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Debt Rattle June 7 2026

Jun 072026
 
 June 7, 2026  Posted by at 9:51 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  29 Responses »


Claude Monet San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk 1908


• US Led Over 100 Vessels via Strait of Hormuz in May — NYT (TASS)
• ‘Biden’s War’ Has Become Trump’s – Lavrov (RT)
• Promethean Action PAC Discovers MAGAnomics (CTH)
• Trump Says US Weighing Taking Stakes In AI Companies (ET)
• California and the Politics of Low Expectations (Turley)
• The EU’s ‘Strictest-Ever Migration Law’ Won’t Change Anything (von Hoffmeister)
• Paris Riots Fuel The Right (RMX)
• Tory Leader Warns Of ‘Civil War’ In UK (RT)
• Questions and Answers (James Howard Kunstler)
• The White Countries Have Become Rabidly Racist Against White People (PCR)
• When Race is the Only Possible Verdict (Eric Florack)
• Europe No Longer Attractive Global Hub, Only Itself To Blame – Kneissl (TASS)
• EU Embassies In Moscow Should Establish Dialogue With Russia — Kneissl (TASS)
• UK Government Plots Digital ID Lockdown On Every Phone (MN)
• Bots Now Generate More Web Traffic Than Humans – Cloudflare (RT)

 


 

 


 


Surprisingly little war news today, but all the more -racial- discrimination.

About this article: 100 vessels a month is quite a lot. 3 per day, and not small vessels. An oil tanker carries two million barrels.

• US Led Over 100 Vessels via Strait of Hormuz in May — NYT (TASS)

Last month, the US military helped coordinate the passage of more than 100 commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, The New York Times (NYT) wrote citing sources. According to the report, passage through this waterway remains dangerous for ships against the backdrop of stalled US-Iranian reconciliation talks. Earlier, The New York Times said the US Central Command (CENTCOM) assisted the passage of 70 ships via the strait. The majority of them switched off their transponders.


The United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were struck. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a retaliatory operation, targeting sites in Israel. US military bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were also hit. Tehran decided to close the Strait of Hormuz to ships associated with the United States, Israel and countries that backed the aggression against Iran.

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“The US president could have ended the Ukraine conflict by following through on his own proposals, the Russian foreign minister has told RT..”

• ‘Biden’s War’ Has Become Trump’s – Lavrov (RT)

America’s position on the Ukraine conflict has become almost indistinguishable from that of the EU, making US President Donald Trump’s stated ambition to mediate an end to the fighting hollow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told RT. Trump repeatedly blamed the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on his predecessor, Joe Biden, and claimed that he could bring it to a swift conclusion while campaigning in 2024. However, recent statements by members of his administration suggest a different course, Lavrov said on Thursday in an interview on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.


“Biden’s war has become Trump’s war,” the Russian foreign minister said. Speaking to Congress this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said efforts to facilitate Russia-Ukraine talks were complicated “because, frankly, we’re not an impartial mediator.” He cited the continuation of the sanctions on Russia and sales of US weapons to Ukraine. “After we agreed to the United States proposal in Anchorage [in August 2025], Washington began to shift its position. Instead of advancing those same proposals in its dealings with Ukrainians, it is now pretending that the parties should sort things out themselves. This is not a very consistent position,” Lavrov said.

“It is the West that cannot be trusted to keep its agreements. Its approach is: ‘I’ll promise something now, then stall for time.’ If the US had truly advanced its own initiative, I think… the fighting would already have stopped.” According to Lavrov, the only major difference between Trump’s policy and that of Biden and the EU is that his administration resumed direct talks with Russia. Dialogue is important, he said, but it must be matched by action on commitments already made.

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“.. both Trump and Bernie Sanders agreed on the problem. The difference between them was the solution.”

• Promethean Action PAC Discovers MAGAnomics (CTH)

In 2015, even before President Trump came down the golden escalator, CTH was outlining a ‘new era and dimension’ in American economics that could be possible if a presidential candidate focused on specific Main Street policy. Throughout the next four years we watched carefully how Donald Trump was organizing that Main Street revival and what specifically was creating the economic growth. One of the points emphasized in 2016 about Trump’s unique MAGAnomic policy, was how both Trump and Bernie Sanders agreed on the problem. The difference between them was the solution.


Think of it like economic football.
Both Trump and Sanders identify the rigged game. Bernie Sanders wanted to change the referees so that government controls the game. Donald Trump’s approach was different. Trump wanted to change the rules of the game, not step in and try to play referee to a rigged game where the rules were flawed. One of the examples of economic “rule changing” is trade tariffs. You don’t need govt to regulate the corporations directly (ie. raise corporate income taxes). Instead, you can change trade policy to make the better corporate decision a return of production back to the USA (a fundamental rules change).

Both approaches involve a different govt policy, but Trump’s approach changes behavior. That’s MAGAnomics. One of the reasons Trump’s approaches are much more effective, is that his rule changes extend beyond the American corporate game. Trump’s approach changes the behavior of foreign governments and foreign corporations, a win/win/win.An example is the Japanese government investing in America to offset reciprocity tariffs; while Toyota, a corporation, invests in specific auto manufacturing expansion to avoid baseline tariffs.

You don’t get that kind of result through Bernie’s approach changing the American referee in an all-American game and raising corporate income taxes. And don’t forget, the corporation can just move offshore and avoid income taxes entirely. Apple used to have their company incorporated in Ireland. Trump’s rule changes brought them back.The Promethean Action PAC is now highlighting the fundamentals of Trump’s MAGAnomics and how the policy is distinctly different from all U.S. economic policy before it.

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“The bad news? His executive order is voluntary and does almost nothing to protect Americans,“ Sanders wrote. “Congress MUST act.”

• Trump Says US Weighing Taking Stakes In AI Companies (ET)

President Donald Trump told reporters on June 5 that his administration is exploring the possibility of the United States acquiring a public stake in artificial intelligence (AI) companies. Trump made the comment in response to a question about a recent News of the United States report, which suggested that unnamed senior U.S. officials had discussed with major AI firms the possibility of the federal government holding some shares in their companies. “There’s so much money that is so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the companies,” Trump said aboard Air Force One.


“I have spoken to all of [the AI companies]. There’s something very interesting about it, where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public, and we’ll look into that,” he said. Trump said he and his team have a meeting scheduled in the “very near future” with major AI firms to discuss this possible venture. “We’re talking about it, where the American people can benefit from the success of AI, and by doing that, they can like it better,” Trump explained.nSen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) penned an op-ed in The New York Times on Monday titled “A.I. Is a Public Resource. You Should Own Half of It,” where he announced he would soon introduce congressional legislation to give the American public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in the United States.

“It would create a sovereign wealth fund through a one-time 50 percent tax—not on the profits of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and other companies, but paid with something far more valuable than that: the stock,” Sanders wrote in the piece. He said the legislation, which he plans to call the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, would give the American public a direct role in determining the future of AI while also guaranteeing that the trillions generated by the industry are “used to improve the lives of all of us—not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer.”

When asked on Friday if he found it odd that he and Sanders were seemingly on the same page about the proposal, Trump said that the two “have certain things that aren’t that far apart” regarding economic policy. “People are surprised, but if you’ll take a look, many of the people who voted for Bernie Sanders … they went to me,” Trump said, referring to some of the voters who backed him in the 2016 presidential election after previously supporting Sanders in the Democratic primary that year.

Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday asking AI companies to voluntarily submit their frontier models for government review 30 days before a full public release. In a post on X hours after the order was announced, Sanders said it was “good news” that Trump had “finally acknowledged AI poses a real threat” after the president had previously criticized efforts to tighten regulation of the AI industry. “The bad news? His executive order is voluntary and does almost nothing to protect Americans,“ Sanders wrote. “Congress MUST act.”

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Expect nothing. You may be pleasantly surprised.

• California and the Politics of Low Expectations (Turley)

This week, the nation watched as California grappled again with the ordinarily straightforward task of counting votes in an election. While large states such as Florida declare election winners within 24 hours, California may take up to two weeks to count all the votes. Even Los Angeles cannot count its votes in the time of large states despite giving the Clerk an annual budget of $336 million and a $448,179 a year salary with the help of 1,100 budgeted positions. In most states, voters would be outraged by the incompetence, waste, and inefficiency.


However, in the Golden State, voters shrug, as if they can demand no more from their elected officials than subpar performance. Call it the Politics of Low Expectations and California is the model for the nation. For years, my students have asked me what the secret is to a successful marriage approaching four decades (For full disclosure, there is an ongoing contractual dispute over my counting eight years of monogamous dating — leading to two dates on our anniversary cakes). The answer is simple. I reduced her expectations so low that I have exceeded them on a daily basis.

That began with our eloping on New Year’s Eve. We were married after an actual shotgun wedding where the clearly expectant teenage bride’s family was screaming profanities at the teenage groom. After paying $50 and using my high school ring for a wedding ring, we stepped out on the street of Old Town Alexandria as a drunk was retching in the gutter. That left only room for improvement. On any given day, my wife is simply grateful that I have not traded the house and car for a handful of magic beans. California Democrats seem to have applied my approach to matrimony to politics, creating a politician’s dream voter with few expectations.

That is most evident with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s infamous high-speed train to nowhere. In 2008, voters were promised a 500-mile High-Speed train running from San Francisco to Los Angeles for $33 billion. It is now projected to cost somewhere between $126 billion and $231 billion. After roughly two decades, no track has been laid, and the current plan is to focus on building a track between Bakersfield and Merced. Without any track to display, Newsom recently stood before a freight train on an existing track to insist that his train is moving speedily along.

One would think that citizens would be coming for their leaders with torches and pitchforks. Instead, there is a collective shrug as if it is perfectly normal to spend more than the entire budget of Amtrak on a non-existent train. The same leaders have burned billions in other boondoggles, including a massive solar power farm that produced energy at a higher cost and incinerated thousands of birds a year. California is facing a growing crisis of rising homelessness, dismal education scores, and an exodus of business and wealthy taxpayers. It has also imposed taxes that make gas the most expensive in the nation while suppressing its own energy industry.

Now, after many voters took the unprecedented step of voting for Republican candidates for governor and L.A. mayor, citizens will wait for weeks to learn the results of an election that would have been called days ago by third-world countries. The same politics of low expectations are evident in other states. In New York City, voters just shrug when told that they have a budget rivaling that of the entire state of Florida, resulting in awful educational, infrastructure, and other conditions. Voters have watched as wealthy taxpayers have taken their money and jobs to other states.

In return, figures like Mayor Zohran Mamdani promise state-run grocery stores, which will cost tens of millions of dollars to build and operate at a loss. In Minnesota, elected officials allowed billions to be stolen in fraud while businesses fled a state rife with rioting and homelessness.

Baltimore, a student failed all but three of his classes and was ranked in the top half of his graduating class. Yet, voters reelected the same leaders who have denied generations any real opportunity for advancement. While other countries maintain superior school systems at a fraction of the cost, urban voters cast their ballots like lemmings for the same party and politicians.

In states like California, politics has long been run on Henry Ford’s pitch that you can have any color Model T so long as it is black. This election seemed to offer voters something they had not seen in many years: a real choice between a Republican governor and an L.A. mayor. As California slowly counts its votes, the odds still heavily favor the continuation of California as a one-party state. Poor services, rising crime, rampant homelessness, hundreds of billions in waste and other failures are treated as virtually inevitable. The result is an electorate that only a politician would love: passive voters who expect little from their government and receive even less.

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“Politicians promise immigration control while the economic and demographic forces driving migration remain firmly in place..”

In other words: Europe is simply too far gone.

• The EU’s ‘Strictest-Ever Migration Law’ Won’t Change Anything (von Hoffmeister)

The European Union’s new migration rules, agreed upon in principle by lawmakers and state representatives, will allow EU countries to transfer rejected asylum seekers to third countries if they cannot be returned to their countries of origin. They also introduce stricter rules for dealing with illegal migrants, especially those considered a security risk.


The media has called it “historic,” “hardline,” and the “strictest-ever migration law” as politicians behind their lecterns spoke of control and the defense of borders. Yet in truth, the EU has once again promised to become tougher while preserving the structures that produced the migration crisis in the first place. New procedures, databases, and regulations have appeared, but the underlying incentives have remained largely intact. The result resembles many political spectacles of recent years: a performance designed to reassure anxious voters while preserving the economic and ideological foundations of the existing system. The gap between rhetoric and reality has become one of the defining characteristics of contemporary Western politics.

The same pattern can be observed across the Atlantic. Donald Trump returned to office promising the strongest immigration enforcement campaign in American history. His supporters anticipated deportation operations on a scale never previously attempted. Yet the reality has proved considerably more modest. Immigration enforcement agencies continue to conduct highly publicized arrests that generate dramatic footage for television and social media. A worker removed from a restaurant kitchen, a raid on a warehouse or construction site – all good for cameras and for political supporters to receive confirmation that action is taking place.

Yet the larger economic machinery that attracts millions of migrants continues operating. Businesses that employ illegal labor rarely face penalties severe enough to transform their calculations. The availability of employment remains the primary magnet drawing people across borders. A government genuinely committed to ending illegal immigration would focus relentlessly on employers, labor contractors, and industries dependent on cheap foreign labor. However, such measures would provoke opposition from powerful economic interests. Consequently, symbolic enforcement often proves more attractive than structural reform.

Politicians frequently present immigration as a humanitarian question, a cultural question, or a question of border security. The economic dimension often receives less scrutiny. Modern capitalism and mass immigration have become deeply intertwined. Employers gain access to larger labor pools, which increases competition among workers and places downward pressure on wages in many sectors. Agricultural businesses, logistics firms, construction companies, restaurants, delivery services, and countless other industries derive substantial advantages from a continuous supply of foreign labor. The benefits remain concentrated while many of the costs become dispersed throughout society. Housing demand rises, infrastructure faces greater pressure, schools require expansion, healthcare systems absorb additional burdens.

Welfare programs support those who struggle to establish themselves economically. These expenses rarely appear on corporate balance sheets – instead, they get distributed across the broader population through taxation and public expenditure. This contradiction led the French thinker Alain de Benoist to formulate one of the most incisive observations in the entire debate: “One who criticizes capitalism while approving of immigration, of which the working class is its first victim, would do better to remain silent. One who criticizes immigration while remaining silent regarding capitalism should do the same.” The statement captures a reality that many ideological camps prefer to avoid. Immigration and capitalism frequently function as partners within the same economic system, and any serious analysis of one eventually encounters the other.

Back in Western Europe, governments routinely announce crackdowns on illegal immigration while simultaneously preserving the economic and demographic model that depends on continuous inflows of foreign labor. Public discussion frequently centers on boats crossing the Mediterranean or migrants entering through other irregular routes – images that dominate news coverage because they are visually dramatic. Yet illegal immigration represents only one component of a much larger phenomenon. The overwhelming transformation of Western Europe has occurred through legal channels. Work permits, family reunification programs, student visas, humanitarian admissions, labor recruitment schemes, and various residency pathways have altered the demographic composition of entire societies. A politician can reduce small boat arrivals while expanding legal immigration quotas. Statistical reports may then suggest success even as overall migration continues at historic levels.

Italy provides an instructive example. Giorgia Meloni rose to power promising a fundamental break with previous migration policies. Her electoral success depended heavily on public dissatisfaction with mass immigration. Yet her government subsequently approved hundreds of thousands of additional work permits for non-European migrants in response to labor shortages. Nearly half a million new non-EU work visas were authorized over a multi-year period even while the government continued presenting itself as a champion of immigration control. Supporters emphasized efforts against illegal arrivals, while employers welcomed access to additional labor, and the demographic trajectory remained largely unchanged.

This recurring pattern has created a phenomenon increasingly described by critics as the “Melonization effect,” where leaders campaign as insurgents against mass immigration and then govern as managers of the existing system. Similar tendencies have appeared across numerous Western countries.

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Marine Le Pen.

• Paris Riots Fuel The Right (RMX)

:With French national elections approaching in 2027, the mass riots seen in Paris following the PSG victory in the Champions League are leading to an even sharper electoral shift towards the right-leaning National Rally’s Jordan Bardella. Verian’s June barometer, published by Le Figaro Magazine, places Jordan Bardella at the top of political figures, with 47 percent of those questioned wanting to see him occupy an important place in public life. This rating, up six points in one month, reveals a record result for the National Rally.


Marine Le Pen comes in second position and is also progressing. Several other personalities located on the right are also rising in the ranking, including Marion Maréchal, Éric Ciotti and Robert Ménard. The riots in Paris left stores and cars burned out and resulted in 890 arrests, 180 officers injured, and two deaths. The apocalyptic videos from the riots also sent shockwaves through the French public. While these polls cannot predict the election, they underline data showing that Bardella or Le Pen are well positioned to win the presidency in 2027 elections.

https://twitter.com/RMXnews/status/2061886947467919775?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2061886947467919775%7Ctwgr%5Ed4eaf6b6844c32a7acab68214b84076630ca3930%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frmx.news%2Farticle%2Fparis-riots-fuel-the-right-jordan-bardella-would-trounce-all-opponents-in-2027-national-election%2F

Other recent polls also show that Bardella would win a runoff against a range of candidates. A poll from a week ago from Odoxa showed Bardella beating former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe 52 to 48 percent. Other potential candidates, such as the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, were also beaten by wide margins, with polling showing Bardella nearly 50 points ahead of him, at 74 percent to 26 percent, illustrating the France’s distate for Mélenchon’s politics.

Brussels’ nightmare scenario
Politico ran a piece three days ago entitled “Brussels’ nightmare scenario,” which predicted that a Bardella-Mélenchon matchup is a real possibility and would be viewed as catastrophic by the EU elite, as both candidates have a highly skeptical view of the European Union.

“That prospect of stopping Bardella has hit a major potential hurdle, however, as momentum builds behind the campaign of the firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left France Unbowed party. The latest polls suggest he now has a strong chance of qualifying for the second-round showdown — depriving the race of a centrist who could rally voters against the far right in the EU’s No. 2 economy.” The paper also quoted, Gérald Darmanin, the justice minister under President Emmanuel Macron. He said he now believes Mélenchon will be the main challenger to the “far right.” “You have … to be wearing blinkers not to see it,” he said.

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A brown skinned lady who swears that Britain “is not a racist country,” Now you know what you got there is a politician.

• Tory Leader Warns Of ‘Civil War’ In UK (RT)

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has slammed UK politicians over what she described as attempts to score points on existing racial divisions, warning that it risked pushing the country towards a “civil war.”nSpeaking in an interview with the BBC aired on Friday, Badenoch reacted to the murder of Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old Polish-British university student, who was stabbed five times by Vickrum Digwa, a 23-year-old Sikh. The incident took place in Southampton in December 2025, but gained a national spotlight only recently.


When police arrived, Digwa falsely claimed he had been the victim of a racist assault, with police initially believing his account. Body-cam footage released after sentencing showed officers handcuffing the dying student as he repeatedly told them he had been stabbed and could not breathe. While Digwa was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years, the fall-out triggered widespread uproar, protests, and accusations of “two-tier policing” and “anti-white prejudice” in Britain. The incident also drew outcry from the US – a traditional UK ally – with the State Department warning that “ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline.”

Badenoch insisted that Britain “is not a racist country,” but acknowledged that “we are now seeing more and more hostility to people of every ethnicity, whether they’re English or not English.” However, she insisted that the real driver of tension was politicians using racial divisions to harvest votes and importing these conflicts into communities that had previously been spared from them. “Parties which do that, politicians who do that, they may get to benefit in the short term, but in the long term, that’s how you end up with civil war,” Badenoch warned.

While Badenoch did not name specific politicians, one of those who seized on the controversy was Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, widely known for his anti-immigration agenda. Farage called for “pure cold rage” in response to the incident. Reform UK is currently polling at around 27%, with Labour and the Conservatives tied at roughly 18% each. Meanwhile, Badenoch herself became the Tory leader after former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s landslide defeat in the general election in 2024, which was in large part caused by the party’s identitarian and cultural policies as well as a failure to deliver on immigration promises.

The culture war has long plagued British politics, with one of the most notable instances coming in August 2025 when “Operation Raise the Colours” saw activists tying Union Jacks and St. George’s Cross flags to lampposts across England. While the protest was framed as an expression of patriotism, some Labour-run councils disagreed, ordering the flags to be removed over concerns that they were sowing division – a move that drew furious condemnation from Reform UK.

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“I’m the look-around candidate. All you have to do to understand why I’m surging in the polls is just look around. . . .” — Spencer Pratt

• Questions and Answers (James Howard Kunstler)

Just watch in wonder and nausea as California’s mail-in ballots dribble in, providing a real-time demonstration of the “Our Democracy” party spitting in the country’s face again, since everybody knows exactly what’s going on. Meanwhile, the Senate voted down the SAVE Act again this week by 52 to 48 for. . . reasons. But, hey, cheer up, it’s Pride Month. At the same time that California was queering its own “jungle primary,” a troupe of drag queens swanned and capered around New York’s City Council Chamber in what was called a “Pride Ball” (actually more of a show than a ball).


And what it really showed is that the party running New York City has no shame. How, exactly, does mental illness intersect with the public interest, you might ask? Historians of the future, roasting armadillos-on-the-half-shell over their campfires, will probably figure it out. For now, you must pretend that no such question even exists. Don’t bother asking. Just go along with the gag.

Here’s a scene you might like to see: As you know by now, the president has nominated Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to be the Senate-confirmed full-on, bona fide AG. But Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) says he would require Mr. Blanche to declare that the Jan 6, 2021, Capitol riot was “an insurrection.” Wouldn’t it be fun to hear Mr. Blanche reply by saying, “Can’t do that, sir, because the DOJ has an ongoing case that involves dozens of federal officers from several agencies instigating the events of that day in collusion with members of Congress and the US military, and, well, I can say no more about that at this time. . . .”

Similarly, election fraud. Just days ago, Mr. Trump told Miranda Divine of The New York Post, “We had a rigged election [2020], we can’t have rigged elections. We know who rigged the election. We know everything now. . . we have information that nobody thought was possible. . . . Let’s see what happens.”

Hmmmm. . .. Wouldn’t that prompt you to suspect that the DOJ has a case, or multiple cases, involving 2020 election fraud cooking on its stove? Recall that not long ago the FBI seized 700 boxes of evidence from the Fulton County Election Hub in Union City, GA. And another truckload out of Maricopa County, AZ. Do you think they’ll discover some, er, irregularities in all that? Perhaps eye-wateringly blatant?

Would it not then be urgent to seek indictments of actual persons, if any are deserved, well before November, so that measures could be taken to preclude more fraud and cheating in the midterm election — measures like . . . passing the SAVE Act! How might Majority Leader John Thune explain his intransigence on the matter in the face of all that? Or, like New York’s City Council, does he have no shame?

In another momentous development this week, the new management at CBS-News cashiered 60-Minutes star Scott Pelley for apparent insubordinate behavior in a confab with the show’s newly-hired Executive Producer Nick Bilton and Mr. Bilton’s boss, Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. They had already sacked the querulous Sharyn Alfonsi a week earlier. Of course, 60-Minutes, with its giant audience following NFL games, was one of the main units in the Deep State’s gaslighting apparatus, and Mr. Pelley burned brightest there for years, flaring out one lying-ass narrative after another from the Russia Collusion hoax to 2020 election fraud to the Jan 6 fake “insurrection,” with the same burnished arrogance he showed his new bosses. Gone now. . . buh-bye. Next up, Lesley Stahl (“Sir!!! Sir !!!”), and the self-important prick Bill Whitaker. Fire them all!

