from reaching the same conclusion as the UK and other countries. Indeed, Streeting echoed what the states argued to the Supreme Court that the government must “act with caution and care when it comes to this vulnerable group of young people, and follow the expert advice.”

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“..the IRS mandates that all charitable foundations deploy, on average, at least 5% of their assets a year..”

“..saw his net worth surpass a record $440 billion this week..”

• Musk’s Charity Sent Most Money To His Own Entities – Bloomberg (RT)

Elon Musk’s charitable foundation has reportedly failed to give away the amount of money required by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), while also sending millions of dollars to other entities controlled by the billionaire, Bloomberg reported on Friday. According to the outlet, which has obtained the Musk Foundation’s latest tax filing, the organization grew to $9.5 billion in assets last year while handing out $237 million in gifts, most of which went to Musk’s other nonprofits, such as The Foundation, X Prize Foundation, and Fidelity Charitable. The New York Times has reported that the tax filings suggest that the Musk Foundation fell $421 million short of the amount it was required to give away in 2023, meaning that the billionaire now has until the end of the year to distribute that money or be required to pay a sizable penalty to the IRS.

As noted by Bloomberg, the IRS mandates that all charitable foundations deploy, on average, at least 5% of their assets a year. Musk, however, has apparently missed that bar on numerous occasions. The entrepreneur, who is estimated to be the richest person on the planet, saw his net worth surpass a record $440 billion this week after an insider share sale of his privately held SpaceX, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Musk’s new fortune puts him nearly $200 billion ahead of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. He is also now worth more on paper than most US public companies, including Costco, Home Depot, and Netflix, as per Business Insider. Meanwhile, the entrepreneur has emerged as one of the top Republican donors this year and has become one of the most prominent members of US President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle. Following the Republican’s election victory last month, Musk also pledged to audit the entire US government and cut government spending by up to $2 trillion as the head of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

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“SpaceX is why America is years ahead of the rest of the world in the space race. ..”

• Elon Musk: “Starbase Is Going To Be A City” In Texas (ZH)

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has sent a letter to local officials in southern Texas outlining a new mission: to transform the remote area where the company launches rockets into an incorporated town named “Starbase, Texas.” SpaceX launches rockets on the southern tip of Texas at Boca Chica Beach, near the Mexican border. Incorporating the remote area would “streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world-class place to live—for the hundreds already calling it home, as well as for prospective workers eager to help build humanity’s future in space,” the company wrote in a letter to Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr., the county’s top elected official.

“As you know, through agreements with the County, SpaceX currently performs several civil functions around Starbase due to its remote location, including management of the roads, utilities, and the provision of schooling and medical care for the residents. Incorporation would move the management of some of these functions to a more appropriate public body,” the letter said. AP News quoted Judge Treviño, who said there were incorporation talks in 2021. However, this was the first time a petition was officially filed. “Our legal and elections administration will review the petition, see whether or not it complied with all of the statutory requirements and then we’ll go from there,” the judge said. Earlier this year, the judge issued a local impact study finding that 3,400 full-time SpaceX employees and contractors work at the rocket launch site.

SpaceX’s rapid expansion comes as Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, told investors last month that Starship launches over the next four years could exceed 400. CNBC confirmed on Wednesday that the latest valuation for SpaceX hit $350 billion based on a secondary share sale. As previously noted, SpaceX launched 362 metric tons of upmass to space in the third quarter. In other words, Musk’s company launched 86% of the upmass in the world, beating all rocket programs, including ones funded by nation-states. Starship’s fifth test flight in early October was groundbreaking… SpaceX is why America is years ahead of the rest of the world in the space race.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1867486338645471488

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SNL

 

 

Nixon

 

 

Recycle

 

 

Lion

 

 

Moose

 

 

Kidding

 

 

AI

 

 

Bird leaves
https://twitter.com/i/status/1867221356175294913

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 21 2023

Sep 212023
 
 September 21, 2023  Posted by at 9:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Willem de Kooning Gotham News 1955

 

• The Question About Biden (Patrick Lawrence)
• Jim Jordan: The Fix Is In (Kanekoa)
• Feds Thwarted Probe Into ‘Criminal Violations’ In 2020 Biden Campaign (JTN)
• Poland Announces It Will No Longer Arm Ukraine (ZH)
• McCarthy Refuses To Guarantee $24 Billion For Zelensky (RT)
• The ‘Kitchen Sink’ Is McCarthy’s Only Path To Avoid Shutdown (ZH)
• Rand Paul To Hold Up Any Spending Stopgap That Includes Ukraine Funding (Hill)
• Trump Silent On Peace Plan As Ukrainians Die – Zelensky (RT)
• With Gonzalo Lira In Ukraine Prison, Billions More For Ukrainian ‘Freedom’ (BB)
• Russian Announces Full Ceasefire Agreement For Nagorno-Karabakh (TASS)
• Jacinda Ardern Calls on the United Nations to Crack Down on Free Speech
• Putin Never Insults People: Peskov In Response To Biden (TASS)
• DHS Is Grooming Americans to Report on Each Other (Whitehead)
• The Bull Missed The Red Flag In The Russian Provincial Elections (Helmer)
• MEP Delivers Damning Message to the Global Tyrants (VN)

 

 

 

 

She’s the best
https://twitter.com/i/status/1704320986135290064

 

 

 

 

Nap Larry Johnson

 

 

Nap Ritter

 

 

 

 

Watters

 

 

 

 

Dystopia

 

 

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

– H. L. Mencken

 

 

 

 

“Biden and his minders are not going to fight the impeachment process in committee rooms and courts because they cannot win on the evidentiary merits. They are going to fight this by mounting a propaganda op..”

• The Question About Biden (Patrick Lawrence)

A friend and colleague wrote in an unusually sage commentary a couple of years ago that Ukraine would prove “NATO’s Waterloo.” He called the brewing conflict there “a debacle-in-waiting.” This was two months before the U.S. provoked the Russian intervention in February 2022. Now that is prescience. Ukraine, indeed, has revealed NATO somewhat in the way of the old pun: No action, talk only. As Scott Ritter argued in a recent speech, it now appears the alliance is incapable of waging war in Ukraine or anywhere else in Europe. But let’s set NATO’s surprising weakness aside for now and consider who, as the Ukrainian sinkhole widens and deepens, is tumbling fastest into it.

Here I offer a confession: I take pleasure, not at all perverse, in watching Joesph R. Biden, Jr. and those around him panic as the bill comes due for all those years of conniving with Ukrainian crooks and as the unforgivable folly of the war he started is now everywhere understood, even among those who continue in public to pretend otherwise. It is not yet possible to discern just how our burbling president will go down, but go down he will. Of this we can now be certain. The time of comeuppance is near. My question as of last week is this: Is the Biden regime’s whatever-it-takes, as- long-as-it-takes commitment to the war tied to his escalating vulnerability to charges of corruption dating to his years as Barack Obama’s vice-president, when he carried the Ukraine portfolio? Does Biden have a personal interest in prolonging this war, to put this question another way?

It took the House of Representatives nearly a year, but last Tuesday Kevin McCarthy, the U.S. House speaker, directed the chamber to open an impeachment inquiry into Biden’s evidently extravagant grifting and influence peddling in Ukraine and elsewhere. It is hard to believe the Democrats’ response to this development. The Democratic machine and its clerks in the press pretended for years there was nothing to allegations that Biden and his son Hunter were on the take from a Ukrainian oligarch, as well as various other business people in China, Russia and Central Asia. They have more recently pretended there is no credible evidence of misconduct, even as investigators sent piles of it to the House Oversight Committee.

And now they pretend the imminent inquiry is so hollow and silly it is not worth bothering about. John Fetterman, the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, struck the new pose as soon as McCarthy announced the inquiry: “Oh, my God, really? Oh, my gosh, it’s devastating,” Fetterman mocked. “Oooh, don’t do it. Please don’t do it.” You are now on notice, readers: Biden and his minders are not going to fight the impeachment process in committee rooms and courts because they cannot win on the evidentiary merits. They are going to fight this by mounting a propaganda op that is daring even for the party that concocted and then sustained the Russiagate hoax for five years. Here is Peter Baker, The New York Times’s chief White House correspondent, last Thursday:

“Forget the weighty legal arguments over the meaning of high crimes and misdemeanors or the constitutional history of the removal process. Mr. Biden’s defense team has chosen to take on the Republican threat by convincing Americans that it is nothing more than rank partisanship driven by the radical wing of the opposition party.” The oafish Baker then elaborates the strategy: “The White House and its allies have gone on the offensive, dismissing the allegations against the president as baseless and debunked, attacking the investigators for distorting the evidence, issuing fund-raising appeals to financial supporters and pressuring the news media to frame the conflict on Mr. Biden’s terms.”

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X “thread”.

• Jim Jordan: The Fix Is In (Kanekoa)

@Jim_Jordan: “The fix is in, even with a face-saving indictment last week of Hunter Biden, everyone knows the fix is in. For four and a half years, the Department of Justice has been investigating Mr. Biden. An investigation run by David Weiss that limited the number of witnesses agents could interview. An investigation that prohibited agents from referring to the President as the “Big Guy” in interviews. An investigation that curtailed attempts to interview Mr. Biden by giving his transition team a heads up. An investigation that notified Mr. Biden’s defense counsel about a pending search warrant. An investigation run by Mr. Weiss where they told Congress three different stories in 33 days.

They told this Committee on June 7, David Weiss said I have ultimate authority to determine when, where, and whether to bring charges. 23 days later, on June 30, he told this committee; actually, I can only bring charges in the District of Delaware. And then, to further confuse matters on July 10, he told Senator Graham, I have not sought Special Counsel status… An investigation run by Mr. Weiss that negotiated a plea deal that the Federal District Court declined to accept. A plea deal so ridiculous that the judge asked, “Is there any precedent for agreeing not to prosecute crimes that have nothing to do with the charges being diverted?” The DOJ lawyer responded, “I’m not aware of any, your Honor.”

A plea deal so ridiculous that the judge also asked, “Have you ever seen a diversion agreement where the agreement not to prosecute was so broad that it encompasses crimes in a different case?” The response from the DOJ lawyer? “No, Your Honor.” We have an investigation run by Mr. Weiss that not only had a sweetheart deal rejected, but according to The New York Times, there was an even sweeter earlier deal with Mr. Biden where he would not have to plead guilty to anything. Four and a half years and all that. And now we get a Special Counsel, and who does the Attorney General pick? David Weiss, the guy who let this all happen.” [“The one guy he knows will protect Joe Biden.”]

——-

The American administrative state is eliminating its primary opponent from a presidential race. At the same time, they run cover for the Biden family’s unregistered foreign lobbying, money laundering, and bribery operation that collected millions of dollars from Russian, Chinese, and Ukrainian oligarchs.

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“..you had this individual come in and cover Hunter Biden’s tax liability,” he added. “That’s kind of interesting. And then, was in fact that a contribution to Mr. Biden’s campaign when he ran for president?”

• Feds Thwarted Probe Into ‘Criminal Violations’ In 2020 Biden Campaign (JTN)

The FBI and IRS probed allegations that Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign may have benefitted from “campaign finance criminal violations” by allowing a politically connected lawyer to help pay off Hunter Biden’s large tax debts but agents were blocked by federal prosecutors from further action, according to new information uncovered by congressional investigators. The previously unreported campaign finance inquiry was first alluded to in transcribed interviews by House investigators with two IRS agents and a retired FBI supervisor, and the allegations since have been augmented in recent weeks by new evidence uncovered by the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee.

That evidence includes a case summary memo written by IRS Supervisory Criminal Investigative Agent Gary Shapley to his bosses dated May 3, 2021 in which he alleged that Lesley Wolf, a top prosecutor in the Hunter Biden case inside Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ office, waived agents off the campaign finance case. Shapley provided the information to Congress under the protections of whistleblower laws, and lawmakers voted the information to be public “This investigation has been hampered and slowed by claims of potential election meddling,” Shapley wrote in the memo, according to his now-public transcribed interview with House Ways and Means where he read verbatim a passage from the memo. “Through interviews and review of evidence obtained, it appears there may be campaign finance criminal violations.

“AUSA Wolf stated on the last prosecution team meeting that she did not want any of the agents to look into the allegation,” Shapley’s memo stated, according to his interview. “She cited a need to focus on the 2014 tax year, that we could not yet prove an allegation beyond a reasonable doubt, and that she does not want to include their Public Integrity Unit because they would take authority away from her. We do not agree with her obstruction on this matter.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Just the News on Tuesday evening that the campaign finance inquiry is a newer matter under investigation by his committee but it fits a pattern of other investigative avenues ranging from search warrants to interviews that were inexplicably turned down by prosecutors in the Hunter Biden case.

“We’re just getting into this issue and the concerns,” Jordan [said]. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if they were told to stand down because remember this investigation over a five-year timeframe was slow-walked.” “This is something that I think is a concern, because, you know, you had this individual come in and cover Hunter Biden’s tax liability,” he added. “That’s kind of interesting. And then, was in fact that a contribution to Mr. Biden’s campaign when he ran for president?”

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US next?

• Poland Announces It Will No Longer Arm Ukraine (ZH)

The dam is breaking on unified Western support for Ukraine, and the timing couldn’t be worse for Zelensky, given tomorrow he’s expected to meet with President Biden at the White House. On Wednesday evening there is monumental news out of Poland which could potentially change the entire course of the war. “Poland will no longer arm Ukraine to focus on its own defense,” Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced just hours after Warsaw summoned Ukraine’s ambassador related to a fresh war of words and spat over blocked grain, according to the AFP. Warsaw has throughout more than a year-and-a-half of the Ukraine-Russia war been Kiev’s staunchest and most outspoken supporter. Will this massive and hugely significant about-face mark the beginning of the end? Are peace negotiations and ceding of territory in the Donbas inevitable at this point?

Within the last 48 hours relations between Poland and Ukraine quickly spiraled to their lowest point since the Russian invasion, and it is directly related to Warsaw leading a handful of EU countries to extend a grain export ban on Ukraine, amid continuing anger and outrage from Polish farmers who are suffering due to their country being flooded with cheap Ukrainian wheat. Crucially, Poland will hold parliamentary elections on Oct.15. The prior atmosphere of enthusiastic pro-Kiev rhetoric has drastically changed, now with comparisons likening Ukraine to a “drowning man”. As The Associated Press explains:

“Polish leaders have compared Ukraine to a drowning person hurting his helper and threatened to expand a ban on food products from the war-torn country. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that EU allies that are prohibiting imports of his nation’s grain are helping Russia. Now, Polish officials, who are trying to win parliamentary elections next month with help from farmers’ votes, are expressing dismay over some of Ukraine’s latest moves, including a World Trade Organization complaint over bans on Ukrainian grain from Poland and two other EU countries.” In surprisingly blunt and terse words given to reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Tuesday: “Ukraine is behaving like a drowning person clinging to anything available.”

He then said, “A drowning person is extremely dangerous, capable of pulling you down to the depths & simply drown the rescuer.” Given Ukraine’s battlefield losses and as it’s currently bogged down in a failing counteroffensive, the words no doubt stung. But as The Hill notes further of the domestic political context in Poland: Public sentiment around the issue, however, has started to deteriorate, putting the ruling party in a difficult position ahead of a close October election. The far-right Confederation party is hoping to capitalize on the waning support in the country. Reuters reported that a recent poll showed support for Ukrainian refugees fell from 91 percent when the war started to just 69 percent recently. The same survey showed a quarter of Poles are against supporting refugees, compared to 4 percent in early 2022.

In response to the grain ban, Zelensky during his UN speech had condemned the “alarming” behavior of allies regarding the import ban, but without naming Poland specifically. Further, Kiev has announced plans to sue Warsaw in the World Trade Organization while also holding out the possibility of its own embargo on Polish foodstuffs, including onions, tomatoes, cabbage, and apples. Again, all of this amounts to a full-blown diplomatic crisis for Zelensky which couldn’t come at a worse time, as he’s in D.C.

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“..Any money we give to Ukraine, we’re borrowing from our future.” “It’s not a good time for [Zelensky] to be here, quite frankly..”

• McCarthy Refuses To Guarantee $24 Billion For Zelensky (RT)

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has refused to commit another $24 billion to Ukraine, telling reporters that he “has questions” for Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky first. With American military aid to Kiev dried up, disagreement on authorizing another funding package threatens to grind Washington to a halt. Zelensky is due to meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill during a visit to Washington on Thursday. Ahead of the meeting, McCarthy was asked on Tuesday whether he would pledge $24 billion in military and economic aid to the Ukrainian president, as US President Joe Biden has requested. “Is Zelensky elected to Congress?”McCarthy responded. “Is he our president? I don’t think I have to commit anything and I think I have questions for him.”

“Where’s the accountability on the money we’ve already spent?” the Republican leader continued. “What is the plan for victory? I think that’s what the American public wants to know.” In the US Senate, the top Republican and Democrat leaders – Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer – want the $24 billion attached to a wider funding bill that must be passed before the end of the month to keep the government running. McCarthy wants any money for Ukraine to be discussed as a standalone bill, while a small group of hardline conservatives in the House want the broad funding bill replaced with individual bills for individual government agencies. This group, dubbed the ‘Freedom Caucus’, backed McCarthy’s speakership last year in exchange for the right to remove him from the position.

Most members of the ‘Freedom Caucus’ are politically aligned with former President Donald Trump, and oppose further US aid to Ukraine. “There’s no money in the House right now for Ukraine. It’s not there,” Rep. Byron Donalds told The Recount on Tuesday. “To be blunt, we’re running a $2 trillion deficit. Any money we give to Ukraine, we’re borrowing from our future.” “It’s not a good time for [Zelensky] to be here, quite frankly,” Donalds added. The US has allocated a total of $113 billion in aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its military operation last February, including more than $43 billion worth of arms, ammunition, and other military equipment.

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“..the bill will then head to the Senate, where they’ll undoubtedly strip out key Republican demands, and send a revised bill back to McCarthy that will likely contain billions of dollars for Ukraine..”

• The ‘Kitchen Sink’ Is McCarthy’s Only Path To Avoid Shutdown (ZH)

With a shutdown looming in just over a week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has backed himself into a corner. On Tuesday, House Republicans were forced to cancel a procedural vote for a 30-day stopgap funding measure (Continuing Resolution) to keep the government’s lights on beyond Sept. 30. Hours later, five GOP lawmakers crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats to bring down the rule for the Pentagon’s spending bill. As Punchbowl News puts it: “Tuesday was a bad day for McCarthy and House Republicans.” The problem for Kevin is that he needs votes from members of the Freedom Caucus, who are demanding that the CR be spliced up so that it doesn’t fund ‘the election interference of Jack Smith,’ according to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

Gaetz also wants McCarthy to sign a subpoena to better investigation Hunter Biden’s alleged “high crimes and misdemeanors,” – with the Florida rep going so far as to draft said subpoena for McCarthy to sign. McCarthy can also throw a Hail Mary and pander to Democrats for the votes he needs to pass the CR, however doing so would likely seal his fate over a looming threat by Gaetz and others to remove him from his post. The former Politico journalists at Punchbowl News – who have an uncanny read on inside baseball on the Hill, say that McCarthy’s only solution here is to cave to the Freedom Caucus (which might still screw him!) with a “kitchen sink” approach of acquiescing to all of their demands. McCarthy needs to take all of the conservatives’ demands and lump them together into one 30-day funding bill. Ignore how far-fetched or illogical these proposals are and accept what they represent — a means to an end. -Punchbowl News

Freedom Caucus member Ralph Norman (R-SC) told the outlet that he’d vote for the CR if McCarthy will commit to a $1.47 trillion discretionary spending cap, and a schedule for the 11 remaining FY2024 appropriations bills during the 30 days to which the CR applies. But the pain isn’t over for McCarthy – even if he bends the knee and Freedom Caucus members agree to pass it, the bill will then head to the Senate, where they’ll undoubtedly strip out key Republican demands, and send a revised bill back to McCarthy that will likely contain billions of dollars for Ukraine. McCarthy will then need to sell the CR back to House Republicans, who will either need to accept the reality of a divided government to avert a shutdown, or not. Oh, and the Freedom Caucus might still dick him…

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“..I will not consent to expedited passage of any spending measure that provides any more U.S. aid to Ukraine..”

• Rand Paul To Hold Up Any Spending Stopgap That Includes Ukraine Funding (Hill)

Conservative Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced Wednesday he will hold up any funding bill to keep the government open past Sept. 30 if it includes funding for the war in Ukraine. Today I’m putting congressional leadership & @POTUS on notice that I will oppose any effort to hold the federal government hostage for Ukraine funding. I will not consent to expedited passage of any spending measure that provides any more U.S. aid to Ukraine,” Paul wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. That means if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants to add Ukraine money to a stopgap measure to fund federal departments and agencies, he would have to go through the time-consuming process of filing cloture and scheduling a vote to end debate on the bill, which would take a few days.