If you seek to understand why the American public is so deeply bamboozled, it is largely the utter failure of the news business. You can trace that to a couple of signal changes of policy. One was the 1987 repeal of the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine,” which required TV stations holding federal licenses to cover controversial public issues in a “fair and balanced manner.” The other was the 2013 “modernization” (under Barack Obama) of the Smith-Mundt Act (1948), which had prohibited the US government from “propagandizing” its own citizens — and after “modernization” turned squishy on that.

The 1975–1976 (Sen. Frank) Church Committee — the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities — documented that the CIA had long-term secret relationships with dozens of U.S. journalists. This is casually referred to as “Operation Mockingbird.” Since the Church Committee, it has only gotten much worse as the Deep State struggles to cover-up layer upon layer of crimes it keeps committing. The nightly news shows now are just anchors and “panelists” shooting their mouths off. The news itself goes mostly unreported. A big reason is that broadcast news now employs nearly zero correspondents in-the-field. Nobody is out there reporting on events. They don’t want to spend the money. So, the news just spins and spins, mostly in the service of manufactured lies.

Also last week, famous New York Times columnist and fake Nobel economics prize-winner Paul Krugman put out a video calling for the “purging” of MAGA and everything MAGA-adjacent from American life — when his team (the party of “Our Democracy”) comes back to power, as it must. He didn’t detail whether this process would entail internment camps and crematoriums, but you could infer as much from his tone. Kinda gives you a clue of where their heads are at.

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Paul Craig Roberts.

• The White Countries Have Become Rabidly Racist Against White People (PCR)

As I was writing this article several thousand British citizens were outside a police station in Southhampton, England, demanding accountability for the murder of a young white British student, Henry Nowak, by a black immigrant-invader and the white British police.


The black immigrant-invader murdered Nowak by stabbing him five times. The white British police murdered Nowak by ignoring his testimony that he had been stabbed and what turned out to be Novak’s last words: “I can’t breathe.” The British police, trained as they successfully have been to see the white person as the aggressor, instead of arresting the black immigrant-invader who attacked Nowak, fatally as it turned out, the white British police arrested the dying Nowak, who died in police handcuffs. The “racially sensitive trained” white British police believed the black immigrant-invader’s lie that Nowak had used a racial epithet. They did not believe Nowak that he had been stabbed. The “racially sensitive police” did not even look to see if Nowak had been stabbed. Instead, they handcuffed a dying man and did not call for medical help.

You would think that this would be a scandal–and it was–but not for the right reason. The rabidly anti-white white British prime minister Starmer characterized the several thousand white protesters, a small number in view of the enormity of the injustice, as “far-right rioters and racist thugs.” In other words, the Prime Minister of England sees racism not in the unprovoked deadly attack on the white Nowak by the black immigrant-invader, not in the British police’s ignoring of Nowak’s dying plea for help. The white British Prime Minister Starmer sees racism in the British citizens’ protest about what has happened. Is there any lower form of pure political excrement than Starmer ? How does a piece of political excrement such as Starmer survive as Prime Minister of Great Britain?

Now, let us ask ourselves how a white ethnic British Prime Minister from the Labour Party, which in former times prior to the despicable Tony Blair, represented the ethnic British working class, became indoctrinated and brainwashed to such an extreme extent that the racists in society are the white people who suffer from theft, rape, and murder by immigrant-invaders.? Confront this fact: The excrement that serves as Prime Minister of Great Britain, formerly a great and reasonably moral country, has defined protest about a racist murder of a white British citizen to be “white racism.” This is the position of white people today. In NO Western country do white ethnic citizens have the protection of law. Their own government is against them.

The UK, once an ethnic nation, now a Tower of Babel, has a “commitment to racial equality.” What does it mean? To quote the official answer, “it does not mean treating everyone ‘the same’ or being ‘color blind,’” it means limiting racism to white people. No one but white people can be racists. This is the official position of the Starmer UK government. It was the official position of the Biden regime and the official position of all Western European governments. Trump prefers to hand over to Israel the power otherwise handed over to immigrant-invaders. This is why the police automatically saw the murderer of Nowak as the victim and Nowak as the racist.

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“This death connects directly to George Floyd — not superficially, not controversially, but logically. In both cases, nobody asked what happened. They asked who did it — then let that answer bury every other question alive.”

• When Race is the Only Possible Verdict (Eric Florack)

Vodkapundit put it best earlier this week: “By now you must know the story of Henry Nowak all too well. The 18-year-old student was stabbed five times on a Southampton street following an altercation with a British Sikh man. As he lay bleeding out, trying to tell the police he’d been stabbed, killer Vickrum Digwa told police that Nowak was a racist. So police cuffed the dying victim. Digwa and his brother knew exactly what to do even before the cops arrived. “We’ve just been attacked by…” Gurpreet Digwa told police dispatchers with a pause, “someone racially.”


Vickrum was just convicted of murder and sentenced to a minimum term of 21 years, but the Southampton police have yet to face any consequences for their behavior. In today’s Britain, it’s basically impossible. Almost 250 years after Americans codified British notions of liberty, Britons returned the favor, so to speak, by institutionalizing the American left’s liberty-destroying racial grievance spoils system. “To understand how we got here,” Konstantin Kisin wrote for The Free Press this week, “you have to understand what the post-[George] Floyd ‘reckoning’ actually did to British institutions—especially the police. The response to Floyd’s death wasn’t merely emotional, nor was it just symbolic. It was ideological, and it was systematic.”

I have a lot of respect for Kisin. His statement here does nothing to diminish that respect. Kisin is right. This death connects directly to George Floyd — not superficially, not controversially, but logically. In both cases, nobody asked what happened. They asked who did it — then let that answer bury every other question alive. More succinctly, ethnicity didn’t influence the verdict. Ethnicity was the verdict, delivered before Nowak’s body finished cooling. But sure, call it justice. The left certainly does. News flash: That’s not a justice system. That’s an ideology with a gavel. On Derek Chauvin, I’ll be equally direct: overturn the conviction. George Floyd killed George Floyd. The fentanyl he swallowed in order to hide it from the cops did the paperwork.

I’ll grant the cops in the case of Nowak this much: they followed orders and training. How reassuringly Nuremberg of them. I mean, they were certainly caught in the middle here. That truth doesn’t exonerate them, but it does redirect the crosshairs. The politicians who enshrined race over logic in that department’s doctrine? They built this outcome, brick by brick. The brass who designed training that systematically lobotomizes human judgment deserve the lion’s share of the blame for Nowak’s death. You don’t get to manufacture robots, point them at people, and then act surprised when someone ends up dead.

Bill Glahn over at Powerline addresses this with appropriate sarcasm: It has been decreed by official Britain: the unprovoked, brutal murder of Henry Nowak shall not be “politicized,” lest the wishes of Henry’s surviving family be dishonored. In practice, to avoid politicization, one must refrain from any criticizing or questioning any errors or omissions by anyone in government. How dare you. The only prominent political figure to not go along with the Omerta is Reform leader Nigel Farage. For this incivility he was defamed on the BBC. Now that the official police watchdog has officially cleared the police response from any hint of wrongdoing, and now that Nowak’s murderer has been sentenced to the shortest possible prison term (21 years) for a murder conviction, we must speak of this incident no more.

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“We are to blame for a great many of these problems ourselves, former Austrian Foreign Minister said “

• Europe No Longer Attractive Global Hub, Only Itself To Blame – Kneissl (TASS)

Europe has ceased to be a center of attraction in terms of economy, innovation, and demographics, and it has only itself to blame for it, former Austrian Foreign Minister and head of the G.O.R.K.I. Center at St. Petersburg State University Karin Kneissl said in an interview with TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). She noted that in recent years, a lot of Arabic and Spanish could be heard at SPIEF.


“That’s simply a reflection of the times. It’s interesting that American companies were here again this year. The world has changed, and overall I have much more confidence in the South and the East. And I have been saying this for a long time, even before this whole situation with the war in Ukraine began. Because for me, Europe is no longer the focus of attention. And it hasn’t been for a long time,” Kneissl said. “From a demographic standpoint, we have been left behind. We are not particularly strong in innovation either,” she continued. “We are to blame for the economic crises we are experiencing in Germany and other countries. There is too much bureaucracy, too much ideology in the energy sector, and the selection of personnel is too poor.”

According to her, there are even bigger problems on top of that. “And now, in just about every corporation, everyone has their own director of geopolitical affairs who explains where the Strait of Hormuz is. We are to blame for a great many of these problems ourselves. And some people are still trying to point the finger at Russia and say: this is ‘Putin’s inflation’ or this is ‘the Russian recession.’ You still hear this in Germany and especially in Austria,” the analyst noted. At the same time, she believes that there are forces in some countries that hold a different view. “There are also those who have realized that they created their own problems and that they must solve them on their own,” Kneissl stressed.

SPIEF
The 29th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2026) is taking place on June 3-6. This year, the event is held under the theme “Pragmatic Dialogue: The Path to a Stable Future.” Saudi Arabia is the guest country at SPIEF. The forum program is dedicated to shaping a new model of global development amid the ongoing transformation of the world economy.

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“According to former Austrian Foreign Minister, European embassies “just need to do their job”..” These days, she’s “head of the G.O.R.K.I. Center at St. Petersburg State University”..

• EU Embassies In Moscow Should Establish Dialogue With Russia — Kneissl (TASS)

EU embassies should take the lead in restoring dialogue with Moscow, former Austrian Foreign Minister and head of the G.O.R.K.I. Center at St. Petersburg State University Karin Kneissl said in an interview with TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). “Every EU country has an embassy. They really need to start doing their job and maintain normal relations with Russia. I’ll say it again: there is no need for a mediator here. There are 27 EU embassies in Moscow, and their job is to maintain daily working contacts with the Russian authorities. That is their responsibility,” she said.

According to Kneissl, European embassies “just need to do their job.” “I do not see much point in having a separate coordinator. Theoretically, the EU high representative could perform this task. Who is that now? Kaja Kallas. We know her very personal stance toward Russia,” the expert noted. The former Austrian foreign minister added that if Javier Solana, the EU’s first High Representative, were hypothetically in Kallas’s position today, “he might have been a better fit.”


“Of course, a lot depends on the individual. But regardless of who holds this position, in my view, this task should be carried out by each individual EU embassy. French companies have one approach to the Russian market, German companies another, and Italian companies their own view of Russia. Ultimately, each country has its own foreign trade interests when it comes to Russia,” she emphasized.

According to Kneissl, “the high representative will never be able to take all these interests into account, especially since there is another position in the European Commission responsible for that — the commissioner for trade and economic security.” “Perhaps I am being too pragmatic. But I will say it again: the core tasks of diplomacy have hardly changed over the centuries. What should a diplomat do? First, represent their country. Second, keep their capital informed about what is happening in Russia. And third, conduct negotiations. They need to negotiate agreements in areas such as culture and sports. These are their responsibilities. And they must do their job,” Kneissl concluded.

SPIEF
The 29th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2026) is taking place on June 3-6. This year, the event is held under the theme “Pragmatic Dialogue: The Path to a Stable Future.” Saudi Arabia is the guest country at SPIEF. The forum program is dedicated to shaping a new model of global development amid the ongoing transformation of the world economy. The Roscongress Foundation is the organizer of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. TASS is its official general information partner.

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How much crazier are the British than everybody else?

• UK Government Plots Digital ID Lockdown On Every Phone (MN)

The Labour government in Britain is accelerating its assault on digital privacy under the well-worn banner of child protection. Fresh plans leaked to the press reveal ministers intend to compel Apple, Google and other tech firms to restrict smartphones so thoroughly that a digital ID will be needed to use them with unfettered access. The mechanism comes in the form of expanded age verification that effectively demands digital identification for device setup and use. What is sold as safeguarding the young is shaping up as a backdoor mandate for every adult in Britain to submit ID just to operate a phone or go online.


This development lands alongside Google’s confirmation that it will soon bring digital IDs to Android devices in the UK via Google Wallet. Users will record a short video selfie and scan a government-issued ID to add a digital version of their passport or other documents.

The feature, already rolling out in select EU countries this summer, is explicitly tied to the UK’s Online Safety Act requirements for age checks on content involving self-harm, eating disorders, bullying and pornography. Google is exploring certification under the government’s digital identity trust framework, which could extend its use to everyday purchases such as alcohol. Apple has already implemented similar restrictions on iOS devices in Britain, forcing age confirmation or locking users into limited “child mode.”

ig Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo has been blunt about where this leads. “Protecting children online is vital, but these are outrageous plans that will fail to address the underlying causes of online harm. This will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops.” She continued: “Put simply, the Labour Government is introducing ID checks for the internet. No one in a democracy should need to show their passport just to get online.”

Carlo warned that the proposals replace genuine parental responsibility and meaningful tech design with “performative, authoritarian government control that children can easily circumvent by accessing adult-registered devices.” For the UK’s fifty million adult internet users, the outcome is stark: “this backdoor digital ID requirement would invoke the death of anonymity and internet privacy.” The mechanics are chilling. Without submitting to intrusive ID checks during device setup, users face a “chokehold on your software and internet access leaving you with a child-locked device.” Restrictions on messaging, streaming and browsing open the door to client-side scanning – government spyware sitting in every pocket. Carlo noted this has long been a GCHQ ambition and “will be exploited for other purposes before long.”

The bigger picture involving “The Government mandating that all phones/devices in Britain require ID and surveillance software is a crossing of the Rubicon that would make the UK one of the most authoritarian internet regimes in the world.” “I don’t know anywhere else in the world that has done this,” Carlo warned. The story broke via a leak to The Times rather than any parliamentary process. Carlo called it a travesty: “This extreme technological censorship requires rigorous public and parliamentary scrutiny that is totally missing.” Big Brother Watch has pledged to fight the measures. These phone-level controls do not exist in isolation. They slot directly into the UK’s wider digital ID infrastructure, already exposed as a dystopian experiment in mass surveillance.

The government’s One Login platform and planned GOV.UK Wallet create a centralized system for identity verification across public services, with biometric data, audit trails logging every use, and a permissions framework that can deny access to everything from jobs to age-restricted purchases. What begins as convenient “right-to-work” checks or alcohol verification quickly becomes a comprehensive record of daily life, open to expansion and abuse. nThe ambition reaches even further back – to the cradle. Labour ministers have privately discussed assigning digital IDs to newborn babies alongside their health records, modeled on Estonia’s system.

Framed initially as a tool to tackle illegal immigration through right-to-work verification, the scheme has ballooned into a cradle-to-grave tracking apparatus. Critics across the spectrum have labeled it a sinister overreach with nothing to do with stopping the boats and everything to do with building a permanent digital file on every citizen from birth.

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“The rise of AI agents has pushed automated requests past human activity, according to the internet infrastructure firm..”

• Bots Now Generate More Web Traffic Than Humans – Cloudflare (RT)

Bots and AI agents now generate more web traffic than humans, according to data from internet infrastructure company Cloudflare. CEO Matthew Prince has described the development as a major turning point in the history of the web. Recent Cloudflare Radar data shows that automated bot requests account for roughly 57% of traffic to ordinary webpages across a selection of websites using the company’s services, compared with about 43% generated by humans.


“Welp, that happened faster than I predicted,” Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince wrote on X on Wednesday. He stated that he had expected automated traffic to overtake human activity only in 2027, but that “agentic traffic” has grown rapidly enough for bots to pass humans “for the first time in the Internet’s history.” The shift is primarily being driven by AI agents – automated systems that browse, retrieve, and process web content on behalf of users. While a human might visit a handful of websites before making a purchase or researching a topic, an AI agent can scan thousands of pages in order to produce an answer or complete a task.

Cloudflare’s figures suggest that much of today’s web activity is no longer ordinary browsing by people clicking through pages, but machine-to-machine traffic with automated systems requesting data from websites, apps, services and databases. The data covers web traffic only and does not include activities such as streaming, messaging, gaming, or app usage. The trend has revived debate over the “dead internet theory,” the idea that much of online activity is increasingly generated by bots, automated accounts, and AI systems interacting with other machine-made content.

The rise of bot traffic has also threatened the internet’s advertising-based business model. Since bots do not click on ads, concerns have been raised about whether websites may eventually charge AI agents for access to content. Meanwhile, researchers have also noted that large parts of the older web have been disappearing. A 2024 Pew Research Center study found that 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 were no longer accessible a decade later, fueling concerns that the open web is being transformed from a space built around human browsing into one increasingly dominated by automated systems.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 23 2024

Jan 232024
 
 January 23, 2024  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


Salvador Dalí Dream, Caused by the Flight of a Bee (Around a Pomegranate, a Second Before Waking Up) 1944

 

• Will War Result From The Ever Hesitant Putin? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Four Horsemen of Gaza’s Apocalypse (Chris Hedges)
• Netanyahu’s Shape-Shifting ‘Endgame’ (Alastair Crooke)
• Russia’s Push for Palestinian State Can Stop Endless ‘Loop’ of Violence (Sp.)
• US Sees Ukraine As A ‘Lucrative Business Project’ – Lavrov (RT)
• US Forming ‘Colonial Administration’ In Ukraine – Russian Spy Chief (RT)
• Ukraine Must Give Up Territory – Fico (RT)
• Zelensky Brands Parts Of Russia ‘Historically’ Ukrainian (RT)
• Medvedev Denounces Zelensky’s ‘Territorial Claims’ To Russia (RT)
• AfD Leader Calls for German ‘Dexit’ Vote to Break From EU (Sp.)
• Russian Attack On Nato In 2044 (Zlatko)
• DOJ Seeking Retribution Against Journalist for Recent Jan. 6 Coverage (ET)
• The Pipe-Bomb Caper (Kunstler)
• Dutch Queen Promotes Digital ID at Davos (Martin Armstrong)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tucker Hunter

 

 

Biden inflation

 

 

 

 

RFK autism + allergy

 

 

Tucker Catturd

 

 

 

 

Stop counting

The People’s Pundit: But that’s only half the story. The other half, is that they were lying. They actually continued to add to the totals between midnight and 3AM.

 

 

 

 

“The failure to confront Russia’s enemies with defeats means the pressure against Russia, the ongoing provocations, and the humiliations inflicted will continue until Russia is forced into war.”

• Will War Result From The Ever Hesitant Putin? (Paul Craig Roberts)

I have often expressed my concern that the lack of proactive action by Putin, Xi, and Iran was maximizing the expansion of Israeli and US aggression in the Middle East and leading to a dangerous confrontation and outbreak of nuclear war. It is the purpose of Israel and Washington to attack Iran. That is what the Israeli-Hamas-Hezbollah-Washington-Houthis conflict is about. It is an entirely simple matter for Russia, China, and Iran to prevent any expansion of Israel’s war against Palestine. All they have to do is to announce a mutual defense treaty: An attack on one is an attack on all. But proactive action does not seem to be in the skill set of Washington’s targeted enemies. With the single exception of Putin’s intervention in Syria to prevent Obama’s invasion, Putin has proved to be ever hesitant about taking control of the situation. It took him eight years to abandon his delusion about the Minsk Agreement. When he finally realized that he had been taken for a ride, the Russian military was not prepared for the level of violence required. Consequently a war that Russia should have won in a few days is two years old and continuing.

From my experience with the liberal Russian intelligentsia, I would say that their program is surrender to Washington. They would rather be invited as visiting professors to Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, and to serve as consultants to American corporations than to be in conflict with the West. As Putin seems to believe toleration of subversion is a sign of democracy, he could have been prevented from required action by pressure to prove that he is not, as the entirety of the West proclaims, a dictator. Putin would have saved many lives by ignoring the propaganda of his enemies and being more forceful in Russia’s defense. But now Putin is showing more awareness of what needs to be done. News reports which I saw in the Indian press, not in the American whore media, a collection of paid liars, say that, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, Russia and Iran are finalizing a pact stressing their commitment to fundamental principles of Russian-Iranian relations, including unconditional respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In a way this is good news. It indicates that Putin has finally realized that left unprotected, Iran is vulnerable, and if Iran goes, Washington has a direct entry to send “jihadists” into the Russian Federation and the former Soviet central Asian republics. But once again, like with the nonsensical “Minsk Agreement,” Putin has made an error. The pact has been announced before it goes into effect. It is unclear when this acknowledgement of mutual association is to be finalized. So the message to Washington and Israel is to attack Iran now before the agreement goes into effect. There is risk that this will happen. By trying to avoid the expansion of conflict in the Middle East, when conflict is Washington’s and Israel’s intention, Putin by his non-intervention, has given a green light for the expansion of conflict.

Moreover, the Russian-Iranian pact does not seem to be, except, by implication, a mutual defense pact. You can bet that Victoria Nuland and Israel’s American neoconservative agents who control US foreign policy will try to strike Iran before the pact is is in effect or they will argue that it is not a mutual defense agreement. It seems that Russia, China, Iran, and Israel’s Muslim enemies think that words count when nothing but action counts. In the West words are meaningless. Only actions count. And Russia’s are missing. Now, let me back off a bit. There are other indications of progress toward an environment less able to be turned into war by Washington. China had the foresight to broker a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This was a fundamental blow to Washington. This rapprochement, if it holds against Washington’s counter offer, has expanded Putin’s organization BRICS to include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. This gives new meaning to Saudi Arabia’s abandonment of the petro-dollar.

There is even a potential good sign on Russia’s part. Russia has announced air patrols over the Syrian Golan border with Israel. Putin prevented Washington’s invasion of Assad’s Syria but then went soft. Putin has left the Syrian oil fields in Washington’s hands. Putin has permitted both Israel and the US to conduct air and missile attacks on Syrian territory, apparently preventing Syria from using the Russian-supplied S-300 air defense system to protect Syrian territory. It remains to be seen if this means anything. The Russians have been sufficiently weakened by Western influence that they now have, associated with the Defense Ministry a “Center for Reconciliation.” This center says the air patrols are just for monitoring. In other words, there will be no military intervention, so it is largely meaningless. The failure to confront Russia’s enemies with defeats means the pressure against Russia, the ongoing provocations, and the humiliations inflicted will continue until Russia is forced into war.

There is a great deal of talk about American over-extension, outmoded weapon systems, excessive debt, inability to recruit for the military, etc., most of which is true. But the neoconservatives in control are still full of confidence, and this confidence is ever encouraged by Putin’s lack of decisive action. The war that is shaping up appears to be unavoidable. I know that it seems arrogant, egocentric, and self-glorifying to appear to be giving advice to Putin. But that is not what I am doing. I am describing a situation. To preclude a US/Israeli attack on Iran, there needs to be a Russia-China-Iran alliance which probably should include Turkey. Right NOW Iran needs the highly effective Russian air defense systems and, if Iran doesn’t have them, the hypersonic Russian long distance offensive missiles. Putin showed a strategic side when he committed the Russian Air Force to Syria’s defense, thus blocking Syria’s invasion by Obama. But he was very late getting into the game, almost too late. The multipolar world that Putin is always talking about cannot materialize without a Russian-Chinese-Iranian mutual defense treaty. Without more strategic vision and action on the part of Russia and China, war is unavoidable.

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“Joe Biden’s inner circle of strategists for the Middle East — Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk..”