The country risks a shutdown if Congress doesn’t pass what’s known as a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open past Sept. 30. The problem Schumer faces is that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) hasn’t been able to muster up enough votes in the House to pass a CR and send it to the Senate. The impasse in the House is holding up action in the Senate, giving Paul leverage to threaten Ukraine funding. President Biden has requested $24 billion in security and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. Senators are scheduled to receive a classified briefing on Ukraine at 5 p.m. Wednesday ahead of a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday in the Old Senate Chamber. Schumer on Tuesday declined to say whether he would add Ukraine funding and disaster assistance to the continuing resolution but observed the package would need support from Democrats and Republicans.

“We’d like to work on a bipartisan basis on the CR with the Republicans. We’ve gotten indications that they want to do that. We’ve done it very successfully on the appropriations process and hopefully we can come together bipartisan here as well,” he said. Schumer criticized House Republicans on Tuesday for reaching a deal on a continuing resolution that didn’t include Ukraine or disaster relief money. The Democratic leader could attempt to pass the continuing resolution through the Senate first by using a legislative vehicle passed earlier this year in the House, but he hasn’t made a decision on that yet. “Our first job is to get the House to pass something. We’ll see if they can but we need a bipartisan bill in each body,” Schumer said.

Read more …

You’re sending them out to die, not Trump.

• Trump Silent On Peace Plan As Ukrainians Die – Zelensky (RT)

If former US President Donald Trump actually believes that his claimed plan to resolve the Ukraine crisis in 24 hours is feasible, he should present it to the world rather than let hostilities continue at the cost of Ukrainian lives, President Vladimir Zelensky has said. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he would be able to swiftly resolve the conflict by striking a “fair deal.” He has said that his approach would involve pressuring both Russia and Ukraine into making concessions. Zelensky was asked about the idea by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer during an interview on Tuesday. “If he has this plan, why be afraid and wait?” he asked in Ukrainian, before switching to English. “If he has some smart idea, he could share it with us.”

“He can publicly share his idea now, not waste time, not to lose people, and say: ‘My formula is to stop the war and stop all this tragedy and stop Russian aggression’,” the Ukrainian president continued. Zelensky made clear that he would reject any Trump plan involving territorial concessions by Ukraine or one that would not end with Russian troops ousted from “our land.” “Otherwise, he is not presenting the global idea of peace. So [if] the idea is how to take the part of our territory and to give it to Putin, that is not the peace formula.” Zelensky suggested that Trump himself may not be the person who formulated his plan. He urged the US as a country to contemplate what it would “give to Putin from your territories” in exchange for Russia not using nuclear weapons.

Moscow considers the conflict in Ukraine to be part of a Western proxy war against Russia. In his public speeches, the Russian president has stated that his government would not hesitate to use all the weapons in its arsenal, in accordance with the nation’s military doctrine. Under the document, the nuclear option is reserved for contingencies where the existence of Russia is at stake. Putin has said he considers the risks posed by the Ukraine conflict are nowhere near that threshold. Zelensky arrived in the US on Monday to participate in the UN General Assembly and meet senior US officials. He seeks to convince them to maintain the flow of military aid to his country and provide more advanced weapons from the Pentagon’s stockpiles.

Read more …

What is Biden doing to free him?

• With Gonzalo Lira In Ukraine Prison, Billions More For Ukrainian ‘Freedom’ (BB)

The Biden administration is asking Congress to approve another $24 billion for Ukraine for now through the end of this year, which would add to the $113 billion that Congress has committed to the country since its war with Russia began in February of last year. President Biden on Tuesday at the United Nations argued that investment in Ukraine was an investment in “the future of every country that seeks a world governed by basic rules.” However, the administration has been much less vocal about Ukraine potentially violating the rights of an American journalist who is currently detained in Ukraine for his reporting; and in a speech at the U.N. almost entirely devoted to Ukraine, the status of Gonzalo Lira was not mentioned once by Biden.

Lira, a dual citizen of the United States and Chile who was living in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv at the time of the Russian invasion, is reportedly facing between five to eight years in prison under Ukraine’s wartime propaganda laws. The American citizen journalist was initially arrested in May of this year on suspicion of producing pro-Russian propaganda on his YouTube channel, where he questioned the narratives around the war presented in the legacy media and from the Zelensky government, including suggesting that Moscow was provoked into invading by the Ukrainian government and the expansion east of the American-led NATO military alliance.

In July of this year, Lira posted messages on Twitter and YouTube claiming that he was going to try to cross the Ukrainian border into Hungary to claim asylum after being released from prison on bail. He has not posted on either platform since. In his final video message, Lira claimed that if he did not post after his attempt to cross the border, it would mean that he had been arrested again by the Ukrainian authorities. Lira said that in such an event, he would “die in prison” and begged the public to “raise a ruckus” about his arrest. The former red pill-style dating coach turned citizen journalist has maintained that he merely discussed publicly available information about the war. “The American State Department knows exactly who I am and the fate that awaits me,” he said before attempting to cross the border.

Read more …

Not going smoothly. Armenia=US here.

• Russian Announces Full Ceasefire Agreement For Nagorno-Karabakh (TASS)

A full ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh has been reached through the mediation of Russian peacekeepers, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. “A ceasefire agreement between the Azerbaijani side and representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh has been reached through the mediation of the command for Russia’s peacekeeping mission,” the statement reads. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, “the agreement will be implemented in coordination with the command for the Russian peacekeeping contingent.” The ministry said earlier that Russian peacekeeping forces in Nagorno-Karabakh continued to perform their mission amid rising tensions, providing all possible assistance to civilians. According to the ministry, a total of 2,261 civilians, including 1,049 children, are currently staying at the peacekeepers’ base camp.

Read more …

New Zealand should take her to court.

• Jacinda Ardern Calls on the United Nations to Crack Down on Free Speech

Jacinda Ardern may no longer be Prime Minister of New Zealand, but she was back at the United Nations continuing her call for international censorship. Ardern is now one of the leading anti-free speech figures in the world and continues to draw support from political and academic establishments. In her latest attack on free speech, Ardean declared free speech as a virtual weapon of war. She is demanding that the world join her in battling free speech as part of its own war against “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Her views, of course, were not only enthusiastically embraced by authoritarian countries, but the government and academic elite. In her speech, she notes that we cannot allow free speech to get in the way of fighting things like climate change.

She notes that they cannot win the war on climate change if people do not believe them about the underlying problem. The solution is to silence those with opposing views. It is that simple. While some of us have denounced her views as an attack on free expression, Harvard rushed to give her not one but two fellowships. While the free speech community denounced her for unrelenting attacks on this human right, Harvard praised her for “strong and empathetic political leadership” and specifically enlisted her to help “improve content standards and platform accountability for extremist content online.” I actually have no objection to the inclusion of Ardern as a Harvard fellow. She is a former world leader who is leading the movement against free speech. It is a view that students should consider in looking at these controversies.

However, Harvard has heralded her views with no acknowledgment of her extreme antagonism toward free speech principles. There is also little countervailing balance at the school with fellows supporting free speech as a human right. Rather, Harvard (which ranks dead last on the recent free speech survey) has become a virtual clearinghouse for anti-free speech academics and advocates. Free speech is now commonly treated on campuses as harmful. Rather than the right that defines us, it is treated as an existential threat. What is so chilling is to hear Ardean express her fealty to free speech as she calls on the nations of the world to severely curtail it to prevent people from undermining their policies and priorities. She remains the “empathetic” face of raw censorship and intolerance. She is now the virtual ambassador-at-large for global speech regulation and criminalization.

Read more …

True.

• Putin Never Insults People: Peskov In Response To Biden (TASS)

Russian President Vladimir Putin never allows himself to stoop to insults, Kremlin Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the chances of a stern response to US President Joe Biden who had described Putin as a “dictator.” “You know that our president never stoops to this – to the level of personal insults against his colleagues. He certainly has his own opinion about this style of rhetoric. But the president, I repeat again, has never stooped to this and will not do so,” Peskov said. According to the spokesman, what is most important is that Putin is supported by the overwhelming majority of Russians, as has been confirmed more than once during presidential elections.

“In his entire career as a politician, President Biden has never once garnered the same level of support as President Putin. This is what he should probably strive for,” Peskov said. He said Biden faces “a very, very difficult election.” “We understand that the US is now actively clearing the electoral field of undesirable competition. But we have our own concerns, which we will be dealing with,” the spokesman said.

Read more …

“See Something, Say Something”

• DHS Is Grooming Americans to Report on Each Other (Whitehead)

Are you among the 41% of Americans who regularly attend church or some other religious service? Do you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law? Do you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car? Are you among the 44% of Americans who live in a household with a gun? If so, are you concerned that the government may be plotting to confiscate your firearms? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the government and flagged for heightened surveillance and preemptive intervention. Let that sink in a moment.

If you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you have just been promoted to the top of the government’s terrorism watch list. I assure you I’m not making this stuff up. So what is the government doing about these so-called American “extremists”? The government is grooming the American people to spy on each other as part of its Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, or CP3 program.

According to journalist Leo Hohmann, the government is handing out $20 million in grants to police, mental health networks, universities, churches and school districts to enlist their help in identifying Americans who might be political dissidents or potential “extremists.” As Hohmann explains, “Whether it’s COVID and vaccines, the war in Ukraine, immigration, the Second Amendment, LGBTQ ideology and child-gender confusion, the integrity of our elections, or the issue of protecting life in the womb, you are no longer allowed to hold dissenting opinions and voice them publicly in America. If you do, your own government will take note and consider you a potential ‘violent extremist’ and terrorist.” Cue the dawning of the Snitch State. This new era of snitch surveillance is the lovechild of the government’s post-9/11 “See Something, Say Something” programs combined with the self-righteousness of a politically correct, hyper-vigilant, technologically-wired age.

For more than two decades, the Department of Homeland Security has plastered its “See Something, Say Something” campaign on the walls of metro stations, on billboards, on coffee cup sleeves, at the Super Bowl, even on television monitors in the Statue of Liberty. Colleges, universities and even football teams and sporting arenas have lined up for grants to participate in the program. The government has even designated September 25 as National “If You See Something, Say Something” Awareness Day. If you see something suspicious, says the DHS, say something about it to the police, call it in to a government hotline, or report it using a convenient app on your smart phone. This DHS slogan is nothing more than the government’s way of indoctrinating “we the people” into the mindset that we’re an extension of the government and, as such, have a patriotic duty to be suspicious of, spy on, and turn in our fellow citizens. This is what is commonly referred to as community policing.

Read more …

“..of all the twenty leading countries in the world, only we have a flat tax scale..”

• The Bull Missed The Red Flag In The Russian Provincial Elections (Helmer)

Like men, bulls grow less intelligent, more stubborn and miscalculating with age. This is also a problem for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) whose leader, Gennady Zyuganov, has recently turned 79 years of age. He is compos mentis compared to the similarly aged leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties in the White House and US Congress. But that’s not saying much – not enough to have persuaded Russian voters to support the KPRF candidates in the regional, gubernatorial, and mayoral elections which were held across the country between September 8 and 10. [..] Zyuganov insists the KPRF still leads the opposition in the country. “We need to realise that this war has been declared against the entire Russian world, our civilisation,” Zyuganov says in an interview published on the party website on Monday.

“So we have only one way out — to win a complete and unconditional victory. But to do this, it is necessary to correctly assess the current situation, understand our strengths and weaknesses — and resolutely go on the offensive. It is necessary to unite society as much as possible, to mobilise resources, to master all the most advanced and freshest. And to be able to do it in conditions of unprecedented sanctions.” “Putin has changed his strategy four times over the past twenty years. He came to power after the ‘dashing 1990s’, during which more than 80,000 enterprises were destroyed and sold off, citizens’ savings were blown to the wind, and the Soviet government was shot. In the 1990s, the country turned itself into Uncle Sam’s wagging tail and decided to turn into an oil and gas pipe, a quarry, and a sawmill. But Putin realised it was necessary to change the strategy… But the remnants of the Yeltsin era [remain] in power. They still occupy many offices in the Kremlin and the government…”

“Putin made a very interesting and informative speech at the Fareastern Forum. But I would like to pay special attention to the part of his speech that concerned tax legislation. The oligarchy breathed a sigh of relief — the president says we will not change the situation with taxes. But of all the twenty leading countries in the world, only we have a flat tax scale, in which the same percentage of income is collected from both the poor and the leading rich! This is absolutely unfair and directly contradicts the interests of the state. Thanks to this policy, the oligarchs do not pay normal taxes…They continue to plunder the country at an unprecedented pace. In 2022 alone, $261 billion was transferred from Russia abroad. The total capital of our 25 richest oligarchs has already exceeded $300 billion. This is more than the entire Russian budget! And all this happens in the conditions of the special military operation, when help, support, and compassion are needed! When maximum consolidation and cohesion is needed!”

Read more …

German MEP Christine Anderson.

• MEP Delivers Damning Message to the Global Tyrants (VN)

“We just need to find a way to wake the people up. Because the point is simply this: it comes down to a choice. It’s either freedom, democracy, and the rule of law — or enslavement. “There is no such thing in between. There is no such thing as a little freedom, a little democracy, a little rule of law, just as there is no such thing as a little enslavement. So that’s the choice. It comes down to – it’s either the globalitarian misanthropists or the people. It comes down to – it’s either us or them. And that’s, I think, what this really is all about. “Now, when my colleagues and I were elected to this parliament, there was no question about it. We were on the side of the people because the people actually pay us to act in their best interests. That’s our job.

And once again, I will say to every single elected representative around the world, to every single member in every elected government around the world, if you do not unequivocally stand with the people and serve in their best interests, act in their best interests, you have no place in any parliament or in any government. You belong behind bars. You may even rot in hell for all I care at this point because that’s exactly what you deserve if you sell out the people.” Now, I would like to make a promise to the people, and I’m pretty sure I can speak or speak on behalf of my colleagues. We will continue to stand with you, the people. We will continue to fight for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. We will not shut up, and we will not stop going after those despicable globalitarian misanthropists.

“But we would also like to have you make a promise to us. You may have heard it’s all coming back. The first country is already starting [to talk about] mask mandates in Israel. They’re already imposing it. I’ve heard of a few universities in the United States. They’re already bringing it all back. And I would really like for you, the people, to not go along. Simply say no! They want you to wear a mask; say no. They want you to put in another mRNA shot; say no. They want to impose a curfew on you; say no. That’s really all you have to do. “And it might not be or might sound a little hard, but it’s actually not that hard. Because once you have made it clear to them that you will no longer go along, once you’ve let them know, they cannot scare you anymore. Because as long as you are afraid of what they might do if you don’t comply, they have power over you.

Take the power away from them! Simply say no. Once you do that, they don’t have power over you anymore. You will feel so free. Simply say no. “And considering what we’ve heard today, and considering what we’ve seen in the last three years. Considering what we know they want to implement, heck, you might even be well within your right to tell them to screw themselves and go to hell! That’s where they belong. What will you get out of that? I can tell you. Once you’ve done that, once you’ve told them to just go to hell, they no longer have power over you. You will have an incredible feeling — kind of like a sensation of freedom will swap through your body. I promise you will feel so relieved. “And this is the state of mind that I would ask all of you to get to. Simply don’t let them grind you down anymore. You are worth it. You are deserving of just standing up for yourselves. And tell them all to go to hell. Thank you very much.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Cluster B

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elephant electric fence
https://twitter.com/i/status/1704405411057524745

 

 

Baby dog
https://twitter.com/i/status/1704369650379747821

 

 

Snacks

 

 

Sinead

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 14 2022

Dec 142022
 
 December 14, 2022  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Portrait of Dora Maar 1943

 

• Twitter Is Actually an Intelligence Gathering and Propaganda Tool (CTH)
• Twitter Disbands Trust and Safety Council Amid Child Abuse Criticism (ET)
• Jack Dorsey Responds To Twitter Files (RT)
• Zelensky Aide Accused Musk Of Hiding ‘War’ From Twitter Trends (RT)
• White House Defends Fauci From Musk (RT)
• Zelensky: Russia Must Withdraw All Forces By Christmas (ZH)
• NATO Chief Says Full-Blown War With Russia Is a ‘Real Possibility’ (Antiwar)
• US Patriot Missiles to Ukraine: Peace Continues to be Banned in DC (Celente)
• Peace Advocates Seen As ‘Traitors’ In EU – Former Austrian Vice-chancellor (RT)
• Biden Operatives Plan “Swat Force” on Hunter Biden Scandal (Turley)
• After the Ukraine Is Over, Many a European Heart is Aching (Batiushka)
• NATO Is Trying To Find A Pretext To Attack Serbia -Again- (Saker)
• EU Fails To Agree On Gas Price Cap (RT)
• DOJ Faces Questions After Preventing SBF from Testifying in Congress (Turley)
• The Seth Rich Case Gets Richer (Billingsley)

 

 

 

 

Laura Roth

 

 

 

 

DeSantis vaccine panel

 

 

 

 

Lapado

 

 

 

 

 

 

More from sundance.

“DHS doesn’t operate on the backbone of Twitter, Twitter operates on the backbone of DHS.”

• Twitter Is Actually an Intelligence Gathering and Propaganda Tool (CTH)

Tucker Carlson hits the bullseye in a late show segment discussing the framework of the Twitter social media company. Stunningly, Carlson is the first person to ask the question that we have outlined for years, it is the essence of how Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop evolved. “It’s all pretty weird. Could it be that while the rest of us imagined that Twitter was a social media site … could it be that Twitter was actually, maybe primarily, a propaganda tool and intelligence gathering apparatus for a variety of intel agencies?” ~ Tucker Carlson. Yes. Exactly this. Yes. It’s not that DHS had a portal into Twitter, it’s that DHS took over the operation of Twitter and controlled every element of it. That’s also why profits and losses were never part of the viability equation. DHS controls Twitter operations, that’s the essential baseline for Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop. Well done Tucker Carlson.

Once you change your reference point and review the data from a different perspective, things make sense. DHS doesn’t operate on the backbone of Twitter, Twitter operates on the backbone of DHS. The information and content on Twitter exist, or not, by the permission and authority of the national security state, DHS. Narratives can be enhanced or throttled. Public perceptions can be uplifted or deemphasized. Candidates can be boosted or dismissed. Control over the public conversation is not simply in the hands of Twitter executives, the platform content is shaped by the guiding hand of the controlling interest – the government. So why did they permit it to be sold? Again, control.

Every non-Twitter, non-DHS controlled, information and discussion site is a watering down of the influence of Twitter. The inability to influence a platform like Truth Social would be particularly troublesome. So, launder the handling of the DHS platform to Elon Musk and create the illusion of a refresh. Twitter 2.0 now rebrands with a renewed ability to influence. Not accidentally, a pro DeSantis shaping is part of the objective. In the eyes of the control state Rumble and Truth Social represent the threat that is Donald Trump, while Twitter and YouTube representing the controlled alternative, Ron DeSantis. There are trillions at stake.

Read more …

“As Twitter moves into a new phase, we are reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy development work…”

• Twitter Disbands Trust and Safety Council Amid Child Abuse Criticism (ET)

Twitter has disbanded its Trust and Safety Council, according to an email, after new owner Elon Musk criticized members over a lack of action to rid the platform of child sexual abuse material. In an email to the council’s members, Twitter said the Trust and Safety Council was no longer deemed the best way for the social media platform to “bring external insights into our product and policy development work.” “As Twitter moves into a new phase, we are reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy development work. As part of this process, we have decided that the Trust and Safety Council is not the best structure to do this,” the email stated.

“Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” the email continued. “We will also continue to explore opportunities to provide focused and timely input into our work, whether through bilateral or small group meetings.” The council was informed of the change before it was scheduled to meet with Twitter representatives on Monday night, according to The Associated Press. The webpage for the Trust and Safety Council is now blank. The group was previously made up of around 100 stakeholders, including independent civil, human rights, and other organizations.

The Trust and Safety Council has been criticized by Musk for not taking action to remove child sexual abuse material from Twitter. The council was established in 2016 to address problems such as hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm, and other issues on the platform. After three members of the council resigned in protest over allegations of increased hate speech on the platform on Dec. 8, Musk declared on Dec. 10 that it was “a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!” Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey replied to Musk, saying: “This is false.” “No, it is not,” Musk replied, adding: “When Ella Irwin, who now runs Trust & Safety, joined Twitter earlier this year, almost no one was working on child safety.”

Read more …

“..the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society.”