• The Four Horsemen of Gaza’s Apocalypse (Chris Hedges)

Joe Biden’s inner circle of strategists for the Middle East — Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk — have little understanding of the Muslim world and a deep animus towards Islamic resistance movements. They see Europe, the United States and Israel as involved in a clash of civilizations between the enlightened West and a barbaric Middle East. They believe that violence can bend Palestinians and other Arabs to their will. They champion the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. and Israeli military as the key to regional stability — an illusion that fuels the flames of regional war and perpetuates the genocide in Gaza.

In short, these four men are grossly incompetent. They join the club of other clueless leaders, such as those who waltzed into the suicidal slaughter of World War One, waded into the quagmire of Vietnam or who orchestrated the series of recent military debacles in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. They are endowed with the presumptive power vested in the Executive Branch to bypass Congress, to provide weapons to Israel and carry out military strikes in Yemen and Iraq. This inner circle of true believers dismiss the more nuanced and informed counsels in the State Department and the intelligence communities, who view the refusal of the Biden administration to pressure Israel to halt the ongoing genocide as ill-advised and dangerous.

Biden has always been an ardent militarist — he was calling for war with Iraq five years before the U.S. invaded. He built his political career by catering to the distaste of the white middle class for the popular movements, including the anti-war and civil rights movements, that convulsed the country in the 1960s and 1970s. He is a Republican masquerading as a Democrat. He joined Southern segregationists to oppose bringing Black students into Whites-only schools. He opposed federal funding for abortions and supported a constitutional amendment allowing states to restrict abortions. He attacked President George H. W. Bush in 1989 for being too soft in the “war on drugs.” He was one of the architects of the 1994 crime bill and a raft of other draconian laws that more than doubled the U.S. prison population, militarized the police and pushed through drug laws that saw people incarcerated for life without parole. He supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, the greatest betrayal of the working class since the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. He has always been a strident defender of Israel, bragging that he did more fundraisers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than any other Senator.

“As many of you heard me say before, were there no Israel, America would have to invent one. We’d have to invent one because… you protect our interests like we protect yours,” Biden said in 2015, to an audience that included the Israeli ambassador, at the 67th Annual Israeli Independence Day Celebration in Washington D.C. During the same speech he said, “The truth of the matter is we need you. The world needs you. Imagine what it would say about humanity and the future of the 21st century if Israel were not sustained, vibrant and free.” The year before Biden gave a gushing eulogy for Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister and general who was implicated in massacres of Palestinians, Lebanese and others in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon — as well as Egyptian prisoners of war — going back to the 1950s. He described Sharon as “part of one of the most remarkable founding generations in the history not of this nation, but of any nation.”

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“Israel’s only answer (to the issue of how to maintain Zionism) was to keep the State’s borders undefined – whilst holding on to scarce water and land resources..”

• Netanyahu’s Shape-Shifting ‘Endgame’ (Alastair Crooke)

The late Ariel Sharon, a long-time Israeli military and political leader, once confided to his close friend Uri Dan that, “the Arabs had never genuinely accepted the presence of Israel … and so, a two-state solution was not possible – nor even desirable”. In the minds of these two – as well as for most Israelis today – is the ‘Gordian Knot’ that sits at the heart of Zionism: How to maintain differential rights over a physical terrain that includes a large Palestinian population. Israeli leaders believed that in Sharon’s unconventional approach of ‘spatial ambiguity’, Israel was close to evolving a solution to the conundrum of managing differential rights within a Zionist majority state, which includes substantial minorities. Palestinians, many Israelis believed (until recently), were being successfully contained in a striated political and physical space – and were even being “disappeared” from significance – only for Hamas, on 7 October, to blow apart that whole elaborate paradigm.

This event has triggered a widespread and existential fear that the Zionist project could possibly implode, were its Zionist exceptionalist foundations to be rejected by a wide resistance ready to take the issue to war. U.S. journalist Steve Inskeep’s recent piece – Israel’s Lack of Strategy is the Strategy – brings into focus the seeming paradox: That whilst Netanyahu is very clear about that which he does not want, he at the same time remains obstinately opaque about what he does want as a future for Palestinians living on a shared terrain. For those who think that Middle East peace might (or should) be Netanyahu’s goal, this opacity appears as a serious ‘flaw’ to resolving the Gaza crisis. However, if Netanyahu (backed by his cabinet, and a majority of Israelis) offers no strategy for peace with the Palestinians, then perhaps its omission is not ‘a bug’, but is its feature.

To understand the underlying oxymoron, you have to grasp why Ariel Sharon and Uri Dan ‘said what they said’, and understand how Sharon’s military experience from the 1973 War effectively has shaped the entire Palestinian paradigm. In 2011, I wrote a piece in Foreign Policy which postulated that Sharon’s notion of Palestinian Permanent Ambiguity was – and has been – the Zionists’ principle answer to how to bypass the paradox inherent within Zionism. Thirty years later, it still lurks in all of Netanyahu’s (and Israeli leaders across the political spectrum’s) recent pronouncements. Even in 2008, Foreign Minister (and lawyer), Tzipi Livni, was spelling out why “Israel’s only answer (to the issue of how to maintain Zionism) was to keep the State’s borders undefined – whilst holding on to scarce water and land resources – leaving Palestinians in a state of permanent uncertainty, dependent on Israeli goodwill”.

And I noted in a separate piece: “Livni was saying that she wanted Israel to be a Zionist state – based on the Law of Return and open to any Jew. However, to secure such a state in a country with very limited territory – means that land and water must be kept under Jewish control, with differential rights for Jews and non-Jews – rights that affect everything, from housing and access to land, to jobs, subsidies, marriages and migration”. A two-state solution inherently therefore, did not solve the problem of how to maintain Zionism; rather, it compounded it. The inevitable demand for full equal rights for Palestinians would bring the end of Jewish ‘special rights’, and of Zionism itself, Livni argued – a threat with which most Zionists concur. Sharon’s answer to this ultimate paradox, however, was different: Sharon had an alternative plan for managing a large non-Jewish ‘out-group’, physically present within a Zionist State of differentiated rights. Sharon’s alternative amounted to frustrating a two-state solution within fixed borders.

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“Without the establishment of a Palestinian state, there can be not reliable security for Israel,” Lavrov said.”

• Russia’s Push for Palestinian State Can Stop Endless ‘Loop’ of Violence (Sp.)

A lasting resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis is the keystone to regional stability, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. “The main focus of efforts should be the creation of a Palestinian state in full compliance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. The state described in these decisions would be competent and would exist in security and good neighborliness side by side with Israel and other countries in the region,” Lavrov said, speaking at a press conference on the results of Russian diplomacy in 2023 on Thursday. “Without the establishment of a Palestinian state, the Palestinian people will continue to feel disadvantaged and disenfranchised. Generation after generation of young Palestinians will fell this injustice and pass it on to their children. This must end through the creation of a Palestinian state. I hope that the Israeli leadership will eventually come to this conclusion…Without the establishment of a Palestinian state, there can be not reliable security for Israel,” Lavrov said.

The foreign minister announced plans to address the United Nations Security Council next Tuesday to discuss how the crisis in the Middle East can be resolved through “collective efforts,” in place of current attempts by the United States to “advance its agenda around the world.” “Perhaps our Western colleagues should learn some life lessons. And the countries of the region must insist that they are the ones who live here, and that for them, the security of all states [in the region] is of decisive importance to them. No one wants to prohibit advice from the outside, but the final decisions should be made by regional countries themselves,” Lavrov stressed. The creation of a Palestinian state is the “dream” of the Arab and Muslim World, and Russia’s position on the Palestinian-Israeli crisis indicates a very good understanding of the Middle East, says Riyadh-based political analyst Dr. Ahmed Al Ibrahim.

Russia’s position on Palestinian statehood is “going to be very well-received,” Al Ibrahim told Sputnik. “It’s going to cause stability. It’s going to give a lot of ground for the foreign policy of Russia to integrate here in the Muslim-Arab World. If Russia succeeded in that, then Russia has solved the most crucial thing in the history of this region by aligning Israel and Palestine to be together next [to each other]. And they’re going to win the hearts and the minds of the Arab and the Muslim World.” Attempts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have been spearheaded by the United States for some seven decades, Al Ibrahim recalled, noting that in all this time “nothing happened except destruction for the Palestinian land, and more expansion, more settlers taking lands.”

“Definitely the whole world would welcome Russia and the BRICS members to be mediating this. But the solution is going to be very hard. Russia and the BRICS members [would] have to coordinate with the United States and with Britain because they are the majority stakeholders of this file, in order to yank it from them and do something on the ground,” the political analyst noted. Otherwise, unless a genuine, multilateral effort is launched to establish Palestinian statehood, the cycle of violence being seen today will continue indefinitely, Al Ibrahim believes. “The real core of the problem is in the deep mind and the deep state of the Israelis,” Al Ibrahim stressed. “Do they want a two-state solution?

We still see at the Knesset, when you enter the building, a big map – a big Israeli state from the [Jordan] River to the Sinai. If this is the creed of the Israelis, then there is no point of anybody mediating and Israel needs to work within themselves in order to come up an evolution to change their mindset and work to have a peaceful neighboring country with the Arab World supporting them. By reaching that, Israel is going to gain a lot by normalizing relationships with many Arab and Muslim countries,” he emphasized. “But if they’re going to play the cat and mouse game, you know, ‘I say something and I do something else on the ground,’ this is not going to work,” Al Ibrahim said, saying Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Arab countries and the Muslim World in general are too smart to be tricked by such deception.

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“..not as a war that has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives … but as a profitable business project.”

• US Sees Ukraine As A ‘Lucrative Business Project’ – Lavrov (RT)

Recent statements from the US suggest it regards Ukraine as nothing but a “lucrative business project,” one that it is profiting from, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the UN Security Council on Monday. The minister was referring to earlier statements made by US State Secretary Antony Blinken. Last month, the top US diplomat claimed that 90% of the money allocated for Ukrainian aid ends up getting funneled back to the US “to the benefit of American business, local communities, and strengthening the US defense industrial base.” In November 2023, the Washington Post also reported that the majority of these funds were spent on manufacturing new weapons or replacing the equipment sent to Ukraine out of American stockpiles.

The US is essentially “developing its military industrial” complex while “dumping the old junk in Ukraine,” Lavrov said. Russia’s top diplomat also claimed that most major Ukrainian companies, including lithium producers, are being sold to Americans and US companies have been able to get their hands on Ukraine’s fertile land “on the cheap.” Lavrov denounced the statements made by US officials as “cynical” and said that Washington has been treating the ongoing conflict “not as a war that has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives … but as a profitable business project.” Moscow is waging a military campaign not against Ukraine but against “a criminal regime, presumptuous in its impunity,” he declared.

Kiev has not forgone on the “war against its own citizens in the east and south” despite years-long efforts by Moscow to find a peaceful solution to this crisis, he explained, adding that over 7 million Ukrainians had found refuge in Russia since the 2014 Maidan coup. Kiev’s Western backers have never tried to stop the government from persecuting Russian-speaking Ukrainians, the minister said, accusing the US and its allies of using the past few years to “arm Ukraine and prepare it for war against Russia,” while using the Minsk Agreements as a cover. Russia is ready for talks on Ukraine but it is not willing to discuss ways to keep Kiev’s current government in power, Moscow’s top diplomat concluded.

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“Zelensky realizes that the damaging data that the Americans have is capable of destroying him as president. In this situation, he’ll continue to dance to the tune of his American masters..”

• US Forming ‘Colonial Administration’ In Ukraine – Russian Spy Chief (RT)

Washington has begun creating “a colonial administration” in Ukraine consisting of local politicians who have sworn allegiance to the US, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said. The US government has demanded that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky “remove” dozens of high-ranking officials, whom Washington no longer trusts, from their posts under various pretexts, Sergey Naryshkin claimed on Monday. Washington wants those jobs to be filled by “Ukrainians trained in the West, who have sworn allegiance to American interests,” he said in comments cited by the SVR press service. “As part of the policy of total vassalization of Ukraine, the US has started forming what is essentially a colonial administration in that country,” the spy chief stated.

According to Naryshkin, the required changes in the Ukrainian government were relayed to Zelensky during his visit to Washington in December. “The Americans are pushing for Ukrainian ambassador to Washington Oksana Markarova, who received her education at Indiana University Bloomington, to take the post of prime minister. The deputy head of the Finance Ministry, Alexander Kava, who studied at Harvard University, is being suggested for the job of finance minister. The current deputy head of the Economy Ministry, Taras Kachka, a graduate of Poland’s National School of Public Administration (KSAP), is recommended for the post of economy minister,” he said. The latest high-profile change in the Ukrainian cabinet follows the pattern described by Naryshkin. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who replaced Zelensky’s ally Aleksey Reznikov in the job last fall, used to participate in the Future Leaders Exchange program, funded by the US State Department.

The Biden administration, which is in possession of a “killer corruption dossier” on members of Zelenksy’s inner circle, is threatening to make this information public if Ukrainian leader refuses to greenlight the desired personnel decisions, the spy chief claimed. “Zelensky realizes that the damaging data that the Americans have is capable of destroying him as president. In this situation, he’ll continue to dance to the tune of his American masters,” Naryshkin predicted. The US, which has provided Zelensky’s government with $111 billion in military and economic assistance since the start of the conflict with Russia, already has advisers embedded in all key Ukrainian ministries, but Washington believes this is not enough and is “steadily increasing Kiev’s feudal dependence,” Naryshkin said.

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“What are [the Ukrainians] waiting for? That the Russians will leave Donbass and Lugansk, or that they will leave Crimea? It’s unrealistic,” Fico insisted.”

• Ukraine Must Give Up Territory – Fico (RT)

Ukraine should concede the loss of some of the territories that were previously under its control in order to end the conflict with Russia, Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico has said. Fico made the statement during a weekend interview with broadcaster RTVS dedicated to his upcoming visit to Ukraine. The Slovak PM is scheduled to travel on Wednesday to Uzhgorod, a city near the border between the two countries, for a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Denis Shmygal. The ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev can’t be resolved through military means and should end in compromise that might be “painful for both sides,” he said. “What are [the Ukrainians] waiting for? That the Russians will leave Donbass and Lugansk, or that they will leave Crimea? It’s unrealistic,” Fico insisted.

The People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk were officially incorporated into the Russian state in the fall of 2022, together the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, as a result of referendums held in those areas. Crimea has been a part of Russia since 2014. The continuation of the fighting that has been underway since February 2022 will only make Moscow stronger, Fico added. The Slovak premier also said Ukraine was “not a sovereign, independent country” due to it being “under the absolute influence of the US.” He criticized the EU for making “a huge mistake” of following Washington’s lead when it comes to dealing with Kiev, instead of developing its own “sovereign” view on the issue. As for his talks this week with Shmygal, Fico promised to tell his Ukrainian counterpart that he’s against Kiev’s membership in NATO, as that would be “exactly the basis of World War Three,” and to reiterate that President Vladimir Zelensky’s government won’t be getting any more weapons from Bratislava.

The prime minister’s interview caused angry reaction in Kiev, with the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Aleksandr Merezhko demanded that Fico’s trip to Ukraine be canceled for his “disgraceful statements” that crossed “the red line.” “Every country should have at least minimal self-respect. It’s absolutely unacceptable to pretend that nothing is happening when the leader of another state makes statements that question the sovereignty of a state” that he’s about to visit, Merezhko wrote on Facebook. Fico made a comeback as Slovakia’s prime minister in October after his party won the snap election in the EU country, campaigning on promises of, among other measures, cutting military aid to Kiev and improving ties with Moscow.

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The MO: crazy claims.

• Zelensky Brands Parts Of Russia ‘Historically’ Ukrainian (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky declared six Russian regions to be “historically inhabited by Ukrainians” in a decree published on Monday. The list does not include any of the territory that Kiev claims sovereignty over in the ongoing conflict with Moscow, and focuses on globally recognized parts of Russia. The document includes Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod regions, all of which border Ukraine. It also lists Voronezh, Rostov, and Krasnodar regions, all of which bordered Ukraine before 2014, when Crimea decided to join Russia in a referendum and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics declared independence from Kiev. Zelensky claimed the population of these territories had been subjected to “the policy of forced Russification,” and ordered the government in Kiev to develop “an action plan” to “preserve” Ukrainian “national identity” in Russia.

The decree calls on Russia to “provide Ukrainians living in its territories” with access to education in the Ukrainian language, as well as access to Ukrainian-language mass media and special “civil, social, cultural, and religious rights.” Moscow has never imposed any restrictions on the Ukrainian language. Russia’s education minister, Sergey Kravtsov, said in July 2022 that “no one was banning” it, and that it would be taught in schools where necessary. Zelensky’s decree also tasks the Ukrainian government and the National Security and Defense Council with “collecting and studying facts and testimonies about crimes” supposedly committed against Ukrainians in Russia throughout its history, as well as “countering disinformation and propaganda” about Ukrainian history, allegedly spread by Moscow.

The president also instructed the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences to “prepare materials” on the “thousand-year-old history” of Ukraine and distribute them around the world. The country’s educational programs and textbooks should also contain “the true history of ethnic Ukrainians,” Zelensky added. The Russian regions mentioned in the decree have repeatedly been targeted by Ukrainian missile and drone attacks as well as shelling since the start of hostilities with Moscow in February 2022. Zelensky’s decree comes just weeks after Kiev launched a major attack on the city of Belgorod. The strike, which according to the Russian Defense Ministry involved the use of banned cluster munitions, claimed the lives of 25 people, including children, and left more than a hundred injured. In mid-January, a child was injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Voronezh – the capital of another region Zelensky claimed was “historically inhabited by Ukrainians.”

The developments come amid Kiev’s attempts to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) – the country’s biggest Christian denomination, which is reported to have more than 8,000 parishes. The Ukrainian government has long accused it of having ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that Ukraine in its pre-2014 borders was largely “created” by the Soviet leadership over the course of the 20th century. Historically, “Ukrainian lands” included a much smaller territory, he has argued. When the Cossacks living on the territory of modern Ukraine broke away from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th century following the Bogdan Khmelnitsky uprising and asked the then-Tsardom of Russia to take them in, the territory they controlled effectively amounted to present-day Kiev, Chernigov, and Zhitomir regions – three areas in the north of Ukraine, the Russian president said in 2022.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1749432104612405410

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“Medvedev dismissed the decree as a “crude PR stunt” aimed at drawing public attention away from the Ukrainian forces’ failures on the front lines..”

• Medvedev Denounces Zelensky’s ‘Territorial Claims’ To Russia (RT)

The latest decree by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky essentially amounts to “territorial claims” on sovereign Russian regions, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday. Posting on Telegram, he was referring to a document declaring six Russian regions to be “historically inhabited by Ukrainians.” Signed on Monday, Ukraine’s Day of Unity, the presidential decree claims that six territories that are universally recognized as a part of Russia – the Krasnodar, Rostov, Voronezh, Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk regions – had been “historically” populated by “ethnic Ukrainians” that were then supposedly subjected to “forced Russification.” The document then orders the Kiev government to develop an “action plan” to “preserve” the Ukrainian national identity in Russia and demands the “true history” of Ukraine be made known to the “world.”

It also demands Russia provide people living in these regions with access to Ukrainian-language mass media and to some special “civil, social, cultural and religious rights.” Medvedev dismissed the decree as a “crude PR stunt” aimed at drawing public attention away from the Ukrainian forces’ failures on the front lines. He also said there was even no need to comment on the contents of the order, since the territories mentioned in it have always been part of Russia. The former president (2008-2012) also said it was high time Zelensky “stopped” such policies and abandoned them, or he might end up “annexing Canada in the near future.” Zelensky himself described signing the decree as a way to promote “truth about Ukrainians… and their history.” He also claimed that it was aimed at “restoring the truth about the historical past for the Ukrainian future.”

The Russian regions mentioned in the decree have been regularly subjected to drone and missile attacks as well as shelling by the Ukrainian troops. In December, Belgorod – the capital of one of the regions supposedly “historically inhabited by Ukrainians” – was struck by a major Ukrainian attack. The strike claimed the lives of 25 people, including children. The Russian Defense Ministry also said that Kiev’s forces used banned cluster munitions in an attack targeting the city center just a day before New Year’s Eve celebrations.

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Scholz will try to ban the AfD.

• AfD Leader Calls for German ‘Dexit’ Vote to Break From EU (Sp.)

The Alternative for Germany party promotes direct voting on legislation and strict immigration controls. It was the subject of nationwide protests last week after some of its members were spotted at a meeting that advocated for mass deportation of immigrants in Germany, including those with German passports. Britain was “dead right” to leave the European Union and Germany should consider its own “Dexit,” the leader of the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) Alice Weidel said in an article published in US media on Monday. “If reform isn’t possible, if we fail to rebuild sovereignty of the EU member states, we should let the people decide, just as Britain did,” she said, adding that “we could have a referendum on ‘Dexit’ – a German exit from the EU.”

A recent poll found that only 45% of AfD members would currently vote to leave the EU and only 10% of the general population said they would. It is worth noting that opinions can shift rapidly. In late 2014, only 36% of Britons said they would support the UK leaving the EU; less than two years later, more than half voted for “Brexit.” The AfD is leading the polls in five East German states and is polling second nationally at 22%. The party hopes to make gains at both the European Parliamentary elections in June and the regional elections in September. However, AfD’s high polling numbers may not reflect how much power the party will have in the near term. Establishment parties, including conservative-leaning ones, have ruled out forming a coalition with the AfD, limiting its potential power.

Weidel admitted that the issue will limit her party’s power in the short term but believes the “firewall” will not last forever, pointing to the conservative establishment CDU party, which includes former chancellor Angela Merkel, as the first likely to break. “The CDU will not be able to maintain its firewall in the long term,” Weidel said. She added that the last year proved “that we can form a clear right-wing majority. And the CDU can’t refuse to accept that in the long term, especially in the eastern states.” Weidel admitted her party is unlikely to take control until 2029 at the earliest. It is currently polling only behind the CDU but is ahead of every other party, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three coalition parties.

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X thread. War games.

• Russian Attack On Nato In 2044 (Zlatko)

Europe is being frightened by the “scenario of a Russian attack on NATO” in 2044. Former US commander Hodges and defense analyst Sam Cranny-Evans put together “their” scenario: “This is not about Russia trying to take over all of NATO. This is not what their goal will be in 20 years. It would be about destroying NATO as an alliance by invading the eastern flank and conquering critical places – like the Arctic – that would benefit them,” General Hodges said. In their opinion, everything will begin with cyber attacks on transport chains, after which a missile attack will be launched on key infrastructure facilities in Europe.

The ground operation will begin in Finland, where tanks controlled by artificial intelligence will “enter.” At the same time, the Suwalki corridor will be taken under control and the Baltic countries will be attacked. The Russian Navy, as planned by Hodges, will take control of the Arctic regions. “There is even the possibility of some kind of conflict in space, where satellites are used to attack each other or jam satellites, which has already been done at a lower level in Ukraine,” Cranny-Evans added. Ostashko reports.

The best take on this, from a commenter:

Then aliens will come down and mate with all the women in Sweden, Orcs will invade France and steal all the wine, and Zelensky will have run off with Von Der Layen and fathered 20 children……..

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“..events described under oath by two Capitol Police officers in the first Oath Keepers trial in 2022 could not have happened, based on Mr. Baker’s examination of security video..”

• DOJ Seeking Retribution Against Journalist for Recent Jan. 6 Coverage (ET)

Attorneys for a journalist threatened with prosecution for being at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are challenging federal prosecutors to try his case outside the District of Columbia, suggesting prosecutors are seeking retribution for his recent reporting on possible Capitol Police perjury and the Jan. 6 pipe bombs. Six attorneys who said they volunteered to represent Stephen Baker of Raleigh, N.C., released a statement on Jan. 22 expressing belief that the DOJ is seeking even more serious Jan. 6 charges as retaliation. Mr. Baker, a former independent journalist, now writes for Blaze Media. “We now have information that Steve’s reporting has so agitated officials in multiple federal agencies that an effort is now underway to find a basis to charge Steve with more serious crimes and to use those more serious crimes as a pretext for early morning raids to execute search and arrest warrants on him and his family,” the statement read.

“If this is true, and search and arrest warrants are used to drag Steve out of his house in the early morning hours someday soon, that will be evidence of retaliation against a journalist exercising his First Amendment rights to report information that is embarrassing to government officials.” The statement is signed by five well-known Jan. 6 defense attorneys: James Lee Bright, Brad Geyer, Phillip Linder, William Shipley, and Edward Tarpley Jr. It was also signed by Mr. Baker’s Raleigh-based attorney, Matthew Ceradini. Mr. Geyer and Mr. Shipley were federal prosecutors for more than two decades. “After not having indicted me for three years, it is clear that any move to do so now will be in retaliation for my reporting,” Mr. Baker wrote in a news release. “I will not be intimidated. I will continue to report the findings of my investigation into the evidence being made available to me to review,” he said.

The attorneys challenged the DOJ to try any case against Mr. Baker in the eastern district of North Carolina where Mr. Baker lives, or the northern district of Texas, where his employer, Blaze Media, is located. “Are citizens of those two districts not suitable jurors in Steve’s case?” the statement asked. “Is the federal judiciary in those two districts not able to provide a fair and impartial trial? “On what basis does the United States Department of Justice believe the ‘United States’ can only get a fair trial in the District of Columbia and not one of those ‘United’ States?” Mr. Baker’s most recent coverage identified the person who found one of the two pipe bombs on Jan. 6 as an undercover U.S. Capitol Police officer and not a “passerby.” Since October 2023, he wrote a series of stories that said events described under oath by two Capitol Police officers in the first Oath Keepers trial in 2022 could not have happened, based on Mr. Baker’s examination of security video.

Mr. Geyer suggested that reporting should result in the Oath Keepers’ convictions being thrown out. Mr. Baker was one of dozens of journalists at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. His video footage appeared in an HBO film and was licensed by the BBC, The New York Times, and The Epoch Times. Mr. Baker was first contacted by the FBI in July 2021 about his presence at the Capitol. He voluntarily sat down with FBI special agents in November 2021. He said he was told the DOJ was considering charging him with interstate racketeering because he received money from licensing his Jan. 6 video. In March 2023, he said he was warned by a high-profile journalist that his reporting was chafing some high-level DOJ officials. In August, he was served a subpoena for his Jan. 6 video. In December, the FBI told his attorney that his arrest was imminent, although that plan was subsequently delayed.

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“..the falsely-elected, tyrannically corrupt, and epically deranged regime fronted by the ghost-in-the-White House, “Joe Biden.”

• The Pipe-Bomb Caper (Kunstler)

“The FBI must come forward with the whole truth, immediately. If they will not, then Republicans have a duty to tear the FBI down to its foundation, and ensure that no government organization is allowed to amass this kind of power ever again.” — Charlie Kirk . Kudos to Darren J. Beattie of Revolver News and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) for doing the FBI’s work for the FBI, smoking out the role of law enforcement (including the FBI) in but one module of the J6 operation that turned a peaceful mass assembly of disgruntled voters into a riot in order to color it as an “insurrection” and so destroy opposition to the falsely-elected, tyrannically corrupt, and epically deranged regime fronted by the ghost-in-the-White House, “Joe Biden.”

Mr. Massie arranged to extract previously unseen video from the Capitol Police vaults showing the exceedingly strange behavior of various law-men in the minutes after one of their number reported a pipe-bomb beside a park bench, a few steps away from their parked vehicles, outside the DNC headquarters near the US Capitol building around one o’clock in the afternoon on J6/21, just around the time that a joint session of Congress would commence the entertainment of official complaints and objections to the certification of votes in the 2020 presidential election. Of course, that proceeding was disrupted by events outside and inside the US Capitol, and those many complaints and objections were never registered.

Two cars are shown parked blocking the driveway to the basement garage: a white Washington DC Metro Police SUV and a black Secret Service cruiser — because Veep Kamala Harris happened to be in the building at the time. A man with a backpack, later identified as a plainclothes Capitol Police officer, steps up first to the Metro car, then to the Secret Service cruiser, cueing minutes of slow milling-about by the officers in the two cars. Eventually several cops dawdle over to the bench to inspect what turns out to be a pipe-bomb planted in plain sight on the ground there. The video shows no effort to cordon-off the area or to stop cars or pedestrians (children) from entering the scene near the bomb.

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“The power they tasted during the lockdowns opened Pandora’s Box..”

• Dutch Queen Promotes Digital ID at Davos (Martin Armstrong)

Queen Maxima of the Netherlands took to the Davos stage to declare that digital IDs are necessary for nearly every aspect of social engagement. The Dutch queen told the World Economic Forum (WEF) that they can no longer trust the people, and digital IDs will provide governments with a clear way to track our behavior. Vaccine passports are necessary to tell “who actually got a vaccination or not,” highlighting how those at the top do not trust the public. They want complete unilateral control. In fact, she believes that children should not be allowed to enroll in school unless they have a digital ID that includes their vaccination passport. “It [digital ID] is also good for school enrollment; it is also good for health – who actually got a vaccination or not; it’s very good actually to get your subsidies from the government,” she said to a room of nodding heads. Want to open a bank account? You must present a digital ID.

Now the Netherlands implemented a COVID certificate that was required for travel throughout the EU. Citizens were provided yellow vaccination booklets that they were required to carry throughout the pandemic. Mass protests erupted, but the government did not drop restrictions until 72% of the population was already injected. Over 40% of restaurants said they would not ask patrons to show proof of vaccination to enter. Prime Minister Mark Rutte immediately fired Deputy Economic Affairs Minister Mona Keijzer for questioning the vaccine passport. “If we end up in a society where we have to be afraid of each other unless we can show proof, then you really have to scratch your head and ask yourself: Is this the direction we want to go?” Dissent is no longer tolerated. The power they tasted during the lockdowns opened Pandora’s Box. The Dutch government must realize they will be met with resistance as the Dutch people will not allow the government to control them without a fight.

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Foal

 

 

Bouzouki bear
https://twitter.com/i/status/1749553698412335104

 

 


When humans lose weight, fat is eliminated and leaves the body. 80% of the fat is exhaled through the lungs as carbon dioxide

 

 

Lyrebird

 

 

Cathedral
https://twitter.com/i/status/1749361361044517131

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 13 2023

Nov 132023
 
 November 13, 2023  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  42 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Vineyards with a View of Auvers 1890

 

• The End of the Era of Justice (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Horror, The Horror (Chris Hedges)
• The War According to Hamas (Chris Hedges)
• Israel Seeks To Appoint Tony Blair As Gaza Humanitarian Coordinator (ToI)
• ‘Immoral’ US Warfare ‘Never Sought to Minimize Civilian Deaths’ (Sp.)
• Zelensky May Be Ousted – Ex Presidential Aide (RT)
• Former NATO Chief Suggests Ukraine Joins Bloc Without Lost Territory (TASS)
• Ukraine Should Eye ‘Land-For-Peace’ Deal – Ex-NATO Admiral (Sp.)
• The EU Praises Ukraine’s ‘Achievements,’ But They Are Laughable (Marsden)
• The DC Establishment Thinks RFK Could Win, And They’re Panicking (Hill)
• Trump Lawyers to Mount Counterattack in NY Civil Case (ET)
• Trump’s Veterans Day Message Was Quite Different From Biden’s (ET)
• Moody’s US Credit Warning Will Accelerate Dedollarization (Sp.)
• EU Moves Forward With Digital ID Despite Security Concerns (AmG)

 

 

 

 

Alex Jones on RFK

 

 

 

 

Judaism

 

 

Or Joe Biden.

 

 

Pepe

 

 

The 40th Original Marathon in Athens yesterday was filled with Palestine flags.

 

 

 

 

“..if he had the opportunity to market Mar-a-Lago, it would be sold to someone with “net worths in the multiple billions,” the likes of Elon Musk, kings, emperors, and heads of state..”

• The End of the Era of Justice (Paul Craig Roberts)

In the year 2023 Justice Is Nowhere to be Found in the Western World. Examples are numerous. I have written about the injustices inflicted on Julian Assange, Trump supporters, and those forced to submit to Covid “vaccination.” This time I will illustrate the point with the “fraud case” against Trump for allegedly overstating the value of his real estate holdings and with the entire world standing aside, the genocide of Palestinians under the rubric of Israel’s “self-defense.” The “fraud case” against Trump consists of an unsupported allegation against Trump by George Soros’ disciple NY attorney general Letitia James who is on record as a Trump-hater. It is not a trial. There is no jury. The staged proceeding is only for the judge to determine how big a fine Trump has to pay for allegedly–no proof is supplied, only Letitia’s accusation–overstating the value of his holdings.

The judge, Engoron, in my opinion, is indulging his publicly-avowed hatred of Trump. It is the judge who should be indicted and placed on trial. He is guilty of ignoring an appellate court’s ruling that set a statute of limitations on the case. He granted a summary judgment against Trump of $250,000,000 before the process of determining Trump’s fine began. Engoron and his staff are hardcore Democrats. They have made political contributions to the Democrat Party that are against the rules of conduct for judges and their law clerks. Additionally, the biased judge has ruled against Trump’s ability to speak his mind and has prevented Trump’s attorneys from pointing out the ridiculous nature of the charges. The charge that Trump overstated the value of his real estate holdings is only the unsupported opinion of the biased Trump-hater Letitia James who claims that New York State was damaged by Trump’s alleged overstatement of the value of his holdings.

The judge, who has no qualification as a real estate appraiser, says Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is only worth $18 million. Forbes magazine gives it a minimum value of $350,000,000. Neither New York nor anyone suffered from the alleged and unsupported claim that Trump overstated the value of his holdings. As US Representative Elise Stefanik stated in her ethics compliant filed against judge Engoron in New York, “no evidence was presented on trial to suggest fraud, and in fact material evidence suggested the opposite.” “The defendant paid back the sophisticated Wall Street banks, on time, in full, with interest, as agreed. No insurance company paid a penny. And these banks and insurance companies, allegedly defrauded, continue to do business with the defendant.” “Indeed, two banks had done their own analyses of President Trump’s net worth, as revealed in testimonies, and for some development projects the bank had courted President Trump’s business, not the other way around.”

Trump Organization had valued Mar-a-Lago between $426 million and $612 million in these statements, while Ms. James and the judge valued it at $18 million to $27.6 million, prompting ridicule from prominent real estate brokers who regarded the Trump-hating judge’s claim as “ludicrous.” The judge, who declared Trump to be “a bad man” dismissed from the record exculpatory evidence for Trump in the form of a sworn affidavit from Lawrence Moens, the top Palm Beach luxury broker, who said if he had the opportunity to market Mar-a-Lago, it would be sold to someone with “net worths in the multiple billions,” the likes of Elon Musk, kings, emperors, and heads of state. Engoron called the statement an “unsubstantiated dream,” but admitted testimony from someone on the attorney general’s side who helped come up with the $250 million disgorgement figure, suggesting banks lost out on more than $100 million in interest because the financial statements were inflated. THIS IS ONLY THE JUDGE’S AND LETITIA’S CLAIM, NOT THE BANKS’ CLAIM. THERE ARE NO INJURED PARTIES.

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“Israel and the United States are sending a chilling message to the rest of the world. International and humanitarian law, including the Geneva Convention, are meaningless pieces of paper..”

• The Horror, The Horror (Chris Hedges)

DOHA, Qatar: I am in the studio of Al Jazeera’s Arabic service watching a live feed from Gaza City. The Al Jazeera reporter in northern Gaza, because of the intense Israeli shelling, was forced to evacuate to southern Gaza. He left his camera behind. He trained it on Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex. It is night. Israeli tanks fire directly towards the hospital compound. Long horizontal red flashes. A deliberate attack on a hospital. A deliberate war crime. A deliberate massacre of the most helpless civilians, including the very sick and infants. Then the feed goes dead. We sit in front of the monitors. We are silent. We know what this means. No power. No water. No internet. No medical supplies. Every infant in an incubator will die. Every dialysis patient will die. Everyone in the intensive care unit will die. Everyone who needs oxygen will die.

Everyone who needs emergency surgery will die. And what will happen to the 50,000 people who, driven from their homes by the relentless bombing, have taken refuge on the hospital grounds? We know the answer to that as well. Many of them, too, will die. There are no words to express what we are witnessing. In the five weeks of horror this is one of the pinnacles of horror. The indifference of Europe is bad enough. The active complicity by the United States is unfathomable. Nothing justifies this. Nothing. And Joe Biden will go down in history as an accomplice to genocide. May the ghosts of the thousands of children he has participated in murdering haunt him for the rest of his life. Israel and the United States are sending a chilling message to the rest of the world. International and humanitarian law, including the Geneva Convention, are meaningless pieces of paper.

They did not apply in Iraq. They do not apply in Gaza. We will pulverize your neighborhoods and cities with bombs and missiles. We will wantonly murder your women, children, elderly and sick. We will set up blockades to engineer starvation and the spread of infectious diseases. You, the “lesser breeds” of the earth, do not matter. To us you are vermin to be extinguished. We have everything. If you try and take any of it away from us, we will kill you. And we will never be held accountable. We are not hated for our values. We are hated because we have no values. We are hated because rules only apply to others. Not to us. We are hated because we have arrogated to ourselves the right to carry out indiscriminate slaughter. We are hated because we are heartless and cruel. We are hated because we are hypocrites, talking about protecting civilians, the rule of law and humanitarianism while extinguishing the lives of hundreds of people in Gaza a day, including 160 children.

[..] Israel and Washington’s cynicism is breathtaking. There are no differences in intent. Washington only wants it done quickly. Humanitarian corridors? Pauses in the shelling? These are vehicles to facilitate the total depopulation of northern Gaza. The handful of aid trucks allowed through the border at Rafah with Egypt? A public relations gimmick. There is only one goal – kill, kill, kill. The faster the better. All Biden officials talk about is what comes next once Israel has finished its decimation of Gaza. They know Israel’s slaughter will not end until Gazans are living in the open without shelter in the southern part of the strip and dying because of a lack of food, water and medical care.

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“We are far more capable of bearing the costs, so there is no need to compare or be alarmed by the magnitude of the numbers..”

• The War According to Hamas (Chris Hedges)

Basel al-Araj, a Palestinian resistance leader, shortly before Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza, laid down the fundamental rules for warfare against the Israel. The rules by al-Araj, not a member of Hamas, provide the Palestinian lens for the incursion by Israeli forces in Gaza. While Israel’s superior firepower — its air force, missiles, tanks, armored personnel carriers, drones, naval forces, mechanized units and artillery — make it possible to inflict huge numbers of Palestinian casualties, most of them civilians, while Israel can level whole neighborhoods and turn hospitals, schools, power stations, water treatment plants, bakeries, mosques and churches into piles of concrete, this does not translate into a defeat of the Palestinian resistance groups.

Al-Araj argued that the fight with Israel cannot be measured with body counts. The Israelis will be able to kill far greater numbers of Palestinians. Resistant movements, he wrote, always suffer disproportionate losses. In the independence war in Algeria, between 1954 and 1962, upwards of 1.5 million Algerians — or around 10 percent of the population — were killed by the French. In the airport in Algiers, the country’s capital, is a huge sign that reads: “Welcome to Algeria. Land of a million Martyrs.” “We are far more capable of bearing the costs, so there is no need to compare or be alarmed by the magnitude of the numbers,” he wrote. Al-Araj, who led hunger strikes while in Palestine Authority prisons, was long a target for Israel. Israel’s counter-terrorism unit, Yamam, pursued him for months before raiding his home on March 6, 2017 in el-Bireh. After a two-hour gun battle, Israeli forces, which fired rockets into the building, burst inside and executed him at close range. He was 31.

The fight with Israel, al-Araj reminded Palestinians, must “follow the logic of guerrilla warfare or hybrid warfare, which Arabs and Muslims have become masters of through our experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza.” Never defend “fixed points and borders.” Draw the enemy into an ambush, accomplished by light resistance and tactical withdrawals. Strike the flanks and the rear. The calculus of asymmetric warfare is very different from conventional war. And what Israel defines as success, including the seizing of territory, numerous deaths and the destruction of infrastructure and buildings, matters little to the resistance fighter.The goal of Palestinian fighters is to remain elusive, to carry out lightning strikes and recede back into the rubble or the vast tunnel network under Gaza.

[..] Israel has banned the foreign press from reporting from Gaza. It has killed over 40 Palestinian journalists and media workers. It also has instituted prolonged blockages of the internet and cell phone service. No doubt, this heavy handed censorship is done to limit the horrific images of civilian casualties. But I suspect it is also intended to block images of a ground offensive that is tougher, more protracted and more costly than Israel anticipated. Israel invests tremendous resources in its propaganda campaign, getting networks such as CNN to repeat back its talking points. Jake Tapper should be an honorary Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman. Al-Araj warned about the attempt by Israel to demoralize fighters by posting photos and videos of Israelis occupying landmarks and public spaces.

A video being shared on social media shows the raising of the Israeli flag on a beach in Gaza. A group of soldiers surround the flag and sing the Israeli national anthem. In October last year, Jewish settlers occupied the Ibrahimi mosque in the West Bank town of Hebron, where a Jewish settler, Barach Goldstein, gunned down 29 Palestinians in 1994 as they prayed. The settlers held a music festival and dance party in the mosque. They hung an Israeli flag from the roof. Videos have circulated that denigrate and ridicule Palestinians.

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The Undertaker.

• Israel Seeks To Appoint Tony Blair As Gaza Humanitarian Coordinator (ToI)

Israel is seeking to install former British prime minister Tony Blair as a humanitarian coordinator for the Gaza Strip, according to a report Sunday, out of a desire to improve the humanitarian situation inside the Palestinian enclave and reduce international pressure as it continues to wage its war on Hamas. The Ynet news outlet, citing unnamed senior officials, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to leverage Blair’s experience as former envoy to the region for the Middle East Quartet to temper international concerns over the civilian cost of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The report indicated Blair has been contacted on the matter and talks have been ongoing in recent weeks. The former British leader’s office told Ynet in response that “he has not been given or offered a position,” but did not directly deny any contact.

Ynet said the exact definition, scope and authority of the proposed role had not yet been clearly defined, adding that there would be an emphasis on “providing medical treatment and medicines, and on the possibility of evacuating the wounded and sick from the Strip.” According to the report, efforts at easing the humanitarian situation in Gaza are being coordinated by Israel’s health and defense ministries, with the former assisting in a number of projects in recent weeks, including efforts by international actors to set up field hospitals in Egypt and the arrival of a hospital ship from France. The Defense Ministry and the IDF also understand that in order to obtain time for the war against Hamas, the military’s actions in Gaza need to be seen as legitimate, and that legitimacy is conditional on the humanitarian situation.

[..] Blair’s office said in a statement to Ynet that “Mr. Blair maintains an office in Israel and he continues to work on matters tied to Israel and the Palestinians. Understandably, he has conversations with people in the region and other places in order to see what can be done, but he was not given or offered the role.” Blair served as British premier from 1997 to 2007 and as envoy for the Quartet from 2007 to 2015. The Middle East Quartet consists of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia, and was established to help mediate Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. It has been largely inactive in recent years, as Western relations with Russia have soured. On October 11, Blair, who is a longtime member of Labour Friends of Israel, released a statement condemning Hamas’s brutal onslaught in southern Israel, and calling for change.

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“..Washington is “turning the entire planet into an armed madhouse” using taxpayers’ dollars.”

• ‘Immoral’ US Warfare ‘Never Sought to Minimize Civilian Deaths’ (Sp.)

Throughout its history, the United States has never allowed concerns about the civilian death toll to impact its warfare strategy, and current developments in Gaza are yet another glaring example of this, scholar, educator and journalist K.J. Noh told Sputnik. “The fundamental immorality of US warfare… is that it has never sought to minimize the deaths of civilians. We know that US wars recently have been somewhere in the range of 90 percent civilian deaths,” the scholar underscored. Recalling US doctrine implemented in countries like Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere, it has been “simply to kill anything that moves. You create a free fire zone, you kill anything that moves, and the murder is indiscriminate,” the pundit said. Afterwards, they may use mainstream media to “paste it over” with “PR means and releases.”

Whether it is fuelling weapons to fuel the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, or sending military assistance to Israel in its fight against Hamas, “fundamentally, the business of the US is war,” K.J. Noh emphasized. “You know, the US is number one supplier of arms to the world. It’s 40 percent of all arms sales… and it sells them to quisling governments and to governments that are involved in the Pacific pivot – this escalation to war against China,” underscored the scholar, adding that Washington is “turning the entire planet into an armed madhouse” using taxpayers’ dollars.

[..] After the Biden administration asked for an additional $14 billion for Israel from Congress, Washington committed to delivering to Tel Aviv Iron Dome air defense missiles, small diameter bombs and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits, besides the earlier agreed weapons deals, as per US media reports. At the same time, unlike the case with Ukraine, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged that Washington’s military supplies to Israel were shrouded in secrecy. During an October 23 press briefing, Kirby said that “We’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting — for their own operational security purposes, of course.” “Transparency in war is largely an illusion or at best, selective. You know, war is always deception. Both the published lists and the unpublished lists. The published lists are designed to intimidate, or message, or signal, or posture. And the unpublished lists are… often hiding dirty criminal tactics.”

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Because he refuses to talk.

• Zelensky May Be Ousted – Ex Presidential Aide (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s unwillingness to consider peace talks with Russia might lead him to being ousted to make such negotiations possible, Oleg Soskin, an adviser to two former Ukrainian presidents, said on Saturday. Zelensky, who continues to maintain that victory should be achieved on the battlefield, simply “cannot” enter peace talks with Moscow, Soskin said on his YouTube channel. Such actions, he believes, are pushing Russia and at least some of Ukraine’s Western backers to think that they need someone else to represent Kiev who can “agree on even a temporary truce.” In order to achieve that, the current Ukrainian leadership needs to be “neutralized,” the former presidential aide added.

The idea of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine has become a “prevalent narrative” not only in Russia but in the West as well, Soskin suggested. He noted that French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed such ideas not so long ago. Macron told the BBC in an interview this week that although it was France’s “duty” to support Kiev the time might have come for some “fair and good negotiations” with Russia. Meloni recently told a pair of Russian pranksters, Vovan and Lexus, that “there is a lot of fatigue” in the EU over the conflict. “We are near the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out,” she added at that time.

Soskin, a renowned economist who was the deputy head of the Institute of the World Economics and International Relations of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in the 1990s, said that the EU would also be potentially unable to satisfy Kiev’s needs for military equipment and ammunition, particularly if US military aid decreases. The former official served as a senior adviser to Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Kravchuk, in the early 1990s and was later an economic adviser to the nation’s second leader, Leonid Kuchma, between 1998 and 2000. Kiev has repeatedly ruled out any talks with Moscow and demands a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from all territories Ukraine claims as its own. Zelensky reiterated this demand in an interview with Reuters this week, adding that Kiev would continue the fight even without US aid if need be.