• Jack Dorsey Responds To Twitter Files (RT)

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has issued a response to the recently leaked ‘Twitter Files,’ admitting to a host of major mistakes during his time as chief executive while warning of “centralized control” of the internet by governments and corporations. The tech entrepreneur addressed the leaked internal documents in a Tuesday blog post, acknowledging that Twitter failed to uphold its guiding principles near the end of his tenure, and that he “completely gave up” on his own vision for the site after “activist” investors bought into the company sometime in 2020. Though he did not elaborate on the new investors or how they might have swayed the platform, Dorsey said Twitter’s focus on controlling public dialogue was ultimately one of its greatest errors.

He cited the decision to permanently suspend President Donald Trump in the wake of the riot at the US Capitol in January 2021, saying it was “the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society.” “The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves,” he said. “This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets). I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account.”

Dorsey was reportedly on vacation at the time of the Trump ban and had delegated decision-making to executives Yoel Roth and Vijaya Gadde – as revealed in the Twitter Files – but nonetheless said he bears sole blame for the errors in judgment. “The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and [don’t] solve anything. If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof,” he continued, also insisting “there was no ill intent or hidden agendas” behind Twitter’s more contentious decisions and that the company “acted according to the best information we had at the time.” Tuesday’s blog post also included a lengthy section warning of “centralized” power over the internet, stating that social media platforms should remain “resilient to corporate and government control” while suggesting Twitter had failed to do so under his watch.

The former CEO, who stepped down from the role in November 2021, went on to say that he welcomes the “fresh reset” brought by Twitter’s new owner, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, expressing hopes that the site will become “uncomfortably transparent.” However, he argued that the Twitter Files should have been released “Wikileaks-style,” or in full, rather than being leaked to select journalists by the site’s new management. Spearheaded by reporters Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, the documents have been published on a rolling basis with Musk’s blessing, shedding light on a number of controversial decisions made by the company. Five installments have gone public so far, including material surrounding Trump’s suspension, Twitter’s close cooperation with US intelligence agencies, the practice of ‘shadowbanning,’ as well as a site-wide ban on a New York Post report about the foreign business dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.

Read more …

“..the biggest bot attack I’ve ever seen.”

• Zelensky Aide Accused Musk Of Hiding ‘War’ From Twitter Trends (RT)

Mikhail Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, has accused Twitter of hiding trends related to the ongoing conflict in the country. The official took to the social media platform on Tuesday, blasting the platform’s CEO, billionaire Elon Musk, directly. ‘War in Ukraine’ disappearance from Twitter trends. Radical curtailment of tweets mentioning ru-aggression coverage. Users aren’t allowed to register or log into accounts with Ukrainian phone number,” Podolyak wrote. According to Twitter, its trends are “determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored for you based on who you follow, your interests, and your location.” The algorithm “identifies topics that are popular now, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis.”

The presidential aide was apparently referring to Ukrainian media reports that users with Ukrainian phone numbers were no longer able to log in or register on the platform. While the social media giant has not produced any statements on the issue yet, Musk cryptically warned Twitter “bots” were “in for a surprise tomorrow” on Sunday. Podolyak was also critical of the recent release of ‘Twitter files’, which disclosed censorship practices on the platform amid the 2020 US presidential campaign. The official apparently hinted that Twitter’s new leadership was now censoring coverage of the Ukraine crisis. “Elon Musk, I wonder if we will ever see ‘Twitter Files’ about Fall/Winter 2022?” Podolyak wrote. In recent weeks, Musk has repeatedly engaged in a bitter back-and-forth with the pro-Ukrainian crowd on the social media platform, including the country’s top officials.

The spat began with a peace plan, floated by the billionaire, who suggested Ukraine should commit to neutrality and relinquish its claim to Crimea, while Russia “redo” referendums in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as in Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions “under UN supervision.” The remarks angered Kiev officials, who raided Musk’s feed in order to vent. The poll on the peace plan itself was subjected to what the billionaire called the “biggest bot attack I’ve ever seen.” The spat has been aggravated by Musk, who threatened to stop payrolling Starlink’s services, which are actively used by the Ukrainian military. In early November, Twitter also began labeling tweets from Ukrainian state-run media – in the same way it does with a number of Russian government-owned outlets – causing a new meltdown among Kiev’s backers.

Read more …

“..Fauci told Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky in May 2021 that NIAID and the National Institutes of Health “categorically” never funded such research..”

• White House Defends Fauci From Musk (RT)

The US government has come to the defense of President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 czar, saying that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a paragon of public service and that Elon Musk’s suggestions that the octogenarian bureaucrat should be prosecuted are dangerous “personal attacks” divorced from reality. The Tesla and SpaceX magnate took over Twitter in October and has been sharing details of the platform’s operations under the previous management. Teasing revelations about the pandemic-related censorship, Musk tweeted on Saturday that his pronouns are “Prosecute/Fauci.” The post went beyond viral, garnering more than 1.2 million likes so far – and attracting the attention of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

“These attacks, these personal attacks that we have been seeing, are dangerous – on Dr. Fauci and other public health professionals as well. They are disgusting, and they are divorced from reality,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday. Fauci has “given his almost entire career to civil service, public service, as a public servant. His work on infectious disease, from HIV/AIDS to Covid, has saved countless lives,” said Jean-Pierre, and America is fortunate he has devoted “his exceptional talent” to public health. “And that’s what should be discussed right now,” she concluded. Now 81, Fauci has been running the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. He will retire from his government job at the end of the year, just before Republicans – who promised to hold hearings about his handling of the pandemic – take over the House of Representatives.

Fauci became an idol of Democrats in 2020, advocating for longer and tougher lockdowns when President Donald Trump wanted to see them lifted. When Biden became president, he named Fauci his chief medical adviser and followed his strategy of “shutting down the virus” through mask and vaccine mandates. Several prominent Republicans have clashed with Fauci in congressional hearings, accusing him of funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, where the pandemic supposedly originated. Fauci told Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky in May 2021 that NIAID and the National Institutes of Health “categorically” never funded such research. Documents published in September showed NIH and NIAID giving money to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, which funded experiments with bat coronaviruses in Wuhan. NIH has continued to fund EcoHealth, however.

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N’importe quoi..

• Zelensky: Russia Must Withdraw All Forces By Christmas (ZH)

Ukraine now says that it has lost half of its energy system amid recent stepped-up Russian aerial attacks, which have continued to include suicide drones, some of which are believed supplied by Iran. President Volodymyr Zelensky communicated this in a Monday phone call with President Joe Biden, briefing the US leader on “the consequences of the Russian missile terror, as a result of which about 50% of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure was destroyed.” In the mid-afternoon on Tuesday (local time), air raid alerts have reportedly been issued all across Ukraine, with sirens blaring in the capital after Zelensky warned that the next major wave of Russian airstrikes are imminent.

Starting Friday Kyiv authorities began revising their estimate upward from the 40% they had been estimating in statements as of weeks ago. Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal recently described, “Unfortunately, Russia continues missile strikes on Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure, fighting against the civilian population and depriving them of light, water, heat and communications during the winter… Nearly half of our energy system is disabled.” The past month has witnessed some of the largest missile barrages targeting energy infrastructure to date, which has left whole cities, including Odesa and a number of cities in the south without power amid frigid temperatures.

Also on Monday Zelensky gave a virtual address before G7 leaders, wherein he urged more arms including “modern tanks” and “rocket artillery and more long-range missiles” while acknowledging his military is running low in the face of the more superior-armed Russian forces. He asked G7 nations for “about 2 billion cubic meters” of additional gas to help the population get through winter. Among the more interesting things he said was that Moscow must withdraw all forces by Christmas. “The occupier must leave. It will certainly happen. I see no reason why Russia should not do it now – at Christmas.” Vowing the counteroffensive will not stop even as the ground freezes, he appealed for Russia to avoid “further confrontation with the world.”

“Very soon we’ll have holidays celebrated by billions of people. Christmas – according to the Gregorian calendar or the New Year and Christmas – according to the Julian calendar. This is the time for normal people to think about peace, not aggression. I suggest Russia to at least try to prove that it is capable of abandoning the aggression. It would be right to start the withdrawal of Russian troops from the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine this Christmas. If Russia withdraws its troops from Ukraine, it will ensure a lasting cessation of hostilities,” the President said, speaking at the G7 Summit.

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“..the continent’s “peace and freedom” would be threatened if Putin wins in Ukraine.”

• NATO Chief Says Full-Blown War With Russia Is a ‘Real Possibility’ (Antiwar)

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Friday that he fears a full-blown war between Russia and NATO is a “real possibility” in a rare acknowledgment of the dangers of backing Ukraine. “I fear that the war in Ukraine will get out of control, and spread into a major war between NATO and Russia,” he said, according to The Telegraph. “If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong.” Russian officials have made clear that they believe they are fighting against NATO in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said recently that both the US and NATO are “directly participating” in the war in Ukraine, meaning Russia has the pretext for strikes on NATO bases in Europe if they choose to take that step. Despite the risk, Stoltenberg stressed that NATO countries should continue arming Ukraine and that the best way to deter Russia is to strengthen the alliance’s positions in Eastern Europe.


Stoltenberg said Russian President Vladimir Putin “knows it’s one for all, and all for one,” referring to NATO’s mutual defense commitments as outlined by Article 5. The risk of escalation rose last week after Ukrainian drones struck air bases hundreds of miles inside Russian territory, killing three Russian soldiers and damaging two Russian bombers. Citing unnamed US military sources, The Times reported Friday that the Pentagon has given Ukraine its tacit endorsement to launch such attacks. Stoltenberg said that he understands why some people in Europe are getting tired of supporting Ukraine as they face rising energy and food prices. But the NATO chief claimed that the continent’s “peace and freedom” would be threatened if Putin wins in Ukraine.

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“..It now seems apparent why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was so giddy after a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday.”

• US Patriot Missiles to Ukraine: Peace Continues to be Banned in DC (Celente)

The U.S. is about to approve a Patriot missile battery to counter Russia’s recent missile bombardments despite Moscow’s previous threat that these systems would be “legitimate targets” for its forces. CNN first reported on the Biden administration’s plan that could be announced later this week. The Pentagon and State Department did not immediately respond to emails from The Trends Journal. Washington has already provided Ukraine with short-range NASAMS anti-air systems. Ukraine has been asking the U.S. for these systems for months, but Washington knows that it would be a major escalation and risk a confrontation with Russia. Germany understands the significance of providing these systems.

Berlin refused Poland’s push to put Patriot missiles in Ukraine instead of Warsaw after the Ukrainian missile killed two in the country a few weeks ago. Germany offered Poland the Patriot missile system, and Warsaw insisted that these missiles be sent to Ukraine instead. Germany ended up refusing the idea. Germany presented Poland with these systems on Monday. Michal Baranowski, the regional managing director of the German Marshall Fund in Warsaw, told The New York Times that the brief tussle between Berlin and Warsaw was “like an X-ray of miserable Polish-German relations.” “It’s worse than I thought, and I’ve watched it a long time,” Baranowski said. CNN noted that these missile systems, one of the most advanced from the U.S., are effective in nailing distant targets but it requires about a dozen troops to operate and months of training. Ukraine does not have anyone trained to used the system.

The system is widely considered one of the most capable long-range weapons to defend airspace against incoming ballistic and cruise missiles as well as some aircraft. Because of its long-range and high-altitude capability, it can potentially shoot down Russian missiles and aircraft far from their intended targets inside Ukraine. It now seems apparent why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was so giddy after a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday. He thanked Biden for the “unprecedented” support from the U.S. “I had a phone call with U.S. President Joseph Biden and thanked for the unprecedented defense and financial assistance that the U.S. provides to Ukraine,” Zelensky said. NATO has been trepidatious to provide these systems because of the risk that Kyiv uses them to fire deeper inside Russia. Ukraine has been blamed for several attacks on Russian territory.

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“..a “global war” between Russia and NATO, into which European leaders have been “drawn.”

• Peace Advocates Seen As ‘Traitors’ In EU – Former Austrian Vice-chancellor (RT)

Former Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache has told RT that the EU’s sanctions policy has brought Ukraine no closer to peace, and those who complain are “branded and defamed” as traitors. Strache is a vocal critic of the EU’s sanctions on Russia, which he has repeatedly blamed for destroying the bloc’s economy, triggering rising inflation and unemployment, and potentially bringing a wave of “mass insolvencies and bankruptcies” in the new year. Speaking to RT on Tuesday after addressing a pro-neutrality rally in Vienna last weekend, Strache described the conflict in Ukraine as part of a “global war” between Russia and NATO, into which European leaders have been “drawn.”

“Unfortunately, I do not see any European political leaders who want to approach the negotiating table and call for a negotiated ceasefire agreement and a peaceful solution,” he lamented. “We Austrians in particular should adhere to our neutrality and our neutrality status could also play a decisive mediating role here. So far, this has not been practiced.” “Of course, the media in the European Union are silent about all this,” he continued. “And if you express criticism here today, you are often branded and defamed as a Putin and Russia sympathizer and also as a traitor to Europe.” While Strache condemned the lack of a “strong European peace movement,” he predicted that worsening economic conditions will eventually force citizens to demand an end to the Ukraine conflict.

“People are confronted with the catchphrase that they have to freeze for peace, and then you come to the conclusion: well, freezing doesn’t help, because unfortunately there is no peace…and then you become unemployed and unemployment has not brought peace because there are no negotiation initiatives – people naturally find [this] very, very repulsive and very questionable,” he stated. European leaders have presented the rising price of energy as a necessary cost of supporting Ukraine, with European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager famously telling people earlier this year to say “take that, Putin” as they turn off their hot water. Ultimately, Strache argued that the EU is bearing all the costs of the conflict while the US is “profiteering,” an assessment shared by European Council President Charles Michel and other senior Brussels officials. “More and more people are becoming aware of this,” Strache continued, adding that “Europe urgently needs to implement concrete peace initiatives.”

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“Generally, political operatives lay out scorched-earth campaigns in secret. But someone wanted this campaign to be public before the House can call any witnesses.”

• Biden Operatives Plan “Swat Force” on Hunter Biden Scandal (Turley)

Just when you thought our politics could not get more poisonous, a recent meeting in California suggests the past is mere prelude. The Washington Post, which revealed the powwow, described it as Biden family “allies” planning an offensive to blunt any investigation into the Bidens’ alleged multimillion-dollar influence-peddling schemes. Republicans will see it more like the gathering of the Legion of (Democratic) Doom. Some of the most controversial political operatives are involved in the all-hands-on-deck effort to protect the Bidens. The California meeting’s host was none other than Hunter Biden’s friend, agent and lawyer Kevin Morris. After Hunter was placed under investigation for, among other possible charges, tax evasion, Morris reportedly paid off as much as $2.8 million in back taxes for Hunter.

Morris, per The Washington Post, called for a “more aggressive” response to those seeking to investigate the alleged influence peddling. That plan includes hitting critics, such as Fox News, with possible defamation lawsuits. (For full disclosure, I appear as a legal analyst on Fox News.) The paper also reported Morris “outlined extensive research on two potential witnesses against Hunter Biden — a spurned business partner named Tony Bobulinski and a computer repairman named John Paul Mac Isaac.” “Spurned” is hardly the sole or most relevant description of Bobulinski: The businessman was recruited by the Biden family to manage foreign deals and later directly contradicted President Joe Biden’s claims he knew nothing of those dealings. His testimony could present a serious threat in the coming House investigation in establishing not only the president’s knowledge but his possible receipt of proceeds from the deals.

Morris’ plan could easily be taken as a declaration of all-out war on potential witnesses against Hunter Biden. What’s most interesting about the piece is why The Washington Post was given such access and such a detailed account. Generally, political operatives lay out scorched-earth campaigns in secret. But someone wanted this campaign to be public before the House can call any witnesses. For key witnesses like Bobulinski, the message is about as subtle as a two-by-four to the head. The Washington Post is viewed as one of the most pro-Biden newspapers in the country and only recently admitted the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic after pushing the false Russian-disinformation claim. Now the paper is detailing a plan that could create an open season on those who might try to substantiate the Biden family’s influence peddling.

Notably, the article stresses this effort is “operating separately from the White House. [David] Brock said his organization also remains independent of Hunter Biden and his team and is following its own strategy.” The separation is important to deflect any allegations of witness intimidation. Media and political figures leveled such claims against the Trump White House when impeachment witnesses were attacked in the press. Congressional Democrats denounced criticism of the witnesses as an effort to silence or deter witnesses from coming forward. (For the record, I also criticized the targeting of witnesses against Trump even if it did not constitute chargeable witness intimidation).

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“US-exploited Kiev regime territory, 40% of the whole, will be taken back without compensation.”

• After the Ukraine Is Over, Many a European Heart is Aching (Batiushka)

Northern Europe, as far south as northern Italy, is now in the grip of a wave of icy cold (no doubt, the result of global warming). As a result, observers are expecting the Russian winter offensive in the Ukraine to start all the sooner, though nobody knows when. This month or next? Maybe a dramatic entry from Belarus, cutting off NATO supplies? Nobody knows. For the moment, Allied forces are content to grind down the undersupplied and freezing Kiev regime conscripts and mercenaries in situ, hoping that perhaps they will simply surrender en masse, despite the regime’s guns poking in their backs. Conditions are such that this could happen with very few Russian losses. There is no hurry. Over 500,000 Allied soldiers and 500 winter camouflage tanks are waiting for their moment to move in and denazify the Ukraine. They will wait for the right moment.s

Russia could no longer allow a hostile, US-controlled, NATO-armed and soon-to-be-nuclear Ukraine to exist. Therefore, it is being liberated. It should have happened long before, but Russia was much too weak to do so before. When the Zelensky regime falls, billions of dollars of Western arms and supplies will fall into Russian hands. The Kiev regime’s Western-incurred indebtedness to the West for arms and supplies over the last nearly nine years will be cancelled. US-exploited Kiev regime territory, 40% of the whole, will be taken back without compensation. This will be a small measure of compensation for the destruction that the US and its European vassals, including the Minsk I and Minsk II liars of Germany and France, have caused in the Ukraine, especially in the much-tried Donbass.

Apart from completing the liberation of the four provinces that it has taken back so far, Russia may also take back four more Russian-speaking provinces, those of Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Nikolaev and Odessa, so joining up with Russian Transdnestria. A coup in Kiev could take place, as the remnants of the Kiev Army collapse and the new Ukraine could then even become a Russian ally, like Belarus, part of the Union State. Whether the five far western provinces of the present Ukraine remain with the new Ukraine, or three of them return to Poland, and one each to Hungary and Romania, remains to be seen. It will all depend on what Russia allows. After this, the whole fragile Western European domino set, hastily stood up by the US-run NATO and its political wing the EU, could begin to tumble.

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“Pavelic, like Bandera, Franco or Petain, was a pure product of the Papacy, unlike Hitler and Mussolini who were, respectively, a pagan and an atheist..”

• NATO Is Trying To Find A Pretext To Attack Serbia -Again- (Saker)

Once the NATO defeat in the Ukraine becomes undeniable, the organization will quickly become irrelevant and unable to agree on yet another military operation. As for the USA, having lost the “fig leaf” provided by NATO, they are unlikely to have what it takes to attack Serbia, not after having being comprehensively defeated in the Ukraine (the collapse of NATO will also trigger a major crisis inside the USA). The problem for Serbia is that it will take time (many months, probably a few years) to fully defang NATO while not triggering a fullscale continental war in Europe. And, let’s be honest here, if the Russians can now take their sweet time “demilitarizing” Banderastan, the Serbian minority in Kosovo cannot.

So what can the Serbs do in this situation? Do nothing would only empower the KLA terrorist and their western bosses and leave the long-suffering Serbian minority in Kosovo defenseless. Move in forces, even if fully allowed by the UNSC Resolution, would risk triggering a major economic and military US/NATO/EU attack on Serbia. Evacuate Serbian civilians from Kosovo? In theory that would be an option, but we have to understand that for the Serbian people Kosovo is truly sacred ground and that many would refuse to leave. Also, emptying Kosovo from its Serbian minority would only embolden the KLA and their patrons. Finally, when the Russians evacuated their civilians from Kherson it was at least credible that this was a temporary move and that the Russian military would be back, sooner rather than later. But in the case of Kosovo, Serbia is the weaker party and will remain so until:

1/ Serbia regains her sovereignty (right now Serbia is basically administered by the West, hence the threats from EU politicians like Baerbock) 2/Reunites with historically Serbian lands in Montenegro, Bosnia and Kosovo 3/ The US/NATO/EU are demilitarized and denazified, at least in Europe. This will all happen, the problem is *when*. I sure don’t know. What I do know is that the Serbian nation has survived absolutely horrific and even overtly demonic persecutions by both the Ottomans, the Anglos and the Latins (Pavelic, like Bandera, Franco or Petain, was a pure product of the Papacy, unlike Hitler and Mussolini who were, respectively, a pagan and an atheist).

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“..any price cap must aim to “ensure the stability of the financial markets.”