He also denied media reports about Ukraine’s Western backers allegedly encouraging it to engage in peace negotiations with Moscow. “This is not going to happen,” he said last week. Russia has repeatedly signaled its readiness to engage in negotiations with Kiev but has insisted that such talks should take Moscow’s security interests and the “reality on the ground” into account. In the autumn of 2022, four former Ukrainian territories – including the two Donbass republics – officially joined Russia, following a series of referendums. Kiev declared the votes a “sham” and has sought to reclaim control over the four territories, as well as Crimea, which joined Russia in 2014 following another referendum.

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Two ex-NATO guys both apparently want more war with Russia.

“We need a new European security architecture in which Ukraine is in the heart of NATO.”

• Former NATO Chief Suggests Ukraine Joins Bloc Without Lost Territory (TASS)

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO should invite Ukraine to join the alliance without the territories it no longer controls, according to an interview published by the Guardian. “The time has come to take the next step and extend an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO,” he told the Guardian. “We need a new European security architecture in which Ukraine is in the heart of NATO.” “The absolute credibility of Article 5 guarantees would deter Russia from mounting attacks inside the Ukrainian territory inside NATO and so free up Ukrainian forces to go to the frontline,” said Rasmussen, who headed the bloc from 2009-2014.

He said the alliance would have to send a “clear message to Russia that any violation of NATO territory would be met by a response.” He added that in some ways the proposal is similar to imposing a no-fly zone over Ukrainian territory. Rasmussen insisted that the move would not freeze the conflict or force Ukraine to cede territory to Russia. The Guardian said Rasmussen worked alongside Andrey Yermak, the chief of staff of the Ukrainian presidency, ahead of the last NATO summit in Vilnius this year that ended with no invitation for Ukraine to join.

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“..As for obtaining security guarantees, that would mean NATO membership for Ukraine, James Stavridis argued..”

• Ukraine Should Eye ‘Land-For-Peace’ Deal – Ex-NATO Admiral (Sp.)

As Kiev seeks to revitalize its failed counteroffensive against the backdrop of increasing “Ukraine fatigue” in the West, Moscow has repeatedly urged the regime to understand that despite promising military successes to its NATO donors, achieving them is growing ever more elusive. Ukraine should hope for a “land-for-peace conclusion to combat,” retired US Admiral and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis has argued. After the Kiev regime’s much-heralded counteroffensive failed, even the delivery of F-16 fighter jets – promised sometime next year – is not likely to pull off a “real game change,” Stavridis wrote for Bloomberg. He urged Ukraine to resign itself to the fact that it will not manage to seize the new Russian territories, such as the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics or the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

Accordingly, the former commander drew parallels with the outcome of the Korean War, which ended with an armistice in 1953, and suggested that Ukraine should aim for the “South Korean scenario” as its best bet. “This will probably bog down into a frozen conflict; the sooner large combat operations stop, the sooner the Ukrainians will begin to reconstruct,” Stavridis wrote, and laid out his vision of what steps Kiev ought to aim for: “So three lessons of Korea pertain for Ukraine: find the funds for reconstruction as rapidly as possible; construct real and enduring security guarantees; and be willing to negotiate a land-for-peace conclusion to combat.” “That is a realistic scenario,” claimed Stavridis. According to Stavridis, Western firms are already eying staking out their claims to “postwar construction activities in Ukraine,” in such aspects as “mass communications, electric power facilities, water treatment and new residential development.”

And as to where the money for all of that would come from, the ex-general had a ready answer: “the potential availability of hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian funds that are under sanction in the West.” The overall value of frozen Russian sovereign assets in Europe since the Ukraine conflict escalated is estimated at 211 billion euros ($223 billion). While Brussels has repeatedly warned it intends to tap into these assets for the benefit of Ukraine, the bloc has so far failed to invent a legal mechanism for doing so. Pundits interviewed by Sputnik have explained that this is nothing but “wishful thinking,” adding that “it would be a sheer violation of property rights.” Nevertheless, the ex-commander waxed lyrical in his article, enthusing that a “Korean-style miracle of reconstruction” could be “on the horizon for Ukraine.”

As for obtaining security guarantees, that would mean NATO membership for Ukraine, James Stavridis argued, yet again citing the example of South Korea, which holds Major Non-NATO Ally status with the US.

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“..You’d think that the EU might want to at least wait for an improvement in the public sentiment among Ukrainians..”

• The EU Praises Ukraine’s ‘Achievements,’ But They Are Laughable (Marsden)

The European Commission just released a report card for countries seeking to join the European Union. And while Türkiye has been waiting on the sidelines for years, it now finds itself criticized and moving further away from accession for its unwillingness to drink on command the Kool-Aid that Brussels doles out. Meanwhile, Ukraine is getting kudos for achieving the political equivalent of basic potty training – and even those achievements are debatable. “Ukraine has completed … well over 90% of the necessary steps that we set out last year in our report,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. What kind of dodgy bell curve grading is that? There’s a term for what the EU is doing here. It’s called stringing someone along – in this case, with a participation trophy for effort. Ukraine and other countries, like Moldova and Georgia, want into the bloc.

But the EU can barely afford to run what it has now, particularly with Germany and France – its economic engines – struggling from the EU’s own anti-Russian sanctions blowback on industry. Forget committing outright to taking on any more clown acts. So the European Commission is now issuing these condescending report cards, saying that Ukraine has met four of the seven pre-conditions, not for joining the bloc, but for just opening negotiations. Kiev still needs to de-corrupt, presumably to be more aligned with the rest of the EU’s corruption level, it’s being told – which let’s face it, is a pretty low bar. It also needs to de-oligarchize (because Europe only has one Queen, and that’s Ursula herself). It also needs to learn to play nice with minorities and respect their basic rights – like a preschooler needs to be told to do.

So what did Kiev do right, according to Brussels? It has “established a transparent pre-selection system for the Constitutional Court judges and reformed the judicial governance bodies,” the report says. But just last month, Reuters reported that Kiev was on a hiring spree of 2,000 judges amid a “huge shortfall” and EU pressure. Doesn’t sound like the situation is too stable, or resolved. Sounds instead like it’s cramming for an exam or rushing to be able to just tick a box. Granted, there has been a corruption crackdown documented by the mainstream media over the past several months, including the dismissal of the Supreme Court Chief Justice, but when corruption is so systemic and public trust in the judiciary is estimated to be in the single to low double digits, where’s the concrete proof that the new players are a substantial improvement over the old ones? You’d think that the EU might want to at least wait for an improvement in the public sentiment among Ukrainians before giving its stamp of approval.

“Ukraine has taken positive steps in a wider and systemic effort to address the influence of oligarchs,” the report concludes. But is that really the result of a deliberate cleanup – or just due to circumstances? The Wilson Center has detailed how “war was making an impact on the Ukrainian oligarchy by physically destroying the oligarch-owned industrial complexes.” Some oligarchs have fled Ukraine for places like the South of France, as Le Monde has reported. Does it count for Brussels as “de-oligarchization” efforts if Ukrainian oligarchs have fled to Europe with their considerable assets? Seems like perhaps Kiev is pulling the escalator up by the handrail on this particular “achievement” attributed to it.

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I think RFK has had his peak.

• The DC Establishment Thinks RFK Could Win, And They’re Panicking (Hill)

Making the rounds of opinion-influencer social media and politically oriented podcasts over the last week to gauge the current state of the presidential race, one could be excused for believing that no great shake-up had occurred. In Trump World, all the discussion was about the former president’s highly politicized civil fraud trial in New York and how it would backfire by making Trump a more formidable candidate. Meanwhile, left-leaning outlets were hyping GOP dysfunction in the House and the Republican losses in the off-year elections as an early indicator that Biden will fare better than expected next November. But one development that sent shock waves through the entire class of paid political consultants inside the Beltway went almost unmentioned publicly.

A topic of constant discussion and not a little bit of anxiety on both sides was the extraordinarily strong showing of third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in two recent national polls. Both of the polls showed Kennedy leading both President Biden and former President Trump among the key electoral demographics of independent voters and voters under 45 years of age. Just how disturbing is this development for the uni-party establishment in Washington? Disturbing enough that the New York Times ran a brief story essentially dismissing its own poll results under the interpretive headline, “What’s Behind Kennedy’s Poll Numbers? Voters Dread a Trump-Biden Rematch.” The piece reads almost as a parody of a damage-control exercise.

It included the remarkable disclaimer that the poll of six key presidential battleground states, which found RFK the choice of nearly a quarter of those polled in a three-way matchup with Biden and Trump, “almost surely inflates the support of Mr. Kennedy.” But the argument does not bear scrutiny that Kennedy’s remarkably strong showing is merely a function of dissatisfaction with the prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch. His fundraising haul for the third quarter, $8.7 million, demonstrates robust support for his candidacy, not just dissatisfaction with other choices. Significantly, Kennedy raised millions of dollars from people who didn’t donate at all in the last two presidential elections, a sign that he’s activating new voters. Remarkably, he maintains a 19 percent favorability lead with voters over both Biden and Trump — this despite a concerted effort by almost every mainstream media outlet to dismiss him as a conspiracy theorist and crank.

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“..seeking to block testimony from four expert witnesses set to take the stand during the defense phase. Their testimony would address the accuracy of valuations contained in statements of financial condition submitted to Deutsche Bank and other firms for the purpose of securing favorable terms for loans and insurance. In the view of the attorney general’s office, such testimony is beside the point given that the judge has already ruled that Trump is guilty of fraud.“

• Trump Lawyers to Mount Counterattack in NY Civil Case (ET)

The media and public should brace themselves for the most heated phase of the civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump when courtroom proceedings resume on Nov. 13—if past interactions among the defense, the judge, and government lawyers are any indication. The defense will begin to make its case on behalf of the 45th president and 2024 candidate, as well as his two sons and daughter, who are no longer defendants in the case yet have faced relentless and acrimonious cross-examination on the witness stand over the past two weeks. President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is expected to be the first to testify for the defense. Trump lawyer Christopher Kise and Judge Arthur Engoron feuded throughout the cross-examination of President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump.

The defense attorney has objected constantly, saying that questions posed were irrelevant to the legal issues at hand or that no one could reasonably expect the people on the stand to recall the details of documents, records, meetings, and conversations from as far back as 2012. As if to add further contentiousness to the proceedings, New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office on Nov. 8 sent a letter to Judge Engoron seeking to block testimony from four expert witnesses set to take the stand during the defense phase. Their testimony would address the accuracy of valuations contained in statements of financial condition submitted to Deutsche Bank and other firms for the purpose of securing favorable terms for loans and insurance. In the view of the attorney general’s office, such testimony is beside the point given that the judge has already ruled that Trump is guilty of fraud.

Nor has the pro-Trump side been inactive during the run-up to the next phase of the trial. On Nov. 10, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) sent a lengthy letter to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, spelling out a litany of complaints about how Judge Engoron has conducted himself and his alleged bias against the respondents in the lawsuit “This judge’s bizarre behavior has no place in our judicial system, where Judge Engoron is not honoring the defendant’s rights to due process and a fair trial. These serious concerns are exacerbated by the fact that the defendant is the leading candidate for President of the United States, and it appears the judicial system is being politicized to affect the outcome of the campaign,” Ms. Stefanik wrote. She then cited the judge’s reference to the former president as “just a bad guy” deserving of prosecution by the attorney general, and his blunt statement to President Trump that “we are not here to listen to what you have to say.”

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“..we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

• Trump’s Veterans Day Message Was Quite Different From Biden’s (ET)

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump released differing messages on Nov. 11, Veterans Day. “Today, we honor the story of our veterans—the story of our nation at its best,” President Biden wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “On Veterans Day, let’s recommit to fulfilling our one sacred obligation as a nation: to prepare those we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families when they come home.” In a Veterans Day speech at the Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington National Cemetery, he highlighted “those who have always, always kept the light of liberty shining bright across the world,” while making reference to his late son, Beau, who was deployed to Iraq about 15 years ago.

“We come together today to once again honor the generations of Americans who stood on the front lines of freedom. … to once again bear witness to the great deeds of a noble few who risked everything, everything, to give us a better future,” President Biden said. During the event, the president was joined by First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, and several members of his Cabinet. On Nov. 11, President Biden announced that military veterans who were exposed to toxins could be able to enroll in no-cost health care starting next year.

President Trump marked Veterans Day with a message on his Truth Social social media platform that read, “To our heroic veterans, I am grateful for your service to our country and honored to wish you a Happy Veterans Day.” He added that there’s “no greater act of selfless service than defending America’s God-given freedoms and liberty.” Hours later, he wrote a message on the platform noting, “[In] honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” They will “do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American dream,” wrote President Trump, who was later seen at a UFC fight in New York on Nov. 11. “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within,” he wrote. “Despite the hatred and anger of the radical left lunatics who want to destroy our country, we will make America great again!”

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The US is set to start paying over $1 trillion in interest on its debt this year.

• Moody’s US Credit Warning Will Accelerate Dedollarization (Sp.)

The New York City-headquartered credit rating giant lowered its outlook of America’s creditworthiness from “stable” to “negative” on Friday, citing the country’s worsening fiscal position. Sputnik reached out to veteran economist and macroeconomics specialist Dr. Sergio Rossi for his take on the implications of Moody’s move. The White House slammed Moody’s over its threat to downgrade the US’s credit rating, with press spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre suggesting that the worsening outlook was “yet another consequence of congressional Republican extremism and dysfunction.” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo also challenged the decision, emphasizing that “while the statement by Moody’s maintains the United States’ AAA rating, we disagree with the shift to a negative outlook.

The American economy remains strong, and Treasury securities are the world’s preeminent safe and liquid asset,” Adeyemo assured in a statement. “The Biden administration has demonstrated its commitment to fiscal sustainability, including through the more than $1 trillion in deficit reduction included in the June debt limit deal as well as President Biden’s budget proposals that would reduce the deficit by nearly $2.5 trillion over the next decade,” the deputy Treasury chief added. Moody’s decision came just hours after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s meetings with Chinese counterpart He Lifeng in San Francisco on Friday ahead of the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this coming week. Yellen, who assured recently that Washington could “certainly afford” to keep pumping tens of billions in taxpayer money to conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, has yet to comment on Moody’s decision.

Moody’s is the last of the big three international credit agencies signaling the possible downgrade of the US’s rating, with Standard and Poor’s already doing so in 2011, citing political polarization after what was then the latest debt ceiling showdown. Fitch downgraded the US to an AA+ rating in August, citing an “expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years,” and the last-minute debt deal reached in June, when the country again teetered on the brink of defaulting on its close to $33 trillion national debt. Yellen “strongly disagreed” with that decision, suggesting it was based on “outdated data.” Sovereign credit ratings are designed to evaluate risks associated with lending money to a country, but also offer signals to financiers on the potential risks involved with investing into a country. The worse the rating, the worse the risk is perceived to be. Moody’s lowest possible rating is a C, which signals that the borrower is in default of some or all of its financial obligations.

The outlook downgrade comes as Washington heads for another shutdown deadline on November 17, with Republicans in the House of Representatives tabling a bill to continue funding the government without new appropriations for Ukraine or Israel. The White House has blasted the stopgap funding bill as an “extreme” and “unserious” proposal, with Jean-Pierre calling it “a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns – full stop.” Just how “unserious” the House proposal is will be seen this week as lawmakers negotiate to get the stopgap funding through, with recently picked House Speaker Mike Johnson seemingly unlikely to back down on Ukraine after his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted from the job in October over allegations of proposing “secret side deals” for additional Ukraine cash.

The Moody’s outlook shift, combined with the seemingly never-ending shutdown crisis, inflation, the fallout of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the growing signs of a looming US recession, are all bad news for Washington and the West in general, says Dr. Sergio Rossi, a professor of macroeconomics and monetary policy at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. “The situation for the US public finance is rather worrying indeed, since the US federal government has been accumulating fiscal deficits for a long period of time, and currently the economic outlook is very problematic for a number of stakeholders in this country and beyond it,” Dr. Rossi told Sputnik.

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“..on a voluntary basis, at first..”

“Your access to your financial assets can be denied or stopped if you don’t do what you’re told.”

• EU Moves Forward With Digital ID Despite Security Concerns (AmG)

The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a final agreement this week on the establishment of “European Digital Identity Wallets,” the first central and fully digital identification system for all Europeans. “Under the new law, the EU will offer its citizens so-called ‘digital wallets’—on a voluntary basis, at first—which will contain digital versions of their ID cards, driving licenses, diplomas, medical records, and bank account information,” the European Conservative reported. These documents will be recognized as means to access online services throughout Europe, and citizens will be able to prove their identity or share electronic documents from their wallets “with a click of a button,” the legislators hope. “This marks an important step towards the Digital Decade 2030 targets on the digitalization of public services,” the EU Commission said in a statement Wednesday.

“All EU citizens will be offered the possibility to have an EU Digital Identity Wallet to access public and private online services in full security and protection of personal data all over Europe.” The agreement reached by the co-legislators is now subject to formal approval by the European Parliament and the Council. Once formally adopted, the European Digital Identity framework will enter into force on the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal. The agreement came just a few weeks after Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank, announced that the European Union was moving forward with the development of its new central bank digital currency (CBDC)—the digital Euro. Conservative EU lawmakers and cybersecurity experts have opposed these developments, warning that large-scale abuse is inevitable in an all-encompassing digital identity system.

Dutch MEP Rob Roos sounded the alarm on X, Wednesday: “BREAKING: Very bad news. The European Parliament and Member States just reached an agreement on introducing the Digital Identity,” he said. Roos noted that following the agreement, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton said: “‘Now that we have a Digital Identity Wallet, we have to put something in it…’, suggesting a connection between CBDC and eID.” Ahead of the the European Parliament’s decision, over 500 privacy and cybersecurity experts from 39 countries signed a joint letter warning that the legislation “fails to properly respect the right to privacy of citizens and secure online communications.” Roos lamented that most EU lawmakers “ignored all the privacy experts and security specialists. They’re pushing it all through.” The Dutch conservative said that he is not optimistic, but “it is not too late yet.” “Parliament still has to vote about this. Let your MEP know that you oppose the Digital Identity and that you want your MEP to vote against it!” he said.

The Biden White House released a “Comprehensive Framework for Responsible Development of Digital Assets” in September of last year. Catherine Austin Fitts, financial expert and Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the H.W. Bush administration, has long been a vocal opponent of CBDC systems. In a recent interview, she warned that a 100 percent digital system would be controlled centrally and that a person’s money could potentially be limited to a particular geographical area. Such a totalitarian system, she argued, could also allow the State to limit people on what they are allowed to buy. “Let’s say I want to mandate a vaccine. Your financial transaction ability can be turned off,” Fitts said. “Your access to your financial assets can be denied or stopped if you don’t do what you’re told.”

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3-day fast

 

 

 

 

Common ground

 

 

Ravens

 

 


An extraordinarily rare glimpse of one of the last Malayan tigers; there are only 150 left on Earth. Their rapid decline is due to deforestation & poaching for body parts. 1400 snares were found in their protected area. So, take a good look, we may not see one again.

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 19 2023

Jun 192023
 
 June 19, 2023  Posted by at 9:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  57 Responses »


Jusepe de Ribera A philosopher holding a mirror 1630

 

• Ukrainian Forces May Be Temporarily Pausing Counteroffensive: ISW (RT)
• Ukraine Sustains Massive Single-Day Losses – Russian MOD (RT)
• NATO Chief Doesn’t Want ‘Frozen Conflict’ In Ukraine (RT)
• Kiev Deploys Significant Military Forces Along Border With Belarus – CIS (TASS)
• Russia’s Military Operation Virtually Turns Into Russia-West War – Kremlin (TASS)
• Putin Does Not Rule Out That Zaluzhny Could Be Outside Ukraine (TASS)
• Kremlin Promises Punishment For Threats To Kill Russians (RT)
• ‘No Chance’ Of Extending Black Sea Grain Deal – Kremlin (RT)
• Obscure Results of Blinken’s Talks in Beijing Suggest Lack of Progress (Sp.)
• Will Upcoming NATO Summit Launch Forever War In Europe? (Sacks)
• Swedish Parliament Can’t Rule Out Russian Attack (RT)
• United Nations Planning Digital ID Linked to Bank Accounts (SLAY)
• Obama Calls For ‘Digital Fingerprints’ To Fight “Non-Mainstream News” (TPV)
• Gang of Criminals Trying Trump – Paul Craig Roberts (USAW)
• America on the Brink by David Ray Griffin (Paul Craig Roberts)
• For Father’s Day, Hunter Negotiates 12% For The Big Guy (BBee)

 

 

 

 

McGovern

 

 

The last 10 years of the Donbass War. Watch!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1670402271929069570

 

 

 

 

Barry Joe Don

 

 

RFK Gates
https://twitter.com/i/status/1670407776307224578

 

 

The Peter Hotez vs. RFK Jr Charity Debate Pot Is Now Over $2.62 MILLION!!

But Hotez is just a drug pusher. He won’t debate.

Hotez

 

 

 

 

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has emerged as the no. 1 NATO “think tank”. They claim it’s totally normal to take a break in a mass offensive after 2 weeks, in which no gains have been made.

The WSJ is a tad more realistic but not much: “The Armed Forces of Ukraine have suspended the offensive, summing up the results of the past two weeks and analyzing ways to break through Russian lines without huge losses, writes the WSJ. The Armed Forces of Ukraine faced a serious superiority of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the air. Russian aviation was able to strike at the armored columns of NATO equipment and stopped a number of attacks.

Kyiv “maintains an optimistic tone” and says that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have moved forward on a number of fronts. But these advances “do not pose a direct threat to the main lines of defense of Russia, built in a few months in the Zaporozhye and Donetsk regions,” writes the WSJ.

• Ukrainian Forces May Be Temporarily Pausing Counteroffensive: ISW (RT)

Ukrainian forces may be temporarily pausing counteroffensive operations to reevaluate their tactics for future operations, Report informs, citing the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW). “Ukraine has not yet committed the majority of its available forces to counteroffensive operations and has not yet launched its main effort. Operational pauses are a common feature of major offensive undertakings, and this pause does not signify the end of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” said ISW.

Read more …

Here’s the reality of the offensive:

• Ukraine Sustains Massive Single-Day Losses – Russian MOD (RT)

Ukrainian military forces have sustained heavy casualties across frontlines during the past 24-hour period, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. Russia’s Zaporozhye and Donetsk regions have seen the most intense fighting, with Kiev losing more than 800 soldiers there alone. “Over the past day, enemy losses in the Southern Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions amounted to more than 800 Ukrainian servicemen, 20 tanks, four infantry fighting vehicles, [and] 15 armored fighting vehicles,” the military said on Sunday during a daily media briefing, without elaborating on whether its figures for casualties includes those killed and injured or related just to deaths. As well as these setbacks in personnel and equipment, Ukrainian troops also lost two US-made M777 howitzers and several Soviet-made artillery systems, the military added.


The immediate vicinity of Donetsk city has seen intense fighting as well, with Ukrainian forces losing over 200 soldiers on this axis, according to the ministry. The Russian military has destroyed multiple soft and armored vehicles on the outskirts of Donetsk, it also said, as well as two major ammunition stockpiles to the northwest of the city. The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine has intensified after Kiev launched its long-heralded counteroffensive in early June. Thus far, the Ukrainian military has failed to make any major gains, sustaining heavy losses in the process and losing large amounts of Western-supplied hardware. According to the estimates of Moscow’s military, some 7,500 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded amid the counteroffensive effort.

Putin Patriots
https://twitter.com/i/status/1670498776593702912

Read more …

Stoltenberg wants the slaughter to continue:

• NATO Chief Doesn’t Want ‘Frozen Conflict’ In Ukraine (RT)

The ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia should not be paused at the current stage, but rather a just solution must be found, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said. He also expressed confidence that Kiev would one day join the US-led military bloc, adding, however, that this was not an immediate priority. In an interview with Germany’s Welt am Sonntag published on Sunday, Stoltenberg argued that, while “we all want this war to end,” only a “just” peace can endure. “Peace cannot mean freezing the conflict and accepting a deal that is dictated by Russia,” he asserted, adding that “only Ukraine can define the conditions that are acceptable.” Stoltenberg called for “credible” security guarantees for Kiev once the conflict is over, “so that Russia cannot rearm and attack again.”

Asked about the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO, Stoltenberg predicted that this would happen at some point in the future. However, he said the current priority is ensuring that “Ukraine prevails as a sovereign and independent state.” He also revealed that current member states are planning to adopt an aid package for Kiev during the alliance’s upcoming summit in Vilnius next month. The goal is to help Ukraine bring its military in line with NATO standards over several years, he explained. Last month, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told TASS news agency that Moscow was “in solidarity” with the West to the extent that the conflict in Ukraine cannot be frozen. He said the only option that Moscow is currently considering is “completing the special military operation,” which means securing Russia’s interests and achieving its goals.

Peskov also expressed skepticism over the possibility of peace talks between the two countries at this point. “It is unlikely that we can talk about real negotiations with any of the representatives of the current Kiev authorities, because there [in Ukraine], any negotiations with the Russian Federation are simply prohibited now,” the Kremlin spokesperson explained. In May, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said any peace talks could not aim to freeze the conflict in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Politico, citing anonymous sources, reported that US President Joe Biden’s administration was considering putting the fighting on hold instead of pushing for Ukraine’s victory. Officials in Washington have reportedly envisaged a situation akin to that in existence between North and South Korea.

Read more …

Keep an eye on this. And think: what troops?

• Kiev Deploys Significant Military Forces Along Border With Belarus – CIS (TASS)

The Ukrainian army has deployed a significant military contingent along the border with Belarus and periodically tries to test the defense capability of the Union State. Head of the second department of the CIS countries at the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexey Polishchuk said it in an interview with TASS. “The information that we have and that has been repeatedly voiced in the statements of officials indicates that the Ukrainian army has indeed deployed significant forces along the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, periodically trying to probe the defense capability of the Union State in one way or another,” Polishchuk said.


The diplomat recalled that under these conditions, since October 2022, additional units of the joint Regional Group of Forces have been deployed in Belarus. “Their task is to serve as a deterrent from invading the territory of the Union State and to minimize the risks of infiltration by sabotage and reconnaissance groups. We proceed from the fact that the Russian and Belarusian means available in the area are sufficient to repel aggression from the territory of Ukraine or neighboring NATO countries,” Polischuk stressed. “We hope that the Kiev regime and their Western curators will have the common sense not to undertake military adventures, the consequences of which for them may be very serious,” he said.

Read more …

“cordon sanitaire”

• Russia’s Military Operation Virtually Turns Into Russia-West War – Kremlin (TASS)

Russia’s special military operation started to defend the Donbass region and now it has virtually turned into a war with the collective West, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with RT commenting on the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine. “In fact, the special military operation against Ukraine, against the Kiev regime, was launched to ensure the safety of the people of Donbass. This is correct. Now it is practically a war between Moscow and the collective West,” the Kremlin spokesman said.


Recalling Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement about establishing a “cordon sanitaire” on the territory of Ukraine if the shelling of Russian regions continues, Peskov said that as the range of weapons delivered to Ukraine expands, so will the buffer zone, “that is, the distance that we will have to move Ukrainians away from our territories.”

Read more …

Of course Putin knows where he is. There was a report in early May that Zaluhzny was gravely injured in a Russian attack, that he would live, but couldn’t re-take command. Since then he’s been missing, and no signal someone else has taken over. This is the Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief. Who’s in charge now?

As for the chief of the Ukrainian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Kirill Budanov, reports say he died.

• Putin Does Not Rule Out That Zaluzhny Could Be Outside Ukraine (TASS)

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not rule out that Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny could be abroad, Putin said during a conversation with Russian journalists covering the special military operation in Ukraine. “I know. I think I know,” the president said in response to a question about Zaluzhny’s whereabouts. “I think he is abroad. But I could be wrong,” Putin said.


The media first reported Zaluzhny’s serious injury in May. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry denied the information, but Zaluzhny has not been seen in public for a long time and did not attend a NATO committee meeting at the level of chiefs of staff. Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin told reporters earlier that Russia was receiving updates on Zaluzhny’s condition, but wouldn’t disclose any details. Earlier, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar denied speculation that Zaluzhny had been wounded.

Read more …

“The members of parliament in those countries, they should understand to whom they are sending their aid – to de-facto murderers; people who declare their intention to kill..”

• Kremlin Promises Punishment For Threats To Kill Russians (RT)

Any persons threatening to kill Russians are enemies who should be and will be punished for doing so, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov has warned. On Sunday, Peskov was asked by channel Rossyia 1 to comment on the words of Mikhail Podoliak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who said last week that Kiev’s long-awaited counteroffensive would be “the most brutal advance with the maximum killing of Russians on this route.” “That’s what our enemies say, and we have to fight them. You can’t threaten the Russians with murder. Russians should punish [them] for this, and we will do so,” the Kremlin spokesperson pointed out. He noted that Podoliak was “not a pioneer” in this regard, as the chief of the Ukrainian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Kirill Budanov and members of the country’s Security Council have also “repeatedly talked about their desire to kill as many Russians as possible.”


According to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the headquarters of GUR in Kiev had been hit by Russian missiles in late May. The Defense Ministry said the successful strike targeted “decision-making centers” in Ukraine “where terrorist attacks on Russian soil were being planned under the guidance of specialists from Western intelligence agencies.” Peskov also said that he wanted the statements about killing Russian citizens made by Podoliak and other Ukrainian officials to be evaluated by Kiev’s foreign backers. “The members of parliament in those countries, they should understand to whom they are sending their aid – to de-facto murderers; people who declare their intention to kill,” he explained.

Read more …

A set-up. Russia will be blamed.

• ‘No Chance’ Of Extending Black Sea Grain Deal – Kremlin (RT)

The deal allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported via the Black Sea has “no chance” of being extended as things stand at the moment, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. Russia has “shown goodwill several times, made concessions” and extended the agreement, but what was promised to Moscow as part of the deal still hasn’t been fulfilled, he said in an interview with Izvestia newspaper on Saturday. “It’s hardly possible to predict some sort of a final decision here, but we can only state that – judging de facto by the status that we now have – this deal has no chance,” Peskov explained. “The deal implies deeds; deeds on the part of the contracting states or organizations. And one part of this deal was done, and the second part, which related to [promises made to] Russia, was never done,” the spokesman claimed.

The deal brokered by the UN and Türkiye was signed in July 2022, providing for the safe shipment of Ukrainian grain though Black Sea corridors in exchange for the US and EU removing obstacles to exports of Russian food products and fertilizers. The West has claimed that it never restricted those items, but Moscow has argued that it still couldn’t supply them to foreign buyers due to shipping, insurance and brokerage sanctions, which were imposed on Moscow over its conflict with Kiev. The initial agreement lasted for 120 days, but was extended several times since then. It’s now set to expire on July 17.

Speaking to a delegation of African leaders in St. Petersburg on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that “the supply of Ukrainian grain to world markets doesn’t solve the problems of African countries in need of food.” Despite the West promising that the deal would help the poorest nations, only 3.1% of the shipments of Ukrainian grain have ended up in Africa, with 38.9% of them going to the EU, he explained. Earlier this week, Putin said Moscow “was thinking about exiting this grain deal” because nothing had been done to facilitate Russia’s food and fertilizer exports. He also said safety corridors in the Black Sea had been used by Ukraine to launch naval drones.

Read more …

No red carpet. Bloomberg reports this morning that Xi will see him after all.

• Obscure Results of Blinken’s Talks in Beijing Suggest Lack of Progress (Sp.)

The ambiguity surrounding the visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing and his talks with Chinese officials there suggests that little progress has been made in terms of Washington’s agenda, the US media reports. Antony Blinken arrived in Beijing on June 18 in what became his first visit to China in his current role and also the first US Secretary of State visit to Beijing since 2018. It took the Biden administration almost six months to put this visit back on the schedule as it was originally set for February. Blinken has already met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who said on Sunday that China-US relations were at their lowest point.

The US media reported on Sunday that the ambiguity following the talks indicates little substantive progress on Blinken’s agenda items, which include concerns over Taiwan, jailed US citizens in China and Beijing’s stance on Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. Blinken and Qin Gang are said to be “inching toward an off-ramp from months of rancor” but Beijing maintains its “stern” stance on key issues.

According to the Monday schedule published by the US State Department, Blinken holds talks with China’s Central Foreign Affairs Office Director Wang Yi on Monday morning. The US State Secretary will then participate in a roundtable with exchange program alumni in Beijing and a separate roundtable with US business leaders. He also plans to meet with employees and families of the US Mission China in Beijing. It is notable, that Blinken’s Monday schedule does not include meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Read more …

“Polish or Ukrainian tails should not wag American dogs into World War III. ”

• Will Upcoming NATO Summit Launch Forever War In Europe? (Sacks)

An article in the New York Times on Wednesday claimed that pressure is building on Biden to announce a timetable for Ukrainian membership in NATO at its Vilnius Summit next month. Supposedly Biden is “isolated” among NATO allies in his reluctance to do so, even though that claim is contradicted by the story’s own last paragraph (the one that Noam Chomsky once quipped should be read first), which acknowledges that “others argue more quietly” that NATO membership “could give Mr. Putin more incentive to continue the war, or to escalate it.” Indeed, since Moscow has already declared NATO membership for Ukraine to be completely unacceptable and an existential threat — the prevention of which is one of its chief war aims — a Vilnius Declaration that Ukraine will join NATO when the war ends will effectively ensure that the war goes on forever.

It will also take off the table the West’s central bargaining chip to achieve peace, which is a neutral Ukraine. It’s clear that the “pressure” on Biden is coming from Zelensky and some of the eastern NATO countries, specifically Poland and the Baltic States. Zelensky said two weeks ago that Ukraine would not even attend the Vilnius Summit unless given a firm signal on its eventual membership. Former NATO secretary general Anders Rasmussen, now a consultant to Zelensky, even threatened that “if NATO cannot agree on a clear path forward for Ukraine, there is a clear possibility that some countries individually might take action.” In particular, “the Poles would seriously consider going in,” triggering direct war between NATO and Russia.

The NYT article implies that the current secretary general Jens Stoltenberg agrees with the hardliners on the need for a concrete timetable for Ukraine’s admission into NATO, but he made no such promises during his joint address with President Biden on Tuesday. By Wednesday, Stoltenberg and NATO were making it clear that no specific timeline for Ukraine’s NATO membership would be on the agenda in Vilnius. He reiterated comments from April that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” and said there would be agreement from member states on a “multi-year program” to help Ukraine “become fully interoperable with NATO,” but wouldn’t commit to anything more specific than that. Apparently, it’s Zelensky and his allies along the Russian border who are “isolated,” not President Biden. Whatever Stoltenberg’s personal views may be, he knows NATO is divided on the question of admitting Ukraine in the near future.

Even the NYT name-checks three countries – Germany, Hungary, and Turkey – whose leaders would definitely oppose membership at a specific future date. Many more leaders have privately expressed concern, and Biden, to his credit, appears to be one of them. While his overall conduct and rhetoric has been hawkish (and I continue to maintain he could have avoided this war altogether with better diplomacy in the months leading up to it), Biden has been admirably consistent in his desire not to plunge America into direct war with Russia. The threats from Rasmussen underscore how easily a proxy war can turn into a real one in an alliance where all members are pledged to come to the military defense of any one member. The American people may begin to question the wisdom of making new Article 5 guarantees if foreigners like Rassmussen can use existing ones to blackmail the United States into reckless action.

Polish or Ukrainian tails should not wag American dogs into World War III.

Read more …

They smoke good stuff there.

• Swedish Parliament Can’t Rule Out Russian Attack (RT)

A Russian attack on Sweden cannot be entirely excluded, Swedish public broadcaster SVT said on Sunday, citing a report prepared by the country’s parliamentary defense committee. “An armed attack against Sweden cannot be ruled out,” the broadcaster cited the document as saying. “Russia has also further lowered its threshold for the use of military force and exhibits a high political and military risk appetite,” the document stated, according to SVT. “Russia’s ability to carry out operations with air forces, naval forces, long-range weapons or nuclear weapons against Sweden remains intact.” The report is due to be presented to the public on Monday. SVT cited an unnamed person who worked on the document as saying that officials intend to send “a clear signal to Russia.”


Last year, Sweden walked away from its long-standing policy of non-alignment and applied to join NATO, citing Russia’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine. The application process has since stalled as Hungary and Türkiye have so far refused to approve the Nordic country’s bid. Sweden announced plans to drastically increase its defense budget earlier this year, and, in April through May, held its largest military exercise in over 25 decades. Stockholm has supplied Kiev with heavy weapons, and pledged to deliver its German-made Leopard 2 tanks and Archer mobile artillery guns. Russia has repeatedly said that military aid to Ukraine makes Western countries de facto direct parties to the conflict. Moscow also stressed that the continuing expansion of NATO would lead to additional escalation, and promised to adopt “countermeasures.”

Read more …

We need enough people to say no. Millions. This is just too tempting for the power hungry.

• United Nations Planning Digital ID Linked to Bank Accounts (SLAY)

The United Nations (UN) is planning to introduce a global digital ID system that is linked to individuals’ bank accounts. The plan, which is similar to the system developed by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is outlined in three new policy briefs from the UN titled, “A Global Digital Compact, Reforms to the International Financial Architecture, and The Future of Outer Space Governance.” The goal of the briefs is to advance UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s “vision for the future.” Officially titled “Our Common Agenda,” Guterres’ “vision” should be given the green light in September 2024 during an event dubbed, “The Summit for the Future.” From the report:

“Digital IDs linked with bank or mobile money accounts can improve the delivery of social protection coverage and serve to better reach eligible beneficiaries. Digital technologies may help to reduce leakage, errors and costs in the design of social protection programmes.” Not unlike their unofficial counterparts over at the WEF, the UN also speaks about basically regulating the global digital future. The unelected organization uses phrases such as “international cooperation” and “many stakeholders” who will “advance principles, objectives, and actions” to describe this globalist agenda. The UN describes this goal as “an open, free, secure and human-centered digital future.”

The digital future as envisaged by these groups is going to be quite the opposite of open, free, or human-centric, however. As far as the UN’s “vision” for a future global financial system, it is supposed to be harmonized with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It would be governed by something called “the apex body” that is yet to be set up. The key actors here would be the UN chief, as well as the Group of 20, the Economic and Social Council, and “heads of international financial institutions.” Within this, the UN sees “visions” of “a Global Digital Compact.”

Read more …

“Obama infamously won Politifact’s “Lie of the Year” in 2013 by telling Americans, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it..”

• Obama Calls For ‘Digital Fingerprints’ To Fight “Non-Mainstream News” (TPV)

Former President Barack Hussein Obama has called for “digital fingerprints” to be mandatory to help law enforcement agencies target and arrest users who read and share “non-mainstream news” online. In a new interview, Obama said the development of new tracking technology could help identify users who spread “fake news” online. Tracking those users and punishing them would help bolster mainstream news outlets on the internet, Obama argues. Slaynews.com reports: Obama sat down with his former White House senior adviser David Axelrod for a conversation on the latter’s podcast, “The Axe Files,” on CNN Audio. During the interview, Axelrod noted he’s seen “misinformation, disinformation, [and] deepfakes” targeting Obama.

[..] Obama then suggested “digital fingerprints” to discern truth from misinformation. “And the need for us, for the general public, I think to be more discriminating consumers of news and information, the need for us to overtime develop technologies to create watermarks or digital fingerprints so we know what is true and what is not true,” he said. “There’s a whole bunch of work that’s going to have to be done there, but in the short term, it’s really going to be up to the American people to kind of say.” Obama and Axelrod went on to say that today many consumers are only viewing information from sources they are predisposed to agree with and will likely believe what they see. “Obviously, we saw that during the vaccination stuff,” added Obama, referring to Covid shots. “So, I am concerned about it.

[..] Last year, Obama announced that his foundation would be launching a new initiative to combat misinformation. Days later, Obama angered conservatives with a speech at Stanford University warning of the dangers of “disinformation.” During the speech, Obama said, “All we see is a constant feed of content where useful factual information and happy diversions, and cat videos flow alongside lies, conspiracy theories, junk science, quackery, white supremacist, racist tracts, misogynist screeds.” Critics were quick to point out that Obama promoted the debunked narrative that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. Obama infamously won Politifact’s “Lie of the Year” in 2013 by telling Americans, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” referring to the Affordable Care Act.

Read more …

“The Department of Justice, which is a gang of criminals, is trying Trump, and they are getting away with it.”

• Gang of Criminals Trying Trump – Paul Craig Roberts (USAW)

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (PCR), former Assistant Treasury Secretary and international award-winning journalist, is worried about freedom and liberty. PCR says with the latest arrest and prosecution of President Trump, freedom and liberty is dead in America. PCR explains, “What they do makes it clear they have no claim that they are representatives of justice holding lawbreakers responsible. They are the lawbreakers — they themselves. You go to trial and it’s the criminals who are trying you, and that’s what’s happened in the United States. This is happening to President Trump. This is exactly what is happening to him. The Department of Justice, which is a gang of criminals, is trying Trump, and they are getting away with it.

I can’t predict, but we are going to find out by the next presidential election . . . whether we are a country or not. What’s going to happen? Are people going to wake up and stop this? If this coup stays in place, the United States no longer exists.” PCR says, “What is being done is a lesson is being taught to all future political candidates. If you try to represent the people instead of the elite, we are going to destroy you – period. So, if they succeed in destroying Trump, and if the people permit that and don’t rise up and prevent it, then what you have from now on in the United States is tyranny. If democracy cannot put into office someone who stands for the people who elected that person, then there is no democracy and there is no rule of law.

If you have no rule of law, you have the rule of whoever is in power. In other words, it is the total end of any claim there is any freedom, any civil liberty or any accountability. This is extremely serious. This is an all-out assault. The elite are attempting to completely destroy any accountability that would ever get in the way of their agendas. So, this is only to be the agendas of the elite, and never ever any agenda of the people.” PCR also warns, “The United States is the Constitution. If the Constitution is destroyed, the United States is destroyed. So, if they destroy it, they have destroyed us.” PCR, who was an Assistant Treasury Secretary in the Reagan Administration, also talks about the coming collapse of the U.S dollar and extreme inflation that is not a matter of if but when. It could be sooner than you think.

Read more …

“The inability of America to accept its scaled-down position is leading to nuclear war.”

• America on the Brink by David Ray Griffin (Paul Craig Roberts)

David Ray Griffins’s works represent the epitome of Western Civilization. Scholars of his distinction and commitment are no longer possible. The replacement mechanism has been destroyed by the criminalization of Western Civilization and free inquiry. In place of scholars, universities are now homes for Woke ideologues who hate Western Civilization and white people and carry on campaigns against both. Everywhere we see this. Monuments removed. Plaques taken down. Universities denouncing and removing memorabilia of those who founded the universities. The white ethnicities demonized beyond repair as racists, oppressors, exploiters. When I look at the Western World, I see the passing of truth as it leaves going to where? Where does truth go when it is no longer allowed? Does it simply cease to exist? Does it reappear elsewhere? If only I could have had this discussion with David Ray Griffin.

Professor Griffin gave us, if memory serves, 10 books or more about the 9/11 and anthrax deceptions that were used to commit the US to the utter ruin of its reputation with its falsely based wars in the Middle East. In his posthumous book, America on the Brink (Clarity Press, 2023), Griffin notes that America’s neoconservative foreign policy is bringing us to nuclear confrontation with Russia. Griffin points out that the neoconservatives’ notion of American hegemony over the world has origins in the 1845 idea of America’s “manifest destiny.” This destiny spread from the US where it destroyed the Confederacy and the Plains Indians to Mexico, South America, the West Indies, and Canada. In 1850 an American newspaper editor declared that the American empire extended to the “gates of the Chinese empire which must be thrown down.” Moreover, declared the editor, “the American eagle of the republic shall poise itself over the field of Waterloo” and the successor of George Washington must “ascend the chair of universal empire.”

So, Empire is the answer. But is it? When foreign policy is based on bribing and intimidating other countries, diplomacy becomes the application of force. For the United States to impose its hegemony on other countries and to be always at war raises questions whether the United States is a democracy, or whether the soul that the Founding Fathers attempted to implant in the new country was ejected early in its history. The neoconservatives justify US hegemony on the grounds of their claim that the US is “benevolent” and its imperial power is benign. But as David Ray Griffin points out, after Iran, Cuba, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Panama, Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine, and, of course Venezuela, Julian Assange, and others, the world sees nothing benevolent or benign in Washington.

Instead, the world sees systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless crimes and has come to regard America as the greatest danger to the world. Indeed, America is seen as the embodiment of evil. This has eroded American leadership and has resulted in other power centers disengaging from the Washington-dominated Western World, leaving Washington with aspirations in excess of its capability. The inability of America to accept its scaled-down position is leading to nuclear war.

Read more …

“I literally handed the FBI a film of myself committing felonies, and not a peep. I don’t know how he does it, that doddering old weirdo!”

• For Father’s Day, Hunter Negotiates 12% For The Big Guy (BBee)

In a touching Father’s Day gesture, Hunter Biden has negotiated for twelve percent of incoming bribes from foreign governments to go to his Dad. “It means the world to me,” said an emotional President Biden. “Well, more accurately, it means about $2.3 million in my bank account.” According to White House sources, Hunter wanted to do something extra special this year to show President Biden how much he appreciated being shielded from DOJ investigations. “Dad really came through this year,” said Hunter. “I literally handed the FBI a film of myself committing felonies, and not a peep. I don’t know how he does it, that doddering old weirdo! Anyhow, ‘The Big Guy’ has earned himself an extra two percent of my bribery — er, consulting money.”


Hunter Biden will also reportedly take his father out for a nice Father’s Day lunch at the Han Palace. “It will be nice to have a quiet lunch with just me, Dad, and several high-level members of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Hunter. “I did request they bring in some different waitresses for our lunch though. Last time it was super disappointing – nothing but yellows.” At publishing time, President Biden had declined a Father’s Day call from one of his grandkids, as he wasn’t sure if it was from the one he pretends doesn’t exist.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eagle

 

 

Firebird
https://twitter.com/i/status/1670356102360211456

 

 


The Oxford Electric Bell has been running for 180+ years thanks to a battery that no one knows what it’s made of. The exact composition is unknown, but it is known that they were protected with molten sulfur to isolate them and are believed to be Zamboni cells.