• EU Fails To Agree On Gas Price Cap (RT)

EU nations have failed once again to finalize a bloc-wide gas price cap at a Council of Energy Ministers meeting, Hungarian FM Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday. Some states want to lower the ceiling, while others say the measure could wreak havoc on the energy markets. “There was a lengthy debate at the Energy Council meeting. No agreement was reached at the plenary, so discussions will continue on a bilateral basis,” Szijjarto wrote on Facebook. Opinions regarding the measure proposed weeks ago differ greatly among the 27 EU member states, with some doubting its effectiveness in fighting the energy crisis, and others calling for the lowest cap possible.

Under the original plan put forward by the European Commission, the gas price cap should be triggered when prices on the TTF exchange, Europe’s gas benchmark, reach €275 ($292) per megawatt hour and are €58 higher than the LNG reference price for two weeks. The plan was met with criticism, with some member states worried it would only worsen market volatility, while others argued that the level was too high to be effective.

Last week, the EU Council proposed reducing the level of the cap to €220 and slashing the timeframe to five days, while also lowering the gap with global LNG prices to €35, according to a draft document seen by Reuters. However, 12 countries reportedly said this cap would still be too high, demanding it be lowered to €160 with a €20 spread. Earlier on Tuesday, France’s minister for energy transition, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, said that an agreement over the cap could be reached sooner rather than later. “I believe we have started to bring our positions closer,” she told the press ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, adding that any price cap must aim to “ensure the stability of the financial markets.”

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They’ve shut him down:

“Sam Bankman-Fried was denied bail. He will be held in this prison until February 8th, 2023 if he isn’t extradited to the US.”

• DOJ Faces Questions After Preventing SBF from Testifying in Congress (Turley)

The arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried yesterday was sudden and unexpected in light of Bankman-Fried’s plan to testify before Congress. As a criminal defense attorney, my reaction to the arrest last night remains unchanged: this is the first time that I can recall where prosecutors moved aggressively to stop a defendant from making self-incriminating statements. His testimony would have been entirely admissible and likely devastating at trial. I previously wrote how Bankman-Fried was doing harm to his case by speaking in the media and to Congress. So why would the Justice Department move to stop the self-inflicted damage? You have a major target who was about to voluntarily testify for hours.

That is ordinarily a dream for prosecutors, but the Justice Department moved quickly to prevent that from happening. At that stage, Bankman-Fried was not charged or in custody. He was not protected by Miranda or other constitutional rules from self-incriminating statements. Indeed, some of us had already warned that he was causing himself considerable damage in making such statements. This was a defendant with a large legal team facing possible criminal charges who seemed eager to speak about his actions and motivations. Most prosecutors would sit back, make popcorn, and watch this unfold. The curious move led many to question whether the Biden Administration was eager to prevent questions on Bankman-Fried’s political contributions and associations.

He was the second highest donor to Democratic causes in the last election cycle. His mother, a law professor at Stanford also heads a major Democratic campaign fund. It is also possible that the Justice Department simply wanted to show the public that it was moving aggressively despite his close Democratic ties. It may have secured sufficient evidence (including possible cooperating witnesses) to satisfy the basis for charges and an extradition request. Moreover, the charges are likely to make some Democratic figures uncomfortable as this matter enters the criminal process. Yet, that still does not explain why the Justice Department would not want to hear a full account from Bankman-Fried before effectively shutting him down as a criminal defendant. This is the first time that I can recall where the prosecutors, rather than defense counsel, moved effectively to muzzle a defendant.

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“..the body of Philip Haney, author of See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad, was “found deceased” in Amador County, California..”

• The Seth Rich Case Gets Richer (Billingsley)

The FBI not only has possession of a laptop computer owned by slain Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich,” the Epoch Times reports, “but a report detailing forensic imaging of what’s being described as Rich’s work computer.” The revelation came in a three-page forensic report about an “outside entity” working on imaging Rich’s work computer, also a laptop. According to the Epoch Times, that report “was among four documents that had never been disclosed by the FBI in relation to Rich’s case.” Seth Rich was the DNC’s voter expansion data director. On July 10, 2016, the 27-year-old was gunned down in Washington, D.C. Police called it a street robbery gone wrong, but the shooters did not take Rich’s wallet, watch, or phone.

Weeks after the murder, as the BBC reported, “Wikileaks published 20,000 emails obtained from Democratic National Committee computers via an anonymous source.” According to prominent Democrats, that was all part of Donald Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia. With that ploy exposed as a hoax, the people have cause to wonder. With Rich’s personal laptop, the FBI wants 66 years—a proxy for “never”—to produce data the bureau previously denied it even possessed. With Rich’s work laptop, the bureau is taking obstructionism to a new level. FBI records boss Michael Seidel is claiming that the computer is only a physical object, not an “actual record,” and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act request from Texas resident Brian Huddleston.

His attorneys want the Obama-appointed Judge Amos Mazzant to order the release of the information from the personal and work computers of murder victim Rich. As it happens, those are not the only devices the FBI is harboring. On February 21, 2020, the body of Philip Haney, author of See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad, was “found deceased” in Amador County, California. He was killed by a gunshot to the chest. The Amador sheriff “reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to assist in analyzing documents, phone records, numerous thumb drives and a laptop that were recovered from the scene and Mr. Haney’s RV.

Those items and numerous other pieces of evidence were turned over to the FBI. The FBI has performed a forensic examination of these items. We expect to receive these reports within the next few weeks.” Two years later, the Amador sheriff reported no new information on the case, and the FBI has yet to reveal what was on Haney’s laptop, thumb drives, and such. As with Seth Rich, the material could be of great interest to the public. In early 2020, according to Kerry Picket of the Washington Examiner, Haney was “recently in contact with top officials about returning to work for the DHS.” So maybe he had new information on terrorists. The erudite Haney was good at finding such information, but it wasn’t always welcome at the Department of Homeland Security.

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Mountain goats
https://twitter.com/i/status/1602359257319575561

 

 


Panulirus ornatus is a large spiny lobster with 11 larval stages. It migrates annually from the Torres Strait to Yule Island in the Gulf of Papua in order to breed

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 1 2022

Nov 012022
 
 November 1, 2022  Posted by at 8:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  73 Responses »


Vilhelm Hammershoi Woman Seen from the Back 1888

 

• Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation (IC)
• “The Bird is Free.” Will Elon Musk Become Grand Duke of Mars? (Ugo Bardi)
• How Elon Musk Should Shape Twitter — Sans the Sink (Turley)
• ‘Inflation Came From Nowhere’ – Lagarde (RT)
• Putin Clarifies Position On Grain Deal (RT)
• Russia Tells UN It Will Inspect Black Sea Ships (RT)
• Israeli Finance Minister Added To Kiev’s ‘Kill List’ (RT)
• Much Of Kiev Without Power & Water After New Russian Airstrikes (ZH)
• From The Surreal To The Real To The Meta-Real (Batiushka)
• Drone Attack On Sevastopol (MoA)
• Comeback Kid Lula In The Eye Of A Volcano (Escobar)
• Why The US-Saudi Relationship Is Withering (RT)
• They Rule Over Dysfunctional Ruin, but They Rule (Crooke)
• US Economic Decline And Global Instability Part 3 (Phillyguy)
• Russia’s New Regions On Collision Course With Ukraine 100 Years Ago (Nepogodin)

 

 

“The less men think, the more they talk.”
~ Montesquieu

 

 

 

 

Nord Stream 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ethical Skeptic 7:1

 

 

The Swiss National Bank just reported an enormous $142.6 BILLION dollar loss in the first 9 months of 2022, which is by far the largest loss in the bank’s 115 year history.

 

 

 

 

This is scary but not surprising. And it’s not about disinformation, but about anything that questions “official” info. “..the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”

It’s just partisan politics, flavored with a whiff of what both parties agree on, i.e. war. And it just so happens that the people who bring you this are the exact same lot that gave you Russia Russia, which was the biggest crop of disinformation ever.

• Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation (IC)

Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information. Though DHS shuttered its controversial Disinformation Governance Board, a strategic document reveals the underlying work is ongoing. DHS plans to target inaccurate information on “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”

Facebook created a special portal for DHS and government partners to report disinformation directly. “Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February. In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government. Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.” “We do not coordinate with other entities when making content moderation decisions, and we independently evaluate content in line with the Twitter Rules,” a spokesperson for Twitter wrote in a statement to The Intercept.

There is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal that requires a government or law enforcement email to use. At the time of writing, the “content request system” at facebook.com/xtakedowns/login is still live. [..] According to a draft copy of DHS’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, DHS’s capstone report outlining the department’s strategy and priorities in the coming years, the department plans to target “inaccurate information” on a wide range of topics, including “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.” [..] The inclusion of the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is particularly noteworthy, given that House Republicans, should they take the majority in the midterms, have vowed to investigate. “This makes Benghazi look like a much smaller issue,” said Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., a member of the Armed Services Committee, adding that finding answers “will be a top priority.”

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And in view of DHS et al trying to control information flow, Ugo Bardi’s point is salient: Elon Musk understands that better than all the rest put together.

• “The Bird is Free.” Will Elon Musk Become Grand Duke of Mars? (Ugo Bardi)

Some people absolutely love censorship. But many (perhaps most) users of social media didn’t like to be watched from over their shoulders by those overzealous nannies who pretended to know better than them what is true and what is not. That generated criticism, and some attempts to rein in the censors. But, so far, we only saw censorship increasing its reach and becoming more pervasive.Except for the news of the day: the bird is free! Elon Musk bought Twitter and promises to eliminate censorship.

What’s happening? There are several possible interpretations, but at least something is clear: those who rule us are not a monolithic entity, as the Communist Party was in the Soviet Union. There are several would-be world rulers who are vying for power behind the scene. Musk may actually be smarter than most of them and able to understand that you gain nothing by silencing those who disagree with you. Suppose he wants to become the next US president, or maybe the Grand Duke of Mars, then he has to think like the Grand Duke of Tuscany did. He needs to know what people think because he can rule only if people agree that he is the ruler. Ruling by force and oppression is inefficient and, often, the ruler ends up hanged by the feet. So, Musk may well understand that he needs to leave some space for people to express themselves. The bird may not be completely free, but it has to be able to fly.

We seem to be in a transition moment (we always are). The Internet is under pressure by the attempt of controlling it by the powers that be, turning it into a tool for a totalitarian government (in China, the government may have succeeded at that). But, at the same time, some members of the elites are realizing that the Internet is a much better tool if used according to its characteristic of a two-way communication system. The Internet may allow us to generate a new governance system that might be more effective and just than the old totalitarian systems. It might be part of a “new Renaissance” that could take some aspects similar to the way Cosimo the 1st ruled in Tuscany during the 16th century. Maybe. But, as always, the future will surprise us.

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But still, Musk would have to deflect the entire kitchen sink that will be thrown at him.

• How Elon Musk Should Shape Twitter — Sans the Sink (Turley)

News reports last week seemed to start out like a bar joke: The richest man in the world walks in carrying a sink . . . Of course, it was a joke — a colossal joke. The question is whom the joke is on. For Elon Musk, the punch line was appropriately delivered on Twitter, the company he’s taking over Friday at an inflated price. Calling himself “Chief Twit,” Musk posted the video with the caption “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!” For the Musk-phobic, it was as funny as a drive-by shooting. CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem denounced Musk’s taunt as “fundamentally cruel.” After all, when Musk was first reported to be buying the company, employees were so traumatized that leadership had to offer emotional support just to “get through the week.”

The reason is less the fear of Musk bringing bathroom fixtures than free speech into San Francisco headquarters. Twitter has created one of the largest censorship systems in world history — a system widely condemned for a pattern of political bias and viewpoint intolerance. Outgoing CEO Parag Agrawal is unabashedly hostile to traditional views of free speech. Soon after he took over, he pledged to regulate content and said the company would “focus less on thinking about free speech” because “speech is easy on the Internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard.” For employees who are true believers of this censorship scheme, the joke no doubt feels like it’s on them. The censorship skill set may not be quite as much in demand in a Musk-owned firm.

While Facebook, Google and other companies are still committed to corporate censorship, Musk has pledged to restore free speech principles to Twitter. But the joke may still be on Musk if he yields to Twitter’s corporate culture or the mainstream media’s unrelenting pressure. Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton have turned from private censorship to good old-fashioned state censorship. Clinton has called on foreign governments to step in and pass laws that would force Twitter to continue to censor opposing views. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently repeated this call for global censorship at the United Nations to the applause of diplomats and media alike. Musk may have to yield to such domestic laws, but he can use his platform to inform citizens of those countries they are being censored and controlled in what they are allowed to read.

The most important thing in America is for Musk to hit the ground running at Twitter. First, he needs to order the preservation of all records. There are well-supported examples of biased censorship, including the burying of The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story before the election. There are also allegations of back-channel communications from the government to manage a type of censorship-by-surrogate system to evade the First Amendment. Second, Musk should focus on the First Amendment as a model for Twitter’s content-management policy. It has become a mantra on the left that free-speech objections to social-media censorship are meritless because the First Amendment does not apply to private corporations.

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Lagarde should be fired for 1) making this statement, and 2) meaning it.

• ‘Inflation Came From Nowhere’ – Lagarde (RT)

The European Central Bank (ECB) has doubled its key interest rate to the highest level in more than a decade in an attempt to combat soaring inflation, ECB President Christine Lagarde has explained. In an interview with Irish national broadcaster RTE on Friday, Lagarde said: “We do it because we are fighting inflation” that had “pretty much come about from nowhere.” She pointed to a speedier-than-expected economic rebound from the pandemic as a cause alongside “the energy crisis caused by Mr. Putin who has decided in an unjustifiable way to invade another country.” The ECB chief added: “That’s what he [Putin] is trying to do, cause chaos and destroy as much of Europe as he can. This energy crisis is causing massive inflation which we have to defeat.”

She went on to say that “Anybody who is behaving in that way has to be driven by evil forces,” and that the “sick”Russian president is a “terrifying person.” Discussing her previous meetings with the Russian leader, Lagarde described him as an “unbelievably super-briefed person” with “flashing, freezing eyes.” After expressing her view, Lagarde however stressed that she’s “just a central banker,” and “shouldn’t be saying all these things.” On Thursday, the ECB announced another interest rate hike, taking Eurozone rates to the highest level since 2009. According to Lagarde, they are aimed at bringing inflation back to “reasonable levels so the cost of living isn’t as high as it is for people.” In September, inflation across the euro area hit 10%.

The EU has blamed Russia for the spiraling energy crisis across the continent. However, many economists point to the bloc’s fiscal policy responses as a major reason behind the crisis. Moscow has also criticized the “illogical and often absurd” moves by Western nations, saying that the sanctions imposed by the US, EU, and other countries on Russia have backfired and resulted in a sweeping energy crisis as well as record inflation across the West.

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This will cost Erdogan a lot of points. He negotiated the grain corridor, meant for Africa nations, but grabbed 34% for himself AND allowed Kiev to use the corridor to hide drones.

• Putin Clarifies Position On Grain Deal (RT)

The grain deal between Moscow and Kiev has not met its stated goals, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. Most of the Ukrainian agricultural products exported under the agreement have not reached the poorer nations they were supposedly intended for and have instead ended up in Europe and Türkiye, he argued. Putin said Moscow was suspending its participation in the deal, but not fully withdrawing from it. The deal was promoted to “secure the interests of the poorer nations,” he said, adding that, according to Russian intelligence, the real structure of Ukraine’s grain exports is vastly different. “We agreed to that [grain deal] precisely in the interests of the poorer nations,”the Russian president said.

“On the whole, it looks like 34% of [the Ukrainian] grain gets to Türkiye, 35% or even more is taken by the EU nations and only between three and four … or five percent, according to our Agriculture Ministry … goes to the poorer nations,” Putin said. His words came as the Russian military closed the Black Sea grain corridor used to export Ukrainian grain under the agreement reached in Istanbul in July. The agreement – mediated by the UN and Türkiye – was initially hailed as critical for easing the global food crisis and helping the world’s poorest nations avoid starvation. Russia has since repeatedly pointed out that the grain, in fact, goes to other destinations. Moscow decided to halt its participation in the deal following a massive drone attack on its naval base in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol last week.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the naval drones used in the attack navigated through the grain corridor’s security zone to reach their targets. One of them might have even been launched from a civilian vessel chartered to transport Ukrainian grain shipments, it added. Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was ready to compensate the missing Ukrainian grain export volumes from its own stocks. At the same time, he said that Moscow could not yet name the conditions that would make it resume its participation in the deal. In the wake of Moscow’s decision to suspend its participation in the deal, the UN has insisted that “food must flow”regardless of circumstances. Civilian vessels “can never be a military target or held hostage,” the UN coordinator for the Black Sea grain initiative, Amir Abdulla, said. Russia has previously said that it could not guarantee the security of the grain corridor if Kiev used it for military purposes.

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Inevitable. If Turkey doesn’t do it, Russia must.

• Russia Tells UN It Will Inspect Black Sea Ships (RT)

Ukraine “grossly violated” the Istanbul agreement on grain exports via the Black Sea and forced Moscow to suspend it indefinitely, Russia’s envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council on Monday. The Russian Navy will inspect all cargo ships bound for Ukraine, even those unilaterally cleared by the Turkish-based coordination center, he added. “This subversive action of Kiev grossly violates the Istanbul agreements and, in fact, puts an end to their humanitarian dimension. It is now obvious to everyone that the Black Sea humanitarian corridor is being used by the Ukrainian side for military sabotage purposes,” Nebenzia said, referring to Saturday’s drone attack on Sevastopol. Russia “cannot guarantee the safety of civilian ships participating in the Black Sea initiative,” Nebenzia added, as “we do not know what other terrorist attacks Kiev is preparing with the support of its Western sponsors.”

On Sunday, after Moscow announced the suspension of the arrangement, the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) in Istanbul said it had greenlit 16 ships to navigate the corridor on Monday and “informed” Russia about the decision. According to maritime traffic data, at least two ships left the Black Sea port of Odessa in the morning, reporting Istanbul as their destination. “Decisions and measures taken without our participation are not binding on us,”Nebenzia told the UN. Moscow “cannot allow ships to pass without our inspection and will be forced to take independent measures” to inspect ships authorized by the JCC without Russian approval. Meanwhile, the UN coordinator for the Black Sea grain initiative, Amir Abdulla, insisted that “the food must flow.”

The UN and Türkiye mediated a deal in July under which Ukrainian grain could be exported via the Black Sea, while Western obstacles to the exportation of Russian grain and fertilizer would be removed. The US and its allies insist they had never sanctioned grain exports – but their sanctions on Russian ships and insurance made them impossible in practice. Moscow has criticized the West for not keeping its side of the deal and pointed out that the bulk of Ukrainian exports had gone to the EU and not the African nations most affected by food insecurity. Russia halted its compliance with the pact on Saturday, after Kiev launched a major drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet and civilian vessels involved in securing safe passage for agricultural cargo from Ukrainian ports. On Sunday, after studying the wreckage of the unmanned combat vehicles, the Russian Defense Ministry said that those behind the attack made active use of the UN-brokered grain corridor.

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Just making friends.

• Israeli Finance Minister Added To Kiev’s ‘Kill List’ (RT)

Israeli finance minister, Avigdor Lieberman has been added to the database of the “enemies of Ukraine” on the controversial Mirotvorets website on Sunday. The authors of the site, which is believed to have links to the Ukrainian security services, described Lieberman as “Russia’s agent of influence,” who had been manipulating publicly significant information in favor of Moscow. They also blamed him for taking part in acts of “humanitarian aggression” against Ukraine. Among the actions that led to Lieberman being placed on the list, were his refusal to finance an Israeli field hospital in Ukraine in March and his neutral stance on who is to blame for the massacre in the Kiev suburb of Bucha in April. The website also shared a link to an article, claiming that he had ties with Russian gas giant Gazprom.

Ukrainian authorities have frequently expressed their disappointment with the level of support they’ve been getting from Israel during the conflict with Russia. The country has only provided Kiev with humanitarian aid and life-saving defense equipment, but not weapons and munitions. Israel also refrained from joining international sanctions on Moscow. Last week, Liberman said that Israeli assistance to Ukraine since the outbreak of the fighting between Russia and Ukraine in late February amounted to some $40 million. Liberman has been finance minister since 2021. He’s a veteran politician, who has occupied various high positions in the Israeli government over the years, including foreign minister, defense minister, and deputy PM. The 64-year-old is also the head of Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home), which holds seven seats in the country’s parliament, the Knesset.

Liberman was born in Chisinau, Moldova when the republic was part of the Soviet Union and immigrated to Israel in 1978. The Mirotvorets website, translated as ‘peacemaker’, was launched in 2014, positioning itself as an independent database run by anonymous moderators to help Ukrainian authorities and “special services” apprehend pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, and war criminals, among others. However, some have branded the database a ‘kill list,’ which is backed by the government, after several individuals, including writer Oles Buzina, politician Oleg Kalashnikov, and Russian journalist Darya Dugina were assassinated shortly after their profiles appeared on the website. The most recent high-profile additions to Mirotvorets included Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters. There were claims that the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, was put on the database in mid-October, but swiftly removed from it. The alleged addition happened after Musk offered a peace plan, which envisaged Kiev giving up territories to Moscow.

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Slow grind.

• Much Of Kiev Without Power & Water After New Russian Airstrikes (ZH)

Much of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev is without electricity or water, after the latest round of major Russian airstrikes on Monday. The Russian military announced ‘successful’ strikes on multiple of the country’s vital infrastructure facilities. “The Russian Armed Forces continued to launch strikes with high-precision long-range air and sea-based weapons against Ukrainian military and energy facilities,” the Defense Ministry said. “The goals of the strikes were successful. All assigned objects were hit.” Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed direct hits on 18 sites – most of which were connected to the nation’s energy supply. These ramped up attacks have created a growing sense of panic with temperatures plunging and winter approaching.

“Missiles and drones hit 10 regions, where 18 sites were damaged, most of them energy-related,” Shmyhal stated on Telegram. “Hundreds of settlements in seven regions of Ukraine were cut off.” Facilities in Cherkasy and Kirovohrad also came under attack. Ukraine’s military said it intercepted projectiles over the Lviv region, which spared this western part of the country from damage. The Washington Post noted there are “power outages continuing in the Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions,” and others. The Post listed some of the below regions impacted by large-scale power outages and water supply disruptions:

• Kyiv region: Russian strikes damaged buildings, and rescuers are searching for victims, the regional police said. Attacks left 80 percent of the capital without water and are likely to cause sustained power outages, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
• Kharkiv: Two strikes hit critical infrastructure facilities in the eastern city, causing problems with the water supply and affecting the public transit network, the mayor said.
• Zaporizhzhia region: An infrastructure facility was struck by rockets, the local governor said, prompting warnings from officials in the southern region that energy supplies there could also be affected.
• Cherkasy region: Some of the region lost power after air attacks on infrastructure facilities, the military administrator said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba condemned the attacks as more war crimes: “Another batch of Russian missiles hits Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. Instead of fighting on the battlefield, Russia fights civilians,” he tweeted. Additionally Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko announced on Telegram that these fresh strikes left 80% of residents in the capital without water and some 350,000 homes with no electricity. “Just in case, we ask you to stock up on water from the nearest pumps and points of sale,” he advised. The mayor’s office vowed that water supply to the effected parts of the city would be restored in three to four hours, with emergency utility crews working urgently on it.

Rescue teams in the capital are reportedly searching for possible casualties under the rubble of buildings destroyed or damaged from the new salvo of Russian strikes; however, at this point casualty numbers are unclear. The US ambassador said she and her staff had to take shelter in this latest attack on the capital: Already before Monday’s attacks, Ukrainian officials estimated that 40% of the nation’s electrical power systems had been severely damaged, and urged households to limit their usage, especially with non-essential large appliances. Ukrainians are further being warned to prepare for long-term power outages as a frigid winter is just around the corner.

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“The mirage is over. This Hell-begotten war must end.”

• From The Surreal To The Real To The Meta-Real (Batiushka)

[..] the surreal continued when, on 23 October, with the Russian Defence Minister’s phone calls to his US, UK, French and Turkish counterparts about the Russian discovery of a Kiev/MI6 plot to use a ‘dirty’ bomb and blame it on Russia. Having outed the plot, Sergei Shoigu had alerted the US Establishment to the extremism of the now desperate Kiev elite (and their British MI6 operatives). The US put the Kiev crazies in their place, since, after all, the US are the string-pullers and puppets are not allowed to do anything without their express permission. The US duly stated that it has seen no evidence that Russia intends to use nuclear weaponry and President Putin stated that Russia has no plans to use nuclear weapons. The panic and hysteria of the Western media and of others was unfounded; though the mass media did not report the US admission. Panic and hysteria sell.

[..] Let us now come back to reality. The 87,5% of the world which either supports the Russian campaign to liberate the Ukraine, or else remains neutral towards it, shows the increasing isolation of the Nazi West. And it is now also crystal clear that ‘the West’ is in fact only the USA, just as NATO is only the USA, the Wicked Witch of the West. The rest is just camouflage, a mirage. In Italy, Germany, France, Moldova, the Czech Lands, Romania (the former Defence Minister), Bulgaria, Serbia, even in the UK, dissident voices are protesting. For God’s sake, negotiate with Russia! The Ukraine is their business, not ours, they’re all basically Russkies anyhow. We want gas and food! Who cares about the Nazi puppets in Kiev?

More and more all European governments, apart only from the Hungarian, are being seen as what they are – simply US puppet elites, who do not represent their peoples. EU or Non-EU Europe, there is no difference, apart from Hungary, which alone has, in every sense, a popular government. If Nobel Prizes were given non-politically, surely Victor Orban should have won one of them by now. Here the hypochondriac French are going crazy because China is sanctioning them by depriving them of paracetamol. Perhaps as many as 20% of Western Europeans have now realised that the whole Ukraine affair is a put-up job, arranged by the US, with its British poodle yapping at its feet. Same as Iraq, same as Afghanistan. Same old, same old.

The poodle is more papist than the Pope. Over the last two months it is notable that most Ukrainian flags have been taken down in Europe. It is rare to see one now. The working class were never interested, they always knew it was just another operation by the arms industry, but now even the conformist middle-class is taking down its Ukrainian flags. The mirage is over. This Hell-begotten war must end.

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UK was directly involved.

• Drone Attack On Sevastopol (MoA)

This morning at 4:20 local time the Russian fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol was attacked by nine unmanned aerial vehicles and seven autonomous maritime drones. Earlier a maritime drone that had run aground in Crimea and had been found and pictured. During today’s attack a large U.S. drone had flown circles south of Crimea. It likely relayed data from and to the drones. The maritime drones are British and Russia alleges that British specialists had trained the Ukrainian navy in using them. It also says that British soldiers were involved in the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline. The Ukrainians published two videos shot by the maritime drones while attacking. One of the video shows extensive gun fire impacts near the drone from a Russian helicopter that is attacking it.

The Russians say that all the aerial drones and 4 of 7 maritime drones were defeated before they could caused damage. They also say that one mine seeking ship was damaged in the harbor. It is possible that the damage is greater than Russia admits. As a consequence of the attack Russia declared that the deal which allowed for grain exports from Odessa has been suspended. That deal had already been in danger as the ‘west’ had not fulfilled its part of the deal which would have allowed for the export for Russian fertilizer to third parties. I find it likely that Russia will take additional measures to punish the Ukrainian navy for the brazen attack. Additional attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure is another possibility.

Meanwhile all recent attempts by the Ukrainian army to penetrate the Russian held lines have failed. It is notable that these are now much smaller in size with just a battalion or in some cases just two companies in the lead. It is now definitely mud season in Ukraine during which it is impossible to cross most farmland even on feet. This will hinder the attacking forces on both sides until winter sets in.

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Lula has strong ties to China and has been a driving force behind BRICS.

“..the next BRICS summit in South Africa, which will consolidate BRICS+, as an array of nations are itching to join, from Argentina and Saudi Arabia to Iran and Turkey.”

• Comeback Kid Lula In The Eye Of A Volcano (Escobar)

Lula is one of the founders of the BRICS in 2006, which evolved out of the Russia-China dialogue. He’s immensely respected by the leaders of the Russia-China strategic partnership, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. He has promised to serve only one term, or up to the end of 2026. But that’s exactly the key stretch in the eye of the volcano, straddling the decade Putin described in his Valdai speech as the most dangerous and important since World War II. The drive towards a multipolar world, institutionally represented by a congregation of bodies from BRICS+ to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to the Eurasia Economic Union, will profit immensely to have Lula on board as arguably the natural leader of the Global South – with a track record to match.

Of course, his immediate foreign policy focus will be South America: he already announced that will be the destination of his first presidential visit, most probably Argentina, which is bound to join BRICS+. Then he will visit Washington. He has to. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Informed opinion across the Global South is very much aware that it’s under Obama-Biden that the whole, complex operation to topple Dilma and expel Lula from politics was orchestrated. Brazil will be a lame duck at the upcoming G20 in Bali in mid-November but in 2023 Lula will be back in business side-by-side with Putin and Xi. And that also applies to the next BRICS summit in South Africa, which will consolidate BRICS+, as an array of nations are itching to join, from Argentina and Saudi Arabia to Iran and Turkey.

And then there’s the Brazil-China nexus. Brasilia has been Beijing’s key trade partner in Latin America since 2009, absorbing roughly half of China’s investment in the region (and the most of any Latin American investment destination in 2021) and firmly placed as the fifth largest exporter of crude for the Chinese market, second for iron and first for soybeans. The precedents tell the story. Right from the start, in 2003, Lula bet on a strategic partnership with China. He considered his first trip to Beijing in 2004 as his top foreign policy priority. The goodwill in Beijing is unshakeable: Lula is considered an old friend by China – and that political capital will open virtually every red door.

In practice, that will mean Lula investing his considerable global clout in strengthening BRICS+ (he already stated BRICS will be at the center of his foreign policy) and the inner workings of South-South geopolitical and geo-economic cooperation. That may even include Lula formally signing up Brazil as a partner of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in a way that won’t antagonize the US. Lula, after all, is a master of this craft.

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Saudi Arabia cannot pick the US over OPEC+ and BRICS. It’s not in their interest.

• Why The US-Saudi Relationship Is Withering (RT)

As the Gulf States are ultimately concerned with preserving their own value systems and independence, they have increasingly diversified their relationships in recent years with tilts towards Russia and China. Beijing, with its enormous demand for energy, has also become a lucrative alternative to the West. Similarly, stable ties with Moscow also allow for cooperation in the common interests of oil-exporting countries, which has also had the effect of reducing Western influence and dominance over those countries. On recognizing this, why would Saudi Arabia and the states of OPEC voluntarily undermine their own oil revenue merely to suit the geopolitical interests of the United States?

The world is in the middle of an energy price crisis exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine. Saudi Arabia sees that the US and some of its allies want to purposefully try to lower the price of oil in a bid to try and hurt Russia. However, that is not how the market works and, by extension, such a move is also an assault on Saudi and OPEC interests. While the kingdom is officially neutral in regards to Russia-Ukraine, it also recognizes that the success of an energy price cap would embolden the West to push harder against Russia, which also serves to undermine the kingdom’s geopolitical independence.

In other words, if the US succeeded in dividing OPEC by unilaterally demanding a price cap on oil products, it would defeat the very purpose of the organization itself to protect the respective economic interests of those countries. The United States has been a useful partner to Saudi Arabia, but it is not a friend. It is not part of a ‘bloc’ or ideological coalition, as let’s say the UK is, but merely has seen the West as the most useful and lucrative partner to fulfil its own political needs. As those needs change, Saudi Arabia’s preferences are also subject to change. Washington is therefore learning that the kingdom is not a client state to be called on when needed, and thus this very close and often contradictory partnership is starting to strain.

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Nero comes to mind.

• They Rule Over Dysfunctional Ruin, but They Rule (Crooke)

Since 2008, we have lived in a western world shaped by the ‘permanent state’ or by our managerial technocrats – label to choice. This ‘creative class’ (as they like to see themselves) is particularly defined by its intermediary position in relation to the wealth-controlling oligarchic cabal as ultimate big money overlords on one hand, and the dullard ‘Middle Class’ below them – at whom they sneer and deride. This intermediary class didn’t set out to dominate politics (they say); It just happened. Initially, the aim was to foster progressive values. But instead, these professional technocrats, who both had accreted considerable wealth and were tightly congregated into cliques in America’s large metro areas, came to dominate left-wing parties around the world that formerly were vehicles for the working class.

Those who coveted membership in this new ‘aristocracy’ cultivated their image as one of cosmopolitan, fast-moving money, glamour, fashion, and popular culture – multiculturalism suited them to perfection. Painting themselves as the political conscience of the whole of society (if not the world), the reality was that their Zeitgeist reflected primarily the whims, prejudices and increasingly psychopathies of one segment of liberal society. Into this milieu arrived two defining events: In 2008, Ben Bernanke, Chair of the Federal Reserve, gathered together in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, a room-full of the wealthiest oligarchs, ‘locking them in’ until they found the solution to the unfolding systemic bank failure.

The oligarchs did not find a solution but were released from their lock-up anyway. They opted instead, to throw money at structural problems, compounded by egregious errors of judgement about risk. And to finance the resulting massive losses – which were over $10 trillion in the U.S. alone – the world’s central banks began printing money – since when they have never stopped! Thus begun the era in the West where deep problems are not solved, but simply have freshly-printed money thrown at them. This methodology was whole-heartedly adopted by the EU also, where it was called Merkelism (after the former German Chancellor). Underlying structural contradictions were simply left to accumulate; kicked down the road.

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“To provide some perspective, from 2020- Q2 2022, US government debt increased over $7 trillion.”

• US Economic Decline And Global Instability Part 3 (Phillyguy)

The US emerged from WWII as the world’s leading power. Since that time, US global supremacy has rested on unrivaled military and economic power, control of world’s energy reserves (primarily in the Middle East), and maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This relationship began to transform in the mid-1970s, as US corporate profits began to stagnate/decline, the proximate cause being the 1973-1975 recession [3], a consequence of increased competition from rebuilt economies in Europe- primarily Germany (Marshall Plan) [4], Japan/South Korea (Korean war) and more recently China. The US ruling elite responded to this economic challenge by pursing neoliberal economic policies (reviewed in [1]).

This included: 1) multiple tax cuts for the wealthy, 2) financial deregulation- repeal of Glass–Steagall legislation (1933 Banking Act) by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA) in 1999 and Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) of 2000, that exempted over-the-counter derivatives trades between financial firms from regulation. It should be noted that both of these bills were passed during the waning years of the Clinton Administration and may have been a quid pro quo to spare President Clinton an impeachment conviction over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky [5]. 3) attacks on labor and the poor and job outsourcing to Mexico, China and other low-wage platforms, facilitated by passage of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 [6].

The effect of these policies is vividly observed in the manufacturing sector. In 1960 the US produced 50% of global manufacturing output, accounting for 25% of GDP. Today, the US produces circa 17% of global manufacturing output, accounting for 11% of GDP [7]. 4) Spending vast amounts of taxpayer money (> $20 trillion) on post-911 militarization. The neoliberal economic policies outlined above precipitated the Global Financial Crisis 2007-2008 (GFC), the largest financial crash since the Great Depression [8] [9] [10]. None of the structural economic problems giving rise to the GFC (listed above) have been resolved; instead, the FED has used the US Treasury as a taxpayer-funded ‘piggy bank’ (the FED cannot print money) to pump over $40 trillion (this figure may be as high as $50 trillion) to support insolvent banks, inflate bond and equity markets and over-priced real estate, creating the ‘everything bubble’ [11].

Thus, since 2009, the US ‘economy’ has been sustained by continuous money printing to prop up financial markets and the Pentagon. Not surprisingly, this has been accompanied by an explosion of debt and rising inflation, further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russian energy, which has led to demands for even more money to support financial markets and the Pentagon. To provide some perspective, from 2020- Q2 2022, US government debt increased over $7 trillion [12].

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Must read history lesson.

• Russia’s New Regions On Collision Course With Ukraine 100 Years Ago (Nepogodin)

When four formerly Ukrainian regions joined Russia nearly a month ago, the collective West tried to present the occurrence as treacherous, unprecedented, and lacking local support. However, the reunification was preceded by a century-long struggle by a large amount of the regions’ inhabitants for the right to be considered Russians. In February 2015, the deputies of the parliament of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) signed a memorandum declaring the continuity of their statehood from the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic, one of the numerous entities that emerged during the Russian Civil War. This quasi-state, which was created by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and aspired to become part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), included not only Donbass, but also the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions.


History may zigzag, but time puts everything in its place. Today, Russian Donbass is restoring lost ties with Russia and establishing new ones,” wrote Denis Pushilin, the head of the DPR, shortly before the start of Russia’s military offensive. In this article, RT explores the brief history of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic and explains why the residents of Donbass wanted to live as part of Russia even 100 years ago. Back in 1999, the famous Russian political geographer and theorist Vladimir Kagansky wrote a large article entitled ‘Ukraine: Geography and Fate of the Country’, in which he made a forecast: Ukraine will inevitably transform, and this transformation mainly depends on Russia. He concluded that its self-determination would inevitably be anti-Russian, citing the country’s “stretchable borders” as one of the main reasons. At a minimum, this would encompass just the right bank of the Dnieper, or even Galicia alone.

At a maximum, the borders would stretch to the southern Russian cities of Voronezh and Stavropol. “The USSR and the CIS are a semi-empire of republics around Russia, and Ukraine is the main link in this necklace, a geopolitical pendant. Ukraine divides the space of the former USSR into separate, geographically separated blocks, and connects three blocks (Belarus and the Baltic States – Moldova – the Caucasus). Ukraine is the only alternative to Russia as the center of the current CIS and the entire post-Soviet space. It is the only way to potentially bypass Russia – the main anti-Russian bastion, and Russia’s main partner in the arrangement of this space,” wrote Kagansky.

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Inflation As A Prelude To War

 

 

Rogan The Shining
https://twitter.com/i/status/1587125259492331520

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 7 2022

May 072022
 
 May 7, 2022  Posted by at 9:27 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  27 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Crucifixion 1930

 

• Pfizer’s New 80,000-Page Data Dump Is A Nightmare
• Biden Handing Over US Sovereignty to WHO (AOLoud)
• Army Lieutenant Convicted, Not Punished in 1st COVID Court-Martial (CHD)
• Choice Quotes from Bill Gates’s New Book (Tucker)
• Elon Musk Plans To Fire 1,000 Twitter Staff, Quintuple Revenue (DM)
• Job Interest In Twitter Up 250% Since Elon Musk Moved To Take Over (Fortune)
• Terror from Balochistan (Escobar)
• Nausea Rules (Kunstler)
• How Years of Attacks on the Court Created a “By Any Means” Mentality (Turley)
• Zelensky Critic Arrested in Spain on Orders of Ukrainian Government (SN)
• Jan. 6: 80 ‘Suspicious Actors’ and ‘Material Witnesses’ Under Scrutiny (ET)
• Ex-FBI Intel Chief: Clinton Campaign Used ‘Contrived Disinformation’ (JTN)
• Claim Russians Hacked The DNC Could Have Relied On ‘Spoofed’ Data (Fed.)
• The Whole Planet Is a Pot And We’re All Frogs (Ugo Bardi)

 

 

 

 

Disinformation Governance Board

 

 

Rand Paul

 

 

 

 

“There were no human clinical trials to determine if the experimental COVID vaccines were safe for pregnant women. They were excluded from all the trials. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Instead, they tested it on 44 rats.”

• Pfizer’s New 80,000-Page Data Dump Is A Nightmare

You probably didn’t know that Pfizer dumped 80,000 pages of documents this week. That’s because the American corporate media refused to cover it — and that’s because almost all of them took money from the Biden regime to promote the experimental vaccines and kill any critical coverage of them. Anyway, it turns out that Pfizer’s COVID vaccine was not 95% effective: the data shows it has a 12% efficacy rate. Let me repeat: 12%. That’s a “1” followed by a “2.” But wait: it gets worse. There were no human clinical trials to determine if the experimental COVID vaccines were safe for pregnant women. They were excluded from all the trials. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Instead, they tested it on 44 rats.

Pfizer deliberately cut off the clinical data trial before the bad news could be collected. We already know that Pfizer vaccine’s RNA is reverse-transcribing itself into your DNA. We already know that the vaccines increased the risk of getting COVID in children, the CDC intentionally withheld clinical data from the public, and a Moderna gene sequence patented in 2017 was found in the COVID virus spike protein. Pregnant women in the U.S. military who were coerced into taking the jab have suffered horrific side effects and “congenital malformations” in their babies. There were more than 18,900 babies born with abnormalities in 2021. We know this because a few brave whistleblowers got their hands on the Deparment of Defense’s medical database.

More than 18,900 babies. Just think about that. There’s much more news to come out about the COVID vaccines — and all of it is bad. For example, doctors around the world are starting to notice an explosion in the cancer rates among the vaccinated. [..] Let me finish with this thought: perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to re-program the DNA of half the world to produce spike proteins to “fight” a virus with a 99% survival rate?

Pfizer Naomi Wolf

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This is too insane.

• Biden Handing Over US Sovereignty to WHO (AOLoud)

On May 22-28, 2022, ultimate control over America’s healthcare system, and hence its national sovereignty, will be delivered for a vote to the World Health Organization’s governing legislative body, the World Health Assembly (WHA). This threat is contained in new amendments to WHO’s International Health Regulations, proposed by the Biden administration, that are scheduled as “Provisional agenda item 16.2” at the upcoming conference on May 22-28, 2022. These amendments will empower WHO’s Director-General to declare health emergencies or crises in any nation and to do so unilaterally and against the opposition of the target nation.