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle April 29 2022

Apr 292022
 
 April 29, 2022  Posted by at 8:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Leonardo da Vinci (?) La Joconde nue or Monna Vanna 1515

 

• The West Misled the Public on Russia’s War Strategy (SWP)
• Letters from the Front (Faina Savenkova)
• On Ukraine, the World Majority Sides With Russia Over US (Antiwar)
• The Schrödinger Euros (Vilches)
• Mounting Evidence Canada Trained Ukrainian Military Extremists (CTV)
• 1st Amendment: An Easy Way For Musk To Restore Free Speech on Twitter (Turley)
• WaPo’s Repulsive Defense Of Twitter Execs Makes Even Elon Musk Look Good (Fed.)
• France Introduces Digital ID Days After Macron’s Re-election (TCS)
• As Europe Approves New Tech Laws, The US Falls Further Behind (NYT)
• The Fragmented Trust in Public Health (Prasad)
• COVID Vaccine Side Effects on Pregnant Women (ET)
• The Sword & the Cross at Albright’s Funeral (CN)

 

 

 

 

Tucker 33 billion. With Biden klepto cameo

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lavrov: sanctions

 

 

“There is growing evidence that Russia used the previous stages of the war to prepare strategic ground for this one.”

• The West Misled the Public on Russia’s War Strategy (SWP)

The events in Donbass appear to have caught prominent western military analysts by surprise, who were otherwise quick to affirm an inevitable Russian failure. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) a known pessimist, was forced to concede on April 27th that Russia was making a “sounder pattern of operational movement” in Donbass and was even forced to admit that Ukrainian defenses in the north of the region were disorganized. Although the ISW continues to maintain that a broader Russian encirclement of the Ukrainian army won’t happen, it is difficult to see how Ukraine is going to turn the tide on this situation even with western support because they simply do not have the geographic advantage. Russia is gaining in the region every single day.

This speaks volumes about Russia’s strategy. When Moscow announced that it was withdrawing from the North and focusing on Donbass, this was marketed as a retreat and a failure, but on closer inspection it appears that the assault on this region was carefully planned in a logical sequence of preparatory steps. There is growing evidence that Russia used the previous stages of the war to prepare strategic ground for this one. Some people might have questioned: Why did Moscow not just charge into Donbass straight away? And seemingly went for Kyiv? And that’s a good question, and the answer is because with the highest concentration of Ukrainian forces there, “their best trained troops” as frequently eluded to, Russia would not have had the battlefield advantages or positions to push them back which they do now.

Before Russia proceeded with its current offensive on Donbass, it first undertaken a process of “shaping the battlefield” which involved distracting Ukraine by invading the North of the country (even if there was a hope Kyiv could be quickly encircled). As these multiple axis’ were opened, Russia then proceeded to invade from Crimea and seize Kherson oblast (to prevent a pre-emptive Ukrainian attack on the peninsula) and advanced into Zaporizhzhia (setting up a Southern launchpad). Mariupol was then encircled and cut off. These multiple fronts being opened allowed Russia to then invade Kharkiv and Luhansk Oblasts, which they then developed into a Northern flank with the capture of Izyum.

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People in the west must understand that the special military operation in Ukraine is seen as “essential” in Russia, and that this is closely linked to WWII, in which some 30 million Russians died. No, they really don’t like nazis. And they’re allergic to threats coming in through their western border.

• Letters from the Front (Faina Savenkova)

Hello, great-grandfather Vasily! We are again on the eve of the Victory Day. And I want to ask your forgiveness. Forgive us for failing, forgetting about your exploits and war heroes. In the eternal disputes we have lost the main thing – our history. After all, you defended Moscow, froze in the Belarusian swamps, liberated Prague. And now they say that it was in vain. That your victory was an occupation, that Leningrad could have been surrendered, that I should pity the Nazis, and that the Victory Parade is a victory psychosis. Can I do that? Of course not!

Hello, Grandpa Miron! They told me how you were chasing the Banderovites through the forests of Ukraine without thinking about sleep or warmth. Liberating and slowly advancing. Seeing villages burned down by them and children killed. You got rid of these scum, not sparing your life. And now their descendants say they were heroes. And I am now supposed to say: “Glory to the heroes” and disown you, the Soviet soldier. They say they won the war, but as before they are fighting children and old people, destroying towns and villages, leaving behind scorched earth and ash on their boots. Can it be so, if only 77 years have passed since the Victory? It can. I’m sorry we couldn’t destroy them all.

Hello, great-grandmother Elsa. Sorry for the yellow star being in vogue again, only this time for the Russians. Now they say that a Russian is not a liberator, but a subhuman. How familiar. They used to say the same thing about you during the pogroms in Lviv and Kiev. Who gave them the right to decide who is worthy to be called a human and who is not? We did. By our indifference to our history.

Hello, Russian soldier! Forgive us for not being able to keep our world from war. We calmed down and thought that a peaceful life was forever, and that freedom is granted without a fight. It turned out that it wasn’t. Fascism is all around us. It is once again marching across our land, flashing its flags and chevrons of Azov, Aydar and the Right Sector. It is all around us. It is already here. And that is why you are again back in line, as you were in that terrible year of 41. You are a Chechen, a Bashkir, an Ossetian, an Abkhaz, an Ukrainian, a Buryat or a Belarusian. You are a Russian soldier, whoever you are! You came to defend those who are weak and helpless. You have come to win. Again and again. As once in the trenches of Stalingrad, so now in the steppes of Donbass.

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That’s about 165 countries.

• On Ukraine, the World Majority Sides With Russia Over US (Antiwar)

The second pivotal event of 2014 was less noticed and in fact rarely mentioned in the Western mainstream media. In November of that year according to the IMF, China’s GDP surpassed that of the U.S. in purchasing power parity terms (PPP GDP). (This measure of GDP is calculated and published by the IMF, World Bank and even the CIA. Students of international relations like economics Nobel Laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, Graham Allison and many others consider this metric the best measure of a nation’s comparative economic power.) One person who took note and who often mentions China’s standing in the PPP-GDP ranking is none other than Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. From one point of view, the Russian action in Ukraine represents a decisive turn away from the hostile West to the more dynamic East and the Global South. This follows decades of importuning the West for a peaceful relationship since the Cold War’s end.

As Russia makes its Pivot to the East, it is doing its best to ensure that its Western border with Ukraine is secured. Following the Russian action in Ukraine, the inevitable US sanctions poured onto Russia. China refused to join them and refused to condemn Russia. This was no surprise; after all Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China had been drawing ever closer for years, most notably with trade denominated in ruble-renminbi exchange, thus moving toward independence from the West’s dollar dominated trade regime. But then a big surprise. India joined China in refusing to honor the US sanctions regime. And India kept to its resolve despite enormous pressure including calls from Biden to Modi and a train of high level US, UK and EU officials trekking off to India to bully, threaten and otherwise attempting to intimidate India. India would face “consequences,” the tired US threat went up. India did not budge.

India’s close military and diplomatic ties with Russia were forged during the anti-colonial struggles of the Soviet era. India’s economic interests in Russian exports could not be countermanded by US threats. Now India and Russia are now working on trade via ruble-rupee exchange. In fact, Russia has turned out to be a factor that put India and China on the same side, pursuing their own interests and independence in the face of US diktat. Moreover with trade in ruble-renminbi exchange already a reality and with ruble-rupee exchange in the offing, are we about to witness a Renminbi-Ruble-Rupee world of trade – a “3R” alternative to the Dollar-Euro monopoly? Is the world’s second most important political relationship, that between India and China, about to take a more peaceful direction? What’s the world’s first most important relationship?

it would probably be impossible for people to inhabit NYC for hundreds of years after a nuclear war. The life of Russia depends on stopping NATO
https://twitter.com/i/status/1519611295825203200

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“So Russia never gets to use such euros – which actually never see the light of day – and accordingly are not inflationary..”

“..should be considered the most childish proposal ever made in the history of trade..”

• The Schrödinger Euros (Vilches)

What ? Payment in Rubles ?? Unthinkable, don´t even mention the word say EU officials and authorities. Instead, Europe has formally demanded to pay for Russian imports with Schrödinger euros as explained below. So it´s high time for psychiatrists to step in as the livelihood of 800 million Europeans depends on whatever this incredible set of un-elected delusional EU leaders decide. Let´s get this straight folks: the EU does not want to pay in Rubles – or gold — because it is playing cutie by pretending to “pay” for Russian imports for free. Be it natural gas, or oil, or coal or whatever Russian, instead of really “paying” the EU pretends to pull a “print & deposit + freeze & hide” wise-up gimmick. To make it clear for any audience, the above would be the equivalent of you pretending to “pay” at the check-out counter of any store with a photo of a fully sealed box that you say contains “money” that you will keep hidden at your home – unopened — as long as you want. Please allow me to explain the EU trickery in layman´s terms.

the “print & deposit + freeze & hide” seizure trick In the past, Russian imports were paid through run-of-the-mill bank transfers made to accounts of Russian exporters at EU banks. Now the EU leadership has mandated for such transfers to be instantly frozen as soon as received so that Russia – or anybody else for that matter – can´t use those euros. So, the ECB would now “print” euros with a keyboard 100% for free and then transfer such euros over to the Russian exporters bank accounts in the EU albeit now under “frozen” status. So Russia never gets to use such euros – which actually never see the light of day – and accordingly are not inflationary in any and every sense of the term as nobody else can use them either. Thus, by not entering into any economy at all in no way, shape, or form the EU outsmarts Heaven and Earth and gets to import Russian produce for free. Easy see ?

It´d be a “print & deposit + freeze & hide” seizure and expect-the-Russians-to-fall-for-it trick…as if they were K6 kids. Now of course I can hear the maniacs in charge arguing that this would only be “temporary” – of course — and that as soon as Russia gets out of Ukraine under “acceptable” terms – of course, yet again — everything will get back to yankee doodle normal. Enter then the “Schrödinger´s euros” whereby the hypothetical ´money´ should be considered to be simultaneously existent and non-existent… a-la-EU. In today´s commercial environment only a fool would accept a Schrödinger payment for anything — not even bubble gum – and should be considered the most childish proposal ever made in the history of trade.

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How many other countries do the same?

• Mounting Evidence Canada Trained Ukrainian Military Extremists (CTV)

With mounting evidence pointing to the Canadian Armed Forces having trained members of Ukraine’s military who are also reported to be part of extremist groups, experts say Ottawa needs to strongly bolster its investigation and vetting of the soldiers it trains and arms in the embattled country. The Department of National Defence promised a thorough review of Canada’s mission in Ukraine after CTVNews.ca approached them for comment in October 2021, regarding a report from George Washington University that found extremists in the Ukrainian military were bragging about being trained by Canadians as part of Operation UNIFIER. The group in question – which calls itself Military Order Centuria, or simply Centuria, has links to the far-right Azov movement.

The Canadian military said they were alarmed by the report and denied any knowledge that extremists had taken part in training, adding that it does not have the mandate to screen the soldiers they train from other countries. In the month that followed, an investigation by the Ottawa Citizen found that not only did Canadian officials meet and get briefed by leaders from the Azov Battalion in 2018, they did not denounce the unit’s neo-Nazi beliefs – despite being warned about their views by their colleagues– and their main concern was that media would expose that the meeting had taken place. Officers and diplomats allowed themselves to be photographed with battalion officials which was then used online by Azov as propaganda. The federal government, which has spent more than $890 million training Ukrainian forces through Operation UNIFIER, has repeatedly stressed that it has not and will not ever train soldiers affiliated with Azov.

However, a recent investigation by Radio Canada into documents related to Canada’s mission in Ukraine found evidence that soldiers from the Azov regiment, identified by patches on their clothing and other insignias, have participated in training with the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as recently as 2020 at the western-backed Zolochiv training centre in Western Ukraine. In a series of messages to CTVNews.ca, a spokesperson for the Azov regiment currently fighting in Mariupol, Ukraine said they were excluded as a group from training with Canadian instructors in Op. UNIFIER but that they “wrote a program” for their own courses and “were instructors in all disciplines in the National Guard of Ukraine training centre,” confirming Radio Canada’s previous reporting.

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” If the government could not stop someone from speaking in a public forum like a town square, Twitter should not do so through private means.”

• 1st Amendment: An Easy Way For Musk To Restore Free Speech on Twitter (Turley)

Free speech can be undermined by private corporations as well as government agencies. This threat is even greater when politicians openly use corporations to achieve indirectly what they cannot achieve directly. Corporations clearly have free speech rights. Ironically, Democrats have long opposed such rights for companies, but they embrace such rights when it comes to censorship. The Democratic Party embraced corporate governance of free speech once these companies aligned themselves with their political agenda. Starbucks and every other company have every right to pursue a woke agenda. Social media companies, however, sell communications, not coffee. They should be in the business of free speech.

Democrats have continued to treat the First Amendment as synonymous with free speech, as a way to justify greater censorship. Just last week, former President Barack Obama spoke at Stanford to flog this false line. Obama started by declaring himself, against every indication to the contrary, to be “pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist.” He then called for the censorship of anything that he considered “disinformation,” including “lies, conspiracy theories, junk science, quackery, racist tracts and misogynist screeds.” He was able to do that by emphasizing that “The First Amendment is a check on the power of the state. It doesn’t apply to private companies like Facebook or Twitter.”

Well, what if it did? The Constitution does not impose the same standard on Twitter — but Musk could. He could order a new Twitter team to err on the side of free speech while utilizing First Amendment standards to maximize protections on the platform. In other words, if the government could not censor a tweet, Twitter would not do so. The key to such an approach is not to treat Twitter as akin to “government speech,” a category where the government has allowed major speech controls. Rather, tweets are very much as Musk has described them: akin to speech in “the digital town square.” If the government could not stop someone from speaking in a public forum like a town square, Twitter should not do so through private means.

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There’s James Baker again.

• WaPo’s Repulsive Defense Of Twitter Execs Makes Even Elon Musk Look Good (Fed.)

At 3:03 a.m. Wednesday, the Post dropped its story on the matter: “Elon Musk boosts criticism of Twitter executives, prompting online attacks: The targeting of employees by Musk’s massive Twitter megaphone is a major concern for workers.” The horror only compounds from there. “Musk’s response Tuesday was the first time he targeted specific Twitter executives by using his nearly singular ability to call attention to topics that interest him,” intoned the Post. “Supporters of Musk, a prolific and freewheeling tweeter with 86 million followers, tend to pile on with his viewpoints.” To be clear, Musk never said anything specific about Gadde, except to imply her role in the decision to ban The New York Post was wrong — an opinion that isn’t controversial, and was publicly stated by Twitter’s previous CEO.

As for Baker, Musk was commenting on his previous conduct as a public official, which by any accurate assessment was defined by poor judgment. Regardless, “sounds bad” is not exactly committing to a definitive judgment of the man, much less in his current role at Twitter. (As for what it says that the FBI’s former general counsel went from a disgraceful role in a spy scandal meant to influence the 2016 election to a lucrative gig at a tech company perhaps best known for its clumsy and dishonest attempts to influence the 2020 election… well, let your imagination run wild. There’s no explanation that isn’t disheartening.)

Neither person was “targeted.” The entire story is more accurately restated by the Washington Post expressing shock and dismay that millionaire tech executives might find themselves receiving public criticism from billionaire tech entrepreneurs. That’s a pretty questionable premise for one of the nation’s most influential news outlets to endorse. As Mike Solana, no stranger to observing the tech industry, put it, “This is a country of over 300 million people. If the rule for acceptable criticism of powerful executives and state propagandists is ‘can’t lead to *someone else* saying something awful,’ you effectively end all vital dissent. Then, that is of course the point.”

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Schwab 2.0.

• France Introduces Digital ID Days After Macron’s Re-election (TCS)

Just days after winning the federal election, President Emmanuel Macron authorized the creation of a digital ID for France. The “Digital ID Guarantee Service” (SGIN) was signed into decree following his victory over La Pen, which will allow France to be ‘compliant’ with the European Union’s digital ID. The backlash from the ‘Les Patriots’ group, which seeks independence from the EU, was immediate. “Just after the election, the government announces the launch of ‘a digital identity application’!” said leader Florian Philippot. “The goal: to put social credit in the Chinese way. Control and surveillance company!” [translated from French] “Let’s totally reject this app and fight by any means!”

Macron’s election victory has set off massive protests, wherein Macron has been pelted with tomatoes. France’s move towards a centralized digital ID, and the corresponding resistance from people concerned with a Chinese-style social credit system, is a conflict that’s intensifying in many countries throughout the world. Recently, for example, Nigeria blocked 73 million residents from making phone calls for not linking their cell phones to their national digital ID. In Italy, a municipal government just announced it’s rolling out a soft social credit score in the Fall, the first of its kind in Europe. Domestically, Canada hasn’t issued coercive tactics to this level, and provinces are torn on implementing a digital ID.

While Alberta and Ontario have already rolled theirs out, Saskatchewan recently scrapped its plan to launch one after polling citizens who wanted nothing to do with it. Instead, the provincial government now says they’ll monitor uptake and feedback from colleagues in other jurisdictions.

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Has the EU protested Twitter and Facebook censorship? If not, such laws have no credibility. Or use.

• As Europe Approves New Tech Laws, The US Falls Further Behind (NYT)

In just the last few years, Europe has seen a sweeping law for online privacy take effect, approved far-reaching regulations to curb the dominance of the tech giants and Saturday reached a deal on new legislation to protect its citizens from harmful online content. For those keeping score, that’s Europe: 3, United States: 0. The United States may be the birthplace of the iPhone and the most widely used search engine and social network, and it could also bring the world into the so-called metaverse. But global leadership on tech regulations is taking place more than 3,000 miles from Washington, by European leaders representing 27 nations with 24 languages, who have nonetheless been able to agree on basic online protections for their 450 million or so citizens.

In the United States, Congress has not passed a single piece of comprehensive regulation to protect internet consumers and to rein in the power of its technology giants. It’s not for lack of trying. Over 25 years, dozens of federal privacy bills have been proposed and then ultimately dropped without bipartisan support. With every major hack of a bank or retailer, lawmakers have introduced data breach and security bills, all of which have withered on the vine. A flurry of speech bills have sunk into the quicksand of partisan disagreements over freedoms of expression. And antitrust bills to curtail the power of Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, have sat in limbo amid fierce lobbying opposition.

Only two narrow federal tech laws have been enacted – one for children’s privacy and the other for ridding sites of sex-trafficking content – in the past 25 years. “Inertia is too kind of a word to describe what’s happened in the United States; there’s been a lack of will, courage and understanding of the problem and technologies,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a public interest group. “And consumers are left with no protections here and lots of confusion.” The prospects that any legislation will pass imminently are dim, though regulations at some point are almost inevitable because of the way tech touches so many aspects of life. Of all the proposals currently in front of Congress, an antitrust bill that would bar Apple, Alphabet and Amazon from boosting their own products on their marketplaces and app stores over those of their rivals has the best shot.

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“Just as we need trust, public health seems poised to destroy it.”

• The Fragmented Trust in Public Health (Prasad)

Building trust in institutions is vital to their success, but as we enter the third year of the pandemic, public health still seems hellbent on destroying itself. In recent weeks, we have seen flip flops on major policy proposal: a vaccine passport for domestic air-travel and authorizing the Pfizer vaccine for kids ages 6mo-4 years. These were publicly flirted with, but eventually abandoned. The administration has pushed medical products through, without the traditional advisory boards (as in the case of the 4th dose for Americans over 50). We have witnessed absurd contradictions – that Kyrie Irving can watch the basketball game from the first row, but not play on the court – and worse, that this rule only applies in New York city. Finally, the prospect that mask mandates may return in the fall looms over us, even as our rules become more absurd, with restaurant servers and preschoolers acting as the last, powerless people tasked with masking for all.

Public health, the institution, must own these absurdities and contradictions because the CDC has the scope and authority to correct them with clear guidance. Just as we need trust, public health seems poised to destroy it . Let’s consider these cases: In early October 2021 Ashish Jha, the newly selected Biden COVID Czar, suggested a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel, a view he reiterated in late January 2022. On Dec 27th, Anthony Fauci emphasized the idea of a vaccine passport for domestic air travel. Politico reports that Dr. Jha has long advised the administration on health policy, and Dr. Jha has confirmed he received “updates and announcements” from the administration prior to his appointment. Then silently, the proposal was abandoned with no action taken. As a close observer, I was confused as to what happened.

Similarly, in Feb 2022, the FDA asked Pfizer to submit data from an ongoing, and to date, negative trial for vaccination in kids ages 6mo to 4 years. An advisory committee was scheduled to discuss the results, which was leaked to news outlets as a reduction in symptomatic cases – one of the trial’s secondary objectives. Then, at the penultimate moment, the application was withdrawn and the advisory committee was cancelled. These flip flops were jarring. In the latter case, many parents were crushed, and felt as if the rug were pulled out from them. Scientists voiced protest, suggesting the vaccine be approved anyway. But I was most concerned that an approval based on inadequate data would further poison vaccine hesitancy at all ages, and for other vaccines (so called spillover effects). Even as it stands, this whipsaw news coverage may yet undermine parental trust.

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“Based on this concern alone, all of these experimental products as a class should have been completely contraindicated in women younger than menopause.”

• COVID Vaccine Side Effects on Pregnant Women (ET)

Among the adverse events, particularly alarming are the ones that affected pregnant women. The documents say that there were 274 pregnancy adverse events, of which 75, or 27 percent were “serious.” “49 non-serious and 75 serious, reported clinical events, which occurred in the vaccinated mothers. Pregnancy related events reported in these cases coded to the [patients] Abortion spontaneous (25), Uterine contraction during pregnancy, Premature rupture of membranes, Abortion, Abortion missed, and Foetal death (1 each). Other clinical events which occurred in more than 5 cases coded to the [patients] Headache (33), Vaccination site pain (24), Pain in extremity and Fatigue (22 each), Myalgia and Pyrexia (16 each), Chills (13) Nausea (12), Pain (11), Arthralgia (9), Lymphadenopathy and Drug ineffective (7 each), Chest pain, Dizziness and Asthenia (6 each), Malaise and COVID-19 (5 each),” reads the previously confidential Pfizer documents (pdf).

[..] Michael Yeadon is a big pharma veteran with 32 years in the industry. He retired from Pfizer whilst occupying the most senior research position in that field. “On December 1, 2020, We detailed a series of mechanistic toxicology concerns which we believed were reasonable to hold, unless & until proven not to occur,” Yeadon said in a statement to The Epoch Times. “Among those was that adverse impacts on conception and ability to sustain a pregnancy were foreseeable.” “It’s important to note that none of these gene-based agents had completed what’s called ‘reproductive toxicology.’ Over a year later, this battery of tests in animals still has not been done. So there was and still is no data package supporting safety in pregnancy or prior to conception.”

Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg and Yeadon detailed the concerns on the issue: the spike protein from the virus encoded in the vaccines was related to a minor extent to syncytin that plays a crucial part in the carrying of a baby to term. Yeadon had hoped, back then, that their concerns were paid attention to, since they had already seen the tragedy of thalidomide, a sedative drug that caused congenital malformation, over 60 years ago. “During 2021, I came across two further pieces of evidence which made it much more likely that there’d be adverse effects on pregnancy from COVID-19 ‘vaccines.’”

“It looked like someone had tried to dismiss our concerns by testing for evidence of the particular problem we’d warned about in Dec. 2020. Unfortunately, all they did is to reinforce our concerns. We’d envisioned the risk that, in responding to the synthetic piece of virus spike protein, women’s immune systems would also make an immune response to their own placental protein,” Yeadon said. “That’s exactly what was reported in the pre-print paper.” “Based on this concern alone, all of these experimental products as a class should have been completely contraindicated in women younger than menopause.”