The Director-General will be able to declare these health crises based merely on his personal opinion or consideration that there is a potential or possible threat to other nations. If passed, the Biden Administration’s proposed amendments will, by their very existence and their intention, drastically compromise the independence and the sovereignty of the United States. The same threat looms over all the U.N.’s 193 member nations, all of whom belong to WHO and represent 99.44% of the world population. These regulations are a “binding instrument of international law entered into force on 15 June 2007.” U.N. members states can be required by law to obey or acquiesce to them.


On January 18, 2022, with no public awareness, officials from the Biden Administration sent the World Health Organization these extensive amendments to strengthen WHO’s ability to unilaterally intervene into the affairs of nations merely suspected of having a “health emergency” of possible concern to other nations. The U.S. amendments cross out a critical existing restriction in the regulations: “WHO shall consult with and attempt to obtain verification from the State Party in whose territory the event is allegedly occurring…” By eliminating that, and other clauses (see below), all the shackles will be removed from the Director-General of WHO, enabling him to declare health emergencies at will.

Tucker FDA

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Not just a lieutenant: “Bashaw formerly served as the Army Public Health Center’s headquarters company commander.”

• Army Lieutenant Convicted, Not Punished in 1st COVID Court-Martial (CHD)

1st Lt. Mark Bashaw of Maryland, who in April was court-martialed for his refusal to comply with COVID-19 testing and masking requirements, was convicted but will not be punished. As previously reported by The Defender, the U.S. Army charged Bashaw, under the Article 92, Failure to Obey an Order, with: failure to take a medical test, failure to wear a mask and failure to leave the workplace for telework. Bashaw formerly served as the Army Public Health Center’s headquarters company commander. The case, United States v 1LT Mark C. Bashaw, was heard April 28-29 at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, home of the Army Public Health Center. About 30 spectators attended the hearing, which was open to the public.

Bashaw plead not guilty to the charges (a telework work charge was dropped at the hearing). The Army recommended formal reprimand and $25,000 in forfeiture of pay. Judge Robert Cohen found Bashaw guilty of the two charges but recommended no additional punishment beyond the conviction. Judge Cohen commented on Bashaw’s exemplary 16 years of meritorious service during sentencing. “Receiving no punishment at a court-martial is not without precedent,” installation spokesperson Amburr Reese told Army Times. “While the Army does not categorize court-martial convictions as felonies or misdemeanors, many civilian jurisdictions treat a conviction in special court-martial convened by military judge alone, which this one was, as a misdemeanor.”

Because Bashaw is not facing punishment, the flag on his records will be removed and he is now eligible to be promoted to the rank of Captain, which was withheld in November 2021. Bashaw disagreed with the judge’s determination but respected the decision. Bashaw also said he understood he can appeal the ruling. He also explained his reasons for challenging what he thought to be an unlawful order, stating he relied on faith. Judge Cohen determined the Army’s orders to wear an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) mask and to take an EUA test were lawful. However, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), EUA products and tests are voluntary, based on an investigational or experimental status, and lack liability and consumer protections.

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“..the only thing more dangerous to human life than governments is a naive immune system..”

• Choice Quotes from Bill Gates’s New Book (Tucker)

Imagine yourself sidled up to a bar. A talkative guy sits down on the stool next to you. He has decided that there is one thing wrong with the world. It can be literally anything. Regardless, he has the solution. It’s interesting and weird for a few minutes. But you gradually come to realize that he is actually crazy. His main point is wrong and so his solutions are wrong too. But the drinks are good, and he is buying. So you put up with it. In any case, you will forget the whole thing in the morning. In the morning, however, you realize that he is one of the world’s richest men and he is pulling the strings of many of the world’s most powerful people. Now you are alarmed. In a nutshell, that’s what it’s like to read Bill Gates’s new book How to Prevent the Next Pandemic.

The main theme is implied in the title. With enough money, intelligence, and power, along with technological know-how at the helm, the next pathogen to come along can be stopped in its tracks. Where the bug goes after that he never explains. Presumably it just disappears. Like a computer virus, it exists but doesn’t ruin your harddrive. What are the historical examples of such a thing? There are none via avoidance, testing, contract tracing, and control of the human population. This theory of virus control – the notion that muscling the population makes a prevalent virus shrink into submission and disappear – is a completely new invention, the mechanization of a primitive instinct.

Smallpox occupies a unique position among infectious diseases as the only one affecting humans that has been eradicated. There are reasons for that: a stable pathogen, a great vaccine, and a hundred years of focused public health work. This happened not due to lockdowns but from the careful and patient application of traditional public-health principles. Can that same experience be repeated in every case? It’s worth investigating and thinking about. The reason is that the attempt to crush a respiratory virus through universal avoidance could be worse than allowing endemicity to it to develop throughout the population. Eradication is not the same thing as perpetual pathogenic avoidance. The former is great but the latter is deeply dangerous: the only thing more dangerous to human life than governments is a naive immune system. Gates’s plan, even if it had a chance of working which it does not, could create exactly that. Not to understand the difference is an egregious intellectual error.

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“Musk anticipates making thousands of new hires, swelling the ranks to around 11,000 employees, up from 7,500 currently.”

• Elon Musk Plans To Fire 1,000 Twitter Staff, Quintuple Revenue (DM)

Elon Musk is planning to fire 1,000 staffers at Twitter as soon as his purchase of the social media platform is complete. It’s believed he will fire many of the firm’s woke staff following the transfer of ownership which will take around six months, after which Musk is likely to wield the ax. But then within the next three years, Musk anticipates making thousands of new hires, swelling the ranks to around 11,000 employees, up from 7,500 currently. Much of the new talent is likely to be in the field of engineering. Numbers at the company would fluctuate rising to 9,225 employees this year before falling to 8,332 in 2023. Then adding a further 2,700 workers by 2025.

Most of the jobs being shelved would occur during the takeover period, according to a pitch deck Musk presented this week to investors and seen by the New York Times. On a company level, Musk has previously floated the idea of closing down the San Francisco headquarters in order to save money and that board members may also not receive a salary, shaving off another $3 million in expenses. The changes Musk makes are part of his plan to increase Twitter’s annual revenue by five times current levels to $26.4 billion by 2028, up from $5 billion last year. Advertising on the platform is set to fall to 45% of total revenue under Musk, down from about 90% in 2020.

By 2028, he plans for ads to generate $12 billion in revenue in 2028, while subscriptions are expected to pull in another $10 billion, according to the report. Musk is said to favor a subscription-based model over advertiser funding, as it would make Twitter less beholden to advertiser pressure. He has even suggested users could pay with cryptocurrency, including joke currency Dogecoin which Musk has long had an affection for. Other revenue would come from businesses such as data licensing. Musk has also tweeted about potentially monetizing tweets, although he has not provided specific details. Musk also plans to see Twitter’s cash flow rise to $3.2 billion in 2025 and $9.4 billion in 2028.

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“Say what you will about Elon, he does have a large fanbase of ppl excited to work for him..”

• Job Interest In Twitter Up 250% Since Elon Musk Moved To Take Over (Fortune)

Elon Musk cast Twitter’s future into uncertainty when he made a successful $44 billion bid to acquire the company last month. He will take over as temporary CEO once the deal is complete, CNBC reported Thursday morning. While countless Musk fans, and a slight majority of Americans—59%—approve of the takeover according to recent data from The Harris Poll, some current Twitter staff worry that it will dramatically change the company’s culture, and overall direction. It’s still unclear how a Musk-run Twitter might impact the company’s ability to retain current staff and recruit new employees. The company presented the takeover as a potential threat to its staffing abilities in an SEC filing Monday.

But at least casual interest in open positions at the company has skyrocketed since the Tesla billionaire showed serious interest in taking over the company. On Thursday, Daniel Zhao, a senior economist and data scientist at the job insights platform Glassdoor, tweeted that interest in job openings at the social media giant was up 263% between April 24 and April 30. In a statement to Fortune, Zhao clarified that interest is defined by the average daily clicks on Twitter job postings on the platform, compared to the average daily job clicks in a March 2022 baseline prior to the news breaking of Musk’s plans for the company. Though clicks do not necessarily correlate to actual job applications submitted, and likely reflect current media attention, the increase shows that people appear to be interested not just in the media story, but in work available at the company.

“Say what you will about Elon, he does have a large fanbase of ppl excited to work for him,” Zhao tweeted. “He’s much more likely to capitalize on that attraction as CEO than owner.” On Friday, Musk shared some of his own thoughts about hiring at Twitter, sharing Fortune’s reporting. “If Twitter acquisition completes, company will be super focused on hardcore software engineering, design, infosec & server hardware,” he tweeted on Friday morning. “I strongly believe that all managers in a technical area must be technically excellent. Managers in software must write great software or it’s like being a cavalry captain who can’t ride a horse!” he added.

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“mran Khan was a serious thorn in the side of the west because he kept impressing on Pakistanis that the Forever War in Afghanistan was militarily unwinnable.”

• Terror from Balochistan (Escobar)

The suicide bomber was a woman, Shaari Baloch, alias Bramsh, who detonated her vest just as a van carrying Institute staff members approached the entrance. The attack was claimed by the BLA’s Majeed Brigade, which stressed that this was the first time they used a female suicide bomber. Shaari Baloch was a schoolteacher with a Zoology degree, enrolled to pursue a second Master’s degree, married to a dentist and professor at Makran Medical College in her hometown of Turbat, in southern Balochistan. Her three brothers include a doctor, a deputy director at a government-funded project, and a civil servant. So Shaari Baloch was far from being a mere destitute online-indoctrinated Salafi-jihadi.

[..] A Carnegie Institute report noted how “many Baloch nationalist leaders now come from the urbanized districts of Kech, Panjgur, and Gwadar (and to a lesser extent from Quetta, Khuzdar, Turbat, Kharan, and Lasbela). They are well connected to Karachi and Gulf cities, where tribal structures are non-existent. In fact, while there is violence all over the province, the insurgency seems to concentrate mainly in these urbanized areas.” Suicide bomber Shaari Baloch came from Turbat, the province’s second largest city, where the BLA is very much active. From the point of view of the usual suspects, these are choice assets, especially after the death of important tribal leaders such as Akbar Bugti. The report duly noted how “the educated and middle-class Baloch youth are in the forefront” of the insurgency.

The anti-China instrumentalization of the BLA also ties in with the regime-change parliament operation in Islamabad that recently deposed former prime minister Imran Khan, who was always a fierce adversary of the American “Forever War” in Afghanistan. Khan resolutely denied Pakistan’s use in “over the horizon” US military ops: that was one of the key reasons for him to be ousted. Now, with a pliant, Washington-approved, new regime in town, a miracle has just happened: the Pentagon is about to clinch a formal agreement with Islamabad to use Pakistani airspace to – what else – keep interfering in Afghanistan.

Beijing, as well as other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), won’t be amused. Only weeks before the white coup, Khan had met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and once again underscored how Pakistan and China are “iron brothers.” Imran Khan was a serious thorn in the side of the west because he kept impressing on Pakistanis that the Forever War in Afghanistan was militarily unwinnable. He knew how all the proxies – including the BLA – that destabilized both Afghanistan and Pakistan for decades were, and continue to be, part of US covert operations.

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“Will America cough up “Joe Biden” like a hairball to get those trucks running again?”

• Nausea Rules (Kunstler)

Europe, the old original homeland of Western Civ, isn’t just losing face, it’s blowing its head clean off going along with “Joe Biden’s” economic war. Are Germany, France, and the rest of that bunch really so dead-set on jamming Ukraine into NATO that they’re willing to go full medieval for it? By which I mean sitting in the cold and dark with empty plates. That’s a hard way to go just to prove somebody else’s point.

The war in Ukraine itself was apparently losing its sex appeal for the click-hungry news media. No matter which way The New York Times and friends tried to spin it, they failed to grok both Russia’s determination to neutralize Ukraine and its ability to get the job done, even if it takes a longer-than-expected grind to finish. That’s how important it was to Russia that Ukraine not become a forward missile base and bio-weapons lab for its adversaries. When that operation concludes, the West will be left economically crippled and humiliated — which are conditions that historically portend regime change. Will America cough up “Joe Biden” like a hairball to get those trucks running again? Might the Dems themselves resort to releasing the kraken known as Hunter’s laptop just to send the old grifter packing?

In the meantime, the leaked Roe v Wade cancellation ruling shoved the Ukraine fiasco offstage so as to provoke more useful histrionics for the dreaded midterm elections upcoming. The poorly-understood truth is that said ruling will only send the abortion question back to the individual states. But let’s get real: places like New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, and California are not going to enact any new anti-abortion laws, and that’s where most of the people having hebephrenic breakdowns over the issue live. Which is to say there’s little danger that the shrieking denizens of these Blue states will lack abortions. So, how much has the party only been pretending that Roe v Wade is its primal touchstone?

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“..the court has become a tragic anachronism in our age of rage: an institution that relied on the integrity and ethics of its members and staff..”

• How Years of Attacks on the Court Created a “By Any Means” Mentality (Turley)

What is clear is that the court has become a tragic anachronism in our age of rage: an institution that relied on the integrity and ethics of its members and staff at a time when such values are treated as naive. It relied on justices and clerks alike remaining bound to the institution and to each other by a constitutional faith. But we are living in an age of constitutional atheism, so it is only surprising that it took this long. For years, politicians, pundits and academics have called for reckless political action against the court. Many Democrats in Congress have pledged to achieve political goals “by any means necessary,” including packing or gutting the court. Democratic leaders have hammered away at the court and its members, demanding that the court adhere to political demands or face institutional disaster.

The threats have grown increasingly raw and reckless as politicians sought to outdo each other in their attacks. In the age of rage, restraint is a lethal liability. The message has been repeated like a drumbeat: The ends justify the means. Recently, Roberts even went public with a warning over “inappropriate political influence” affecting the court. Yet, the day before this leak, the court itself defied critics who portrayed it as hopelessly and dysfunctionally divided with another unanimous decision. It ruled in a major case on speech that Boston could not discriminate against a religious organization that wanted to hoist a flag outside of its city hall. It spoke with one voice in defense of shared constitutional values.

Given the relentless calls from political leaders, we may have been naive to think that a staff member or clerk would not yield to the same “ends justify the means” rationale. Former Justice Louis Brandeis once warned that “Our government … teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”

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Churchill.

• Zelensky Critic Arrested in Spain on Orders of Ukrainian Government (SN)

A popular YouTuber and critic of President Zelensky was arrested in Spain at the behest of the Ukrainian government on charges of treason and faces extradition, despite publicly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yes, really. Anatoly Shariy, who has almost 3 million YouTuber subscribers, was detained on an international arrest warrant in a joint operation by Spanish and Ukrainian police, as well as international “partners,” according to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). They claim that Shariy has been acting on behalf of “foreign” forces by infringing Ukraine’s national security via his media commentary on the war and engaging in “incitement of hatred.” Shariy’s arrest “is more proof that every traitor of Ukraine will sooner or later receive his well-deserved punishment. It is inevitable,” the SBU asserted.


The blogger had previously been granted asylum by the EU in 2012 after fleeing persecution by the government of Viktor Yanukovich, who was pro-Russian. Despite condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Shariy’s criticism of Zelensky’s response was apparently enough for him to be targeted by Ukrainian authorities. Having had his passport seized, Shariy is now in Barcelona under a travel ban until a decision on his extradition to Ukraine is made. President Zelensky’s representative at the Constitutional Court said Shariy will “face a Ukrainian court and will be held liable in line with Ukrainian laws.” In response to his arrest, Shariy posted a picture of his wife feeding parrots in Barcelona, commenting, “This really is a comedy.” Shariy’s arrest once again puts to bed the idea that Ukraine is some kind of beacon of democracy, when its authorities treat dissidents exactly the same way dissidents are treated in Russia.

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The Whitmer case may have broad implications.

• Jan. 6: 80 ‘Suspicious Actors’ and ‘Material Witnesses’ Under Scrutiny (ET)

Defense attorneys are seeking to identify and investigate 80 suspicious actors and material witnesses, some of whom allegedly ran an entrapment operation against the Oath Keepers on January 6, 2021, and committed crimes including the removal of security fencing, breaching police lines, attacking officers, and inciting crowds to storm into the Capitol. In a motion (pdf) and supplement (pdf) filed after 11 p.m. on May 5 in federal court in Washington, attorney Brad Geyer listed 80 people, some of whom he said could be government agents or provocateurs. The people are seen on video operating in a coordinated fashion across the Capitol grounds on January 6, the attorney alleged.

Geyer’s suggestion of an entrapment scheme will resonate with dozens of January 6 defense attorneys, coming shortly after two men were acquitted of an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). There was a hung jury on charges against two other defendants. The jury in that case was allowed to consider FBI entrapment as a defense. Geyer, who represents Oath Keepers defendant Kenneth Harrelson, is seeking a court order from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta compelling federal prosecutors to help identify the individuals and disclose whether they were working for law enforcement or any government agency on January 6. Geyer wrote that the information is exculpatory, which compels the government to produce it. Other Oath Keepers defendants are expected to join in the motion.

The May 5 filing comes on the heels of an April 12 Oath Keepers motion that alleged at least 20 “assets” from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were embedded in the crowds on January 6. According to the new filing, video evidence the defense gained access to only recently shows that some of the 80 people attacked police, other people, and members of the Oath Keepers; entered the Capitol on the west side “with apparent permission or acquiescence of government actors”; opened the Columbus Doors on the east side of the Capitol “from the inside, possibly with even further assistance of government actors”; and deployed “sophisticated crowd-behavior techniques,” orienting themselves between protesters and police.

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“This is the way disinformation is really exposed, not by some contrived government agency, but by evidence presented in court that gets at the truth of what happened,”

• Ex-FBI Intel Chief: Clinton Campaign Used ‘Contrived Disinformation’ (JTN)

As the Biden administration pushes its new Disinformation Governance Board, the FBI’s former intelligence chief says he is now convinced Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign used “contrived disinformation” to try to mislead Americans into believing Donald Trump was a Russian asset. “This is more than just political dirty tricks,” retired Assistant Director for Intelligence Kevin Brock told the “Just the News, Not Noise” television show Wednesday. “Political dirty tricks usually have some foundation in truth. But they just made stuff up.” Brock, one of the bureau’s most respected former executives, said he has been impressed with the way Special Counsel John Durham has used the prosecution of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann to expose how the false Russia collusion narrative was constructed.

Sussmann, who has pleaded innocent and faces trial at the end of the month, is charged with lying to the FBI in fall 2016 when he denied he was acting on behalf of a client in bringing the bureau what turned out to be false allegations that Trump had a secret communications channel with the Kremlin. Durham has exposed recent evidence showing the Clinton campaign’s own researchers were skeptical of the allegation, which one described as a “red herring.” The underlying data permitted no more than an “inference” at best, according to another. Last week, prosecutors unveiled an email showing a journalist had told the campaign research team weeks before it approached the FBI that one of the Trump-Russia allegations was “bullshit.”

“This is the way disinformation is really exposed, not by some contrived government agency, but by evidence presented in court that gets at the truth of what happened,” Brock said of the prosecutor’s recent evidentiary filings in court. “What Durham is methodically doing, is laying out a case that the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democrat Party used contrived disinformation in a conspiracy, in a conspiratorial way, to deceive the American voter ahead of the election.”

True the Vote

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“Special Counsel Robert Mueller, intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public about the hack.”

• Claim Russians Hacked The DNC Could Have Relied On ‘Spoofed’ Data (Fed.)

The Georgia Tech cyber security experts ensnared in the Alfa Bank hoax conducted a retrospective analysis of the Democratic National Committee hack, according to the Department of Defense. While the results of that analysis have yet to be made public, internal documents obtained by The Federalist reveal that Georgia Tech’s computer scientists believed CrowdStrike’s approach to investigating computer intrusions relied on the use of easily “spoofed/impersonated” signals of traffic.

In June 2016, about one month before WikiLeaks released a trove of internal communiques revealing top DNC officials plotted to destroy Bernie Sanders’ presidential ambitions in favor of their preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, the DNC publicly confirmed that its server had been hacked. In the Washington Post article breaking the story, the DNC maintained that the private security firm it had hired to investigate the hack, CrowdStrike, had concluded two Russian military intelligence groups, branded Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, bore responsibility for the intrusions.

Given that Democrats and the media would later rely on CrowdStrike’s conclusion that Putin’s agents had hacked the DNC to support the Russia collusion hoax, those seeking to unravel Spygate paid particular attention to CrowdStrike’s initial assessment. The declassification of CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry’s December 2017 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, that “there was no ‘concrete evidence’ that the emails were stolen electronically,” later raised more “questions about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller, intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public” about the hack.

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A comment on “The Shanghai Lockdown: A Memetic Analysis”
by “Anonymous”

• The Whole Planet Is a Pot And We’re All Frogs (Ugo Bardi)

Shanghai has always been seen as the most “civilized” city in China. Shanghai is often called Le Paris de l’Orient, it is an “international” first tier city… probably the top Chinese city in terms of openness, quality of life and access to medical care. Nobody expected to see such levels of insanity in Shanghai… in other areas of the country, yes, but not here. Looking at the conditions in the quarantine centers… Containers without doors in a field, tents set on a highway, toilets flooded with feces… open air zoo. They come take positive cases in big buses and ambulances almost daily. The police is patrolling streets at all times and we are unable to even set foot on the sidewalk. Every building that had a positive case is either: shut down with barriers OR has 1-2 men in a tent monitoring 24/7 (imagine all the manpower required.)

Currently there are 3-4 of those tents in my compound. It’s basically Martial Law. The psychological toll is quite high. The monetary one must be hard of lower classes. Some neighbors have mental breakdowns. Some people spray alcohol in the air while walking to get tested… You’d think the Plague is upon us. Some people were getting messages in group chat about “foreign spies” and “foreign media fueling anti-China conspiracies.” Good ol’ shift the blame tricks. I have been in lockdown since mid-March, got tested 35 times, and lost about 12 pounds. The local governmental commune gave us a little bit of food, but barely enough to survive.

Luckily we had some preps and were able to order some food. Now most delivery guys are not allowed to deliver to our address. We can get a bit of food, but we need to get imaginative to create new recipes (boiled/sweet and sour/spicy/fermented cabbage.) My take is: It could be a test for something much bigger (ie., war, energy crisis) or they are truly afraid of the unrest if lots of old people were to die. Chinese people tend to get emotional and the last thing the authorities want to deal with is mobs lynching doctors in the streets. Is the frog slowly boiling in the pot? I think so. Except the whole planet is pot and we’re all frogs.

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Ireland

 

 

 

 

Clare Daly
https://twitter.com/i/status/1522241094754443265

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle April 28 2022

Apr 282022
 
 April 28, 2022  Posted by at 8:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  24 Responses »


Robert Rauschenberg Buffalo II 1964

 

• Russia Stops Gas Supplies to Poland and Bulgaria (CTH)
• Russia Doubles Fossil Fuel Revenues Since Invasion Of Ukraine Began (G.)
• Putin’s Main Assault Is Still To Come (Lieutenant-General Jonathon Riley)
• Biden Admin Creates ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ Under DHS (PM)
• DHS Will Establish Disinformation Board with Obvious Agenda (CTH)
• Online Censorship of Ukraine Dissent Is Becoming the New Norm (MPN)
• Twitter Workers Freaking Out Over Elon Musk In Internal Slack Messages (Ngo)
• Obama Goes Full Orwell In Scary Stanford Speech (WND)
• Republicans Want Answers From Garland On FBI’s Role In Whitmer Charges (Fox)
• Mortgage Volume Gets Crushed by Spiking Interest Rates
• Fauci Walks Back Comment About US No Longer Being In ‘Pandemic Phase’ (NYP)
• CDC and FDA ‘Altered’ Covid Guidance, Findings Under Political Pressure (DM)
• Fiction Disguised as Science to Promote Hatred (Byram Bridle)

 

 

 

 

Euro and yen are getting crushed, ruble is at 52-week high.

@TFMetals: Gold has now been attacked TWICE today in an attempt to manipulate it back under $1880. The first was in London and the second, even higher volume attack came during the first hour of Comex trading.

 

 

 

 

Biden Scott Ritter 2002

 

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities; can make you commit atrocities” ~ Voltaire

 

 

“due to absence of payments in roubles”

• Russia Stops Gas Supplies to Poland and Bulgaria (CTH)

At the same time as Russia has targeted railway lines as part of the effort to block U.S. arms shipments into Eastern Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has now followed through on the previous warning to stop Russian gas supplies unless payments are made in non-sanctioned Rubles. Poland is obviously the primary target for retaliation here, as the NATO alliance is using Poland as the gateway for arms deliveries into Ukraine. According to multiple reports from the EU Russia has halted gas shipments into Poland and Bulgaria. (Reuters) “Gazprom Russia’s gas export monopoly, suspended gas supplies “due to absence of payments in roubles”, as stipulated in a decree from Russian President Vladimir Putin that aims to soften the impact of sanctions.”


There are conflicting reports as to whether Germany is paying Russia, or whether they are trying to avoid running afoul of the NATO alliance by reducing Russian imports. Ukraine President Zelenskyy is using the opportunity to reinforce his position that all European countries need to stop purchasing energy from Russia, or else they are not supporting Ukraine. However, it’s not as simple as it seems because multiple EU countries are dependent on Russia for energy products and there are no immediate alternatives. Russia is leveraging this dependency in an effort to break the western sanctions.

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“Russia has effectively caught the EU in a trap where further restrictions will raise prices further..”

• Russia Doubles Fossil Fuel Revenues Since Invasion Of Ukraine Began (G.)

Russia has nearly doubled its revenues from selling fossil fuels to the EU during the two months of war in Ukraine, benefiting from soaring prices even as volumes have been reduced. Russia has received about €62bn from exports of oil, gas and coal in the two months since the invasion began, according to an analysis of shipping movements and cargos by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. For the EU, imports were about €44bn for the past two months, compared with about €140bn for the whole of last year, or roughly €12bn a month. The findings demonstrate how Russia has continued to benefit from its stranglehold over Europe’s energy supply, even while governments have frantically sought to prevent Vladimir Putin using oil and gas as an economic weapon.


Even though exports from Russia have been reduced by the war and sanctions, the country’s dominance as a source of gas has meant cutting off supplies has only increased prices, which were already high because of tight supply as global economies recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. Crude oil shipments from Russia to foreign ports fell by 30% in the first three weeks of April, compared with rates in January and February, before the invasion, according to the CREA data. But the higher prices Russia can now command for its oil and gas mean its revenues, which flow almost directly to the Russian government through state-dominated companies, have risen even while sanctions and export restrictions bite. Russia has effectively caught the EU in a trap where further restrictions will raise prices further, cushioning its revenues despite the best efforts of EU governments.

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Always a bit weird when western military “analyzes” Russia. Invariably they pretend to have a direct line into Putin’s brain.

• Putin’s Main Assault Is Still To Come (Lieutenant-General Jonathon Riley)

IN spite of appearances and the beliefs of many, the main Russian assault in eastern Ukraine has not yet begun. Last Sunday, April 24, was Easter Sunday in the Russian Orthodox calendar; the feast lasts eight days until the commemoration of Our Lord’s second appearance to the Disciples after his resurrection and the confrontation with ‘doubting’ Thomas. Given Vladimir Putin’s well-documented devotion to the Orthodox religion, we might expect the main assault in eastern Ukraine to begin after that date. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s declaration that the offensive had begun was useful to Putin. It has caused both the Ukrainian people and the West to think that Russian forces are now fully committed. They are not. What has begun is the deep attack and the use of deception – two recycled Soviet techniques still in full use.

Deep attacks against infrastructure by air and missile strikes and on key targets, including stockpiles of Nato-supplied equipment, air defence systems, airfields and communications are now in progress. Preliminary artillery fire on close targets in the Donbas region is also certainly ongoing. In terms of deception, the Russians continue to be poised in the Black Sea threatening Odessa, but with probably insufficient forces to do more than this. However, it is clearly fixing Ukrainian attention, as the 5th (Reserve) Tank Brigade with its 90 T-72 main battle tanks has been moved there. For Putin, leaving Odessa as the only operational Ukrainian port will be a valuable bargaining chip once the Donbas operation is complete and he seeks to dictate a settlement. If a settlement is not achieved then this picture changes, more of which shortly.

So what can we expect to see when the main assault unfolds? First, combined arms assaults against Ukrainian regular forces in the Donbas and elsewhere on the eastern frontier to fix them. Zelensky’s statements that Ukrainian reserves are now being committed, including the 3rd (Reserve) Tank Brigade deploying to Izyum, and the 4th and 17th Tank Brigades deployed to Kharkov, may well be a bluff. If it is not, then such moves would be premature and play to the Russian script. That said, an encircling movement from Izyum to the south, on the western border of the Donetsk, would be a very clear indicator of the beginning of full offensive operations.

Operations in and around Mariupol will continue, but only to fix the attention of the West and its media. Mariupol is seen as the key to any corridor to the Crimea – but the route to the Crimea has been fully open since early March with the garrison of Mariupol confined to a small area and helpless to interfere.

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Here’s how nervous Elon Musk is making Washington.

• Biden Admin Creates ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ Under DHS (PM)

The Department of Homeland Security is setting up a new board designed to counter misinformation related to homeland security, with a focus specifically on Russia and irregular migration. The board will be called the “Disinformation Governance Board, and will be headed by executive director Nina Jankowicz. Speaking with the House Appropriations DHS Subcommittee on Wednesday afternoon, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, “Our Undersecretary for Policy, Rob Silvers is co-chair with our Principal Deputy General Counsel, Jennifer Gaskell, in leading a just recently constituted misinformation disinformation governance board. So we’re bringing — the goal is to bring the resources of the department together to address this threat.”

Jankowicz was previously a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, and had advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship, according to Politico. Jankowicz also oversaw Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute. She announced the new Board via Twitter on Wednesday. Jankowicz has previously said that she was concerned that Twitter had determined early in 2022 to stop limiting speech from users about the 2020 presidential election, saying that “considering the long-term damage these lies do to our democracy,” she was “dismayed about this decision.”

Her view about elections, whether foreign or domestic, are that they “aren’t an end point,” but are “an inflection point,” and that the policies of social media companies as regards free speech “need to reflect that.” Jankowicz was an advisor to the government of Ukraine. She also stated her opinion that Hunter Biden’s laptop, the contents of which were reported by the New York Post, was Russian disinformation. This was entirely false. Jankowicz will be leading the charge against misinformation, of which she believed the laptop actually was an example. Jankowicz also does not appear to be a fan of free speech, saying that setting up free speech in opposition to censorship is “a false dichotomy.”

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This Nina Jankowicz, who will head the board, is herself a veritable disinformation engine.

• DHS Will Establish Disinformation Board with Obvious Agenda (CTH)

I think we are now seeing the outlines of how the Fourth Branch of Government are planning to keep control over information, specifically public discussion on Big Tech platforms, even as Elon Musk moves to open the valves of information from the social media platform Twitter. Previously the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced a new Dept of Homeland Security priority to combat disinformation {LINK} on technology platforms including social media. Many eyebrows were raised as the announcement appeared to be an open admission that the U.S. government was going to control information by applying labels, that would align with allies in social media, who need a legal justification for censorship and content removal.


NOTE: The Republicans did NOT pay for the Steele dossier.

This CISA announcement was quickly followed by various government officials and agencies saying it was critical to combat Russian disinformation, as the events in Ukraine unfolded. In essence, Ukraine was the justification for search engines like Google, DuckDuckGo, and social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to begin targeting information and content that did not align with the official U.S. government narrative. Previously those same methods were deployed by the U.S. government, specifically the CDC and FDA, toward COVID-19 and the vaccination program. All of this background aligns with the previous visibility of a public-private partnership between the bureaucracy of government, the U.S. intelligence agencies and U.S. social media. That partnership now forms the very cornerstone of the DHS/CISA effort to control what information exists in the public space. It is highly important that people understand what is happening.

[..] For two years the control mechanisms around information have been cemented by govt and Big Tech. Even the deployment of the linguistics around disinformation, misinformation and malinformation is all part of that collective effort. The collaboration between the government and Big Tech is not a matter for debate, it is all easily referenced by their own admissions. The current issue is how they are deploying the information controls. We have COVID-19, the vaccination effort and now Ukraine as examples of the collaboration to control information, to control what people are permitted to question and discuss on the internet. Now things are getting much more detailed, and more alarming.

Shortly after Elon Musk made a bid to purchase a single information platform, Twitter, and then expressed his intent to open the speech valves, former Obama administration intelligence officials wrote a letter warning about efforts to break up the information control by Big Tech and Social Media. That letter was shortly followed by a speech delivered by Obama himself where he specifically demanded that government take a larger role in the control of information, essentially promoting an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’ to control information in the public sphere.

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See Covid. See Russiagate. Parites like the DNC, the MSM and the Twitter snowflakes have convinced themselves they have a god-given right to censorship.

• Online Censorship of Ukraine Dissent Is Becoming the New Norm (MPN)

Google has sent a warning shot across the world, ominously informing media outlets, bloggers, and content creators that it will no longer tolerate certain opinions when it comes to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this month, Google AdSense sent a message to a myriad of publishers, including MintPress News, informing us that, “Due to the war in Ukraine, we will pause monetization of content that exploits, dismisses, or condones the war.” This content, it went on to say, “includes, but is not limited to, claims that imply victims are responsible for their own tragedy or similar instances of victim-blaming, such as claims that Ukraine is committing genocide or deliberately attacking its own citizens.”

This builds on a similar message Google’s subsidiary YouTube released last month, stating, “Our Community Guidelines prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events. We are now removing content about Russia’s invasion in Ukraine that violates this policy.” YouTube went on to say that it had already permanently banned more than a thousand channels and 15,000 videos on these grounds. Journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin was deeply troubled by the news. “It is really disturbing that this is the trend that we are on,” she told MintPress, adding: It is a preposterous declaration considering that the victim is whoever we are told by our foreign policy establishment.

It really is outrageous to be told by these tech giants that taking the wrong side of a conflict that is quite complicated will now hurt your views, derank you on social media or limit your ability to fund your work. So you have to toe the line in order to survive as a journalist in alternative media today.” The most prominent victim of the recent banning spate has been Russian state media such as RT America, whose entire catalog has been blocked throughout most of the world. RT America was also blocked from broadcasting across the U.S., leading to the network’s sudden closure.

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“We’re all going through the five stages of grief in cycles and everyone’s nerves are frazzled..”

• Twitter Workers Freaking Out Over Elon Musk In Internal Slack Messages (Ngo)

Leaked internal communications by Twitter employees reveal woke employees are overtaken by despair and anger about Elon Musk’s month-long effort to acquire Twitter. Musk announced he would purchase the company for $44 billion on Monday. The deal concludes a month-long saga that began with Musk first tweeting out polls and his thoughts about the decline of free speech on Twitter. On the business communication platform Slack, some Twitter employees vented against the new owner, leaked messages reveal. “Physically cringy watching Elon talk about free speech,” a site reliability engineer who identifies as a nonbinary transgender and plural person wrote.

“We’re all going through the five stages of grief in cycles and everyone’s nerves are frazzled,” wrote a senior staff software engineer who called Musk an “a**hole,” and tried to console his colleagues. “We’re all spinning our wheels, and coming up with worst case scenarios (Trump returns! No more moderation!). The fact is that [Musk] has not talked about what he’s planning on doing in any detail outside of broad sweeping statements that could be easily seen as hyperbolic showboating.” A senior staff video engineer announced he would be quitting, “Not the place to say it perhaps, but I will not work for this company after the takeover.”

Following the back-and-forth among multiple employees angry about the news, some warned that their communications on Slack could be searched. The employees then moved their conversations onto their personal devices using the encrypted chat application Signal. Twitter’s leadership appeared to predict an internal backlash and possible sabotage when it locked down the ability of its employees to make changes to the platform through Friday. Leading up to Monday’s deal, Twitter employees had already been venting for weeks on Slack about Musk and defending the platform’s moderation enforcement.

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“The way I’m going to evaluate?” Obama failed to explain in what capacity he gets to evaluate anything…”

• Obama Goes Full Orwell In Scary Stanford Speech (WND)

A week ago Barack Obama let loose his inner fascist and gave an hour-long speech at Stanford University that deserved more attention than it got. “I’m pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist,” Obama told his audience and then spent the rest of the hour proving he is anything but. In fact, the Obama that emerges in this speech is one scary dude. The one sentence that most alarmed me began thusly, “The way I’m going to evaluate any proposal touching on social media and the internet is whether it strengthens or weakens the prospects for a healthy, inclusive democracy.” “The way I’m going to evaluate?” Obama failed to explain in what capacity he gets to evaluate anything. Does he expect to head the FCC or get appointed to the Supreme Court? Does he plan to engineer a Michelle Obama presidential bid? If any of these happens, God help us all.

The thrust of his speech was that “regulation has to be part of the answer” in combating online “disinformation.” As Obama made much too clear he and his pals get to determine what is and is not disinformation. The former president makes almost no attempt to hide his biases. A sentence that reads, “People like Putin and Steve Bannon, for that matter, understand it’s not necessary for people to believe this information in order to weaken democratic institutions” does not inspire a whole lot of confidence in the deplorable half of America. Nor does a sentence that reads, “There are still brand name newspapers and magazines, not to mention network news broadcasts, NPR [and] other outlets that have adapted to the new digital environment while maintaining the highest standards of journalistic integrity.”

Those “highest standards” included sustaining for three years the fiction that Donald Trump conspired with the Russians to steal the 2016 election and salvaging Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, such as it was, by suppressing all news of Hunter Biden’s laptop under the pretext it was Russian disinformation. On the question of COVID, Obama insists, “People are dying because of misinformation.” He cites the refusal of 1 in 5 Americans to avoid “safe, effective vaccines” as proof of the same. Obama neglected to mention that more than a year into the COVID mania Gallup asked 35,000 Americans, “What are the chances someone with COVID must be hospitalized?” 41% of Democrats said more than 50%; another 28% of Democrats said 20 to 50%. The correct answer was 1-5%.

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“..that whole conspiracy that looks to be completely possibly led by the FBI, which is terrifying, and the comparison of what happened on January 6..”

• Republicans Want Answers From Garland On FBI’s Role In Whitmer Charges (Fox)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is seeking answers from the Justice Department (DOJ) on whether the FBI “entrapped” defendants in the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot and whether the high-profile charges in Michigan were politically motivated to hurt former President Trump before the 2020 presidential election. Greene on Wednesday sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray that backs defense lawyer claims that four defendants charged with conspiring to kidnap Whitmer were steered by undercover FBI agents and informants. “The American people deserve a transparent justice system and law enforcement that keeps them safe, not entraps them in serious criminal activity in order to sway the outcome of a democratic election,” Greene and 11 other GOP lawmakers wrote in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital.

After a 20-day trial, two of the four men were acquitted on April 8 of a conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer. Jurors couldn’t reach a verdict on charges against two other defendants, resulting in a mistrial. Their lawyers alleged entrapment, and the federal judge in the case allowed jurors to consider whether the FBI engaged in the prohibited practice of cajoling or tricking individuals into committing crimes. Prosecutors sought to show that the defendants were talking about the kidnapping plot before the FBI sting with one defendant posting a video saying, “We need to use brutal force against the government” in 2019, months before he met any agents or informants. In May 2020, another defendant was talking about “hanging” the governor.

[..] In an interview with Fox News Digital, Greene sought to make a link between FBI “entrapping” the Whitmer defendants and the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. She questioned whether the FBI had any involvement or knowledge of those who broke into the Capitol and disrupted the House and Senate proceedings to certify President Biden’s Electoral College win. “The comparison of the two incidents, that’s what most people are just really concerned about – between Governor Whitmer and that whole conspiracy that looks to be completely possibly led by the FBI, which is terrifying, and the comparison of what happened on January 6,” Greene said.

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When is it time to bail out banks?

• Mortgage Volume Gets Crushed by Spiking Interest Rates

Spiking mortgage rates multiply the effects of exploding home prices on mortgage payments, and it has taken layer after layer of homebuyers out of the market for the past four months. And we can see that. Mortgage applications to purchase a home fell further this week and were down 17% from a year ago, hitting the lowest level since May 2020, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly Purchase Index today. The index is down over 30% from peak-demand in late 2020 and early 2021, which was then followed by the historic price spikes last year.

“The drop in purchase applications was evident across all loan types,” the MBA’s report said. “Prospective homebuyers have pulled back this spring, as they continue to face limited options of homes for sale along with higher costs from increasing mortgage rates and prices. The recent decrease in purchase applications is an indication of potential weakness in home sales in the coming months.” The culprit of the plunge in volume: The toxic mix of exploding home prices and spiking mortgage rates. The average interest rate for 30-year fixed rate mortgages with 20% down and conforming to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac limits, jumped to 5.37%, the highest since August 2009, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly measure today.