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It’s a big club….

• The Sword & the Cross at Albright’s Funeral (CN)

It’s fitting that U.S. President Joe Biden and Bill and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should eulogize Madeleine Albright at the mammoth Episcopalian institution calling itself the “National Cathedral.” After all, just last year, Albright eulogized fellow war maker, “trailblazer” and fellow Episcopalian Colin Powell there for his “honesty, dignity, loyalty and an unshakable commitment to his calling and word.” Albright, Biden and the Clintons covered for each other’s criminal war making — and ultimately, they all enabled and covered for Republican criminality as well. All showed they were capable of murderous deceits.

It sparked some measure of attention during the 2020 election, but it’s largely been forgotten that the current sitting president, who with great hypocrisy calls Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal, Joe Biden, won’t tell the truth about his Iraq war record — and he hasn’t for years. Indeed, the death of Albright on March 23 seemed to almost be a case of Providence attempting to interject history into the current geopolitical situation, most obviously the war in Ukraine. But one should not have expected any reckoning to be heard from the podium at the National Cathedral at her funeral on Wednesday. The war planners have had time to prepare their convoluted case. “Secretary Albright was a trailblazing diplomat” and “a fierce advocate for women” said the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith dean of the National Cathedral, echoing the mantra of official Washington.

[..] An examination of Albright’s tenure as secretary of state highlights extraordinary deceit, how we got to this stage — and what’s been lost as minimal democratic participation has atrophied. Most obviously, Albright was perhaps the most important advocate for NATO expansion which clearly antagonized Russia and was a major part of the provocation for the invasion of Ukraine. She stood over Clinton as he signed on to NATO enlargement “for stability and security in the 21st century.” Moreover, the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia was known as “Albright’s War.” That war was triggered by political fabrications perpetrated by Albright and her associates, particularly regarding the Rambouillet text.

It further aggravated Russia and China — whose embassy NATO intentionally bombed at a critical time. It may well have helped ensure the rise of China’s increased militarized posture and the rise of Putin. Further, this first-of-its-kind use of NATO in war in Europe paved the way for its use in Asia (Afghanistan) and Africa (Libya). These moves projected Western military power into each of those continents. Albright’s continuation of the sanctions on Iraq, regardless of Iraqi compliance with weapons inspectors, led to a horrific humanitarian disaster in Iraq as well as the collapse of the UNSCOM weapons inspection regime, a complete break against international law and paving the way for the ultimate invasion of Iraq in 2003. In this as well as the Yugoslavia war, Albright was allied with the Clintons and Joe Biden.

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Scott Ritter: it’s over

 

 


Average tree height across Africa

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 30 2021

Oct 302021
 
 October 30, 2021  Posted by at 8:21 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  55 Responses »


M. C. Escher Doric columns1945

 

• COVID-19 Mortality Risk Correlates Inversely with Vitamin D3 Status (NIH)
• Needle-Free Vaccine Patches Coming Soon (Y!)
• New Lancet Study Exposes Limits Of Vaccines At Preventing COVID Infection (ZH)
• And Now, The Admission…. (Denninger)
• Fauci Funded Yet Another Cruel Beagle Experiment (LW)
• COVID-19: Moderna Gets Its Miracle (Whitney Webb)
• Humanity Is Sleepwalking Towards Medical Apartheid (SCF)
• Ice Cube Ditches Movie & $9 Million After Refusing To Get Covid-19 Vaccine (RT)
• Social Media Accounts Could Soon Require Digital ID in France, UK (BMU)
• US Lawyers Argue Assange Healthy Enough to Be Sent to His Death (Medhurst)

 

 

Christine Anderson

 

 

 

 

McCullough

 

 

“Regression suggested a theoretical point of zero mortality at approximately 50 ng/mL D3.”

Problem solved. I’m sure your government is on it at full capacity.

• COVID-19 Mortality Risk Correlates Inversely with Vitamin D3 Status (NIH)

Background: Much research shows that blood calcidiol (25(OH)D3) levels correlate strongly with SARS-CoV-2 infection severity. There is open discussion regarding whether low D3 is caused by the infection or if deficiency negatively affects immune defense. The aim of this study was to collect further evidence on this topic.

Methods: Systematic literature search was performed to identify retrospective cohort as well as clinical studies on COVID-19 mortality rates versus D3 blood levels. Mortality rates from clinical studies were corrected for age, sex, and diabetes. Data were analyzed using correlation and linear regression.

Results: One population study and seven clinical studies were identified, which reported D3 blood levels preinfection or on the day of hospital admission. The two independent datasets showed a negative Pearson correlation of D3 levels and mortality risk (r(17) = -0.4154, p = 0.0770/r(13) = -0.4886, p = 0.0646). For the combined data, median (IQR) D3 levels were 23.2 ng/mL (17.4-26.8), and a significant Pearson correlation was observed (r(32) = -0.3989, p = 0.0194). Regression suggested a theoretical point of zero mortality at approximately 50 ng/mL D3.

Conclusions: The datasets provide strong evidence that low D3 is a predictor rather than just a side effect of the infection. Despite ongoing vaccinations, we recommend raising serum 25(OH)D levels to above 50 ng/mL to prevent or mitigate new outbreaks due to escape mutations or decreasing antibody activity.

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Lemme guess: $700 a pop?

“..measuring one square centimeter that were dotted with more than 5,000 microscopic spikes..”

• Needle-Free Vaccine Patches Coming Soon (Y!)

Effective vaccines, without a needle: Since the start of the Covid pandemic, researchers have doubled down on efforts to create patches that deliver life-saving drugs painlessly to the skin, a development that could revolutionize medicine. The technique could help save children’s tears at doctors’ offices, and help people who have a phobia of syringes. Beyond that, skin patches could assist with distribution efforts, because they don’t have cold-chain requirements — and might even heighten vaccine efficacy. A new mouse study in the area, published in the journal Science Advances, showed promising results.

The Australian-US team used patches measuring one square centimeter that were dotted with more than 5,000 microscopic spikes, “so tiny you can’t actually see them,” David Muller, a virologist at the University of Queensland and co-author of the paper, told AFP. These tips have been coated with an experimental vaccine, and the patch is clicked on with an applicator that resembles a hockey puck. “It’s like you get a good flick on the skin,” said Muller. The researchers used a so-called “subunit” vaccine that reproduces the spikes that dot the surface of the coronavirus. Mice were injected either via the patch over the course of two minutes, or with a syringe.


The immune systems of those who got the patch produced high levels of neutralizing antibodies after two doses, including in their lungs, vital to stopping Covid, and the patches outperformed syringes. The researchers also found that a sub-group of mice, who were given only one dose of vaccine containing an additional substance called an adjuvant used to spur immune response, “didn’t get sick at all,” said Muller. Vaccines are normally injected into our muscles, but muscle tissue doesn’t contain very many immune cells needed to react to the drug, explained Muller. In addition, the tiny spikes cause localized skin death, which alerts the body to a problem and triggers a greater immune response. For the scientist, the logistical advantages couldn’t be clearer.

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The Lancet is not worried about its reputation.

• New Lancet Study Exposes Limits Of Vaccines At Preventing COVID Infection (ZH)

The Lancet has just released another study comparing the efficacy of COVID vaccines to the efficacy of protection provided by previous COVID infections. Their conclusion: while vaccines lower the risk of infections with the delta variant within households, those who are fully vaccinated are still vulnerable to a ‘breakthrough’ infection if somebody they live with gets infected. What’s more, people who have been vaccinated against COVID can be equally as infectious as the unvaccinated, the study showed. The new study, which was published Thursday in the Lancet, the British medical journal that published some of the earliest research on COVID, is one of few to use detailed infection data from actual examples of household transmission, and it showed that – as we noted above – the viral loads of both vaccinated and unvaccinated patients infected with COVID are “broadly similar”.

The study involved 621 people in the UK with mild COVID infections, identified via the UK’s contact-tracing system. The data showed that vaccination status doesn’t make a whole lot of difference in the ability to pass COVID on to others. Roughly 25% of vaccinated household members subsequently tested positive for the virus after close contact with a fellow household member with a confirmed case of COVID. That’s compared with 38% of infection for people who haven’t been vaccinated. These data show that the delta variant has a “greater capability for breaching the vaccine’s defenses when compared with predecessors. “Our findings show that vaccination alone is not enough to prevent people from being infected with the Delta variant and spreading it in household settings,” said Professor Ajit Lalvani of Imperial College London, the co-leader of the study.


The study’s author said the lower transmission rates between vaccinated patients is just another reason to get the jab – although not a particularly compelling one. “The ongoing transmission we are seeing between vaccinated people makes it essential for unvaccinated people to get vaccinated to protect themselves from acquiring infection and severe Covid-19, especially as more people will be spending time inside in close proximity during the winter months,” he said. The study also underlines the importance of the vulnerable to get booster shots, since it also shows that vaccine immunity wanes with time. “We found that susceptibility to infection increased already within a few months after the second vaccine dose – so those eligible for Covid-19 booster shots should get them promptly,” the professor said.

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“What Drosten is telling you is that not only have the vaccines failed to stop you from getting the virus, they’ve screwed everyone.”

• And Now, The Admission…. (Denninger)

In short, the governments lied and now they’re admitting it. “My goal as virologist Drosten, is … I want to have vaccine immunity and then, on top of that, I want to have my first infection, and my second, and my third at some point.“ You mean… like measles? Oh wait… not like measles, because if you take the measles shot you won’t get measles — or give it to anyone else. vOf course this forms the entire premise of so-called “mandatory” vaccinations, all of which has always been a crock of **** and worthy of a piano dropped on the head of anyone arguing for it. The only reason it didn’t happen over the decades is that those other shots were in fact safe (which these are not) and, once taken, you didn’t get the disease.

But now we have an actual Government so-called expert, in this case Germany’s, stating out loud that the vaccines are in fact worthless as a public health measure. They neither prevent you from getting the virus or transmitting it, making them nothing more than a very dangerous flu shot.The flu shot usually doesn’t prevent you from getting or spreading the flu either. Indeed in Canada nurses have won court cases against their employers who argued for mandatory flu shots on exactly this basis. The flu shot, which is pushed heavily by a lot of doctors and so-called “experts”, has the virtue of being quite safe, however, that only about 20 or 25 people die associated with it and it has no record of causing effects like myocarditis. Neither can be said for these jabs that are somewhere between 100 and 1,000 times as dangerous — bad enough that for someone under the age of 30 who doesn’t have a pre-existing life-threatening condition the jab is more-dangerous than the virus itself.

But what’s worse is the continuing stream of data out of England which strongly suggests that not only do these jabs not stop you from getting the virus they also have a very nasty tendency to prevent you from building “N” antibodies if and when you do get infected after being jabbed. That’s very bad, because it is those antibodies that, we have reason to believe, are in fact critical to prevent serious or fatal outcomes.= Nobody cares if they sneeze; indeed, coronaviruses produce that all the time. So why would Drosten say he looks forward to his first, second and third infection post jab? We already know that being infected without being jabbed produces durable immunity. Exactly how durable is open to some question but by the data over the last 18 months the answer is “very durable” with only a tiny fraction of one percent of people becoming symptomatically ill, if not vaccinated, twice.

What Drosten is telling you is that not only have the vaccines failed to stop you from getting the virus they’ve screwed everyone. No, not everyone has or will drop dead from the immediate side effects such as myocarditis, although the longer-term impact of those nasty adverse effects is very likely to be materially worse than the immediate count, which is bad enough. No, the really hideous news, it appears, is that it is basically universal that the jabs produce OAS in every single person who takes them and thus you will not only get Covid, you’ll get it more than once if you were stupid enough to take the shot(s).

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And many many more. And of course he still has his job.

• Fauci Funded Yet Another Cruel Beagle Experiment (LW)

In July, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the agency of the National Institutes of Health run by Anthony Fauci, gave more than half a million dollars to the veterinarian school at Kansas State University to fund an experiment, which is still ongoing, that involves infecting beagles with mutant versions of a bacteria that’s transmitted by ticks. The experiment, which was discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request by the White Coat Waste Project, is the latest item on a long list of gruesome animal tests underwritten by Fauci’s NIAID.The $536,311 payment was this year’s installment of what has so far totaled $5.6 million in NIAID funding for the research project, which began in December of 2007 and is scheduled to end in 2024.

A 2020 paper based on the experiment’s findings reported that, for that funding cycle, the researchers bought 18 six month-old beagles from a commercial breeder. The researchers created mutant strains of the bacteria Ehrlichia chaffeensis in a laboratory and infected the beagles with them. The E chaffeensis bacteria can cause fever, respiratory distress, weight loss, bleeding disorders, neurological disturbances, anemia, bleeding, lameness and eye problems in dogs. After infecting them, the researchers allowed 200 ticks to feed on each of the beagles for a week, to see whether the ticks would take up the mutated versions of the bacteria. For the next two months, they drew the dogs’ blood for testing. Then they killed them. For the new funding cycle, the researchers proposed continuing this experimentation on 138 more beagles, with 250 ticks per dog.


When asked whether NIAID considered this experimentation humane, a spokesperson emailed: “The use of animals in a grantee’s research is ultimately overseen by his or her own institution’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC)” and referred me to Kansas State University. [..] Over the past week, Anthony Fauci, the NIH and NIAID have been widely criticized both in the media and by elected officials for their funding of grisly experiments on dogs and other animals. In response, NIH’s defenders have described the attacks as a “partisan hit job” motivated by unrelated political differences over Fauci’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank called it a “disinformation campaign” and part of a “crusade against Fauci.” Self-described “fact checkers” amplified Milbank’s claims.

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Whitney’s 3-part series.

• COVID-19: Moderna Gets Its Miracle (Whitney Webb)

In late 2019, the biopharmaceutical company Moderna was facing a series of challenges that not only threatened its ability to ever take a product to market, and thus turn a profit, but its very existence as a company. There were multiple warning signs that Moderna was essentially another Theranos-style fraud, with many of these signs growing in frequency and severity as the decade drew to a close. Part I of this three-part series explored the disastrous circumstances in which Moderna found itself at that time, with the company’s salvation hinging on the hope of a divine miracle, a “Hail Mary” save of sorts, as stated by one former Moderna employee.

While the COVID-19 crisis that emerged in the first part of 2020 can hardly be described as an act of benevolent divine intervention for most, it certainly can be seen that way from Moderna’s perspective. Key issues for the company, including seemingly insurmountable regulatory hurdles and its inability to advance beyond animal trials with its most promising—and profitable—products, were conveniently wiped away, and not a moment too soon. Since January 2020, the value of Moderna’s stock—which had embarked on a steady decline since its IPO—grew from $18.89 per share to its current value of $339.57 per share, thanks to the success of its COVID-19 vaccine.

Yet, how exactly was Moderna’s “Hail Mary” moment realized, and what were the forces and events that ensured it would make it through the FDA’s emergency use authorization (EUA) process? In examining that question, it becomes quickly apparent that Moderna’s journey of saving grace involved much more than just cutting corners in animal and human trials and federal regulations. Indeed, if we are to believe Moderna executives, it involved supplying formulations for some trial studies that were not the same as their COVID-19 vaccine commercial candidate, despite the data resulting from the former being used to sell Moderna’s vaccine to the public and federal health authorities. Such data was also selectively released at times to align with preplanned stock trades by Moderna executives, turning many of Moderna’s highest-ranking employees into millionaires, and even billionaires, while the COVID-19 crisis meant economic calamity for most Americans.

Not only that, but—as Part II of this three-part series will show, Moderna and a handful of its collaborators at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) seemed to know that Moderna’s miracle had arrived—well before anyone else knew or could have known. Was it really a coincidental mix of “foresight” and “serendipity” that led Moderna and the NIH to plan to develop a COVID-19 vaccine days before the viral sequence was even published and months before a vaccine was even considered necessary for a still unknown disease? If so, why would Moderna—a company clearly on the brink—throw everything into and gamble the entire company on a vaccine project that had no demonstrated need at the time?

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“Under normal conditions – that is, before scientific inquiry was sent back kicking and screaming to the Dark Ages..”

• Humanity Is Sleepwalking Towards Medical Apartheid (SCF)

Even as scientific studies show that vaccines alone cannot extricate humanity from the Covid-19 crisis, governments are rushing headlong towards the creation of a ‘vaccinated economy’ without any consideration for the consequences. It’s time for an injection of sanity and informed democratic debate. An astonishing thing happened this week that should have – were it not for a media industrial complex that coddles and cossets the powers that be – incited journalists to scream bloody murder around our increasingly imprisoned planet. What the world got instead was the deafening cacophony of crickets.

When a reporter asked New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern about the possibility of the Pacific island nation being fragmented into two distinct classes of citizens – the vaccinated and unvaccinated – Arden didn’t miss a beat as she responded with her trademark Cheshire grin, “That is what it is. So yep. Yep.” After being further prodded by the deferential journalist as to why she favored apartheid, Ardern, who has already mandated vaccines for government employees or else, responded, unscientifically, that “people who have been vaccinated will want to know that they are around other vaccinated people; they’ll want to know that they’re in a safe environment.”

Under normal conditions – that is, before scientific inquiry was sent back kicking and screaming to the Dark Ages – Ardern’s outrageous remark would have been greeted by robust and vigorous debate from both the political and medical communities. After all, the vaccinated should feel absolutely at ease mingling among the unvaccinated in stuffy public places given that they are, supposedly, protected? Isn’t that the point of the vaccines, to protect the vaccinated and get us back to some semblance of ‘normal’? If not, then why the incessant push to jab every single person on the planet, and not just once, as initially promised, but multiple times? The answer, at least according to Queen Ardern, is so that everyone can feel “confident” once again among their fellow man. That makes absolutely zero sense, especially as new studies show no discernible decrease in infection rates among the vaccinated. So why hedge our bets when just the opposite seems to be happening?

In a recent study by Harvard researchers, published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, it was discovered that, looking at statistics around the world, “there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases…” The researchers then delivered a brutal body slam to conventional (political) thinking by revealing that “the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have HIGHER (emphasis added) COVID-19 cases per 1 million people.”

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No Hell No.

• Ice Cube Ditches Movie & $9 Million After Refusing To Get Covid-19 Vaccine (RT)

Rapper and actor Ice Cube has exited a movie for which he was supposed to be paid $9 million after refusing requests to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Ice Cube has left the ironically titled ‘Oh Hell No’ Sony comedy, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter. Cube, known for films like ‘Friday’ and songs such as ‘It Was a Good Day’, was set to co-star in the feature with comedic actor Jack Black. The production was set to kick off in December in Hawaii. Cube, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, previously joined numerous other celebrities during the coronavirus pandemic and encouraged mask-wearing, even donating thousands of face coverings to an Oklahoma college. He also sold t-shirts during the pandemic encouraging masking and raising funds for healthcare workers.


The artist’s view on vaccines, however, is a bit more murky. In June of 2020, he tweeted that doctors should “stop lying” about Covid-19. The tweet followed a June message reading, “Got the cue for the coronavirus,” which was linked to an album cover featuring someone getting a substance injected through a needle. The bottom of the image read, “lethal injection.” Cube has declined to comment on his reported parting with the ‘Oh Hell No’ production. Hollywood performers who have stood against vaccine mandates or refused to get a vaccine themselves have thus far been primarily conservative artists. Comedian and actor Rob Schneider has frequently spoken out against mandates through his Twitter.

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The bureaucrats see opportunity.

• Social Media Accounts Could Soon Require Digital ID in France, UK (BMU)

Digital ID may soon be a requirement for social media participation, as both France and the UK have taken steps toward the ban of anonymous social media accounts. The website of the French Senate published a new bill proposing the creation of an independent supervisory authority in charge of collecting user identities when they register with online platforms. According to Conservative Senator Alain Cadec, the creation of the new law would stop an observed increase in cyberbullying and make it easier to prosecute potential offenders. “The proposed law thus aims to facilitate the identification of the perpetrators of offenses, and thereby contribute to putting an end to the real feeling of impunity of the authors of hateful, racist, homophobic or sexist messages,” reads the bill’s explanatory statement.

According to the new document, submitting a scan of their ID upon registration would make users aware that they can be identified quickly, and therefore serve as a deterrent against offending behaviors. The proposed independent administrative authority would comprise representatives of platforms, users, parliamentarians, and magistrates, and would be chaired by a member of parliament. The authority’s duties would encompass the online collection and profile creation of “official data and information allowing the identification of users established on French territory of platforms and social networks exceeding a certain audience threshold in France.”


The identification data would be transmitted at the request of the judge in the event of criminal activity, which would “avoid being submitted to the goodwill of a company located in California or elsewhere in the world.” In addition, the proposed bills suggest the creation of a non-nominative online digital identifier that would enable registration to be finalized with platforms and social networks, and that would be held by the authority.

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“The United States’ lawyers are basically trying to sink the entire case, on a technicality that has nothing to do with psychiatry.”

• US Lawyers Argue Assange Healthy Enough to Be Sent to His Death (Medhurst)

Appealing on five grounds, the two main topics of the High Court appeal dealt with Assange’s health, and diplomatic assurances that he wouldn’t be placed in oppressive prison conditions in the US. The United States lawyers attempted to downplay the severity of Assange’s mental illness, arguing that he was not at high risk of suicide. The prosecutors argued that he did not meet the criteria for his extradition to be oppressive, and that the judge did not apply the test correctly. The case now hinges on whether the United States can prove that Assange is not too sick to be extradited, and that the judge erred in her ruling. To do this they have attacked the medical evidence she cited in her report and the medical experts themselves.

Prof. Michael Kopelman is the key medical expert for Assange’s defense. In his first psychiatric evaluation, Kopelman concealed the identities of Assange’s partner Stella Moris and their children, out of concern for their privacy and safety. This was after revelations that Assange was being spied on in the Ecuadorian embassy. His lawyers told the High Court that Moris even moved to a different address for more protection. It’s against this backdrop of surveillance, attempting to steal DNA, and even contemplating to kill Assange, that Kopelman chose not to disclose the relationship with Moris’, and their children. Outside the High Court, Assange’s partner Stella Moris recalled: “His lawyers had been targeted by name, his Spanish lawyer’s office was broken into, his lawyers’ notes seized and copied, our eldest son’s DNA was instructed to be stolen. My mother was followed, I was followed— Julian was spied on in every single detail.”

The judge deemed this inappropriate, but “an understandable human response to Ms. Morris’s predicament”. She preferred Kopelman’s evidence, as he had spent the most time with Assange, and his reports were more detailed. Despite this point having little to do with medical science or psychiatry, the prosecution have used it to try and discredit all of Kopelman’s medical evidence. They say the judge should have given it little or no weight. They accuse Kopelman of misleading the court, and failing in his duty as an impartial, expert witness. Assange’s lawyer Fitzgerald called it a “miserable attempt to tarnish the reputation of a distinguished neuro-psychiatrist”.

The United States’ lawyers are basically trying to sink the entire case, on a technicality that has nothing to do with psychiatry. In fact, Kopelman is such a renowned neuropsychiatrist that even the US’ lead prosecutor, James Lewis, had solicited his services in another case— an irony which Kopelman highlighted in court.

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Fine People Hoax

 

 

 

 

Oz net zero plan

 

 

 

 

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