The mortgage on a home purchased a year ago at the median price (per National Association of Realtors) of $326,300, and financed with 20% down over 30 years, at the average rate at the time of 3.17%, came with a payment of 1,320 per month. The mortgage on a home purchased today at the median price of $375,300, and financed with 20% down, at 5.37% comes with a payment of $1,990. So today’s buyer, already strung out by rampant inflation in everything else, would have to come up with an extra $670 a month – that represents a 50% jump in mortgage payments – to buy the same house. Now figure this with homes in the more expensive areas of the country where the median price, after the ridiculous spikes of the past two years, runs $500,000 or $1 million or more. Homebuyers are facing massively higher mortgage payments in those markets.

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“A day later, after his comments made headlines worldwide, Fauci was singing a different tune.”

• Fauci Walks Back Comment About US No Longer Being In ‘Pandemic Phase’ (NYP)

Dr. Anthony Fauci walked back his comment that the US was no longer in the “pandemic phase” of COVID-19 — the latest jumbled messaging from President Biden’s chief medical adviser on the coronavirus. Biden administration officials and Fauci were scrambling Wednesday to emphasize that the country is still in the midst of a pandemic and that emergency measures are still needed after Fauci told PBS the precise opposite. “Here we are. It’s the end of April. It’s the spring of 2022. How close are we to the end of the pandemic?” Judy Woodruff of “PBS NewsHour” asked Fauci Tuesday. “We are certainly, right now, in this country out of the pandemic phase,” Fauci replied.

“Namely, we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now. “So, if you’re saying, are we out of the pandemic phase in this country, we are,” he added. A day later, after his comments made headlines worldwide, Fauci was singing a different tune. “We are in a different moment of the pandemic,” Fauci told the Associated Press Wednesday. The US has “decelerated and transitioned into more of a controlled phase” after a winter surge, he added. “By no means does that mean the pandemic is over,” Fauci said in his 180-degree turnabout.

He told the Washington Post Wednesday: “The world is still in a pandemic. There’s no doubt about that. Don’t anybody get any misinterpretation of that.” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki fielded a question during her daily press briefing over why emergency measures are still needed if the “pandemic phase” is over. “Well, what Dr. Fauci was saying is that we are in a different phase of this pandemic, and that’s absolutely true,” Psaki said, adding that the level of hospitalizations and deaths has come down.

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What a surprise!

• CDC and FDA ‘Altered’ Covid Guidance, Findings Under Political Pressure (DM)

CDC and FDA officials ‘altered’ Covid guidance and even ‘suppressed’ findings related to the virus due to political pressure, a bombshell report suggests. Investigators from the watchdog Government Accountability Office (GAO) spoke to more than a dozen directors and managers who worked at the agencies behind the country’s pandemic guidance. They unearthed allegations of ‘political interference’ in scientific reports, raising fears that research was tampered with. In its 37-page report, the GAO warned that neither agency had a system in place for reporting allegations of political interference. It also said they had failed to train staff how to spot and report this. Whistleblowers said they did not speak up at the time for fear of retaliation, because they were unsure how to report the issues or believed leaders were already aware.

This is just the latest in a growing patchwork of reports suggesting politicians influenced ‘scientific’ papers during the pandemic for their own ends. On Tuesday, the Biden administration’s top medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci declared the U.S. is now ‘out of the pandemic phase’ of Covid, citing low cases and hospitalizations. But health experts were quick to question the claim — buried at the end of an interview with PBS’ NewsHour — suggesting he may have bungled his words and should only have said the nation was in a phase of ‘low hospitalizations’. ‘A few respondents from CDC and [Food and Drug Administration] FDA stated they felt that the potential political interference they observed resulted in the alteration or suppression of scientific findings,’ GAO investigators wrote in the report.

‘Some of these respondents believed that this potential political interference may have resulted in the politically motivated alteration of public health guidance or delayed publication of Covid-related scientific findings.’ The GAO report published last week looked into the two agencies, alongside the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — America’s top research institution— and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) — in charge of natural disaster response. All are part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which in February was branded as at ‘high risk’ for fraud, mismanagement and abuse by the GAO in a separate report.

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“We thought what was missing from that conversation was, what are the rights of vaccinated people to be protected from unvaccinated people?”

• Fiction Disguised as Science to Promote Hatred (Byram Bridle)

The legacy media has been like pigs at a trough today and yesterday with the publication of an atrocious ‘peer-reviewed’ ‘scientific’ article by Dr. David Fisman, Dr. Ashleigh Tuite, and a graduate student. After all, with raw public health data unable to support the only COVID-19 narrative that has been deemed acceptable, fresh fuel was apparently needed. Lots of media outlets have been reporting on this study; one of them being CTV News. Here is the headline for their article: “Being with unvaccinated people increases COVID-19 risk for those who are vaccinated: modelling study” This kind of messaging will only fuel hatred and segregation and the potential development of harmful policies. And it is all in the name of bad science.

As a researcher who has published and reviewed many scientific papers, I can tell you that the article by Fisman, et al. is the worst one that I have ever seen. The ‘peer reviewers’ of this article should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to be published, and the editor even more so. If the Canadian Medical Association Journal does not promptly retract this article, they will have made themselves an embarrassment among scientific publishers. This paper by Fisman, et al. is only thinly veiled hate speech under the guise of science. Before I walk you through the numerous massive errors in this paper, let me first show you one example of the messaging regarding the impact and relevance of the paper.

Fisman was quoted by CTV News as saying “We thought what was missing from that conversation was, what are the rights of vaccinated people to be protected from unvaccinated people?”. The only reason why Fisman is trying to turn people against other people is due to the abject failure of the COVID-19 ‘vaccines’ to function like vaccines. That is to say that the purpose of a vaccine is to protect people from a pathogen; to prevent both the disease and transmission of the causative agent. Such a medical product does not require one to pit people against people. Fisman has inappropriately labelled critically thinking people as an enemy when the actual culprits are SARS-CoV-2 and overly rushed jabs of exceptionally poor quality and highly questionable safety that have been pushed as the sole solution at the expense of all others.

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@TexasLindsay has a whole series of these “animations”, for many countries. This is Greece.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1519028584345710594

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle September 4 2018

Sep 042018
 
 September 4, 2018  Posted by at 9:04 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  8 Responses »


Edward S. Curtis Lucille, Dakota Sioux 1907

 

• Department of Homeland Security Lied About Russia Hacking US Voter Sites (CN)
• Housing Bubble Pops in Sydney & Melbourne
• Sydney, Melbourne Have Zero Cashflow Positive Suburbs Left (News.com.au)
• Europe’s News Agencies Blast Google, Facebook For ‘Plundering’ Content (AFP)
• The Emerging Market Crisis Is Back. And This Time It’s Serious (CNBC)
• Bringing Up The Bodies in Emerging Markets (Napier)
• Brexit Is The Wrong Diagnosis Of A Real Crisis (LSE)
• China Says It Is Helping Africa Develop, Not Accumulate Debt (R.)
• The Uncomfortable Hiatus (Kunstler)
• Brazil Court Lifts Ban On Monsanto’s Glyphosate Weedkiller (AFP)

 

 

Read this excellent piece by Gareth Porter and you’ll never believe another single word about meddling. DHS made it all up, because it wanted to be the no. 1 cybersecurity unit in the US.

• Department of Homeland Security Lied About Russia Hacking US Voter Sites (CN)

The narrative of Russian intelligence attacking state and local election boards and threatening the integrity of U.S. elections has achieved near-universal acceptance by media and political elites. And now it has been accepted by the Trump administration’s intelligence chief, Dan Coats, as well. But the real story behind that narrative, recounted here for the first time, reveals that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created and nurtured an account that was grossly and deliberately deceptive. DHS compiled an intelligence report suggesting hackers linked to the Russian government could have targeted voter-related websites in many states and then leaked a sensational story of Russian attacks on those sites without the qualifications that would have revealed a different story.

When state election officials began asking questions, they discovered that the DHS claims were false and, in at least one case, laughable. The National Security Agency and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigating team have also claimed evidence that Russian military intelligence was behind election infrastructure hacking, but on closer examination, those claims turn out to be speculative and misleading as well. Mueller’s indictment of 12 GRU military intelligence officers does not cite any violations of U.S. election laws though it claims Russia interfered with the 2016 election.

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“With impeccable timing, there is a flood of new condos expected to be completed over the next two years..”

• Housing Bubble Pops in Sydney & Melbourne

In Sydney, breeding ground for one of the world’s biggest housing bubbles, prices of single-family houses dropped 7.3% in August, compared to a year earlier. Prices of “units” — condos in US lingo — fell 2.2% year-over-year. Price declines were the sharpest at the high end, with prices down 8.1% in the most expensive quarter of home sales. Prices of all types of homes combined fell 5.6%, according to CoreLogic’s Daily Home Value Index. The index is down 5.8% from its peak last September:

Melbourne, where the inflection point has been lagging a few months behind Sydney’s, is in the process of catching up. Over the three month-period, June-August, prices fell 2.0%, making Melbourne the weakest housing market among the capital cities. By segment, house prices fell 2.7% from a year ago while condo prices still inched up 1.5%. At the most expensive quarter of sales, prices fell 5.2% from a year ago. For all types of dwellings combined, prices declined 1.7% year-over-year, to the lowest level since early June 2017, according to CoreLogic. Prices are down 3.6% from their peak at the end of November 2017:

[..] With impeccable timing, there is a flood of new condos expected to be completed over the next two years, something avid crane-counters in Sydney and Melbourne have been swearing for a while. Here are some of these astounding numbers that CoreLogic estimates based on data it collected from the industry: Greater Sydney: In 2019: 31,500 new condos are scheduled to be completed. In 2020, another 45,500 condos are expected to be completed. This brings the two-year total of new condos to 77,000 units, which will increase the total stock of condos by 9.3%! Greater Melbourne: The oncoming flood of new condos is expected to reach 29,000 units in 2019 and nearly 50,000 units in 2020. Over the two years, this will increase the total stock of condos by nearly 79,000 units, or by 11.5%!

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“Even property investors have been priced out of the market.”

• Sydney, Melbourne Have Zero Cashflow Positive Suburbs Left (News.com.au)

Even property investors have been priced out of the market. There are “currently no suburbs” in Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra where an investor can buy a detached house and expect it to be cashflow positive with a deposit of 20 per cent or less, according to an analysis by Propertyology. Releasing a list of the country’s “best capital city cash cow suburbs”, the research firm said buyers would have to travel to the Central Coast, 100km from the Sydney CBD, before finding an investment property with decent cashflow. Even then, a median-priced $490,000 house in Lake Munmorah — the least worst “Sydney” suburb identified in Propertyology’s list — will leave the investor $3093 out of pocket.

“Victoria paints a similar picture, with greater Melbourne’s best locations for cash flow investors within the municipality of Melton — 40km northwest of the CBD,” Propertyology head of research Simon Pressley said in a statement. It comes as CoreLogic figures showed national dwelling values fell for the 11th consecutive month in August, led by weakness in the two major capitals that comprise about 60 per cent of Australia’s housing market by value. Negatively geared properties — when the rental return is less than the interest payments and other costs — are “okay when you’re getting 10 per cent capital growth year in, year out”, said AMP Capital chief economist Dr Shane Oliver.

But investors now face falling house prices, rising interest rates, tighter lending conditions and the possibility of a future Labor government cracking down on negative gearing and capital gains tax breaks. “The equation gets more complicated,” Dr Oliver said.

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Getting rich off of other people’s work.

• Europe’s News Agencies Blast Google, Facebook For ‘Plundering’ Content (AFP)

Europe’s biggest news agencies accused Google and Facebook of “plundering” news for free on Tuesday in a joint statement that called on the internet giants to share more of their revenues with the media. In a column signed by the CEOs of around 20 agencies including France’s Agence France-Presse, Britain’s Press Association and Germany’s Deutsche Presse-Agentur they called on the European Parliament to update copyright law in the EU to help address a “grotesque imbalance”. “The internet giants’ plundering of the news media’s content and of their advertising revenue poses a threat both to consumers and to democracy,” the column said.

European Parliament lawmakers are to set to debate a new copyright law this month that would force the internet giants to pay more for creative content used on their platforms such as news, music or movies. A first draft of the law was rejected in July and the plans have been firmly opposed by US tech firms, as well as advocates of internet freedom who fear that the regulations could lead to higher costs for consumers. “Can the titans of the internet compensate the media without asking people to pay for access to the internet, as they claim they would be forced to? The answer is clearly ‘yes’,” the column said. The joint statement from the agencies, which are major suppliers of news, photos and video, said Facebook reported revenues of $40 billion (34 billion euros) in 2017 and profits of $16 billion, while Google made $12.7 billion on sales of $110 billion.

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Been here before. This time is wider and deeper.

• The Emerging Market Crisis Is Back. And This Time It’s Serious (CNBC)

Markets have a very short attention span. Like babies, they move on quickly from one toy, or in this case an event, to another. For instance, markets seem to have moved on from the formation of the “Fragile Five,” a group of countries that suffered heavily when the U.S. Federal Reserve started to roll back its bond-buying program in 2013. Made up of Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa, this group was marked by heavy currency depreciation, high current account deficits and political instability at home. The slump in commodity prices and fears of a Chinese slowdown kept the pressure on these economies. However, they have started to see a comeback; in India and Indonesia, for example, a change in government has led to political and economic reforms.

Investors started crowding this space and inflows into funds with exposure to these markets increased. But markets are feeling a sense of deja vu. Blame it on a stronger dollar, escalating tensions since President Donald Trump came to power, worries over a full-fledged trade war with China or rising interest rates in the U.S., this time around the crisis seems to have entered a new phase. The damage is far more widespread. The crisis has engulfed countries across the globe — from economies in South America, to Turkey, South Africa and some of the bigger economies in Asia, such as India and China. A number of these countries are seeing their currency fall to record levels, high inflation and unemployment, and in some cases, escalating tensions with the United States.

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“..the rise of the rule of man begins to squeeze out the rule of law..”

• Bringing Up The Bodies in Emerging Markets (Napier)

Investors brought up in the developed world take for granted the stability and continuation of the rule of law. They expect it to be as available and constant as air. Anyway, what role can a consideration of the rule of law play in trying to obtain index beating quarterly returns? It is this myopia and not the myopia associated with the short-term dumping of assets, because they are labelled ‘emerging markets’, that is particularly dangerous. The history of emerging markets is the history of populism, the real populism that subverts human rights and property rights. On the rise in emerging markets, this populism is resulting in a growing exodus of what are now very large sums, even in global terms, of local savings.

It is the shift in local savings, more so than foreign savings, that is pushing emerging market exchange rates to ever lower levels. It is not the flighty financial capital seeking slightly better interest rate differentials that departs in situations like this. It is the financial capital that funds development and growth that flees, as the rise of the rule of man begins to squeeze out the rule of law. The loss of such capital has profound long-term economic impacts. There is a key reason why the strong men are on the rise and the rule of law on the decline: the world is failing to inflate away its debts. Even before we invented paper money, there was a well recognized method of inflating away debts.

Perhaps most famously Henry VIII’s so-called great debasement (1544-1551) inflated away the excessive debts run up to fund wars with France and Scotland, as well as a bit of lavish spending by the king himself. Your analyst meets investors almost every day who believe that inflation is currently playing a similar role. However, such an assertion ignores the fact that the global non-financial debt to GDP ratio is now 244% up from what seemed a dangerous level of 210% of GDP as the global economy peaked in December 2007.

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A nation that hasn’t moved in decades.

• Brexit Is The Wrong Diagnosis Of A Real Crisis (LSE)

The Leave campaign in 2016 had a lot in common with the 1979 Conservative election manifesto. Both evoked the threat of a bureaucratic super-state and something approaching a conspiracy of that state against the public. Both promised to rescue a Greater Britain from the conspiratorial political forces that were holding it back. Both campaigns were a misdiagnosis of the real crisis at hand. This time we face a crisis of ungovernability potentially far more severe than that of the 1970s; but its roots are less in Europe than in the failures of the homegrown neoliberal reforms of the British state.

The last three decades of state reform in Western democracies have aggravated rather than resolved the social divisions that emerged with de-industrialisation. Over the last thirty years, liberal market economies in general and the UK in particular have transformed the character of their states through privatization and outsourcing, through the development of quasi markets in welfare, and the rejection of industrial policies. At the same time, permissive tax and regulatory regimes have encouraged large corporations to opt out of their former social obligations in the name of maximising shareholder value.

The ‘supply-side revolution’ of the last thirty years was driven by the dominant New Right diagnosis of the economic crises of the 1970s and based on the radical public choice economics aligned with the Chicago and Virginia schools. According to this diagnosis it was the state that was primarily responsible for the end of the post-war ‘golden age of growth’ because of its inhibition of the market. Thus, according to the New Right and later New Labour too, it wasn’t technological change, or de-industrialisation in the face of emerging markets, it wasn’t the Nixon shock, or the end of Bretton Woods, nor rising exchange rate instability, it wasn’t stagflation or the oil crises that had confronted the country with a need to re-evaluate its production regime. It was the state. And so it was the state, above all else, that had to be transformed.

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But still there’s “A wave of African nations seeking to restructure their debt with China”. Care to explain?

• China Says It Is Helping Africa Develop, Not Accumulate Debt (R.)

China is helping Africa achieve development, not accumulate debt, a top Chinese official said on Tuesday, as the government pushes back against criticism it is loading the continent with an unsustainable burden during a major summit in Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday pledged funds of $60 billion to African nations at the opening of the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation, matching the size of the financing package offered at the last summit in Johannesburg in 2015. A wave of African nations seeking to restructure their debt with China has served as a reality check for Beijing’s relationship with the continent, though most countries still see Chinese lending as the best bet to develop their economies.

“If we take a closer look at these African countries that are heavily in debt, China is not their main creditor,” China’s special envoy for Africa, Xu Jinghu, told a news conference. “It’s senseless and baseless to shift the blame onto China for debt problems.” China would carefully choose projects that avoid causing debt problems when pushing forward with Xi’s pledges to Africa, she added. “When we cooperate with African countries we will conscientiously and fully carry out feasibility studies, to choose which projects can go ahead. These projects will take into account their development prospects so as to help African countries achieve sustainable development and avoid debt or financial problems.”

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“The shale oil “miracle” was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates..”

• The Uncomfortable Hiatus (Kunstler)

Energy: The shale oil “miracle” was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates, i.e. Federal Reserve policy. Even The New York Times said so yesterday (The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground). For all that, the shale oil producers still couldn’t make money at it. If interest rates go up, the industry will choke on the debt it has already accumulated and lose access to new loans. If the Fed reverses its current course — say, to rescue the stock and bond markets — then the shale oil industry has perhaps three more years before it collapses on a geological basis, maybe less. After that, we’re out of tricks. It will affect everything. The perceived solution is to run all our stuff on electricity, with the electricity produced by other means than fossil fuels, so-called alt energy.

This will only happen on the most limited basis and perhaps not at all. (And it is apart from the question of the decrepit electric grid itself.) What’s required is a political conversation about how we inhabit the landscape, how we do business, and what kind of business we do. The prospect of dismantling suburbia — or at least moving out of it — is evidently unthinkable. But it’s going to happen whether we make plans and policies, or we’re dragged kicking and screaming away from it. Corporate tyranny: The nation is groaning under despotic corporate rule. The fragility of these operations is moving toward criticality. As with shale oil, they depend largely on dishonest financial legerdemain. They are also threatened by the crack-up of globalism, and its 12,000-mile supply lines, now well underway. Get ready for business at a much smaller scale.

Hard as this sounds, it presents great opportunities for making Americans useful again, that is, giving them something to do, a meaningful place in society, and livelihoods. The implosion of national chain retail is already underway. Amazon is not the answer, because each Amazon sales item requires a separate truck trip to its destination, and that just doesn’t square with our energy predicament. We’ve got to rebuild main street economies and the layers of local and regional distribution that support them. That’s where many jobs and careers are.

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In the most corrupt places on earth, Monsanto can do what it wants.

• Brazil Court Lifts Ban On Monsanto’s Glyphosate Weedkiller (AFP)

An appellate court on Monday lifted a court-ordered suspension of licenses in Brazil for products containing glyphosate, an industrial weedkiller in common use in Latin America’s agricultural powerhouse. Federal appeals court judge Kassio Marques ruled that “nothing justified” the suspension by a lower court, saying it had been abruptly imposed “without previous analysis of the grave impact it would have on the country’s economy and on production in general.” The suspension, which had been ordered August 3 by a federal judge in Brasilia, was supposed to go into effect on Monday until a “toxicological re-evaluation” of all products containing glyphosate could be completed by Brazil’s sanitary authority.

The ban also was to have extended to products containing the chemicals thiram and abamectin. Glyphosate is used in weedkillers like Roundup, made by Monsanto, whose parent company Bayer had urged that the ban be scrapped. Bayer hailed the suspension as “very good news for Brazilian farmers.” It comes just weeks after a jury in California ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million to a dying former school groundskeeper for failing to warn him of the risk that Roundup might cause cancer.

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